Existing Theories
MAX EASTMAN
“The Nine Commandments of Comic Arts:
1. Be interesting
2. Be unimpassioned
3. Be effortless
4. Remember the difference between cracking practical jokes and conveying ludicrous impressions
5. Be plausible
6. Be sudden
7. Be neat
8. Be right with your timing
9. Give good measure of serious satisfaction”
—-
BERGSON
“Thomas Hobbes formulated most forcefully the idea that laughter arises from a sense of superiority of the laughter towards some object (what is commonly referred to as the ‘butt of the joke‘). The most influential proponent of the superiority theory has been Bergson, for whom humor is a social corrective, i.e., used by society to correct deviant behavior.”
“Humor as a social corrective:
1. Laughter is a human phenomenon
2. Laughter is social
3. Requires an intellectual outlook from participants rather than an emotional one.”
—-
SALVATORE ATTARDO
“Not only has it not been possible to agree on how to divide the category of ‘humor’ but it is even difficult to find a pretheoretical definition of ‘humor’ in the most general sense.”
“According to Aristotle, joking must serve the argumentation of the orator.”
On Laughter (physiology)
“The assumption behind this identification of humor and laughter is that what makes people laugh is humorous and hence the property is incorrectly seen as symmetrical– What is funny makes you laugh and what makes you laugh is funny. This leads to the identification of a mental phenomenon (humor) with a complex neurophysiological manifestation (laughter).
1. Laughter exceeds humor.
2. Laughter does not always have the same meaning.
3. Laughter is not directly proportionate to the intensity of humor.
4. Humor elicits sometimes laughter, sometimes a smile.
5. Laughter or smiling cannot always be observed directly.”
“Aristotle analyzed laughter as coming from a) puns, b) unexpected events, and c) contrast between the development of the elocution and the facts.”
—-
Referential versus Semantic
Situational Play versus Play on Words
Prosaic versus Poetic
“Referential humor = anecdotes and caricatures.”
“Verbal humor = ambiguity, paronomasias, false etymologies, proveros, literal interpretation of figurative expressions, allegory, metaphors, antiphrasis/ irony.”
—-
On Divisions of “Referential Humor”
“1. Similarity
2. Deception
3. The impossible
4. The possible and inconsequential
5. The unexpected
6. From vulgar dancing
7. When one of those who can, leaving aside more important things, chooses those of lesser value
8. When discourse is not connected and coherent”
—-
“A commonly accepted classification divides theories of humor into three groups:
1. Incongruity theories (contrast)
-some theorists argue iincongruity alone is sufficient to generate humor
a. Incongruity resolution
-claims incongruity in itself is necessary but not sufficient…that in order for humor to be perceived one has to “resolve” the incongruity
-the “resolution” of the incongruity is not supposed to get rid of the incongruity, but to coexist and accompany it
-claims any humorous text will contain an element of incongruity and an element of resolution
2. Hostility/Disparagement theories (aggression, superiority, triumph, derision)
3. Release theories (sublimation, liberation)”
“Release theories maintain that humor ‘releases’ tensions, psychic energy, or that humor releases one from inhibitions, conventions and laws.” (Basis: Freud’s “Release Theory”)
—
RASKIN
Semantic Script Theory of Humor
“The SSTH models the humorous competence of an idealized speaker/ hearer who is unaffected by racial or gender biases, undisturbed by scatological, obscene or disgusting material, not subject to boredom, and, most important, who has never ‘heard it before’ when presented with a joke.”
-models the competence, and not the performance of the speaker
-does not comment on quality of jokes; good jokes and bad jokes are indistinguishable (Raskin claims linguistics cannot account for this)
Quotes on SSTH
-”The SSTH is a formal theory that makes predictions and can be tested against ‘hard facts;’ therefore, there is little contention that the SSTH is the most powerful epistemological and promising theory available in the field of linguistic-based humor research.”
