Monday, November 18, 2013
Humor
According to the powerpoint seen in class last week, Humor is "a verbal utterance that contains two incongruent scripts and provide a resolution for this incongruence." Therefore, when a speaker expresses humor, they express two ideas that are like propositions. The listener analyses both propositions, the speaker then violates the cooperative principle. Humor joins in both politeness and the cooperative principle because when creating humor, one may play between saying something or not saying nothing at all. In addition they are violating Grice's Maxims at different levels to make create humor. It is easier to tell a joke to a friend than a stranger, although comedians share humor with strangers, which it a bigger task. Trying to make humor for an audience is much more difficult than sharing a joke to your friend. The concept of closeness and/or politeness is always at play in humor. Imagine standing in a different part of the word, what your culture may find humorous may not be in another.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuk3fi23L38&feature=youtube_gdata_player
ReplyDeleteThe link above is an excerpt from a "Will and Grace" episode where a character Karen learns how to drive. There are a few instances in this clip where humor is used to expose incongruencies. For example, when Will says "watch out for the "noun" and Karen hits the gas and says "I'm on it!" she speeds up when it is expected for her to slow down or even stop.
Humor is ubiquitous. I believe most of us hear a joke or jokes everyday. Being humorous is actually a good thing. Sometimes when two people have conflicts, humor is a way to solve it instead of fighting.
ReplyDeleteProbably the most frequent situation that humor occurs is when a person violates the maxim of conversation. For example, maxims of quality,
A: Do you know the page number of the homework we have for pragmatics?
B: Yes.
The end of the conversation.
We can see what's wrong here. B is expected to tell A the page number after saying "yes".
Another joke that I remember is from my teacher who taught me when I was in my country. We are not allowed to eat during class. But there was always students try to eat without being discovered. However, there was a teacher who always knew if students were eating no matter how well the acting skills the students had.
Teacher: No eating in class.
A random student: How do you know that?
Teacher: Do you know that you look especially ugly when you eat?