Theoretical Viewpoints

22

Theoretical Viewpoints

Humor spans the areas of sociology, philosophy, and even physiology. Humor also has to do with the principles of psychoanalysis, linguistics, and cognitive principles.. It is a great influence on almost every area of peoples’ lives. Research into humor has been going on for many years and is huge in its scope. This chapter will be about the linguistic theories of humor and those that have something to do with the goals of the study. Another purpose of this chapter is to decide the importance of the theories in relation to the analysis of texts in this paper.

3.1 Incongruity Theories

The theory of incongruity is one of the most important approaches in the research and definition of humor. Schopenhauer in 1819 described the theory of incongruities:

The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and the laugh itself is just an expression of this incongruity. (In The World as Well and Idea, reprinted in Morreall, 1987, p. 52).

Simply, if funny stories are analyzed with the theory of incongruity, two things are presented in one concept. Both different things are compared to the one concept, and the things then appear to be similar.

As the joke goes along, it becomes obvious that the concept only goes with one of the things and that is what is called the incongruity. Therefore, in general it can be said that humor involves incongruity. (Ritchie, 2004).

Theories of incongruity are dependent upon the cognitive aspect of humor. They are closely related to the linguistic theories of structuralism descent because they are essentialist (Attardo, 1994:49). In additions, that just reinforces the fact that incongruities are to be worked out in some way. The aforementioned theories consider humor as the “linking of disparities” (Monro, 1951:248), “incorporating into one situation what belongs to another” (ibid: 45). In the words of Oring, “humor depends upon the discernment of an appropriate incongruity” (1989:349).

Morreal (1989:12) stated that humans are the only species that enjoys incongruity. He went on to say that humans can identify and enjoy incongruity, and therefore can see the rest of the world in “un-practical” ways. (1989:12). Understanding and having a good time with incongruity has assisted in the development of objectivity and understanding and appreciating humor. (Morreal, 1989: 12)

Shultz (1976) spelled out two different stages of incongruities: resolution and perception. After the incongruity is understood by a lister or reader that it is resolved and humor is the result. For that person, humor or laughter is in the actual incongruity. The incongruity theory then means humor is achieved through a process of several stages: The incongruity is established, then more information is introduced which resolves the incongruity. Shultz (1976:11) demonstrates this in his analysis of “immense heuristic value in accounting for vast samples of humor”.

In the literature, no precise definition of congruity is produced. Rothbart and Pien wrote that humor was a combining cohesion of the “two categories of incongruity and two categories of resolution” (1977:37). Possible or impossible incongruities and complete or incomplete resolution are the potential results. Rothbart and Pien (1977:38) said:

Cognitive aspects of humor would be seen as a function of (a) the number of resolved incongruous elements, (b) the number of incongruity elements remaining unresolved, (c) the degree of incongruity of each element, (d) the difficulty of resolution (e) the degree of resolution. Increases in the first three factors should lead to increase in humor appreciation, while the difficulty of resolution may be ... related to humor.

Those theories that are based on incongruities assert that the humor is in the incongruity itself It is for the listeners to figure it out and resolve the incongruity, and in so doing, the humor is revealed.

3.2 Superiority Theories

In the rhetorical theories of ancient Greek and Roman literature superiority theories of humor are based on derision, aggression, malice and superiority. Ludovici and Rapp (1947, 1951) wrote that humor is supposed to be based on the similarities in the bodily positions between aggressive behavior, such as arguing and laughing. Suls (1977:41), however, wrote that these theories of humor are totally based on the proposition that we laugh at others’ weaknesses and problems. And that they are similar to the views of Hegel, Hobbes, and Plato. These theories also focus on the superiority of the teller of the joke, versus the actual target of that joke, which may or may not be the listener. Keith Spiegel (1972: 7) wrote:

Not all theorists who include the element of superiority as a part of humor believe that laughter is always contemptuous or scornful. Sympathy, congeniality, empathy, and geniality may be combined with the laughter of superiority.

The humor researchers of such superiority theories, such as McDougall (1922) and Rapp(1949) as a way of “getting out” feelings and tendencies toward aggression.

3.3 Release/Relief Theories

Another set of categories of humor are the Release/Relief theories which rely on the relief principle that says that humor and laughter are just ways of releasing stress and inhibitions which come about because of social constrictions. (McGhee, 1983a). The intention of jokes are to help get that relief from the stress. Therefore, if the joke’s listener or listerners feel relief, it has been a good joke. If the audience does not, it is a failure. The most important thing is the effect of the joke on the audience or listener. That way, a joke that is not funny fails as far as the audience is concerned because they cannot decipher what the point of the joke was or do not appreciate its humor at all. Another reason that a joke might “fall flat” is when the audience does not correctly interpret the joke and therefore no humor is achieved. Therefore, it is important to note that these release/relief theories pertain only to the listner’s feelings and psychology and not the joke teller. (Raskin: 1985: 40).

3.4 Raskin’s Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH)

Raskin’s theory (1985) was the first linguistic theory concerning humor which is centered around text. His theory said that humor is produced when the text has two different scripts which are actually opposite in meaning and overlap in the joke, causing humor. Attardo (1994:198) defines a script as

An organized chunk of information about something (in broadest sense). It is a cognitive structure internalized by the speaker which provides the speaker with information on how things are organized.

However, Koestler (1964) had previously written about this very idea focusing on the impact of the two different lines of thought. This process is what he called bisociation. Raskin came up with this idea by using the smenatics of linguistics to illustrate that a joke is found in conflicting “chunks” of dialogue that are the source of the incongruity. The notion of script, therefore, shows that all the information, both intralinguistic and extralinguistic, is included in a lexical unit (Raskin, 1985:81; Attardo, 1994:201). Scripts are connected with other scripts, forming “semantic networks”. Raskin (1985:100) put forth the following to illustrate his theory:

“Is the doctor at home?” the patient asked in his bronchial whisper.

