CONTEMPORARY JOKELORE: POST-SOCIALISM -- INTERNET -- COGNITIVITY, ESF 6759

Head of the project: Arvo Krikmann.
Members:: Rein Saukas, 2006; Liisi Laineste

The project is a follow-up to the now finished grant 4935, "Contemporary Estonian Folk Humour" funded by the Estonian Science Foundation. The main aims of the present project are:

1. In collaboration with humour scholars from other countries of the previous Eastern block, getting insight into the state of "social" (i.e. ethnic and political) jokes in the today's post-socialist countries and finding out the main changes that have happened in the folk humour of these countries after the socialist camp collapsed.
2. Describing the contemporary state of oral joke-telling and the relationships of oral and Internet jokes in Estonia.
3. Specifying the nature of folk humour (primarily, contemporary jokes) as a type of communication and a cognitive phenomenon, examining the relationships between verbal humour and figurative speech.
4. Completing and publishing the ATU index of the older Estonian folk jokes (naljandid), separately or as a part of a general register of Estonian folktales. Continuing work on the database of Estonian Internet jokes, enhancing its user interface and developing the system of categorization of jokes.