English Linguistics

• Formal repetition and semantic repetition
  • Something on the text surface,m
  • Semantic repetition: referring to the same meaning
• Self-/same-speaker repetitionand other-/allo-/second-speaker repetition
  • Characters may repeat their own or other characters’ actions
  • On Cl 1 there is only self-repetition

Data selection

• Goal: arriving at a representative sample of contemporary US sitcoms that feature a laugh track
• Definition of the US sitcom

He noticed one … we need to trust the researcher’s competence that

Data description

Sitcoms in the data: are

Selection of 2 episodes

List of us sitcoms –> laugh track? –> s77

Data transcription, annotion and analysis

What strikes him

• Manual coding of repetiontion in the data

Inter-rater reliability

Typlology of simple repeats in AMSIL:

• Inter-turn repetition and intra-turn repetition
• Lexical repetition of sinlge-word and multiword; exact and partial
• Structural parallelism
• Phonetological
• Character gestures and facial expressions

• HTs are short –> single rather than multiword lexical repeats
• Structural parallelism and prosodic repeats are often used to establish a list of items: example from Anger Management

There is:

• Particularly frequent
• Humorous incongruity
• Repetitive content

Example

• Different sentence, different scenes

Second example

• Compound gas station –> the whole scene is in comparison
  • The local who bought a coffee for 1 $ and wound it expensive and the New Yorker who found it very cheap and was upset about it…

Correlations between intra-turn repetitions

Correlations between inter-turn repeats

• Most typical
• All types of lexical
• Gestures and expressions are put together

Correlation of both intra and inter

• the same type of inter- and intra-turn repeats correlate. Eg. Inter-turn exact single-word repetition with intra-turn exact single word.

Example: Romantically challenged

• semantic incongruitiy between
• encoded repeatedly and on multiple levels

Example from

Case study: the McCarthys

• those are the first humorous turns
• everyone is really after sports.

Hierarchy of frames in the McCarthys

Constitutive repetition

• repetition facilitates production and comprehension
• repetition itself constitutes the humorous incongruity
• repetition creates humorous escalation or accumulation
• repetition establishes a call back on to an earlier …

Cohesive repetition

• repetition links different frames
• repetition contributes to the identity construction of the star
  • if the comedian does the same think over and over again. Charlie sheen there is an overlap with the actor and the character Charlie..

communicational repetition

• mocks or caricatures a previous utterance

• Inter turn lexical repetition: a resource for sitcom humour
• Toher types of repeats can be summarized as different ways of doin repetitiveness of sitcom humour, generally encoded on multiple levels
• Repeats and combinations of repeats are multifunctional, but cohesion is ne key function of inter-turnm whereas estabiishing patterns is a key function of intra-turn repetition
• Semantic repetition structures sitcom humour and narrative of sitcom episodes
• Only few superordinate fram oppositions: framing of the whole episode texta s humorous text rather than a collection of …

How can the sociolinguistic and the cognitive (linguistic) approaches be bridged to understand the social functionality and cognitive creativity of humour at work?

=> Humour as a joint, socio-cognitive practice.

=>Cognitive processes are socially-distributed.

=> Language provides “material anchors” (Hutchins 2005) that scaffold the dynamic sense-making system.

• Context

• Blended e-learning course in English linguistics

• 75 Swiss BA students, 4th semester

• MOODLE (LMS), asynchronous discussion forum (forum postings)

  Students could also meet face-to-face!

• Collaborative paper writing task, group research-paper

  → in-house publication

• Groups have to elect a group moderator (social challenge: peer-

  group)

• Topic for group paper: Gangsta, yo, sez - Hip-hop and spelling   

   change

Positioning, ... , is the discursive process whereby selves are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced story lines. There can be interactive positioning in which what one person says positions another. And there can be reflexive positioning in which one positions oneself.

(Davies and Harré 1990, quoted according to Wetherell et al. 2001: 264)

Step 1:    Layer 1 = Base space.

                Discursive realization of the overall instrumental and relational goals relative to the basic speech activity: Election 

Step 2:    Jocular action-layers = Humour spaces

                Humorous situated conceptualizations are cued to evoke alternative role models.

Step 3:    Blending of action-layers

                The layered conceptualizations invites the creative construction of a novel social role (mappings between the base    

                space and the humorous spaces).

