The Comprehension Of Jokes

The Comprehension of Jokes consolidates and develops the tradition of analysing jokes, by defining a framework of concepts which are suited to capturing what happens when someone understands a joke. The collection of concepts presented improves upon past work on joke analysis, outlining a simple model of text comprehension which supports all the assumptions necessary for a model of joke-understanding. This proposed framework encompasses and integrates a relatively wide range of disparate factors, including incongruity, superiority, and impropriety. Written by an expert in the field of humour, it provides a conceptual basis which will help to map out the landscape of joke comprehension. The book draws on past suggestions in many areas, primarily philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence. Current theories of how people understand non-humorous texts offer some important ideas, such as the need for representations of differing beliefs about the world, or the way that predictions may occur during the understanding of a text. The framework improves the clarity and coherence of some existing theoretical proposals and combines these ideas into a well-defined way of describing how a person understands a newly-encountered joke. All this is illustrated using typical textual jokes, some analysed in considerable detail. The book enables hypotheses about why jokes are funny to be stated more precisely and compared more easily, and should contribute to the development of a fuller cognitive model of joke comprehension. The Comprehension of Jokes will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in humour research, as well as those in disciplines like linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science who wish to explore the field of jokes and humour.

First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Hamburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Highlights in Cognitive Linguistics, language: English, abstract: The emerging ability for blending different mental spaces, so argue Fauconnier and Turner (2002: V), allowed humans to gain the upper hand over competing species from the Upper Paleolithic onwards, since this ability gave them the imagination required to invent new concepts, tools and means of communication (among them language). On the basis of this discovery and the initially developed Mental Space theory, Fauconnier and Turner advanced a striking theory called the Conceptual Blending theory. [...] Therefore, in this term paper I focus entirely on jokes, which I attempt to interpret by means of the Blending theory. To investigate cognitive processes involved in joke comprehension, I have interviewed four English native speakers with the intention of finding whether all of them are able to explain why the joke is funny and which incompatible elements are responsible for its humorous effect. Taking into account the participants' answers I have tried to define the input spaces (by naming their constituents) and the blended space. Additionally, the participants' answers were evaluated with regard to the role of background knowledge, which is necessary in order to comprehend the joke. Finally, I examined whether the Conceptual Blending theory might be applicable for the analysis of joke processing and comprehension in general and what difficulties can arise during the creation of the input spaces and the blend. Thus, in the following sections I will first introduce important information on conceptual blending and then analyze selected jokes according to the Conceptual Blending theory, taking into consideration the interviewees' explanations of the jokes. Central to Conceptual Blending theory is the notion of the conce

This book starts from three observations. First, the use of humour is a complex, puzzling, and idiosyncratically human form of behaviour (and hence is of scientific interest). Second, there is currently no theory of how humour works. Third, one useful step towards a theory of humour is to analyze humorous items in precise detail, in order to understand their mechanisms. The author begins by considering how to study jokes rigorously: the assumptions to make, the guidelines to follow and the pitfalls to avoid. A critique of other work on humour is also provided. This introduces some important concepts, and also demonstrates the lack of agreement about what a theory of humour should look like. The language devices used in various jokes, such as puns or humour based on misinterpretation, are analysed in detail. The central part of the book develops, and demonstrates, proposals for how best to analyze the workings of simple jokes. Finally, the author makes some general suggestions about the language devices that seem to be central to the construction of jokes. The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes will be invaluable for researchers and advanced students of humour research, linguistics and cognitive science.

Riddles and jokes are great ways to encourage young readers to explore language and concentrate on content comprehension. Future comedians will love the jokes and riddles found in this brightly designed book. For visual learners, cute illustrations accompany many of the funny anecdotes. This accessible text offers many opportunities to help readers practice accuracy and fluency as they're entertaining their family and friends. There are plenty of opportunities to LOL! with this motivating volume.

Semantic Leaps explores how people combine knowledge from different domains in order to understand and express new ideas. Concentrating on dynamic aspects of on-line meaning construction, Coulson identifies two related sets of processes: frame-shifting and conceptual blending. By addressing linguistic phenomena often ignored in traditional meaning research, Coulson explains how processes of cross-domain mapping, frame-shifting, and conceptual blending enhance the explanatory adequacy of traditional frame-based systems for natural language processing. The focus is on how the constructive processes speakers use to assemble, link, and adapt simple cognitive models underlie a broad range of productive language behavior.

Graeme Ritchie advocates a cognitive science approach to humour research, aiming for higher levels of detail and formality than has been customary in humour research, and argues the case for analyzing jokes and humour.