Semantic Mechanisms of HumorGOAL This is the funniest book I have ever written - and the ambiguity here is deliberate. Much of this book is about deliberate ambiguity, described as unambiguously as possible, so the previous sentence is probably the fIrst, last, and only deliberately ambiguous sentence in the book. Deliberate ambiguity will be shown to underlie much, if not all, of verbal humor. Some of its forms are simple enough to be perceived as deliberately ambiguous on the surface; in others, the ambiguity results from a deep semantic analysis. Deep semantic analysis is the core of this approach to humor. The book is the fIrst ever application of modem linguistic theory to the study of humor and it puts forward a formal semantic theory of verbal humor. The goal of the theory is to formulate the necessary and sufficient conditions, in purely semantic terms, for a text to be funny. In other words, if a formal semantic analysis of a text yields a certain set of semantic proptrties which the text possesses, then the text is recognized as a joke. As any modem linguistic theory, this semantic theory of humor attempts to match a natural intuitive ability which the native speaker has, in this particular case, the ability to perceive a text as funny, i. e. , to distinguish a joke from a non-joke. |
Contents
SURVEY OF HUMOR RESEARCH | 1 |
2 IS HUMOR GOOD OR BAD? | 9 |
3 CONDITIONS FOR HUMOR | 11 |
4 PHYSIOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF HUMOR | 19 |
5 CLASSIFICATION OF HUMOR | 24 |
6 THEORIES OF HUMOR | 30 |
7 STRUCTURE OF HUMOR | 41 |
THEORY | 45 |
4 SPECIFIC SEXUAL OPPOSITION IN EXPLICITLY SEXUAL HUMOR | 165 |
5 SEXUAL HUMOR IN THE RUSSIAN CHASTUSHKA | 170 |
A SUMMARY | 177 |
ETHNIC HUMOR | 180 |
1 SCRIPT OF LANGUAGE DISORTION | 181 |
2 SCRIPT OF DUMBNESS | 185 |
3 SCRIPT OF STINGINESS | 189 |
4 SCRIPT OF CRAFTINESS | 191 |
FORMAT | 47 |
APPLICATIONS | 51 |
RESEARCH STRATEGY | 53 |
SEMANTIC THEORY | 59 |
2 ELEMENTS OF CONTEXTUAL SEMANTICS | 67 |
3 FORMAT OF SEMANTIC THEORY | 76 |
4 SCRIPTBASED LEXICON | 80 |
5 COMBINATORIAL RULES | 85 |
6 JUSTIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF SEMANTIC THEORY | 92 |
SEMANTIC THEORY OF HUMOR | 99 |
2 JOKE TELLING AS A NONBONAFIDE COMMUNICATION | 100 |
3 SCRIPT OVERLAP | 104 |
4 SCRIPT OPPOSITENESS | 107 |
5 SEMANTIC SCRIPTSWITCH TRIGGERS | 114 |
6 ANALYSIS OF A SAMPLE JOKE | 117 |
SCRIPTBASED INTERPRETATION | 127 |
8 APPARENT COUNTEREXAMPLES | 132 |
9 JOKE CONSTRUCTION | 139 |
SEXUAL HUMOR | 148 |
OVERT UNSPECIFIED | 149 |
OVERT SPECIFIED | 154 |
3 NONSEXUAL OPPOSITION IN EXPLICITLY SEXUAL HUMOR | 160 |
5 NONSTANDARD SPECIFIC SCRIPTS IN ETHNIC JOKES | 194 |
6 SMALLER TARGETED GROUPS IN ETHNIC HUMOR | 200 |
7 NATIONAL SUPERIORITY JOKES | 202 |
8 PSEUDOETHNIC JOKES | 205 |
9 JEWISH HUMOR | 209 |
POLITICAL HUMOR | 222 |
1 DENIGRATION OF A POLITICAL FIGURE | 223 |
2 DENIGRATION OF A POLITICAL BROUP OR INSTUTION | 227 |
3 DENIGRATION OF A POLITICAL IDEA OR SLOGAN | 229 |
4 EXPOSURE OF NATIONAL TRAITS | 230 |
5 EXPOSURE OF POLITICAL EXPRESSION | 232 |
6 EXPOSURE OF SHORTAGES | 234 |
7 EXPOSURE OF SPECIFIC POLITICAL SITUATIONS | 235 |
8 SOVIET POLITICAL HUMOR | 237 |
AFTERWORD | 247 |
ADDITIONAL JOKE EXAMPLES | 248 |
25 COMPLEX JOKES | 253 |
258 | |
268 | |
281 | |
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Common terms and phrases
allusion ambiguity American asks basic bona-fide communication Chapter chastushkas combinatorial rules comic compatible context denigration disambiguate discussed doctor element Esar ethnic group ethnic humor ethnic jokes ethnic script examples extralexical fact feature formal fuck funny Gershon Legman girl grammatical hearer Hispanic human humor act Hyponym ibid implicature incongruity instance involved Israeli Jewish humor joke-telling mode Katz kind language laugh laughter lexicon linguistic linguistic theory Main Hypothesis meaning Mindess native speaker nature nodes non-sexual Novak and Waldoks obscene obvious op.cit opposed scripts oppositeness relation overlap patient perceived political humor political jokes presupposition punch line Rapp Raskin rubles Russian says script analysis script oppositeness script-based semantic theory scripts evoked Section semantic information semantic recursion sentence sexual humor sexual/non-sexual opposition situation Soviet specific sexual script speech act stingy targeted theory of humor transformational grammar trigger typical usually verbal humor Victor Raskin wife words