Guillem Castañar | Tallinn University (original) (raw)
Papers by Guillem Castañar
Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 2024
The article investigates the humorous reactions to two important controversies that received a g... more The article investigates the humorous reactions to two important controversies
that received a great deal of attention in the Estonian public sphere
during the summer of the year 2023. These are the Wagner group rebellion and
the scandal involving Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. Building on theories of
the public sphere and observations on how humour functions in such a context, by
comparing the two cases, we tested the hypothesis that the content, form, humour
mechanisms, and the comments on humour can be influenced by the nature of the
controversy and by the psychological distance to the source of the initial triggering
controversy. We used the data collected and coded within the CELSA1 network
project “Humour and Conflict in the Public Sphere: An Interdisciplinary Analysis
of Humour Controversies and Contested Freedoms in Contemporary Europe”. The
analysis revealed that 1) the most popular forms of humour in the online public
sphere (primarily memes) are shaped by the patterns of the online communication
in general and not by the particular cases or controversies; 2) humour mechanisms
depend moderately on the nature of the controversy and their distance from the
meme-makers; 3) content is most dependent on the nature of the controversy, and
is affected by the tension between globalisation and localisation trends; and 4) the
distance to the controversy influences the humorousness of the comments.
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, Jun 1, 2024
Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a lar... more Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a large scale to China. Among translated literary works, feminine poetry occupies a very important position. Based on the study of translated anthologies that include compositions authored by women published in China from 1985 to the first decade of the 21st century, this article focuses on two elements related to these anthologies: which are the selected and translated poems and who are their authors. Four questions are analyzed: the poetesses that appear the most often in the anthologies, the poetesses with the most selected poems, the diachronic distribution of the poetesses and their geographical distribution. The objective of this study is to synthesize the criteria followed by the translators in the compilation of the anthologies and thus deduce the main interests in China in the field of Spanish-American feminine poetry.
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, Nov 30, 2023
METHIS Studia Humaniora Estonica, 2024
Teesid: Uurimuses analüüsitakse ajaloomeeme Vene sõja kohta Ukrainas. Leidsime materjalis korduva... more Teesid: Uurimuses analüüsitakse ajaloomeeme Vene sõja kohta Ukrainas. Leidsime materjalis korduvad motiivid ning vaatlesime suhteid meemide ajalooalasete viidete ja hoiakute vahel. Selgus, et ajaloomeemid võivad olla vahendiks, kuidas õigustada tänapäeva sündmusi, tekitada vaenlaste suhtes üleolekut, anda hinnanguid sündmustele ning naeruvääristada või tunnustada olukorraga seostuvaid inimesi. Analüüsides meemides ajaloolisi viiteid, tuleb arvestada hoiakute mõjuga viidete valikule.
HUMOR International Journal of Humor Research, Jun 5, 2024
Memes offer responsive acute commentary on controversial societal matters, providing non-violent ... more Memes offer responsive acute commentary on controversial societal
matters, providing non-violent and democratic spaces of discussion for conflicts. The paper studies memes on the war in Ukraine that spread in Eastern (Russia, Estonia, Belarus) and Western Europe (Spain). We analyze who are the main actors/ characters that personify the war in the memes in these countries, how these characters are represented in memes, and what are the global and local aspects of their portrayal. Personification is seen as a marker for psychological distance of the meme-makers and sharers to the conflict.
Anuari de Filologia. Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2023
Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a lar... more Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a large scale to China. Among translated literary works, feminine poetry occupies a very important position. Based on the study of translated anthologies that inclu de compositions authored by women published in China from 1985 to the first decade of the 21st century, this article focuses on two elements related to these anthologies: which are the selected and translated poems and who are their authors. Four questions are analyzed: the poetesses that appear the most often in the anthologies, the poetesses with the most selected poems, the diachronic distribution
of the poetesses and their geographical distribution. The objective of this study is to synthesize the crite ria followed by the translators in the compilation of the anthologies and thus deduce the main interests in China in the field of Spanish American feminine poetry.
