Funny in animated films and literature: what the russian children laugh at

Abstract

The humor is an important element of culture, reflects features of national consciousness and attitude, it is the means of reconciliation, settlement and preservation of social values, an indicator of intellectual and emotional development. An objective of this research was identification of representations of the Russian younger school students about comic on material of such cultural texts as animated films and works of fiction. 174 Russian school students of elementary school (92 boys and 82 girls) at the age of 9-11 years participated in a research. At the first investigation phase it was revealed what works and movies are selected by younger school students as Funny. At the second stage of school students asked to remember and tell Funny episodes from these works of fiction and television cartoon serials. The qualitative analysis of data allowed to reveal actions and situations which school students describe as Funny (frequency of their occurrence is specified): transformation (19%); violation of norms, also governed (15%); behavior of the hero (14%); speech games (14%); figurative discrepancy (10%); falling (9%); interaction (9%); logical discrepancies (8%); violations of physiological type (2%). The conducted research allows claiming that laughter in system of culture is a criterion of a ratio of acts of the individual with requirements of society: a large number of Funny situations with violation of social norms were allocated by school students. Relationship of children with adults is defined by culture; peers and laughter as its phenomenon participates in this process. Preferences in the choice of a comic plot are reflected by the level of informative, emotional, speech development, and an indicator of creativity of the school student. Results of a research can be used in the educational purposes, when forming cultural identity of the Russian school students, for development of informative and emotional spheres of children.

Keywords: humor, culture, animated films, works of art, younger school students, content
analysis.