✘ An Inference-centered analysis of jokes: The Intersecting Circles Model
of Humorous Communication
✘ Introduction
An inference-centred analysis of jokes:
The Intersecting Circles Model of humorous Communication
An inference-centred analysis of jokes:
The Intersecting Circles Model of humorous Communication
According to Yus, there are several classifications of jokes that have been
proposed. The latest classification (Yus 2010, figure 1) Jokes are divide into
two classification between intentional and unintentional humour.
Postmaster: Here’s your five-cent stamp. Shopper: [with arms full of
bundles]: Do I have to stick it on myself? Postmaster: Nope. On the
envelope.
Q: Why does Japan have Fukushima and California have all the lawyers? A:
Because Japan got first pick!
In (1), the speaker predicts that the hearer’s identification of the sentence
structure of the
shopper’s question will be “Do I have to [stick it on] [myself]?,” but this
interpretation is
Invalidated immediately and replaced with a more unlikely (but eventually
correct) “Do I have
to [stick it] [on myself]?” On the other hand, (2) only focuses on the common
social stereotype
of lawyers as criticisable people.
This chapter organize as follows:
• First, provide a brief description of how relevance theory (Sperber &
Wilson 1995) pictures interpretation as a mutual parallel adjustment of
explicit content, implicatures and contextual information.
• Second, a description of the frames, schemas and scripts that we
retrieve in the interpretation of any utterance is provided and the
heterogeneous terminology available is unified under the generic label of
make-sense frames.
• Third, the notion of cultural frame is addressed and its stereotypical
and collective qualities assessed.
• Fourth, the mind reading ability of humans is introduced, together with
the part that it plays in the generation of humorous effects.
• Fifth, some examples of jokes illustrate how all the steps of the
aforementioned mutual parallel adjustment of comprehension according
to relevance theory may be exploited in the generation of humorous
effects.
, • Sixth, some example illustrate how make-sense frames and cultural
frames may be exploited for the sake of humour.
• Seventh, the Intersecting Circles Model of humorous communication is
proposed and the seven types of jokes that it comprises are briefly
described and exemplified.
✘ Utterance Interpretation as mutual parallel adjustment
According to relevance theory that has been deliberated above,
comprehension involves decoding and inference, performed automatically by
the language module of the brain, which identifies the semantic
representation of the speaker’s utterance, a zero-context string called
“logical form” of the utterance. This phase is called decoding, the only
context free phase of interpretation according to relevance theory. Logical
forms are grammatical accepted strings of words, “a well-formed formula, a
structured set of constituents.
A context dependent enrichment of this logical form takes place the subject
to the individual’s biologically rooted search for relevance in any stimuli that
how human brain processes. In Yus (2008) For the example :
Tom: So... Did you buy that table I told you about?
Ann: It is too wide and uneven.
So, for understanding Ann correctly, Tom will make inferences in order to
develop mapping logical form provided by Ann’s utterance which is
“something is too wide and uneven” into a relevant interpretation. In this
particular case, Tom have to Retrieved information from context in order to
find a referent “it” refers to “the table”, to disambiguate “uneven”. A table
can be “uneven” in several ways: because its surface is uneven or broke or
because its legs are not properly levelled and “too wide” (too wide [for
what?]). Then utterance expressed by Anna are :
The table that you told me about is too wide to go through the bedroom door
and its surface is uneven.
This is not the actual answer to Tom’s question, so Tom will also combined
with further contextual information in order to get the intended answers. In
this case, encyclopaedic contextual information will be accessed by Tom
about how unlikely it is for a person to buy a table that does not go through
the door and whose surface is uneven (implicated premise). This contextual
information will help Tom reach, as an implicature, the intended interpretation
✘ (6) Anna didn’t buy the table that I told her about.
of Humorous Communication
✘ Introduction
An inference-centred analysis of jokes:
The Intersecting Circles Model of humorous Communication
An inference-centred analysis of jokes:
The Intersecting Circles Model of humorous Communication
According to Yus, there are several classifications of jokes that have been
proposed. The latest classification (Yus 2010, figure 1) Jokes are divide into
two classification between intentional and unintentional humour.
Postmaster: Here’s your five-cent stamp. Shopper: [with arms full of
bundles]: Do I have to stick it on myself? Postmaster: Nope. On the
envelope.
Q: Why does Japan have Fukushima and California have all the lawyers? A:
Because Japan got first pick!
In (1), the speaker predicts that the hearer’s identification of the sentence
structure of the
shopper’s question will be “Do I have to [stick it on] [myself]?,” but this
interpretation is
Invalidated immediately and replaced with a more unlikely (but eventually
correct) “Do I have
to [stick it] [on myself]?” On the other hand, (2) only focuses on the common
social stereotype
of lawyers as criticisable people.
This chapter organize as follows:
• First, provide a brief description of how relevance theory (Sperber &
Wilson 1995) pictures interpretation as a mutual parallel adjustment of
explicit content, implicatures and contextual information.
• Second, a description of the frames, schemas and scripts that we
retrieve in the interpretation of any utterance is provided and the
heterogeneous terminology available is unified under the generic label of
make-sense frames.
• Third, the notion of cultural frame is addressed and its stereotypical
and collective qualities assessed.
• Fourth, the mind reading ability of humans is introduced, together with
the part that it plays in the generation of humorous effects.
• Fifth, some examples of jokes illustrate how all the steps of the
aforementioned mutual parallel adjustment of comprehension according
to relevance theory may be exploited in the generation of humorous
effects.
, • Sixth, some example illustrate how make-sense frames and cultural
frames may be exploited for the sake of humour.
• Seventh, the Intersecting Circles Model of humorous communication is
proposed and the seven types of jokes that it comprises are briefly
described and exemplified.
✘ Utterance Interpretation as mutual parallel adjustment
According to relevance theory that has been deliberated above,
comprehension involves decoding and inference, performed automatically by
the language module of the brain, which identifies the semantic
representation of the speaker’s utterance, a zero-context string called
“logical form” of the utterance. This phase is called decoding, the only
context free phase of interpretation according to relevance theory. Logical
forms are grammatical accepted strings of words, “a well-formed formula, a
structured set of constituents.
A context dependent enrichment of this logical form takes place the subject
to the individual’s biologically rooted search for relevance in any stimuli that
how human brain processes. In Yus (2008) For the example :
Tom: So... Did you buy that table I told you about?
Ann: It is too wide and uneven.
So, for understanding Ann correctly, Tom will make inferences in order to
develop mapping logical form provided by Ann’s utterance which is
“something is too wide and uneven” into a relevant interpretation. In this
particular case, Tom have to Retrieved information from context in order to
find a referent “it” refers to “the table”, to disambiguate “uneven”. A table
can be “uneven” in several ways: because its surface is uneven or broke or
because its legs are not properly levelled and “too wide” (too wide [for
what?]). Then utterance expressed by Anna are :
The table that you told me about is too wide to go through the bedroom door
and its surface is uneven.
This is not the actual answer to Tom’s question, so Tom will also combined
with further contextual information in order to get the intended answers. In
this case, encyclopaedic contextual information will be accessed by Tom
about how unlikely it is for a person to buy a table that does not go through
the door and whose surface is uneven (implicated premise). This contextual
information will help Tom reach, as an implicature, the intended interpretation
✘ (6) Anna didn’t buy the table that I told her about.
