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Jab lines in narrative jokes
Abstract
Much humor research has been based, so far, on the implicit assumption that the punch line is the only humorous element in a joke. The analysis of the corpus used for the present study shows that more than 70 percent of the narrative jokes examined include humorous elements in the form of one or more jab lines in the set up of the joke before its punch line. Therefore, it seems that humor may be spread all over the joke-text and it is not necessarily restricted to its punch line. Furthermore, a comparison of the script opposition of the punch line with the one(s) found in the jab line(s) of the same narrative joke reveals that the script opposition introduced in the punch line is always new, i.e., it is not found before in the set up of the joke. In this way, jab lines contribute to the humorous effect of the whole joke-text, but, at the same time, they do not ruin the surprise of the punch line. Moreover, jab lines included in the set up of narrative jokes may actually help the audience pass gradually from the bona-fide to the non-bona-fide mode of communication.
... 16 The punch line and the jab line are the basic tools for identifying and analyzing the humor in a text. Both are defined as usually short utterances which include a script opposition but which differ regarding their position and function: the punch line always occurs at the end of the humorous text and provokes the reinterpretation of the text, whereas the jab line can be found at any point in a humorous text and does not provoke reinterpretation, but is fully integrated in the humorous text, without disrupting its flow (Attardo, 2001: 82-3;Tsakona, 2003bTsakona, , 2006 The Narrative Construction of Identities in Critical Education ...
Following, among others, Bucholtz and Hall (2003, 2005), in this Section we will attempt a more systematic definition of the term identity. As Riley (2007: 70) suggests, for more than 2,000 years, identity has been a ‘philosophical aporia’ relating to intractable issues, such as ‘the monadic against the multiple self’ and ‘the relationship of the individual to society’.
... 16 The punch line and the jab line are the basic tools for identifying and analyzing the humor in a text. Both are defined as usually short utterances which include a script opposition but which differ regarding their position and function: the punch line always occurs at the end of the humorous text and provokes the reinterpretation of the text, whereas the jab line can be found at any point in a humorous text and does not provoke reinterpretation, but is fully integrated in the humorous text, without disrupting its flow (Attardo, 2001: 82-3;Tsakona, 2003bTsakona, , 2006 The Narrative Construction of Identities in Critical Education ...
In Part I, we argued that discourse (along with other semiotic behaviors) is a mechanism for constructing identities which are not innate or a priori given or available to individuals. Discourse contributes to the diffusion, the impact, or even the (direct or indirect) imposition of conceptions and convictions on individuals. At the same time, it offers them the possibility of managing, contesting, or even resisting the aforesaid ideological demands and, in the end, of creating their own versions of identity. By considering discourse as a medium of impositions from above and choices from below, we concluded that identities emerge as interactive processes in specific frames of social relations and communicative contexts.
... 16 The punch line and the jab line are the basic tools for identifying and analyzing the humor in a text. Both are defined as usually short utterances which include a script opposition but which differ regarding their position and function: the punch line always occurs at the end of the humorous text and provokes the reinterpretation of the text, whereas the jab line can be found at any point in a humorous text and does not provoke reinterpretation, but is fully integrated in the humorous text, without disrupting its flow (Attardo, 2001: 82-3;Tsakona, 2003bTsakona, , 2006 The Narrative Construction of Identities in Critical Education ...
The main research issue of this book is the analysis of conversational narratives, and in particular whether and how conversational narratives are a suitable source for investigating identities. The concepts of identity/identities and discourse are used throughout the book and are the central point in Part I. Consequently, we consider it useful in this introductory Section to discuss certain pretheoretical approaches to the term identity/identities based on its everyday use, which will be the guidelines for the investigation that follows, and to clarify, at least at a preliminary level, how we perceive the term discourse.
... Several research works highlight different aspects, e.g. script opposition (Brock 2004;Morreal 2004;Hempelmann and Ruch 2005;Archakis and Tsakona 2005), logical mechanisms (Attardo, Hempelmann and Di Maio 2002), narrative strategy (Tsakona 2003) or target (Archakis and Tsakona 2005). Leonor Ruiz Gurillo examines narrative strategy in the monologues of Andreu Buenafuente -a popular Spanish comedian. ...
... Some of them have focused in particular on the distinction between jab and punch line and their function in the text (cf. Tsakona 2003Tsakona , 2007Antonopoulou and Sifianou 2003). The GTVH has also attracted some criticism. ...