Step 4:    Role integration is a socially-distributed, joint activity.

• The social-normative dimension: speech activities 

•Institutionalized genres: e.g., TALK, ELECTION (Koester 2006)

•Activity types (Levinson 1992) are ways of speaking with structural constraints on:

  a. speech turns

  b. turn design (lexical choice, syntax, etc.)

  c. style

  => strong expectations about allowable contributions in the sequence of utterances

•Structural features scaffold or “anchor” (Hutchins 2005) activity-specific inferential procedures

  => strong interpretive expectations relative to overarching goal and social organization of speech-activity type

•Provide basis for the discursive construction of social realities including social roles (Sarangi & Roberts 1999) 

The linguistic construction of social realities
through cueing

• The dimension of cognitive creativity: action-layering through mental-space building

Trigger an alternative social categorization by cueing an embedded  domain of action that works as a counter-world for non-serious staged communicative acts (Clark 1996: 368)

•Trigger an alternative social categorization by cueing an embedded  domain of action that works as a counter-world for non-serious staged communicative acts (Clark 1996: 368)

•Layering (Clark 1996: Ch. 12) and Blending Theory (Coulson 2000; Fauconnier and Turner 2002):

•Layering = building a mental space for a fictive situated conceptualization that is juxtaposed to the reality space of the actual speech activity

•The interactors are invited to blend the corresponding roles models implied in these incongruous simulations to construct their situated social position.

  = this blend is an arena for pretense play, symbolic play

        (Sinha 2005). 

• Blending as an interactional, socially-distributed process (Cf. Hougaard 2005)

Social position and role are defined by negotiating the blending process interactively:

  a. who cues the input spaces?

  b. who runs the blend and how?

  c. who constrains the mapping process?

  d. what features of the blend are highlighted to

         become part of the ‘social reality’?

• Material anchoring of the blended space

•The become socially grounded the blend must have a material basis, i.e. the blend must be signalled in the semiotic environment (cf. Sinha 2005).

•Humorous linguistic cues, the cartoon, and emoticons work as material anchors that scaffold the socially-distributed blending process epistemically.

•The medium constrains and affords (Gibson 1979) blending by delimiting the material resources for anchoring the creative process.

• Image provides:

•meta-pragmatic invitation to blending ‘ways of speaking’ and activity types.

•multimodal anchor for the students’ own blending practice: humorous role-model

•invitation to analogous self-presentation

• Written medium allows:

•Controlled, stereotypical representation of social language via spelling.

•Witted self-presentation without time-limitations

•Controlled use of emoticons, marking of epistemic distance = marking of staged communication, etc. 

•Mental Space Theory does not account for conceptual integration as socially-distributed joint action (Clark 1996)

•To share the creative reallocation of their novel social positions, the newly created situated social conceptualization must become common ground between the interlocutors (Clark 1996).

     => humour as power 1: who cues the input spaces?

     => humour as power 2: who constrains the mapping process?

•Principle of appreciation (Clark 1996: 359)

  => the blended role must be socially grounded

  => humour as solidarity: the management of spacebuilding and mapping constraints is conversational

  =>  humour as power 3: who grounds the blends?

•Humorous linguistic cues work as material anchors that scaffold the socially-distributed blending process epistemically.

• Freud 1905/1960:

             -Emotional release

• see also Coulson and Oakley 2000; Coulson 2005

             -Advantages and problems of blending theory

• Clark 1997, 2008; Langlotz 2015

             -Categorization and action

• Fauconnier 1994, 1997

             -Mental spaces

• Clark 1997: 64-65

            -Epistemic action for problem-solving

            -Generating meaning through linguistic communication – the coordination problem

             -Shared meaning through the assumption of common    

             -The dimension of cognitive creativity: action-layering through mental-space building

             -Layering

• vgl. Norrick 2006, Norrick & Chiaro 2009

            -Interaction of humour components through performance

• Veale, Feyaerts & Forceville 2013

            -Manipulating processes of comprehension

            -Rapid change of construal with high degree of incongruity!

