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rneqfHumorand culture GUY BOUCHAUVEAU he subject of this paper is the humor unique to sign language and the deaf community and how this form of humor develops within deaf culture. First, let us consider where evidence of humor among deaf people can be found. In France, it is quite unusual to see deaf children spontaneously sharing humor in school. It is only when there are adult deaf people in these schools that small deaf children can start using sign language, communicating effectively , and thus learning to use humor. When adult deaf people laugh, a deaf child can understand the joke and laugh in turn, but if the adult is a hearing person, the deaf child is excluded from the understanding and the laughter. On the other hand, deaf culture and its humor resurface in places where deaf people tend to gather: associations, banquets, dances, and the like. We usually meet to help one another quench our thirst for communication. It's like the desire of hearing people who, deprived of music, feel they must listen to a record. Hearing people can read a funny story and laugh at it. I have noticed that deaf people never laugh at these stories, regardless of whether or not they are oralists. Hearing and deaf people don't find the same things funny. For example, I can understand plays on words in French, but that's not what it takes to make me laugh. When a joke in French is translated into sign language, deaf people respond, "Yes, that's interesting," but never actually laugh-for them it's not really funny because the two cultures are too far apart. I have referred to meetings of deaf people. This is where they laugh, and it's sign language that makes it possible. If we consider what happens to mainstreamed deaf people who, as adults, end up as members of deaf associations, they can't impart humor because of their lack of competence in sign language. If I compare these deaf people, whom I will call oralists, with deaf people fluent in French Sign Language (LSF), I find the latter's humor to be more creative. About twenty years ago, this was the situation in France: Humor existed wherever deaf people got together. Comic art emerged spontaneously in the context of communication among deaf individuals. But artistic productions or theatrical performances of comedies did not yet exist. There was an extremely rich gestural comic art everywhere, but because it was not publicly performed, there was little awareness of it. The deaf community has progressed over the last ten years with the creation in Paris of the International Visual Theatre (IVT). Theatrical plays in sign language appeared at the same time as the first courses in LSF. It was then that thoughtful evaluation of sign language began that the deaf community became conscious of the beauty of its language and of its artistic and comic dimensions. I think some very interesting plays already existed in the deaf community well before I was born, but they were never shown in Deaf Humor and Culture public. It's a shame, though, that deaf humor never leaves the deaf community and that hearing people are being deprived of it. Let's consider now who is using humor and what kinds they are using. The kind of humor differs according to age level. Deaf adolescents like to crack jokes based on mockery. They poke fun at physical changes, teasing with a sexual connotation. For twenty-year-olds entering their professional lives, humor is more diversified: There are elements of ridicule but also visual word games. Deaf people around the age of forty who have mastered their language and can distance themselves from it are the best at comedy. They incorporate political themes into their funny stories and take jabs at hearing individuals. They have become conscious of their oppression by hearing people and, through mockery, take their revenge upon the hearing world. This is where sign language is being used to its fullest creative potential. As an example of the last category, I will use a story from the world of soccer, the national sport of France that is played all over the world. The photographs in figure 1 are taken from a videotape of me telling a story of a soccer match between a team of hearing players and a team of deaf players. Stories of this kind serve an important purpose . Often, it is only when different kinds...

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