The Intricacies of (Debatable) Humour in Advertising: A Cross-Cultural Standpoint

Given the marked presence of humour in many areas of thought and language, as well as in people’s social, emotional, and aesthetic experiences, it comes as no surprise that humour studies are considered an interesting interdiscipline worth studying. This paper is, therefore, an attempt at joining three academic fields, namely advertising discourse, Cultural Linguistics, and humour studies. The author will enquire into the operation of (debatable) humour applied in multimodal advertising discourse. She will make the cultural aspect the focus of attention in order to highlight the role of cross-cultural differences in the perception of humour. Based on her previous studies (Stwora 2020a, 2020b) on attitudinal responses to controversial humorous ads in English, she will join in an exploratory discussion with a view to showing the ways in which ad reception may be influenced by the culture-specific force of humour. Working towards a more comprehensive outlook on humour in use in the context of advertising discourse, the present paper will start with a few words on humour in general and on debatable humour in ads. Then, the cultural side of humour will be discussed. Finally, the author will discuss her research from the cultural standpoint.