Stand-Up Comedy Acts at Festival of Fire Progamme In Buea, Cameroon

Abstract

Over the last decade, the audience base of stand-up comedy in Africa has increased locally and internationally by leaps and bounds. This increase can be traced in part to the ‘localised’ languages employed in the acts of African comedy. Thus, it can be rightfully said that the acts of stand-up comedians are heavily influenced by the context of discourse or the whole entities which constitute common ground between the comedians and their audience. This paper attempted to examine the socio-pragmatic use of the language of Aboki4Christ’s routine at Festival of Miracles Crusade, Buea, Cameroon in order to uncover how he is able to successfully deliver his joke considering the difference in his background context and that of his audience. Six randomly selected jokes which lasted for eighteen minutes, six seconds cumulatively were analysed using socio-macro variables and Adetunji’s (2011) pragmatic strategies. The study revealed that despite the fact that the discourse participants are not homogeneous, the overall, communicative intention can be said to have been achieved. The pragmatic features found in the data include: linguistic coding, stereotyping, call and response, self-deprecation, shared and open ridicule and face-saving strategies. The study concluded that there are considerable overlaps between the pragmatic strategies employed for a Nigerian audience as used by a Nigerian comedian and the pragmatic strategies used by a Nigerian comedian for a Cameroonian context.