... Moreover, this study expands on the structural form of children's humorous Production: Children can produce verbal and/or artistic multiple events employing incongruities, their resolution leading to producing empowerment events narratives (Nwokah et al. 2013) suggesting that children do not use punch lines at the end of their stories, but rather jab lines (Attardo, 2001). Tsakona (2003) suggests that narrative jokes, children's humorous stories in this study, include jab lines, (humorous lines), within and throughout the story adding to the story's funniness. Moreover, multiple humorous events (jab lines) are employed in developing a humorous story and these are either within the Theory of the Absurd or within the Empowerment theory. ...
This study aimed to investigate young children’s ability to appreciate and produce humor. Specifically the research questions were: 1. What aspects of a humorous visual stimulus do children of the ages 4–7 years appreciate and why? 2. What are the differences, if any, in producing a humorous story and a drawing? Are these related to creativity variables? 3. How are children’s appreciation and production of visual humor related to the Theory of the Absurd and the Empowerment theory (Loizou 2005, Infant humor: The theory of the absurd and the empowerment theory.
... See also Brock (2009). 10 Cf. also Tsakona (2003), who demonstrates that jab lines also occur in the set up of narrative jokes. failed humour. ...
In this article, some communicative issues concerning the borders of humorous intent are modelled. In a theoretical section, the relationship between humorous intent, Neo-Gricean maxims and phases of humorous discourse are discussed. Here, a Humour Maxim is proposed to be the communicative equivalent of humorous intent. For this maxim, a principle of delayable fulfilment is introduced. Then, humorous intent and its absence are identified in two participations frameworks which arise from certain formats of TV comedies: a sitcom within a sitcom and candid camera comedies. Finally, some concrete constellations of humorous intent are discussed: humorous intent in the audience only (involuntary humour), humorous intent signalled, but not realized, and humorous intent withdrawn.
... Several research works highlight different aspects, e.g. script opposition (Brock 2004;Morreal 2004;Hempelmann and Ruch 2005;Archakis and Tsakona 2005), logical mechanisms (Attardo, Hempelmann and Di Maio 2002), narrative strategy (Tsakona 2003) or target (Archakis and Tsakona 2005). Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo examines narrative strategy in the monologues of Andreu Buenafuente -a popular Spanish comedian. ...
Irony and Humor: From pragmatics to discourse is a complete updated panorama of linguistic research on irony and humor, based on a variety of perspectives, corpora and theories. The book collects the most recent contributions from such diverse approaches as Relevance Theory, Cognitive Linguistics, General Theory of Verbal Humor, Neo-Gricean Pragmatics or Argumentation. The volume is organized in three parts referring to pragmatic, perspectives, mediated, discourse, and conversational interaction. This book will be higly relevant for anyone interested in pragmatics, discourse analysis as well as social sciences.
... Humour can be described as the comic, absurd or incongruous quality that causes amusement (Matthews, 2011). Narrative joke, one example of humour, is a brief fictional dialogue that is concluded with the punch line (line that contradicts with expectation and general knowledge and causes reinterpretation of the whole text) (Tsakona, 2003). One of the theories in determining what one describes as humourous is Incongruity Theory. ...
Successful language acquisition requires extensive word knowledge. However, learners are reportedly unable to increase their word knowledge due to insufficient meaningful input in the language classrooms. This paper intended to present another tool to encourage learners’ vocabulary development. It examined the effect(s) of using short narrative jokes on ESL learners’ word comprehension and retention. The study involved an experiment in which two intact groups of tertiary students attended four reading sessions. In each reading session, before they began reading, the participants were given a vocabulary test (pre-test) to measure vocabulary recognition of the target words. The experimental group was then exposed to short humourous text while the control group was exposed to comparable non-humourous text. After each reading session, the participants were given immediate vocabulary test (post-test 1) to measure vocabulary comprehension. After a week, the participants were given delayed vocabulary test (post-test 2) to measure vocabulary retention. The participants’ gain scores were assessed by comparing their post-test 1 to pre-test score. Lastly, the gain scores and scores in delayed vocabulary test of the two groups were compared using t test. The findings of this study indicated that humour could relatively influence word comprehension and retention. One of its implications is for language teachers to include humour in vocabulary teaching and learning.
