Název: Humour as a multifunctional strategy to communicate propositional meanings in sitcom discourse : a relevance-theoretic account
Zdrojový dokument: Brno studies in English. 2025, roč. 50, č. 2, s. 107-126
Rozsah
107-126
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Trvalý odkaz (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2024-2-5
Trvalý odkaz (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.82129
Type: Článek
Jazyk
anglicky
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Přístupová práva
otevřený přístup
Upozornění: Tyto citace jsou generovány automaticky. Nemusí být zcela správně podle citačních pravidel.
Abstrakt(y)
This paper views humour as a conversational strategy, whose potential is to serve a number of different, sometimes divergent, goals simultaneously. It will be demonstrated that the sole purpose of humour rarely lies in amusing the audience. Drawing upon the relevance-theoretic view on communication, the objective of the paper is to report on research into a variety of functions that a conversationalist may possibly attain by dint of a humorous episode in sitcom. On the relevance-theoretic approach, it is assumed that the meaning communicated by the speaker can range from fully determinate to less determinate. It will be shown that whilst the former meaning has to do with the recovery of humorous intention, the latter is related to non-humorous functional information. Overall, the paper shows that the functions served by humour can be grouped into the categories of affiliation, aggression or cognitive benefits.
Reference
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[29] Jodłowiec, Maria (2015) The Challenges of Explicit and Implicit Communication: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach. Frankfurt & Main: Peter Lang.
[30] Jodłowiec, Maria and Agnieszka Piskorska (2024) Dynamism of context: A case of joke interpretation. Intercultural Pragmatics 21 (3), 431–449. https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2024-3006
[31] Kozloff, Sarah (2000) Overhearing Film Dialogue. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
[32] Kuipers, Giselinde (2008) The sociology of humor. In: Raskin, Victor (ed.) The Primer of Humor Research. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 361–398.
[33] Martin, Rod A. (2007) The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.
[34] McKeown, Gary (2017) Humor as an ostensive challenge that displays mind-reading ability. In: Streitz, Norbert and Panos Markopoulos (eds.) Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions. Berlin: Springer, 627–639.
[35] Meyer, John C. (2000) Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication. Communication Theory 10 (3), 310–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2000.tb00194.x
[36] Mills, Brett (2005) Television Sitcom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
[37] Mills, Brett (2009) The Sitcom. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press.
[38] Morreall, John (1983) Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany: State University of New York.
[39] Mulkay, Michael (1988) On Humor: Its Nature and its Place in Modern Society. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc.
[40] Neale, Steve and Frank Krutnik (1990) Popular Film and Television Comedy. London, New York: Routledge.
[41] Norrick, Norrick R. (2010) Humor in interaction. Language and Linguistics Compass 4 (4), 232–244. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00189.x
[42] Palmer, Jerry (1994) Taking Humour Seriously. New York, London: Routledge.
[43] Partington, Alan (2006) The Linguistics of Laughter: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Laughter-Talk. New York, London: Routledge.
[44] Piskorska, Agnieszka (2014) A relevance-theoretic perspective on humorous irony and its failure. Humor 27 (4), 661–685. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2014-0095
[45] Piskorska, Agnieszka (2016) Po Co Rozmawiamy? O Funkcjach Komunikacji w Ujęciu Teorii Relewancji. Kraków: Tertium.
[46] Piskorska, Agnieszka and Maria Jodłowiec (2018) Weak communication, joke targets and the punch-line effect: A relevance-theoretic account. Studies in Polish Linguistics 13 (1), 25–44. https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.002.8464
[47] Savorelli, Antonio (2010) Beyond Sitcom: New Directions in American Television Comedy. Jefferson, North Carolina; London: McFarland & Company.
[48] Schnurr, Stephanie and Barbara Plester (2017) Functionalist discourse analysis of humor. In: Attardo, Salvatore (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor. New York, London: Routledge, 309–321.
[49] Sinkeviciute, Valeria (2019) Conversational Humour and (Im)Politeness: A Pragmatic Analysis of Social Interaction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
[50] Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (1986 [1995]) Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell.
[51] Suls, Jerry M. (1983) Cognitive processes in humor appreciation. In: McGhee, Paul E. and Jeffrey H. Goldstein (eds.) Handbook of Humor Research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 39–57.
[52] Wilson, Deirdre and Dan Sperber (2004) Relevance Theory. In: Horn, Laurence R. and Gregory Ward (eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell, 607–632.
[53] Wilson, Deirdre and Robyn Carston (2007) A unitary approach to lexical pragmatics: Relevance, inference and ad hoc concepts. In: Burton-Roberts, Noel (ed.) Pragmatics. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 230–259.
[54] Wieczorek, Magdalena (2021) Humour as a Carrier of Meaning in Sitcom Discourse: A Data-Based Study from a Relevance-Theoretic Perspective. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Warsaw: University of Warsaw.