-”The SSTH has been applied to various languages and cultures, always proving useful, thus reinforcing its universalist attitude….That the mechanisms of humor are universal and transcultural.”
-”The learner will have to become accustomed to the ‘genres’ of humor if he/she is to achieve complete communicative competence.”
-”According to the SSTH, all jokes are essentially the same since they are all based on oppositions between scripts. All oppositions can be reduced to either the three first-level pairs of opposed scripts of the five second-level pairs.”
-”Systematic withholding of information has been shown to be another defining aspect of jokes.”
SSTH calls for two scripts in the text that are ‘opposed’ in a technical sense. Script oppositions fall into three classes:
1. Actual v. Non-actual
2. Normal v. Abnormal
3. Possible v. Impossible
CHLOPICKI added (though this is not widely accepted):
4. Absence v. Presence
5. Necessary v. Unnecessary
6. Much v. Little
Five most common script oppositions (topically):
(“These oppositions are seen as ‘essential to human life.’”)
1. Good / Bad
2. Life / Death
3. Obscene / Non-obscene
4. Money / No money
5. High stature / Low stature
Approaches of the SSTH:
1. Expansionist- based on the idea of applying the STTH “as is” to other types of texts.
-most appealing
-belief in identity between jokes and humorous narratives
2. Revisionist – based on the idea that the SSTH needs to be revised in order to apply to humorous text other than jokes.
-taking joke and devising tools to handle features that characterize texts other than jokes
-open-ended
Four maxims of non-bona fide communication mode of joke telling:
1. Maxim of quantity – give exactly as much information as is necessary for the joke.
2. Maxim of quality – say only what is compatible with the world of the joke.
3. Maxim of relation – say only what is relevant to the joke.
4. Maxim of manner – tell the joke efficiently.
-”The speaker producing the text uses the violation of a [bona fide] maxim to mislead the hearer into believing that ‘normal’ reliable information is being provided, while in effect the text, or the utterance, is rigged with the unexpected presence of the second sense.”
Sophistication is a complex phenomenon. Two types:
1. Limited access, allusive knowledge
2. Complex processing
—
General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), RASKIN / ATTARDO
“The GTVH is a revised version of the SSTH. It is supposed to account for, in principle, any type of humorous text.”
Knowledge resources for a humorous text:
1. Script opposition – most abstract of all knowledge resources; basis for the rest of the knowledge resources
2. Logical mechanism – the parameter that accounts for the way in which the two senses in the joke are brought together.
3. The target – “butt” of the joke; usually a humorous stereotype
4. The narrative strategy – every joke has a narrative organization; can also be the “genre” or a cluster of similar features
5. The language
6. The situation – the props of the joke; objects, participants, instruments, activities
Hierarchical organization of the knowledge resources:
Script opposition -> Logical mechanism -> Situation -> Target -> Narrative strategy -> Language
-parameters determine the parameters below themselves and are determined by those above themselves
“Script theory explains connotation by showing scripts activate all closely related scripts and weakly activate distant scripts.”
—
BALLY
“Stylistics deals with the affective, emotional side of language rather than with the objective, factual aspect of communication…. No word has purely affective or purely intellectual value, but each word has both in different proportions.”
-meanings are defined relationally rather than just on actual content
Two types of affective meaning:
1. Natural – directly from expression
2. Evocative – triggered by associated to the linguistic unit (connotation)
—
Register Humor
Technique to generate register-based humor:
-Select a lexeme or phraseological unit from a different style level than the context would predict.
Parameters of determining register humor:
1. Subject matter
2. Social roles/situations
3. Field of discourse
Quotes on register humor
-Knowledge of the contextual factors involved may allow one to make a fairly good prediction of the register that will be chosen, but speaker can always subvert predictions, or the situation can be novel and unprecedented, which prevents predictive accuracy.”
-”Groups of registers will tend to cluster in sets connected by some common feature.”
-”The topic of ’sexual intercourse’ greatly restrains available registers and only has two variants: medical and/or obscene.”