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2023
We investigate the humour production, consumption and sharing of Russianspeakers in Estonia, base... more We investigate the humour production, consumption and sharing of Russianspeakers in Estonia, based on the self-reflections and self-perceptions of their humour preferences and other humour-related behaviour. By studying the representation of the humour practices of this important minority community we can get a more complete picture of humour in Estonia. Analysis of survey results reveals that according to Russian-speaker's, among their favourite topics were everyday life, and sex-and family-related matters. Visual humour was the most
Anuari de Filología. Llengües i Literatures Modernes., 2022
Descobrim que la introducció d'obres traduïdes d'aquesta poeta a la Xina ha aconseguit un cert ni... more Descobrim que la introducció d'obres traduïdes d'aquesta poeta a la Xina ha aconseguit un cert nivell de desenvolupament i que les versions són de bona qualitat. Tot i això, per la xifra baixa de poemes traduïts, es conclou que encara queda molt espai per recórrer. PARAULES CLAU: Juana de Ibarbourou, poesia llatinoamericana, antologies, traductors, traducció del castellà al xinès, estratègies traductores. «JUANA OF AMERICA»: THE TRANSLATION OF THE POETRY OF JUANA DE IBARBOUROU IN CHINA ABATRACT After the beginning of the program known as Reform and Opening Up in 1978, and together with the need to rebuild literature for a new era, a great interest in Latin American poetry awoke in China. With the help of translated versions, numerous poets and their works were introduced to this country. Juana de Ibarbourou, a character of worldwide reputation known as «Juana of America» and one of the figures of undoubted importance in the Latin American literary field, entered the field of vision of Chinese readers through the translation of her compositions, compiled in various anthologies. The present work, focused on the translation of Ibarbourou's poetry in China, analyzes a series of issues related to this topic: the author's poems included in the anthologies, the period of publication of these, as well as the translators and strategies adopted in the translation process. We found that the introduction of translated works of this poet in China has achieved a certain level of development and the versions are of good quality. However, due to the low number of translated poems, it is concluded that there is still a lot of space to cover.
The European Journal of Humour Research, Jan 9, 2023
When serious official political statements are not enough to get people's votes, politicians ofte... more When serious official political statements are not enough to get people's votes, politicians often turn to attention-grabbing and emotion-triggering self-presentation. They give the public access to their "normal, everyday" lives through personalisation and use other tools of "new" politics to create a favourable image of themselves. They can also show the unexpected, backstage aspects of their lives, such as their interactions with their pets. The paper analyses four case studies from different countries (Belarus, Estonia, Slovakia and Spain) in which politicians' references to their pets became a prominent topic in internet communication and provoked numerous humorous reactions in the form of memes. By looking at various degrees of politicians' personalisation strategies, we show that "new" and "old" politics should be regarded as the poles of a continuum rather than a binary opposition. We also discuss the content, form and stance of the humorous internet memes posted in reaction to the appearance of politicians' pets in the news. Our research indicates that such memes function to provoke a discussion and, as a result, form a polyvocal commentary on events; the politicians, however, must take risks accompanying unconventional, revealing political communication and hope that "there's no such thing as bad publicity".
Anuari de Filologia. Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2021
Chukchi are a minority people from the Chukotka Peninsula, the easternmost tip of the Russian Fed... more Chukchi are a minority people from the Chukotka Peninsula, the easternmost tip of the Russian Federation. On the second half of the last century, Chukchi became targets of Russian-language jokes and they soon were a favourite butt of Soviet ethnic humour. However, the popularity of this joke cycle did not remain within Russian borders. Previous research works (Castañar 2021) show that the image of these targets did not change in Russia in post-soviet times. However, the fate of these characters in other countries has not been studied. This article deals with the evolution of post-socialist ethnic jokes about Chukchi outside the Russian linguistic area, specifically in Estonia.
KEYWORDS:ethnic humour, ethnic joke, Chukchi, post-socialism, Estonia.
Językoznawstwo, 2019
The aim of this paper is to study variations and continuities in the targets of multi-ethnic joke... more The aim of this paper is to study variations and continuities in the targets of multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language through time in three consecutive periods: Soviet era, post-socialist years and the present time. Multi-ethnic jokes are a subtype of ethnic canned jokes that feature two or more ethnonyms in one text, three being the most usual number of nationalities featured in the text and having, therefore, a tripartite structure. The different nationalities are placed in a special situation that usually entails some kind of competition between them. Our specific goals in this article are: 1) to analyse the position of the nationalities mentioned in the tripartite textual structure of the joke and their function within the text of the joke and to study structural variations through time; 2) to determine the ethnic scripts that are frequently ascribed to these targets and their changes from Soviet to present times; 3) to identify the nationalities that appear in multi-ethnic jokes in Russian and to detect changes in this cast of characters, if any, through the three chronological periods previously stated. The analysis of a corpus of 359 multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language reveals that multi-ethnic jokes in Russian undergo few changes through times. Although they feature different nationalities in one text, multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language are an example of reflexive ethnic humour, since they target Russians themselves.Keywords: ethnic humour, multi-ethnic jokes, Russia
Anuari de Filologia. Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2017
This article analyses both textually and thematically contemporary ethnic jokes in Russian, which... more This article analyses both textually and thematically contemporary ethnic jokes in Russian, which were published in the Internet in the years 2010 to 2016. All the jokes share the commonality of having a Georgian as a main character. In Soviet times, only a few nationalities appeared as a main character in ethnic humorous texts and Georgians belonged to this select
group. In ethnic jokes, certain stable, highly stereotyped characteristics —physical, discursive and idiosyncratic— were ascribed to a nationality, so that Russian-speakers easily recognised it. Moreover, ethnic jokes made use of these particularities to attain a comical effect. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and related political, economic and cultural transformations, ethnic jokes in Russian were affected by significant structural and thematic changes. Likewise, from the 1990’s onwards, jokes were not only orally transmitted. Press freedom allowed printing and jokes started being published in the Internet. Characters are also affected: the relevance of their characteristics decrease; discourse features and behaviour particularities are not decisive for the comical effect. Georgians still appear as a main character in jokes as a part of the traditional also
because in contemporary Russian ethnic jokes the Georgian character allows a development of a positive self-image.