“No,” the doctor’s young and pretty wife whispered in reply.

“Come right in”.

Raskin likens this joke and the differences between the two scripts and said it could be shown as: “the patient comes to the doctor’s house to see the doctor” versus “the patient comes to the doctor’s house not to see the doctor” (Raskin: 110), which would make little sense and probably ruin the humor.

Raskin (1985) also wrote about what he termed the non-bona-fide (humorous) form of communication which is different from bona-fide (serious, information-giving) that the former goes against at least one of the four conversational maxims of Grice’s principles (Grice, 1975) which are quality, quantity, relation and manner. This can be intentional or unintentional by the teller. (Raskin l985: 100

Attardo (1994) asserts that the contrast in scripts is a matter of situation, context, or just opposites. The oppositional theory could be interpreted as the difference between the real situation, the normal state of affairs and the situation. Some typical pairs of opposites are: obscenity \ no obscenity, violence \ no violence, money \ no money, death \ life, bad \ good (Raskin, 1985: 107).

Raskin limits his theory, however, only to certain types of jokes and that is in relation to linguistic form. This is why it did not deal with the differences that are not in the texts, and does not take into account humor or comedy which does not use linguistics. For instance his theory does not deal with sight gags, or what is considered “slapstick” comedy routines, like someone slipping on a banana peel. Also, it does not depend on interpretation, such as when humor depends on the listeners’ interpretation which can be different by different people, or in different situations or societies. .

3.5 The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH)

The General Theory of Verbal Humor is the idea of telling a story or a tale, linguistics and practicality (Attardo, 1994:222). It depends partly on the semantics of the humor and other features, both linguistic and non-linguistic, which occurs by the knowledge of resources (KR) and the similarity of the jokes. It is important to know that this is a change in the semantic script theory of humor (SSTH) by Raskin and Attardo, in orer to enlarge the theory to go over more linguistic areas and go beyond the domain of the mere expressed joke. It brings up six KR’s “which inform the joke” and are the basis of SSTH: SO’s or script oppositions. The five other resources have to do with factors associated with SO—language (LA), narrative strategies (NS), situation (SI), target (TA) which takes in the audience and logical mechanism (LM). .

3.5.1 Script Opposition (SO)

The script opposition is based on Raskin’s semantic theory of humor, which holds that there are two different scripts and these two scripts are opposites in a special way, i.e., good / bad, real / unreal, and so on. Attardo and Raskin (1991: 296) wrote about this theory:

A chunk of structured semantic information, the script can be understood for the purposes of this article as an interpretation of the text of a joke. The main claim of SSTH is that the text of a joke is always fully or in part compatible with two distinct scripts and that the two scripts are opposed to each other in a special way.

3.5.2 Logical Mechanism (LM)

The Logical Mechanism KR shows the mechanism that will be used to oppose the script. An example would be a joke that uses figure-ground reversal, false analogy, simple reversal, simple juxtaposition false priming and the juxtaposition of two different situations shown by an ambiguity is a pun. (Attardo, 1991)

3.5.3 Situation (SI)

Situation (SI) is the set of circumstances which “set up” the joke, such as the time, place, or whatever. A joke can be totally different if set up with a different set of circumstances and different situations, as per the script opposition (SO) and logical mechanism (LM).

3.5.4 Target (TA)

The target of a joke is the thing or the person who is the “butt” of the joke. This is an optional parameter of the aforementioned resources.

3.5.5 Narrative Strategy (NS)

This KR decides whether the joke should be in the form of a riddle, a conundrum, religious texts, political texts, sexual texts, or another form.

3.5.6 Language (LA)

LA is primarily about the wording the joke uses. An important aspect of the GTVH is that it has a particular organization of KRs as the following: SO, LM, SI, TA, NS, LA, organized from more different and less determined to the more similar and more determined.

Attardo (1991) says that if the GTVH is right, it will seem like an increase in similarity between pairs of jokes selected along the KR hierarchy will be detected. This is true for all KRs except LM. The question comes up if LM is a KR or not. Attardo (1997) talks about the GTVH compared to the incongruity-resolution theories, and says that LM is actually the resolution of the incongruity, or script opposition (SO). Therefore, LM is seen as an optional KR due to the “nonsense” jokes. These are jokes without resolution, and can be seen as comical or funny. It is possible, also, that LM is only the resolution and not the KR. (Attardo, et al., 2002:4-17).

Ritchie (2001) writes that GTVH is developed more than any other theory of linguistics. Particularly, script-opposition and logical mechanicm KR’s need an almost complete understanding of the world, including many different areas, in order to fully be operational. In the language KR with all its diverse parts such as phonologic, morphophonemic, morphologic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels of language structure, the joke teller, or raconteur, is very much free to some particularly humorous elements and relations. (Ritchie: 121).

3.6 Language-Specific Humor (LSH)

This section talks about the linguistic effects of jokes and their humor. Also, it talks about their humorous effect on language choice, for instance, the interactions between language and jokes. This research also deals with a phenomenon called Language-Specific Humor which which is said to be that kind of humor whose humorous effect is determined by the types and forms of the language used. As it is defined, the study attempted to determine the nature of language-specific humor in regard to various manifestations, to discover and understand the possible differences of language-specific humor that make up the most important part of the humor. Language-specific humor has to do with the various types of humor both spoken and in writing. It has wordplay in it such as pun and non-wordplay such as slips of the tongue, potential ambiguities, non-intended associations and repetitons. (Delabastita, 1997: 6).