• Giora 2003

             -Optimal innovation

             -Salience

• Evans & Green 2006: 164

           -The guiding principles of Cognitive Linguistics

• Fauconnier 1997: 149/ Turner

             - Spaces involved in Blending

             - Blending processes

• Langacker 1987: 110

            -Language provides a set of construal instructions to make focal adjustments

            -Langacker’s canonical event model

• Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson 

            -A conversational analysis

• based on Heritage 2001

            -Basic tenets of CA

• Norrick 2003: 1343

             -Announcing a narrative joke in a conversation

             -A more situational form of humour in conversation

             -What characterizes jokes conversationally?

             -Wordplay/punning

             -Irony and sarcasm

• Archakis & Tsakona 2005: 55-56

            - (Interpersonal) Anecdotes

• Ventola 1987

            -The communicative norm of service encounter

• cf. Kunda 1999, Smith & Mackie 2000, Bless et al. 2004

             -Dimensions of social meaning

•  Tuckman/Jensen, 1977

              -Group processes: 5 stages of group development           

• Hay 2000: 717

            -classification of humour functions

• Kant, Schopenhauer; Bergson 1899/1911, Koestler 1964:

            -Incongruity theory

• Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Johnson 1987

            -Image-schemas

• Holmes and Stubbe 2003

            -Attenuating the force of directives

            -Criticizing without threatening the other’s face

            -Self-deprecating humour to lower one’s superiority

            -Criticizing the boss without risking consequences

            -Different humour cultures

            -Parameters that influence different humour cultures at work 

            -Typical instance of humour

• Humour is: “something that makes a person laugh or smile.”

  (Ross 1998: 1) 

• The term ‘humor’ has emerged as a technical term to be intended as covering anything that is (or may) be [sic] perceived as funny, amusing, or laughable. (Attardo 2005: 1)

• Laughter is “the contextualization cue for humor par excellence.” (Kotthoff 2000: 64)

• Laughter has social roots and motivations. We prefer to laugh together.

➔ Psychologically it is one of the worst things to be ridiculed by others (Mobbing!).

• There is uncontrolled (evolutionarily old) and posed (socially learned) laughter.

• Laughter is measurably healthy (cycles of tension and relaxation in the ribcage).

➔ Exhausting

• Due to its social and physiological effects laughter is often forbidden in highly formal contexts (military, church, etc.)

• Something can be humorous without anybody laughing (e.g. shocking sarcasm => Schindler’s list as a comedy).

=> The “shock of the new” does not always trigger laughter as a physiological reaction.

• Some people laugh at the same “joke” while others don’t.

                             => considerable element of subjectivity

• Smiling and laughter can also be signs for embarrassment and unease.

=> Laughter is not exclusive to humour and it is not a universally shared sign for amusement.

Instances of humor included in this analysis are utterances which are identified by the analyst, on the basis of paralinguistic, prosodic and discoursal clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some participants (Holmes and Marra 2000: 67).

1. Physiology: Laughter

2. Semiotic clues in the humour performance

3. Cognition: Incongruity theory

4. Social process and effects: Superiority/aggression theory

5. Emotion: Emotional release theory

• Incongruity theory (Kant, Schopenhauer; Bergson 1899/1911, Koestler 1964)

• Superiority/aggression theory (Hobbes 1650/1840)

• Emotional release (Freud 1905/1960)

• Incongruity theory (Kant, Schopenhauer; Bergson 1899/1911, Koestler 1964)

-Surprise effect: The jocular punch line pulls us out of normal way of understanding the scene.

-Incongruity resolution: The listener must reconcile the incongruity between the two readings è construction of the “unsaid”

-Going beyond the norm: incongruent concepts are combined.

             -Incongruity in the example:

We're live on NBC — and it's right that NBC host this awards show because they're the only network that's fair and impartial. And that's because they're the only network with zero nominations. Nothing in it for them tonight. They don't care, obviously.

a.Surprise effect: speech event of thanking and praising vs. speech event of exposing and criticising

b.The unsaid: The NBC do not have any praiseworthy motives, they just host the show because they cannot do any better with regard to skills and moral stance.

c.Going beyond the norm: new form of opening monologue 

• .Superiority/aggression theory (Hobbes 1650/1840)

-The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others

• Butt of humour: Humour is often directed at a victim: the butt of humour. We love to laugh at the victim’s literal or symbolic downfall

• Superiority/aggression: We laugh about others to hide our own weaknesses. 