Mundo Eslavo, 2018
This paper focuses on one of the most vigorous manifestations of verbal humour in Russian languag... more This paper focuses on one of the most vigorous manifestations of verbal humour in Russian language nowadays: ethnic jokes. It presents a comparative analysis of jokes whose main character is either a Georgian or a Tajik. Georgians became protagonists of ethnic jokes in the 50’s and today are still leading figures. As a hero of ethnic humour in Russian, his image is highly stereotyped in the humorous discourse, presenting a well-known set of linguistic, cultural and behavioural traits. The humorous effect in jokes about Georgians is based on these traits, perceived by the joke-tellers as different from theirs, as belonging to the Other. In the ethnic humorous tradition in Russian language, Tajiks have not been standard characters. Nevertheless, in the last few years Tajiks became protagonists of a considerable amount of ethnic jokes. The difference between jokes about Georgians and those about Tajiks is remarkable: Georgians act as representatives of an ethnic group, whereas Tajiks represent a social group,
the migrant workers of several nationalities, who can now be found in major Russian cities. It is thus generated a humorous discourse on immigration which shares many similarities with the media discourse on immigration not only in Russia, but also in Western countries.
Book Reviews by Guillem Castañar
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2024
HUMOR. International Journal of Humor Research, 2023
The European Journal of Humour Research, 2022
Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 2024
The article investigates the humorous reactions to two important controversies that received a g... more The article investigates the humorous reactions to two important controversies
that received a great deal of attention in the Estonian public sphere
during the summer of the year 2023. These are the Wagner group rebellion and
the scandal involving Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. Building on theories of
the public sphere and observations on how humour functions in such a context, by
comparing the two cases, we tested the hypothesis that the content, form, humour
mechanisms, and the comments on humour can be influenced by the nature of the
controversy and by the psychological distance to the source of the initial triggering
controversy. We used the data collected and coded within the CELSA1 network
project “Humour and Conflict in the Public Sphere: An Interdisciplinary Analysis
of Humour Controversies and Contested Freedoms in Contemporary Europe”. The
analysis revealed that 1) the most popular forms of humour in the online public
sphere (primarily memes) are shaped by the patterns of the online communication
in general and not by the particular cases or controversies; 2) humour mechanisms
depend moderately on the nature of the controversy and their distance from the
meme-makers; 3) content is most dependent on the nature of the controversy, and
is affected by the tension between globalisation and localisation trends; and 4) the
distance to the controversy influences the humorousness of the comments.
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, Jun 1, 2024
Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a lar... more Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a large scale to China. Among translated literary works, feminine poetry occupies a very important position. Based on the study of translated anthologies that include compositions authored by women published in China from 1985 to the first decade of the 21st century, this article focuses on two elements related to these anthologies: which are the selected and translated poems and who are their authors. Four questions are analyzed: the poetesses that appear the most often in the anthologies, the poetesses with the most selected poems, the diachronic distribution of the poetesses and their geographical distribution. The objective of this study is to synthesize the criteria followed by the translators in the compilation of the anthologies and thus deduce the main interests in China in the field of Spanish-American feminine poetry.
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, Nov 30, 2023
METHIS Studia Humaniora Estonica, 2024
Teesid: Uurimuses analüüsitakse ajaloomeeme Vene sõja kohta Ukrainas. Leidsime materjalis korduva... more Teesid: Uurimuses analüüsitakse ajaloomeeme Vene sõja kohta Ukrainas. Leidsime materjalis korduvad motiivid ning vaatlesime suhteid meemide ajalooalasete viidete ja hoiakute vahel. Selgus, et ajaloomeemid võivad olla vahendiks, kuidas õigustada tänapäeva sündmusi, tekitada vaenlaste suhtes üleolekut, anda hinnanguid sündmustele ning naeruvääristada või tunnustada olukorraga seostuvaid inimesi. Analüüsides meemides ajaloolisi viiteid, tuleb arvestada hoiakute mõjuga viidete valikule.
