semantic mechanisms of humor - boston college.pptVIP

Semantic Mechanisms of Humor Caitlin Tweedy February 2, 2007 What do we laugh at?According to Hazlitt Absurdity Deformity Dress of foreigners, and they at ours One dressed in the height of fashion One quite out of it Mischief What we do not believe To show satisfaction with ourselves To show contempt for those around us To conceal envy, ignorance Fools Those who pretend to be wise Extreme simplicity Awkwardness Hypocrisy Affectation What characterizes the humor act? Human participants Speaker and one or more hearers Writer and one or more readers Person on television and one or more viewers A stimulus Life experience of an individual 4. Psychological type of individual 5. Certain physical environment/Situation - provides context 6. Society - cultural context Laughter is seen as… ( + ) Pleasure giving/pleasurable Purposeless movement expressing joy Freedom Release of aggression Healthful A reflex i.e. tickling…can trigger other reflexes WATCH OUT Telling of society ( - ) Sinister i.e. The Bible—no jokes here Concealing state of mind i.e. shame, shyness, anger Cowardly A detriment to mankind’s progress Born out of hostility Ridiculing Is humor good or bad? Other undefined phenomena in this way: Love Happiness Marriage Faith Success The electoral college Donald Trump’s comb-over A good verbal joke is… Not too long Not too short Not too trivial Not too hard to understand Has an element of surprise → Not given away too early Has adequate amount of detail Known to be a joke Accompanied by gestures, facial expressions …JUST RIGHT! Advice from Fry: “For the presenter to laugh occasionally and to be mildly amused by his [or her] own joke increases the power of its humor.” Advice from Fry (cont.): “For the presenter to laugh immoderately and to be obviously carried away by his own joke spoils the joke for the recipient…” Elements of Contextual Semantics (1) Lexicon: to model the native speaker’s knowledge of the meaning of words Extra lexical info E