               -Superiority/aggression in the example

Hello, and welcome to the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards, live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel. With all these rich, beautiful celebrities having the time of their lives, let's hope no one spoils that. Relax. I'm going to try and be nice. You're global megastars with amazing talent — most of you. A few of you just married well. You know who you are. We all do. We all do.

a.Mockery of audience is made explicit: symbolic downfall of celebrities is announced.

b.Celebrating audience as butt of humour: The expectation of joint laughter against an absent butt of humour is violated!

c.Element of self-mockery: cringy violation of communicative norm, risk of personal downfall

• Emotional release (Freud 1905/1960)

• Release of suppressed emotions: Humour makes it possible for us to vent emotions that we have to suppress normally. Humour allows us to do so in a socially acceptable way.

• Breaking taboos: We can talk about taboos (sex, death, murder, stupidity, scatology (= excrements!)) in a playful way. 

• Excitement/arousal: playing with taboos excites us emotionally.

             -Emotional release in the joke

I am gonna be nice tonight and I'll tell you why: The president of the Hollywood Foreign Press just told me that if I say anything offensive or crass, or resort to innuendo, he's gonna come out here and personally pull me off. So, that's an offer I couldn't refuse. Yes, that is the level: An old man pulling me off.

a.Addressing of taboos: offensive, crass, innuendo

b.Pun with to pull off: pull off = slang ‘to masturbate’

c.Emotional release: immediate release of emotions that are supposed to remain suppressed

Verbal vs. referential humour

Jennifer Lawrence made the news when she demanded equal pay for women in Hollywood. And she received overwhelming support from people everywhere. There were marches on the street with nurses and factory workers saying, 'How the hell can a 25-year-old live on $52 million?' There were plumbers around the world going, 'Poor girl, it's [inaudible] f---ing hell.' But all joking aside, of course women should be paid the same as men for doing the same job. And I'd like to say now that I'm getting paid exactly the same as Tina and Amy did last year. Now I know there was two of them, but it's not my fault if they want to share the money, is it? That's their stupid fault. It's funny cause it's true.

--> Referential Humor

I am gonna be nice tonight and I'll tell you why: The president of the Hollywood Foreign Press just told me that if I say anything offensive or crass, or resort to innuendo, he's gonna come out here and personally pull me off. So, that's an offer I couldn't refuse. Yes, that is the level: An old man pulling me off.

--> Verbal Humor

• Plays with sound: Spoonerisms (sound mixture)

-To a lazy student: "you have tasted two worms"

• Plays with phonology

- Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes.

   A:  A fsh.

• Plays with morphology

-politics (poly: many; ticks:blood sucking parasites)

• Plays with words (punning)

-What makes a tree noisy? Its bark.

• Plays with phrases (syntactic parsing)

-stop clubbing, baby seals (punktuation)

• Plays with clauses and sentences (Witticisms by Oscar Wilde)

- "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

1. Announcement

2. Exposition

3. Complication

4. Punchline

5. Reaction

• Function:

Opens the jocular narrative with minimal effort

Introduces the figures and the situation = usually highly stereotypical figures: politicians, Zürcher, Schwoobe (Germans), celebrities, etc. --> role expectations

• Form:

1st sentence very brief or elliptical

Use of present tense --> immediacy

• Example:

An Irish priest is driving along a country road when a police- man pulls him over. 

• Function:

Presents the events is a seemingly straightforward way: ILLEGAL BEHAVIOUR, DRUNK DRIVING, STEREOTYPE OF DRUNKEN PRIEST.

Listeners’ expectation has to be manipulated in order to prepare them for a surprise effect è lulling into a clear understanding

• Form:

Repetition of the same phenomenon (often 3x)

Joke in joke (= unconventional category)

• Example:

He immediately smells alcohol on the priest's breath and notices an empty wine bottle in the car.

He says: "Have you been drinking?"

"Just water," says the priest.

The cop replies: "Then why do I smell wine?»

• Function:

Trigger creates surprise effect

Audience is forced to resolve the problem themselves in order to understand the joke

• Form:

Trigger: last sentence

• Example

The priest looks at the bottle and says: "Good Lord! He's done it again!"