HUMOR International Journal of Humor Research, Jun 5, 2024
Memes offer responsive acute commentary on controversial societal matters, providing non-violent ... more Memes offer responsive acute commentary on controversial societal
matters, providing non-violent and democratic spaces of discussion for conflicts. The paper studies memes on the war in Ukraine that spread in Eastern (Russia, Estonia, Belarus) and Western Europe (Spain). We analyze who are the main actors/ characters that personify the war in the memes in these countries, how these characters are represented in memes, and what are the global and local aspects of their portrayal. Personification is seen as a marker for psychological distance of the meme-makers and sharers to the conflict.
Anuari de Filologia. Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2023
Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a lar... more Since the Reform and Opening Up in 1978, Spanish American literature has been introduced on a large scale to China. Among translated literary works, feminine poetry occupies a very important position. Based on the study of translated anthologies that inclu de compositions authored by women published in China from 1985 to the first decade of the 21st century, this article focuses on two elements related to these anthologies: which are the selected and translated poems and who are their authors. Four questions are analyzed: the poetesses that appear the most often in the anthologies, the poetesses with the most selected poems, the diachronic distribution
of the poetesses and their geographical distribution. The objective of this study is to synthesize the crite ria followed by the translators in the compilation of the anthologies and thus deduce the main interests in China in the field of Spanish American feminine poetry.
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2023
We investigate the humour production, consumption and sharing of Russianspeakers in Estonia, base... more We investigate the humour production, consumption and sharing of Russianspeakers in Estonia, based on the self-reflections and self-perceptions of their humour preferences and other humour-related behaviour. By studying the representation of the humour practices of this important minority community we can get a more complete picture of humour in Estonia. Analysis of survey results reveals that according to Russian-speaker's, among their favourite topics were everyday life, and sex-and family-related matters. Visual humour was the most
Anuari de Filología. Llengües i Literatures Modernes., 2022
Descobrim que la introducció d'obres traduïdes d'aquesta poeta a la Xina ha aconseguit un cert ni... more Descobrim que la introducció d'obres traduïdes d'aquesta poeta a la Xina ha aconseguit un cert nivell de desenvolupament i que les versions són de bona qualitat. Tot i això, per la xifra baixa de poemes traduïts, es conclou que encara queda molt espai per recórrer. PARAULES CLAU: Juana de Ibarbourou, poesia llatinoamericana, antologies, traductors, traducció del castellà al xinès, estratègies traductores. «JUANA OF AMERICA»: THE TRANSLATION OF THE POETRY OF JUANA DE IBARBOUROU IN CHINA ABATRACT After the beginning of the program known as Reform and Opening Up in 1978, and together with the need to rebuild literature for a new era, a great interest in Latin American poetry awoke in China. With the help of translated versions, numerous poets and their works were introduced to this country. Juana de Ibarbourou, a character of worldwide reputation known as «Juana of America» and one of the figures of undoubted importance in the Latin American literary field, entered the field of vision of Chinese readers through the translation of her compositions, compiled in various anthologies. The present work, focused on the translation of Ibarbourou's poetry in China, analyzes a series of issues related to this topic: the author's poems included in the anthologies, the period of publication of these, as well as the translators and strategies adopted in the translation process. We found that the introduction of translated works of this poet in China has achieved a certain level of development and the versions are of good quality. However, due to the low number of translated poems, it is concluded that there is still a lot of space to cover.
The European Journal of Humour Research, Jan 9, 2023
When serious official political statements are not enough to get people's votes, politicians ofte... more When serious official political statements are not enough to get people's votes, politicians often turn to attention-grabbing and emotion-triggering self-presentation. They give the public access to their "normal, everyday" lives through personalisation and use other tools of "new" politics to create a favourable image of themselves. They can also show the unexpected, backstage aspects of their lives, such as their interactions with their pets. The paper analyses four case studies from different countries (Belarus, Estonia, Slovakia and Spain) in which politicians' references to their pets became a prominent topic in internet communication and provoked numerous humorous reactions in the form of memes. By looking at various degrees of politicians' personalisation strategies, we show that "new" and "old" politics should be regarded as the poles of a continuum rather than a binary opposition. We also discuss the content, form and stance of the humorous internet memes posted in reaction to the appearance of politicians' pets in the news. Our research indicates that such memes function to provoke a discussion and, as a result, form a polyvocal commentary on events; the politicians, however, must take risks accompanying unconventional, revealing political communication and hope that "there's no such thing as bad publicity".
