The Comedy in Language: The Language of Comedy

Chances are that at some point in your life, reader of this article, you have laughed at something someone has said. If not, this may not be the place for you. For those of you still here: what about that string of words that someone once said made you uncontrollably produce a random noise that is apparently a good thing to happen to someone? There are, in fact, a number of explanations.

Probably the most common type of humour is that which is found in the unexpected. This can be explained with the Incongruity Theory of Humour, proposed by Dr. Victor Raskin Ph.D, wherein he states: "the components of a joke, or a humorous incident, are in the mutual clash, conflict, or contradiction." Therefore, humour results in the fact that there is a difference between what the recipient of the joke expects to happen and what actually happens. An example of this in verbal or written form are jokes like this : "My mother-in-law fell down a wishing well. I was shocked! I never knew they actually worked." The humour in this case should result from the recipient of the joke expecting the teller of the joke to be concerned for their mother-in-law's health, but instead they were happy with the outcome of the situation. 

The rather dark subject of the last example leads nicely onto another of Raskin's theories of humour: Hostility Theory. This is based on the idea that humour can be used to humiliate or "put a person down." This idea has been around since the times of Ancient Greece, where Plato and Aristotle would refer to it in their work as the "negative and aggressive side of humour." This can manifest in a few ways, such as sarcasm, where a subject is verbally assaulted for something using a sentence worded as a compliment, but through the use of tone of voice, and usually emphasis on an accompanying intensifier in the sentence ("You are SO smart."), the subject is belittled by the speaker.

Another of Raskin's idea is the Semantic Script-based Theory of Humour. Raskin describes the concept of a "script" as: "the meaning of the text of the joke." In psychological terms, a "script" draws upon our individual semantic information by using our cognitive process of thought to derive the meaning of the text and it's interpretations. As the "script" is something our minds follow in our mental process that leads us to our associations and, more crucially for humour, our assumptions of the context, we can use these "scripts" to create humour. Texts can evoke multiple interpretations, but one will be more prominent in the conscious of the listener, depending on the wording. The "punch-line" of the joke will align with the dominant interpretation, but suddenly and quickly, the other interpretation will become clear to to the listener, resulting in laughter. Probably the most overused example of this is: "I went to the zoo yesterday, and all they had was a dog. It was a Shih Tzu." (Admittedly, funnier if spoken). The first sentence is the set-up and our "script" tells us that they will probably complain about the zoo. "It was a Shih Tzu," when spoken, follows that assumption and is the initial interpretation. Then, the other interpretation will start to be noticed: the homophone (word pronounced in the same way as another with different meanings) of the punchline, which is a breed of dog (Shih Tzu), will become clear to the listener, and they will realize that the punchline is describing the dog, not the zoo, making the joke funny... Hopefully. 

These are just a few of the theories and ideas that try to explain our laughter. If you want to get a very in-depth look at these concepts, click here for Dr. Jeannine Schwarz's dissertation on the Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humour in Stand-up Comedy.   

By Kyle Fotherby