[55] Yus, Francisco (1998) Relevance Theory and media discourse: A verbal-visual model of communication. Poetics 25 (5), 293–309. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-422X(97)00020-X
[56] Yus, Francisco (2002) Stand-up comedy and cultural spread: The case of sex roles. Babel A.F.I.A.L. 11, 245–292.
[57] Yus, Francisco (2003) Humor and the search for relevance. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9), 1295–1331.
[58] Yus, Francisco (2004) Pragmatics of humorous strategies in El Club de la Comedia. In: Márquez Reiter, Rosina and Maria Elena Placencia (eds.) Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 320–344. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.123.25yus
[59] Yus, Francisco (2005) Dave Allen's stand-up monologues: An epidemiological approach. In: Mateo, José and Francisco Yus (eds.) Thistles. A Homage to Brian Hughes. Volume 2: Essays in Memoriam. Alicante: University of Alicante, 317–344.
[60] Yus, Francisco (2016) Humour and Relevance. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[61] Ziv, Avner (1984) Personality and Sense of Humor. New York: Springer.
[2] Attardo, Salvatore (2001) Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
[3] Bednarek, Monika (2010) The Language of Fictional Television: Drama and Identity. London, New York: Continuum.
[4] Bell, Allan (1984) Language style as audience design. Language in Society 13 (2), 145–204.
[5] Brock, Alexander (2011) Bumcivillian: Systematic aspects of humorous communication in comedies. In: Piazza, Roberta, Monika Bednarek and Fabio Rossi (eds.) Telecinematic Discourse: Approaches to the Language of Films and Television Series. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 263–280.
[6] Bubel, Claudia (2008) Film audiences as overhearers. Journal of Pragmatics 40 (1), 55–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.10.001
[7] Bubel, Claudia (2011) Relationship impression formation: How viewers know people on the screen are friends. In: Piazza, Roberta, Monika Bednarek and Fabio Rossi (eds.) Telecinematic Discourse: Approaches to the Language of Films and Television Series. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 225–247.
[8] Carrell, Amy (1997) Humor communities. Humor 10 (1), 11–24. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1997.10.1.11
[9] Carston, Robyn (2004) Relevance Theory and the saying/ implicating distinction. In: Horn, Laurence and Gregory Ward (eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell, 633–656.
[10] Clark, Herbert H. and Thomas B. Carlson (1992) Hearers and speech acts. In: Clark, Herbert H. (ed.) Arenas of Language Use. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press & Center for the Study of Language and Information, 205–247.
[11] Culpeper, Jonathan (2005) Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The weakest link. Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1), 35–72. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.35
[12] Dynel, Marta (2011) "I'll be there for you!" On participation-based sitcom humour. In: Dynel, Marta (ed.) The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 311–333.
[13] Dynel, Marta (2013) Humorous phenomena in dramatic discourse. European Journal of Humor Research 1 (1), 22–60.
[14] Dynel, Marta (2015) Impoliteness in the service of verisimilitude in film interaction. In: Dynel, Marta and Jan Chovanec (eds.) Participation in Public and Social Media Interaction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 157–182.
[15] Dynel, Marta (2018) Irony, Deception and Humour: Seeking the Truth about Overt and Covert Untruthfulness. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
[16] Forabosco, Giovannantonio (1992) Cognitive aspects of the humor process: The concept of incongruity. Humor 5 (1–2), 45–68. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1992.5.1-2.45
[17] Fredrickson, Barbara (1998) What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology 2 (3), 300-319. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.300
[18] Fredrickson, Barbara (2009) Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals how to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York: Crown Publishers.
[19] Goffman, Erving (1963) Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press.
[20] Goffman, Erving (1981) Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
[21] Graham, Elizabeth E., Michael J. Papa and Gordon P. Brooks (1992) Functions of humor in conversation: Conceptualization and measurement. Western Journal of Communication 56 (2), 161–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570319209374409
[22] Hay, Jennifer (2000) Functions of humor in the conversations of men and women. Journal of Pragmatics 32 (6), 709–742. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00069-7
[23] Hight, Craig (2012) Experiments in parody and satire: Short-form mockumentary series. In: Miller, Cynthia J. (ed.) Too Bold for the Box Office: The Mockumentary from Big Screen to Small. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 73–90.
[24] Holmes, Janet (2000) Politeness, power and provocation: How humour functions in the workplace. Discourse Studies 2 (2), 159–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445600002002002
[25] Holmes, Janet (2006) Sharing a laugh: Pragmatic aspects of humor and gender in the workplace. Journal of Pragmatics 38 (1), 26–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.007
[26] Holmes, Janet and Meredith Marra (2002) Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends. Humor 15 (1), 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2002.006
[27] Jodłowiec, Maria (1991) What makes jokes tick. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 3, 241–253.
