Synopsis of the workshop on humor and cognition

arXiv (Cornell University), 1989

HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research, 2023

This article proposes a cognitive mechanism of humour of general applicability, not restricted to verbal communication. It is indebted to Raskin's concept of script overlap, and conforms to the incongruity-resolution theoretical framework, but it is built on the notion of constraint, an abstract correspondence between sets of data. Under this view, script overlap is an outcome of a more abstractly described phenomenon, constraint overlap. The important concept of the overlooked argument is introduced to characterise the two overlapping constraints-overt and covert. Their inputs and outputs are not directly encoded in utterances, but implicated by them, and their overlap results in another overlap at the level of the communicated utterances, that the incongruity reveals. Our hypothesis assumes as a given that the evocation of such constraints is a cognitive effect of the inferential process by which a hearer interprets utterances. We base this assumption on Hofstadter's theory of analogy-making as the essence of human thought. By substituting "stimuli" of any kind for "utterances" in this model, we obtain a mechanism as easily applicable to non-verbal communication-slapstick, cartoonsand we propose it describes the necessary and sufficient conditions for a communicative act in any modality to carry humour.

HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research, 2023

This article proposes a cognitive mechanism of humor of general applicability, not restricted to verbal communication. It is indebted to Raskin's concept of script overlap, and conforms to the incongruity-resolution theoretical framework, but it is built on the notion of constraint, an evoked correspondence between sets of data. Under this view, script overlap is an outcome of a more abstractly described phenomenon, constraint overlap. The important concept of the overlooked argument is introduced to characterize the two overlapping constraints-overt and covert. Their inputs and outputs are not directly encoded in utterances, but implicated by them, and their overlap results in another overlap at the level of the communicated utterances, that the incongruity reveals. Our hypothesis assumes as a given that the evocation of such constraints is a cognitive effect of the inferential process by which a hearer interprets utterances. We base this assumption on Hofstadter's theory of analogy-making as the essence of human thought. By substituting "stimuli" of any kind for "utterances" in this model, we obtain a mechanism as easily applicable to non-verbal communication-slapstick, cartoons-and we propose it describes the necessary and sufficient conditions for a communicative act in any modality to carry humor.

Philosophia, 1988

Journal of Pragmatics, 2005

The primary objective of this paper is to postulate a tripartite division of jokes according to three major incongruity-resolution mechanisms underlying their incremental development, and to review the existing models of joke interpretation in the light of the joke categories advanced here. Most of these well-entrenched frameworks, as will be shown, fail to capture all the three mechanisms of jokes.

Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory (Dynel, M., ed), 2013

The European Journal of Humour Research, 2018

Incongruity theories maintain that the core of humour is in interplay between meanings. Two incompatible meanings – of situations, verbal utterances or actions – are juxtaposed, one replacing the other or colliding with it. In this paper, I suggest that often the game is not played between two meanings, but between meaning and its carrier. I provide as examples two families of jokes and one general type of humour sharing this mechanism. One of the two families comprises jokes of self-reference, and the other consists of jokes based on deflation of symbols, which means using them in a concrete sense. The general type of humour is the subject of Bergson’s 1900 theory of the comic, mechanical behaviour where flexible human reaction is expected. The mechanism common to all three is a shift of weight from meaning to its carrier. This mechanism is then traced also in other jokes, suggesting possible universality

Language, 1996

This is a research into the concept of humor as it manifests itself in linguistic activities^that more often than not also appear in writing (such as puns and jokes). The author starts off with a discussion of the unsuccessful attempts at definitions of humor and ends up with an analysis of certain humorous texts (mainly jokes, with the exception of chapter 8), i.e. of their semantic structure and their functions in a wider situational context. Attardo distinguishes 3 different approaches to the concept of humor, viz. an essentialist that would enumerate the necessary and sufficient conditions of a text or action to be humorous, a teleological^ that investigates the aims of humor, and a substantialist that deals with the contents of humorous actions. Chapter 1 gives a survey of the literature on the subject, ranging from Plato down to Freud and-of course-Raskin. Among others the author touches on the work of such illustruous personalities as Theophrast,