Anuari de Filologia. Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2021
Chukchi are a minority people from the Chukotka Peninsula, the easternmost tip of the Russian Fed... more Chukchi are a minority people from the Chukotka Peninsula, the easternmost tip of the Russian Federation. On the second half of the last century, Chukchi became targets of Russian-language jokes and they soon were a favourite butt of Soviet ethnic humour. However, the popularity of this joke cycle did not remain within Russian borders. Previous research works (Castañar 2021) show that the image of these targets did not change in Russia in post-soviet times. However, the fate of these characters in other countries has not been studied. This article deals with the evolution of post-socialist ethnic jokes about Chukchi outside the Russian linguistic area, specifically in Estonia.
KEYWORDS:ethnic humour, ethnic joke, Chukchi, post-socialism, Estonia.
Językoznawstwo, 2019
The aim of this paper is to study variations and continuities in the targets of multi-ethnic joke... more The aim of this paper is to study variations and continuities in the targets of multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language through time in three consecutive periods: Soviet era, post-socialist years and the present time. Multi-ethnic jokes are a subtype of ethnic canned jokes that feature two or more ethnonyms in one text, three being the most usual number of nationalities featured in the text and having, therefore, a tripartite structure. The different nationalities are placed in a special situation that usually entails some kind of competition between them. Our specific goals in this article are: 1) to analyse the position of the nationalities mentioned in the tripartite textual structure of the joke and their function within the text of the joke and to study structural variations through time; 2) to determine the ethnic scripts that are frequently ascribed to these targets and their changes from Soviet to present times; 3) to identify the nationalities that appear in multi-ethnic jokes in Russian and to detect changes in this cast of characters, if any, through the three chronological periods previously stated. The analysis of a corpus of 359 multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language reveals that multi-ethnic jokes in Russian undergo few changes through times. Although they feature different nationalities in one text, multi-ethnic jokes in the Russian language are an example of reflexive ethnic humour, since they target Russians themselves.Keywords: ethnic humour, multi-ethnic jokes, Russia
Anuari de Filologia. Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2017
This article analyses both textually and thematically contemporary ethnic jokes in Russian, which... more This article analyses both textually and thematically contemporary ethnic jokes in Russian, which were published in the Internet in the years 2010 to 2016. All the jokes share the commonality of having a Georgian as a main character. In Soviet times, only a few nationalities appeared as a main character in ethnic humorous texts and Georgians belonged to this select
group. In ethnic jokes, certain stable, highly stereotyped characteristics —physical, discursive and idiosyncratic— were ascribed to a nationality, so that Russian-speakers easily recognised it. Moreover, ethnic jokes made use of these particularities to attain a comical effect. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and related political, economic and cultural transformations, ethnic jokes in Russian were affected by significant structural and thematic changes. Likewise, from the 1990’s onwards, jokes were not only orally transmitted. Press freedom allowed printing and jokes started being published in the Internet. Characters are also affected: the relevance of their characteristics decrease; discourse features and behaviour particularities are not decisive for the comical effect. Georgians still appear as a main character in jokes as a part of the traditional also
because in contemporary Russian ethnic jokes the Georgian character allows a development of a positive self-image.
Mundo Eslavo, 2018
This paper focuses on one of the most vigorous manifestations of verbal humour in Russian languag... more This paper focuses on one of the most vigorous manifestations of verbal humour in Russian language nowadays: ethnic jokes. It presents a comparative analysis of jokes whose main character is either a Georgian or a Tajik. Georgians became protagonists of ethnic jokes in the 50’s and today are still leading figures. As a hero of ethnic humour in Russian, his image is highly stereotyped in the humorous discourse, presenting a well-known set of linguistic, cultural and behavioural traits. The humorous effect in jokes about Georgians is based on these traits, perceived by the joke-tellers as different from theirs, as belonging to the Other. In the ethnic humorous tradition in Russian language, Tajiks have not been standard characters. Nevertheless, in the last few years Tajiks became protagonists of a considerable amount of ethnic jokes. The difference between jokes about Georgians and those about Tajiks is remarkable: Georgians act as representatives of an ethnic group, whereas Tajiks represent a social group,
the migrant workers of several nationalities, who can now be found in major Russian cities. It is thus generated a humorous discourse on immigration which shares many similarities with the media discourse on immigration not only in Russia, but also in Western countries.