Analysis of Selected Iraqi Ethnic Jokes Targeting Kurds and an Investigation of Iraqis’ Attitudes towards Them

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze Iraqi jokes targeting Kurds with the aim of identifying the nature of ethnic jokes. To do so, the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) by Attardo and Raskin (1991) is applied to Iraqi jokes targeting Kurds. Furthermore, the study also investigates the attitudes of Iraqis towards these jokes before and after Kurdistan independence referendum. Twenty-seven jokes which are collected from six websites are analyzed in this study. The tools that are used in the analysis are the six parameters of GTVH and the cooperative principle (CP) (Grice,1975). Moreover, two online surveys were launched on a Facebook page to investigate Iraqis attitudes towards ethnic jokes. The result shows that there are different types of ethnic jokes that target Kurds in Iraq; jokes which target the language errors of Kurds while speaking the Iraqi dialect, jokes which accuses Kurds of being simple-minded, jokes which uses overt expressions, and other jokes which are published as Kurds-targeting jokes but they are not. The result also shows that there is a possible connection between jokes that uses overt expressions and violating the quality maxim alone.