HUMOUR AS AN OBJECT OF LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL RESEARCH AND THE CONCEPT OF HUMOROUS DISCOURSE

HUMOUR AS AN OBJECT OF LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL RESEARCH AND THE CONCEPT OF HUMOROUS DISCOURSE

Nataliia Lutskaia

Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Higher School of Economics,

Russia, Moscow

ABSTARCT

The article called ‘Humour as an object of linguistic and cultural research and the concept of humorous discourse’ addresses the issues of different perspectives while defining humour. The current article gives an overview of two humorous theories Semantic Script Theory (SSTH) and Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH). The current work is aimed at defining humour, establish its relation to cognition and systems of belief (ideology, society, etc.) and beliefs of the speaker. As for the methods chosen, it was decided to apply literature review analysis. First of all, I have gathered the information about humuor and humorous theories. Secondly, having compared and contrasted some approach, some conclusions have been made. As for the results, it was discovered that humuor is intentional and involves cognition. Humour is culture-specific phenomenon. Moreover, to create a joke, it it is vital to consider addressee, addressor, context, message. To conclude, humorous discourse, being a cultural value, represents and reflects culture values of a society.

Keywords: humuor, culture, cultural values, humorous theories, cognition.

What is humor? This notion is rather broad, Oxford dictionary says that we can define it as ‘the quality in something that makes it funny or the ability to laugh at things that are funny’, also we can perceive humour as ‘the state of your feelings or mind at a particular time’. According to Sachiko Kitazume (2017), there is a definition that people are prone to use, ‘humor is something that makes a person laugh or smile’(p.50). However, it would not be right to say that humour equals to laughter since the laughter involves humour as well as non-humour stimuli. Thus, not every case of laughter is connected with humour. Considering the cases that can be attributed to non-humorous cases, it can be mentioned that they can cause laughter. It is easy to get the idea if we imagine the particular situation, a boy gets a better mark than his fellow-students, his rival and the first boy laughs at his defeated rival since he feels superiority over his competitor. This case described does not have anything connected with the notion ‘Humour’. Giovanni Sabato (2019) in the article called ‘What’s so funny? The science of why we laugh’ in the journal ‘Scientific American’ writes that ‘various theories have posited that people find amusement in the misfortunes of others, in expressions of otherwise forbidden emotions, in juxtaposition of incompatible concepts and in realizing that certain expectations have been violated’ (p.4). Sometimes we laugh just because we are happy, there can be nothing connected with the humour. Attardo (2017) agrees on the point that humour and laughter are not coexistive since the joke may not succeed and ‘failed humour’ appears. Also, the authors claim that laughter can have appeared as a way to enhance connectedness in societies.

There are numerous classifications of humor in the field of such sciences like psychology, philosophy, linguistics, etc. However, linguistics plays one of the most important roles in the classification of humor, according to Attardo (2017) ‘language is the medium of much humor’, thus, ‘linguists have a privileged role in humorology’. Drawing the parallels between Cicero’s classification of humor into “de re” and “de dicto”, Attarado names their modern equivalents: “referential” and “verbal” humor respectfully (p. 45). Proceeding with explanations, Attardo claims that ‘referential is purely semantic/pragmatic and does not depend on the linguistic form’ while the verbal does (p. 46). Attardo (2017) claims that verbal humor involves the phonological aspect of language, consisting of ‘puns, ambiguity-based humor, or repetition’ while referential humour involves only ‘semantic/ pragmatic incongruity’ (p.47).

Both linguists and culturologists tried and are trying to develop classifications that are able to explain the essence of humor and the causes of laugh and humorous effects produced. Following the explanations of Sachiko Kitazume, we can figure out 2 most famous humorous theories:

• Semantic Script Theory (SSTH) that was proposed by Raskin (1985, 2009);
• General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), developed and modified version of SSTH and it was proposed by Attardo and Raskin (1991).

To clarify some parts of theory, the definition of script is presented, ‘It is a cognitive structure internalized by the speaker which provides the speaker with information on how a given entity is structured, what are its parts and components, or how an activity is done, relationship organized, and so on, to cover all possible relations between entities (including their constituents).’ (Attardo, 2017, p. 2).

There are some key features of these two classifications in Table 2.

Table 1.

Key features of SSTH and GTVH

Having explored two theories, we can point out the main features that are important for the current work:

• To create a joke, we can follow the scripts methodology;
• While joking, we should pay attention to the addressees, their nationality, background, etc.;
• It is essential to remember that natives may have similarities but they do not have identical scripts;
• We can explore the joke from 6 parameters: the Script Opposition, the Narrative Strategy, the Logical Mechanism, the Situation, the Language, the Target;
• The 6 parameters are connected to each other, for instance, some certain script oppositions may work only via some Narrative Strategies or Targets, etc. We will have a closer look at that in the practical part using examples.