... Thus, the analysis of cartoons by the GTVH method can reveal semiotic resources involved in the production of humour in cartoons. As in this study, cartoons can be analysed through the following six GTVH information sources, respectively (Attardo, 2001;Tsakona, 2003Tsakona, , 2009): ...
The construction industry in developed and developing countries is almost always among industries with poor safety records. In decreasing the numbers of safety incidents, society’s perception of construction workers, who are the central part of the occupational health and safety issue, can be an important learning tool for these workers in terms of self-criticism. Therefore, society’s perception of the responsibility of workers for occupational health and safety is presented by means of cartoons. For this objective, seven cartoons exhibited in the International Construction Accidents Cartoon Contest held in Turkey are examined through the General Theory of Verbal Humour, a semiotic analysis method. As the main finding, construction-based occupational health and safety perceptions of countries were found not to change significantly. Consequently, these results can have a function in guiding workers and worker unions to revise and manage the general perception of society about them. Moreover, such cartoons can be used as a lingua franca for occupational health and safety training in international construction projects where multinational migrant workers are employed.
... In jokes, the set-up and the punchline are a self-contained unit, often told by the same speaker and, even though jokes may sometimes be told as a gloss on a situation (Oring 2003), they may also be bracketed out from their conversational context without altering the rest of the conversation. Jab lines, on the other hand, should not bring conversation to a halt; rather, they should contribute to the flow of the exchange (Tsakona 2003). However, they are often interjected in response to a speaker's prior turn at talk, and therefore, their occurrence is much less predictable. ...
Utilizing Attardo's general theory of verbal humor and Meyer's rhetorical functions of humor, as well as insights from conversation analysis, this paper presents a model linking form and function in conversational humor. In the model, an initial pair of incongruous scripts (i.e., a script opposition) is activated as membership categories are referenced in the set-up. The punch-or jab-line introduces a second script opposition that "resolves" or makes sense out of the first opposition in terms of preference organization (presenting either a preferred or dispreferred response). When examining conversational humor, those preferences have implications in terms of uniting or dividing interlocutors. If the resolution aligns with the preferred entity/activity of the set-up, then the effect should be unifying. If the resolution does not align (i.e., is dispreferred), then the effect should be divisive. The model is used to analyze two jokes and two conversational sequences.
... 16 The punch line and the jab line are the basic tools for identifying and analyzing the humor in a text. Both are defined as usually short utterances which include a script opposition but which differ regarding their position and function: the punch line always occurs at the end of the humorous text and provokes the reinterpretation of the text, whereas the jab line can be found at any point in a humorous text and does not provoke reinterpretation, but is fully integrated in the humorous text, without disrupting its flow (Attardo, 2001: 82-3;Tsakona, 2003bTsakona, , 2006 The Narrative Construction of Identities in Critical Education ...
Based on approaches from discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, this study proposes an analytical model focusing on the linguistic and discursive means narrators use to construct a variety of identities in everyday stories. This model is further exploited in language teaching to cultivate students' cultural sensitivity and critical literacy. © Argiris Archakis and Villy Tsakona 2012. All rights reserved.
... The main collections and examples from Carter concern what are termed 'narrative jokes' (Tsonka, 2003). As Carter collected these from medical personnel, and medicine is concerned with body parts and bodily functions, it is not surprising that many of these narrative jokes might be considered 'raunchy' by some readers; the author does point this out in his discussions on taboo. ...
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... While there are discrepancies between researchers regarding the applicability of all six knowledge resources, the application of the GTVH dominates the humourological landscape and has been applied in varying forms (see Brock, 2004;Tsakona, 2003;Attardo, Hempelmann & Di Maio, 2002). On the other hand, researchers have also attempted to refute the application of the GTVH to authentic joke carrying texts. ...
This thesis articulates the ways in which complex multimodal contemporary political
satire, exemplified in The Colbert Report, functions as meaningful socio-political
commentary highlighting the various failings and shortcomings of satirical targets. ‘Soft
news’ programming has gained increasing popularity as a unique discursive site
combining formerly differentiated styles and forms of socio-political discussion and
commentary. The growing cultural relevance of “soft news” programming deserves
critical investigation as a form of socially positive semiotic activity. Using a combination
of semantic functional methodologies, this study shows how systemic functional
frameworks for analysing multimodal semiosis and semantic theories of script
incongruity can be employed in the analysis of contemporary multimodal political satire.
