Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

University of Split

Humour
Tutor: prof.dr.sc. Danica Škara Students: Melani Grubić Mikulić
Ema Milišić

November, 2016
• What is humour?

• When does laughter occur?

• Why do we find something funny?

• Strong social aspect – allegiance
to a group
• Importance of the context

• Difficult for humour to cross

some social boundaries
• Importance of personal taste:
• Man in a bar: I just got a bottle of whiskey for my mother-in-law. Second man: Sounds
like a good swap
 The incongruity theory
• Dictionary definition of incongruous: inconsistent, not fitting well together
• Involving ideas that run against our expectations
• I said to the Gym instructor: “Can you teach
me to do the splits?” He said: “How flexible
are you?” I said: “I can't make Tuesdays.”
• Two fish in a tank. One turns to the
other and says: “Do you know how to
drive this?”
 Ambiguity in the words or structure
• A one-off joke or a ‘gag’
• The possibilty for two meanings being
understood from the utterance – pun
• I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger.
Then it hit me.
• I'd tell you a chemistry joke but I know I
wouldn't get a reaction.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIEeV
EeTVEM&t=209s
 Structural ambiguity
• Phonology – the sounds that make up the language
• Graphology – the way the language is represented in written form
• Morphology – the way words are structured
• Lexis – the individual words of language
• Syntax – the way the words are structured into phrases, clauses and
sentences
 Phonology, morphology, syntax
• What’s black and white and read/red
all over? Newspapers. • What's a baby pig called?
A piglet. So, what's a
baby toy called? A toilet.

Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim

Man Eating Piranha Mistakenly Sold as Pet Fish
 Stand-up comedy
• Material is not edited • Elements of good delivery:
• Language must seem spontaneous
• Gestures and body movement
• Fillers: ellipsis, redundancy, back-
tracking • Facial expressions
• Improvisations
• Vocal variety
 The Superiority Theory
• Thomas Hobbes – laughter as a ‘sudden glory’ at our own triumph or at an
indignity suffered by someone else

• those who laugh are momentarily released from awareness of their own lack
of ability

• too much of humour  mockery

Less powerful groups as the butt of humour

• butt  Old French ‘mound behind a target’

• today, it refers to an object of ridicule
• mothers-in-law – ‘the butt of jokes’  nagging and nosy
• the butt – usually representative of an inferior group  need for creating the
sense of superiority over them
• the representative usually gets mocked  insecurity of teller of the joke
• lower social groups are often focus of humour and are identified with their
country region
• Brummie accent – considered funny, somewhat unintelligent and primitive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzIbKOCHG6Q
• Croatia – Dalmatian and Northern accents  followed by stereotypes:
Dalmatian people are considered lazy and not particularly smart, Northern –
prone to drinking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0YXxRJoDmY

• some groups are stereotyped with just one characteristic, e.g. the Scots and
their meanness
Powerful groups

• much humour can also be attack on people in superior positions of power

and influence
• fight-back of the victim
• target groups: politicians, policemen

‘How many cops does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None, they just beat the room for being
black.’
 Psychic release
• humour  battle within ourselves
• Howard Jacobson – ‘commedia dell’arte jeers at all our feelings and thus releases
us from the torment of being ourselves’
• joking  establishment of the bounds of what is right to think and say, by
breaking some rules, but keeping some limits
Taboos

• older people find obscenities more shocking

• humour  acceptable or offensive;
language  explicit or uses innunedo
• common taboos : sex, drugs, death, religion
• to find the joke funny, there has to be some
disguise
• it is allowed to hint, but offensive to say it
out loud
• reference to a specific death – ‘sick joke’  only in private domain

• religion – big taboo in Great Britain

• blasphemy law  crime to make an offensive reference to the Christian

religion
 Spoken humour
• television, radio instead of books as the main source of verbal entertainment
• the element of unseen on the radio  provokes the laughter
• humour in TV shows – strong topical element, familiarity with the
participants and their relationship with each other
• ‘in-jokes’ and running gags  strongly context-bound humour
Conclusion

• people tend to laugh more often in company  strong social aspect

• personal taste
• the incongruity theory – ‘humour of unexpected’
• the superiority theory  humour as self-defense
• taboos – ‘it is okay to hint, but offensive to say it out loud’
 References
• Ross, Alisson. The Language of Humour. 1998. Routlegde. London.