Humour is used in everyday speech, in TV shows, radio programs, comedies.  According to Wladyslav Chlopicki and Dorota Brzoxowska (2017), ‘the problem with defining humorous discourse is the potential circulation of the notion, which stems from the difficulty in setting it off from non-humorous discourse’(p. 67). They claim that it is hard to separate humorous discourse from any kind of discourse, pointing out its close relationships with any sort of conversation. Before moving to a humorous discourse, it is vital to define ‘discourse’ itself. Cambridge online dictionary (2022) defines discourse as ‘communication in speech or writing or a speech or piece of writing about particular subject, as for the synonyms for this word’, Merriam-Webster dictionary (2022) presents such synonyms as ‘conversation, dialogue, exchange, lecture, speak’, etc. However, the definition is rather broad. Discourse in linguistics refers to the use of spoken or written language in a social context. This definition makes sense since in the book called ‘Key Terms in Discourse Analysis’, Paul Baker and Sibonile Ellece (2011) define discourse as ‘practices which systematically form the objects of which the people speak’ (p. 47). It is essential to mention that while analysing any discourse we should pay attention to the context, addressor and addressee, topics for discussion and expressions used, their connotation.

In the article ‘Studies in Linguistics and Cognition’, Francisco Yus Ramos (2012) claims that the target to make someone laugh involves a prediction and manipulation of inference-centred interpretive strategies. He assumes that to grasp the humorous point of a ridiculous phrase, addressee should have some information about the context. There are two vital features of a joke. Firstly, joke is always intentional and, secondly, a joke is always created to produce certain effect on the addressee. In his work, it is pointed out that while the perception of a joke involves context, interpretation of it is connected with cognitive activity. To understand a joke, people perform relevance-seeking operation in order to find a match between humorous point, setting and the linguistic wording of the joke.

Having looked at different features of humour and humorous discourse, we will narrow the scope to the ‘Humorous discourse’. Attardo (1994) states that ‘it is impossible to define a priori the category of humour’ with no internal subdivision into narrower topics (p. 24). However, we will try to define ‘Humorous discourse’, it is written phrase or spoken utterance in a particular social context or setting, striving to be funny and make the target audience laugh or smile.

In the book ‘Humorous discourse’ (2017) it is mentioned that there is the interplay of factors in a theory discourse, thus, systems of belief (ideology, society, etc.), beliefs of the speaker, repertoires, context and humorous text. Where repertoires, are defined as ‘a greater number of alternants, reflecting contextual and social differences in speech’. As we see, the concept of humorous discourse is surrounded by different factors.

We may follow the interconnection between the thoughts from the book ‘Humorous discourse’ and the work of Francisco Yus Ramos (2012), we see that not only is linguistic concept included in the joke formation but also cognitive and contextual. The scheme elaborated by Francisco Yus Ramos is unappreciable while speaking about joke formation mechanisms and humorous discourse. The scheme is presented at Figure 1.

Figure1. Taxonomy of Jokes

Source:  Retrieved from ‘Studies in Linguistics and Cognition’ by F. Y. Ramos, 2012, Humorous discourse, 297, 272. Copyright 2012 by the Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Publishers.

The scheme in Figure 1. is entitled as a taxonomy of jokes, the author opposes intentional and unintentional jokes because it is claimed that jokes are inherently intentional since while designing joke, the addressor takes into consideration such factors as the addressee, context, etc. The humorous outcome that was planned is achieved via the prediction and manipulation of expected effects produced on the target audience.

In the book ‘Cultures and organizations’, Hofstede (2007) highlights that ‘what is considered funny is highly culture-specific’, specifying that the issues linked with humor issues are influenced by culture and cultural background (p.124). He argues that some utterances that are ridiculous in one culture may be offensive in others. It is possible to draw a conclusion, power-distance issue is also present, because in some culture this distance is quite significant whereas in others it is relatively short.

After defining the notion of ‘humor’ and the main features of the humorous discourse, a list of its key features may be formed:

• The humorous discourse is directed at laughing and ridiculous addressee’s reaction;
• The addresser strives to foresee the reaction and adapt the content to the context; thus, the jokes have intentional nature;
• Logical-cognitive relations between utterances and context unite in speech, thus, producing humorous effect;
• Humorous discourse, being a cultural value, represents and reflects culture values;
• Humorous discourse may be a tool used to shorten social distance and serve as a means of group identification, setting the boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘others’.

The notion humour has been defined, some key features of humuor were highlighted. Humuor is an integrant part of language and it is highly culture-specific.

References:

1. (Ed.), Kitazume, S. (2017). The dynamics of humuor. In W.Chlopicki & D. Brzozowska Humorous Discourse (pp.75-90). Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507106-004
2. Attardo, S. (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor (Routledge Handbooks in Linguistics) (1st ed.). Routledge.
3. Attardo, S. (2017). Humor in Language. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 1–18.
4. Attardo, S. (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humor (Humor Research, 1). Mouton de Gruyter.
5. Raskin, V., Hempelmann, C. F., & Taylor, J. M. (2009). How to Understand and Assess a Theory: The Evolution of the SSTH into the GTVH and Now into the OSTH. Journal of Literary Theory, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt.2009.016
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11. Sabato, G. (2019, June 26). What’s So Funny? The Science of Why We Laugh. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-so-funny-the-science-of-why-we-laugh/