Going further, this study explains the ways in which “implied” satirical meaning and the
illocutionary intent of political satire is retrievable from specific cohesive mechanisms
represented in the lexico-grammar of the incongruous semantic scripts which create
humour. An explanation of the various micro-semiotic humour instances and their
combinatory illocutionary force exemplifies multimodal contemporary political satire as
meaningful and ideologically infused socio-political commentary functioning as socially
positive semiotic activity, highlighting the failings and shortcomings of satirical targets to
breed socio-political awareness and influence ideological orientation. In this way The
Colbert Report is a new and unique form of political satire utilizing intersemiotic
mechanisms to provide commentary regarding the political and socio-cultural climate of
the United States in a humorous fashion.
... Both are based on a script opposition (see section 1 and below), but their textual position and function are different. While the punch line is final and causing a surprise effect, jab lines are humorous elements fully integrated in the text and do not disrupt its flow ( Attardo, 2001:29, 82;Tsakona, 2003Tsakona, , 2007b). Both kinds of humorous lines can be analyzed using six knowledge resources (henceforth KRs): ...
In cartoons, meaning and humor are produced either via two semiotic modes, the verbal and the visual, or solely via the visual mode. Due to their condensed form and to the interaction between language and image, cartoons are often considered to be a direct and easy to process means of communicating a message. The present study aims at showing that cartoon humor is not always easy to grasp fully, therefore the reader should pay attention to all the verbal and visual details of each cartoon. For this purpose, a General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) framework of analysis is adopted, while cognitive and semiotic approaches are complementary and relevant in this respect. Special attention is paid to exaggeration, contradiction, and metaphor as humorous mechanisms and to the hyperdetermination of humor, which seems to result from the interaction of verbal and visual elements and from the use of visual metaphor. By bringing to the surface some of the common humorous mechanisms in both the verbal and the visual mode, the present analysis aims at taking the GTVH a step further towards the unification of linguistic and semiotic approaches to humor.
Η ευρεία μετακίνηση προσφυγικών και μεταναστευτικών πληθυσμών προς τον ευρωπαϊκό χώρο, ιδιαίτερα από το 2015 και εξής, είχε ως αποτέλεσμα την (ανα)παραγωγή και παγίωση ποικίλων στάσεων, απόψεων, πρακτικών προς αυτούς, οι οποίες κυμαίνονταν από αντιρατσιστικές και αλληλέγγυες έως ρατσιστικές και ξενοφοβικές. Οι στάσεις αυτές αντανακλώνται και στα χιουμοριστικά κείμενα, τα οποία μέσα από έναν εύθυμο, διασκεδαστικό και φαινομενικά «αθώο» τρόπο προβάλλουν «σοβαρές» πτυχές της κοινωνικής πραγματικότητας (Τsakona 2019: 112). Στο παρόν άρθρο, αντλώντας από τη Γενική Θεωρία του Γλωσσικού Χιούμορ(Attardo 1994, 2001) και την κριτική προσέγγιση του Fairclough (1989, 1992), αναλύουμε ανέκδοτα σχετικά με μεταναστευτικά/προσφυγικά θέματα. Υποστηρίζουμε ότι ο ρατσιστικός λόγος εναντίον των «ξένων» δεν προωθείται μόνο μέσω της ρητορικής μίσους, αλλά εμφανίζεται υπόρρητα και σε ανέκδοτα τα οποία έχουν κατά βάση αντιρατσιστική στόχευση και πρόθεση. Μέσα από την ανάλυσή μας, εντοπίζουμε ένα σύγχρονο και πιο «ύπουλο» είδος ρατσισμού, τον ρευστό ρατσισμό (Weaver 2016), ο οποίος αναδύεται στα (προσχηματικά) αντιρατσιστικά ανέκδοτα είτε μέσω του αποκλεισμού του/της «Άλλου/ης» είτε μέσω της αφομοίωσής του/της.
Humor is a prevalent feature in many forms of interaction. Banter, teasing, irony and sarcasm frequently surface in everyday talk, and conversationalists often engage in telling funny stories if not outright joke-telling. Any complete theory of humor must include its exploitation in and effects on interaction, taking into account such matters as gender, power, solidarity, politeness and identity. Such an interactional theory of humor goes beyond a purely pragmatic description of jokes and joking. The data for an interactional analysis of humor can not be limited to joke texts in books. Humor competence must include knowing how to perform and how to receive and respond to humor and jokes, and this will encompass an account of timing for both the tellers and recipients.
