ODESSA LAUGHTER PRACTICES AS EUROPEAN CULTURAL HERITAGE

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study Odessa laughter practices in the plane of European cultural values of personal freedom, creativity, intercultural dialogue, as well as in the context of the historical and cultural heritage of Europe, in particular, the sophistic discourse of Ancient Greece.

Methodology. For the analysis of Odesa laughter practices in the above-mentioned plane we used the following methodological paradigms: theories of superiority, contrast and static discourse as the subject of laughter (A. Bergson).

The scientific novelty of the work is in revealing such features of Odessa laughter practices as the presence of an «agonal component» and «winning intention» of the corresponding discourse. Also, for the first time, a comparative analysis of the sophistic practices of Ancient Greece and Odessa laughing discourse was carried out/ As a result their common features were revealed.

The authors of the article consider Odessa laughter practices as a discourse that in a certain way shapes the thinking of the carrier and creator of the corresponding speech practices. These practices include the use of vocabulary and grammatical constructions characteristic of the languages of different peoples (Slavic languages, Yiddish, Greek, etc.), the combination of which is the result of a child-like creative and free use of them. That is, a real Odessan is a person who, even in adulthood, perceives language not as a certain, objectively existing canon, but as a sphere of discursive self-realization. Thanks to this, a special field of cultural interaction and creative meeting of different speech traditions is formed, in connection with which there exists also a special style of thinking.

The leading features of this style are originality in the interpretation of individual words and a heuristic vision of their polysemanticity, mastery of speech practices of different cultures, as well as the huge role of an individual in the process of reproduction and development of Odessa speech. From the authors' point of view, it is Odessa laughter discourse that uniquely expresses the free spirit of EU culture as a cross-cultural phenomenon. This phenomenon should be properly documented as a unique cultural heritage of the EU and should have a certain status protected by the Law.