The thesis is the first comprehensive research on the dynamics of the joke functioning at the end of 20th – in the early 21th century in Ukrainian folklore studies. The research analyzed different forms of the joke existence and the correlation of its functions and communication possibilities in these new conditions for the genre.
The scientific work explored transformation of the joke functions in conditions of changes in the forms of existence and transmission of the genre. For this purpose the thesis developed a detailed classification of functions according to their role in the communicative act: the communicative (phatic, illustrative, distracting, emotionally expressive, image) and social (recreational, aesthetic, revealing, psychotherapeutic, consolidating, stratifying, regulative (didactic), gnoseological, manipulative and omadative) functions.
The study determined the communicative features of joke in oral functioning (the text and its reproduction depends on the theme, tempo, pragmatics of the conversation), desirable features of the addressee (familiarity with cultural and socio-political realities, etc.) and the sender (the ability for a theatrical presentation of the joke, exactly, briefly and concisely take present the pointe, adapt the text to the characteristics of the audience and the specific of situation, to take into consideration an age, gender, social status, sense of humor of the recipient and the level of formation of his aesthetic representations) and the nature of the interaction between them (language, cultural, age, social, gender, psychological and empathic identification).
The research revealed the specificity of a joke as a component of a laughing culture (ambivalence, an official culture and joke interdependence, use of foul language, appeal to personages with trickster features, etc.) and postfolklore (citations, outplaying of texts of popular culture and mass media, use of technical means of transmission, the increasing speed of texts distribution and shortening the duration of their functioning, reducing variability, increasing the role of individual authorship, fragmentation, functional marginality).
The scientific work explained the character and forms of the transformation of the genre as a result of the distribution of texts in the printed media (the contextuality and conciseness of a joke are ignored, functions of this genre are transformed, graphic means of increasing the comic effect, titles, caricature support are used, the writings oriented exclusively on written existence appear), on television (telling of the joke from the traditional element of the conversation turns into a scenic performance, there is an artificial execution, censorship, lack of direct contact with the addressee, the sender is not able to respond and correct the text), on the internet (variability is reduced, there is no self-censorship of the sender and identification between the sender and the addressee, the features of oral communication are replaced by the internet tools: emoticons, gif animation, Caps Lock function, etc.). These trends are not always adequate to genre features of a joke and not only do not increase the comic effect, but also reduce it in some cases.
The thesis made a comparative analysis of the genre of joke and internet meme, revealed similar (conciseness, urgency, comprehensiveness of themes, entertaining character, similarity of functions, etc.) and distinctive (lack of emotional pleasure from empathy) features, characterized specifics of the mutual influence of these genres: visualization of a joke and verbalization of an internet meme (joint viewing and retelling).