[28] Jodłowiec, Maria (2008) What's in the punchline? In: Wałaszewska, Ewa, Marta Kisielewska-Krysiuk, Aniela Korzeniowska and Małgorzata Grzegorzewska (eds.) Relevant Worlds: Current Perspectives on Language, Translation and Relevance Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 67–86.
[29] Jodłowiec, Maria (2015) The Challenges of Explicit and Implicit Communication: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach. Frankfurt & Main: Peter Lang.
[30] Jodłowiec, Maria and Agnieszka Piskorska (2024) Dynamism of context: A case of joke interpretation. Intercultural Pragmatics 21 (3), 431–449. https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2024-3006
[31] Kozloff, Sarah (2000) Overhearing Film Dialogue. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
[32] Kuipers, Giselinde (2008) The sociology of humor. In: Raskin, Victor (ed.) The Primer of Humor Research. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 361–398.
[33] Martin, Rod A. (2007) The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.
[34] McKeown, Gary (2017) Humor as an ostensive challenge that displays mind-reading ability. In: Streitz, Norbert and Panos Markopoulos (eds.) Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions. Berlin: Springer, 627–639.
[35] Meyer, John C. (2000) Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication. Communication Theory 10 (3), 310–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2000.tb00194.x
[36] Mills, Brett (2005) Television Sitcom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
[37] Mills, Brett (2009) The Sitcom. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press.
[38] Morreall, John (1983) Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany: State University of New York.
[39] Mulkay, Michael (1988) On Humor: Its Nature and its Place in Modern Society. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc.
[40] Neale, Steve and Frank Krutnik (1990) Popular Film and Television Comedy. London, New York: Routledge.
[41] Norrick, Norrick R. (2010) Humor in interaction. Language and Linguistics Compass 4 (4), 232–244. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00189.x
[42] Palmer, Jerry (1994) Taking Humour Seriously. New York, London: Routledge.
[43] Partington, Alan (2006) The Linguistics of Laughter: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Laughter-Talk. New York, London: Routledge.
[44] Piskorska, Agnieszka (2014) A relevance-theoretic perspective on humorous irony and its failure. Humor 27 (4), 661–685. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2014-0095
[45] Piskorska, Agnieszka (2016) Po Co Rozmawiamy? O Funkcjach Komunikacji w Ujęciu Teorii Relewancji. Kraków: Tertium.
[46] Piskorska, Agnieszka and Maria Jodłowiec (2018) Weak communication, joke targets and the punch-line effect: A relevance-theoretic account. Studies in Polish Linguistics 13 (1), 25–44. https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.002.8464
[47] Savorelli, Antonio (2010) Beyond Sitcom: New Directions in American Television Comedy. Jefferson, North Carolina; London: McFarland & Company.
[48] Schnurr, Stephanie and Barbara Plester (2017) Functionalist discourse analysis of humor. In: Attardo, Salvatore (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor. New York, London: Routledge, 309–321.
[49] Sinkeviciute, Valeria (2019) Conversational Humour and (Im)Politeness: A Pragmatic Analysis of Social Interaction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
[50] Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (1986 [1995]) Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell.
[51] Suls, Jerry M. (1983) Cognitive processes in humor appreciation. In: McGhee, Paul E. and Jeffrey H. Goldstein (eds.) Handbook of Humor Research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 39–57.
[52] Wilson, Deirdre and Dan Sperber (2004) Relevance Theory. In: Horn, Laurence R. and Gregory Ward (eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell, 607–632.
[53] Wilson, Deirdre and Robyn Carston (2007) A unitary approach to lexical pragmatics: Relevance, inference and ad hoc concepts. In: Burton-Roberts, Noel (ed.) Pragmatics. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 230–259.
[54] Wieczorek, Magdalena (2021) Humour as a Carrier of Meaning in Sitcom Discourse: A Data-Based Study from a Relevance-Theoretic Perspective. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Warsaw: University of Warsaw.
[55] Yus, Francisco (1998) Relevance Theory and media discourse: A verbal-visual model of communication. Poetics 25 (5), 293–309. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-422X(97)00020-X
[56] Yus, Francisco (2002) Stand-up comedy and cultural spread: The case of sex roles. Babel A.F.I.A.L. 11, 245–292.
[57] Yus, Francisco (2003) Humor and the search for relevance. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9), 1295–1331.
[58] Yus, Francisco (2004) Pragmatics of humorous strategies in El Club de la Comedia. In: Márquez Reiter, Rosina and Maria Elena Placencia (eds.) Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 320–344. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.123.25yus
[59] Yus, Francisco (2005) Dave Allen's stand-up monologues: An epidemiological approach. In: Mateo, José and Francisco Yus (eds.) Thistles. A Homage to Brian Hughes. Volume 2: Essays in Memoriam. Alicante: University of Alicante, 317–344.
[60] Yus, Francisco (2016) Humour and Relevance. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[61] Ziv, Avner (1984) Personality and Sense of Humor. New York: Springer.