Discursive Tropes of Aggression Against Queer-Sexuality in Nigerian Standup Comedy

The increase in the online presence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) persons is astounding, despite the threat to their security, especially in the Nigerian context. Extending debates on linguistic and non-linguistic research on queer-sexuality, this paper examines the discursive patterns in the jokes of Nigerian standup comedians (NSCs), who occasionally project idiosyncratic ideologies about Nigerian LGBTQ persons. The argument advanced in this paper is that though LGBTQ contents are applied to challenge Nigerian laws against gender and sexual minorities, Nigerian humour producers continue to criminalise homosexuality and transgenderism comically. Using insights from Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory (PAT) and Meyer’s Superiority Theory of Humour (STH), this paper probes how pragmatic variables interact with humour strategies to tease out specific discursive tropes in the linguistic acts of NSCs. The selection of joke routines is purposive and based on Nigerian humour productions of “Pencil Unbroken Show” AY Live and African Kings of Comedy between 2013 and 2023 on YouTube media. Seven texts are selected and subjected to pragmatic and humour analysis. Ten discursive patterns alongside shared linguistic and situational knowledge, inferences, voice, reference and metaphor are deployed to demystify the motivations for queerness in Nigerian standup comedy. The study reflects aggression against queer-sexuality from the point of view of the Nigerian religious, political, socio-cultural and legal contexts. It also indicates that NSCs strive to enforce conservative standards and deploy humour as a corrective measure to identify LGBTQ persons as threats, offenders, victims, unfit, mentally unstable and illusive.