This paper is a contribution to the study of the resolution of incongruities in humor. We reject some criticisms of logical mechanisms and analyze three different types of incongruities in humorous texts: completely backgrounded, backgrounded, and foregrounded. Only the latter are addressed by logical mechanisms. We identify a mechanism of “incongruity shifting” which may be a candidate for “deep” logical mechanism (along the lines of “parallelism” in Attardo et al. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 15: 1–44, 2002). We finally discuss the similarities between Oring's (Engaging humor, University of Illinois Press, 2003) “appropriate incongruity” theory and our approach, which lead us to the conclusion that all resolution of incongruity in jokes is partial.
Recent pragmatic research focuses on the issue of identity construction via humor. In this paper, we intend to investigate how could the General Theory of Verbal Humor (in Attardo 2001, henceforth GTVH) contribute to the analysis of humor as a means of iden[1]tity construction. Among the six knowledge resources proposed by the GTVH we focus on target and script opposition. The first one helps us identify whose behavior our young informants consider incongruous and, at the same time, worth laughing at. The second one reveals the specific (and often implicit) norms ard values shared by conversationalists. We illustrate our points u mg Greek conversational narratives coming from same-gen[1]der groups of young Greek males and females. We show that, in our data, conversationa[1]lists select targets either outside or inside their group. Special emphasis is given to sel[1]f-targeting humor (henceforth STH) and its function as a discourse strategy used for iden[1]tity construction. Previous research on this kind of humor has revealed that STH can be interpreted as an index of either lack or presence of self-confidence and self-esteem. Our data show that, by using STH, our interlocutors indirectly point to a positive self-image. In all cases, the target of humor reinforces the existing bonds among group members, while bringing the evaluative dimension of humor to the surface and revealing the group values. Finally, our analysis brings an interesting pragmatic difference to the surface. This difference is related to the effect of humor on the identities constructed: through humor directed at other people’s behavior (in the cases of out- and in-group targets), the speaker eventually de-legitimizes those others, while, through self-targeting humor, the speaker aims at legitimizing him/herself and his/her own actions.
Analysis of spontaneous joke-telling performances from recordings of natural conversation shows that they elicit laughter at various junctures, not just after the final punch line. Some joke texts contain multiple punch lines or funny passages in their set up, but much of the laughter during the telling of a joke is keyed to other features of the joke text or to the performance itself. In particular, joke recipients often laugh in response to the mere preface of a joke or to the initial line of exposition in the introduction. Recipients may also laugh at what they take to be the punch line of a joke. Moreover, groups of listeners tend to coordinate their laughter at specific points in the performance. These observations have consequences for the definition and subclassification of joke texts. They also reveal listening practices relevant for recipients of jokes in conversation.
This dissertation addresses the possibilities for humor to serve as political action. While humor has been studied since Aristotle, and many theories about its efficacy as a rhetorical form abound, most claim at best that humor produces a lesser effect than other, more serious forms of discourse. When audiences, institutions, contemporary scholars and even the comics themselves address humor, they tend to reify the theories of foundational scholars - theories that serve to circumscribe the place of humor as necessarily non-political and non-efficacious. Such modalities of humor span many theories, including intentional forms such as irony, parody and satire, spatializations such as the carnivalesque, effects based criteria such as pleasure and/or laughter (as opposed to pain and/or outrage). When taken up at an institutional level (whether by legal or economic institutions, or even by scholarly institutions), these pre-set modalities comprise sets of rules, or litige, that preempt the possibility for some of humor's most progressive functions. To reexamine humor, this project begins with the most marginalized of humorous forms, stand-up comedy. Beginning from a standpoint of critical rhetoric, routines by comics such as Lewis Black, Lenny Bruce, Dave Chappelle, Margaret Cho, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Michael Richards and Sarah Silverman are used to display the limitations of contemporary theories, as well as to point out the possibility for stand-up comedy to enact critique. The primary finding is that humorous techniques create a separation between the stated and the inferred, which provides possibilities for audience judgment that is prudential in the sense of operating without pre-set models. The possibility of prudential judgment enables humor to enact détournement, the detour, diversion, hijacking, corruption or misappropriation of the spectacle.
A great number of war jokes were generated in the Jordanian streets during the Gulf War. The jokes reflect the political and social beliefs and attitudes of the overwhelming majority of the Jordanians toward the different parties involved in the war. A sample of the jokes was selected and analyzed for cohesion and coherence. The analysis addressed four parameters: 1. the role of world knowledge in creating coherence; 2. the role of hierarchic structure of the content of the jokes; 3. the role of pragmatic strategies in maintaining communication among the parties involved in the joke; and 4. the role of lexical relations and word-play in signalling underlying relations and intentions.
The paper presents a survey of all known logical mechanisms (defined as the resolution of the incongruity of a joke) and a first attempt at a taxonomy. It then explores the possibility of representing several concept of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) using first set theory and eventually graph theory when it becomes apparent that sets are insufficiently powerful to do so. Since script theory was originally formulated in terms of graphs, this (partial) formalization of the GTVH is of some interest, since it shows that at least some concepts of the GTVH can be represented formally. Specifically, we show (a) that script overlapping and opposition can be modeled using set and graph theory, and (b) that there exists a class of logical mechanisms that can be modeled using mappings between subgraphs.
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This book presents a theory of long humorous texts based on a revision and an upgrade of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH), a decade after its first proposal. The theory is informed by current research in psycholinguistics and cognitive science. It is predicated on the fact that there are humorous mechanisms in long texts that have no counterpart in jokes. The book includes a number of case studies, among them Oscar Wilde's Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Allais' story Han Rybeck. A ground-breaking discussion of the quantitative distribution of humor in select texts is presented. © 2001 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved.
The results of a study based on a corpus of 2000 printed jokes are presented. Four hypotheses, based on the Isotopy-Disjunction Model, were tested, and the results were found to conform with them. The hypotheses were: that referential jokes outnumber verbal jokes (puns); within the set of verbal jokes, those that are based on lexical ambiguity for the disjunctive function outnumber all the other categories of verbal jokes (that is, syntactic and alliterative disjunctive jokes); that the position of the disjunctor in the sentence is final, and it is the rheme of the sentence; within the set of verbal jokes, the jokes in which the disjunctor follows the connector outnumber the jokes in which disjunctor and connector coincide.
This book investigates the forms and functions of storytelling in everyday conversation. It develops a rhetoric of everyday storytelling through an integrated approach to both the internal structure and the contextual integration of narrative passages. It aims at a more complete picture of oral narrative through analysis of a wider range of natural data, including personal anecdotes told for humor, put-down stories told for self-aggrandizement, family stories retold to ratify membership and so on, as well as marginal stories and narrative-like passages to delineate the boundaries of conversational storytelling and to test the analytical techniques proposed.
Using transcriptions of stories from everyday talk, Norrick explores disfluencies, formulaicity and repetition as teller strategies and listener cues alongside global phenomena such as retelling and narrative macrostructures. He also extends his analysis to narrative jokes from conversation and to narrative passages in drama, namely Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” and Beckett’s “Endgame”.
A number of authors have proposed various theories on the nature of humor. Keith-Spiegel (1972) gives an excellent survey and bibliography of the subject, dividing the various theories into: (A) Biological, Instinct and Evolution; (B) Superiority; (C) Incongruity; (D) Surprise; (E) Ambivalence; (F) Release and Relief; (G) Configurational; (H) Psychoanalytic. Rather than going into Keith-Spiegel's classification (which is mainly of a psychological nature), 1 will refer the readers to her article, for the sake of brevity. Let me point out, however, that none of the above-mentioned theories takes the linguistic mechanisms into account which are essential to creating “the humoristic attitude” (Freud 1930). In the present paper, through an approach to humor based on the unstated bonds ever-present in discourse, these mechanisms are defined and analyzed.
A prevalent theory about the cognitive aspect of humor is that most humorous stimuli are characterized by incongruity that is first perceived and then resolved. It is argued here that the combination of incongruity and resolution is not sufficient for constituting a joke. It is proposed here that the resolution should be inadequate as well; in other words, that it is brought about by the protagonist's neglect of an essential piece of information that is not explicitly stated but is typically assumed or inferred and that actually disambiguates the situation. Thus, the incongruity only appears to be resolved because the resolution conflicts with valid reasoning made previously. The resolution is seemingly appropriate but virtually inappropriate. A joke is understood when the listener realizes not only the incongruity or its possible resolution, but also the predication of the resolution on overlooked knowledge that seems essential for proper interpretation. In contrast with the concept of a joke which is a category of stimuli, funniness is regarded as a continuum.
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