Attardo Salvatore. Linguistic Theories of Humor

Mouton de Gruyter, 1994. — xx, 426 pp. — (Humor research). — ISBN: 978-3-11-014255-6.This book is the result of almost a decade of research in several related aspects of the linguistics of humor. As such, it is inevitably a composite and the result of a compromise between a desire to cover, on the one hand, as much as possible of the scholarship pertaining to humor research in linguistics and, on the other, author’s own research interests in the field.The book combines a representative, if not exhaustive, survey of the literature in the linguistics of humor, with critical analyses of the more significant approaches and author’s own original ventures.The intended audience of the book is similarly composite: theoretical linguists interested in the applications of linguistics to humor research and in its implications for linguistic theory; applied linguists, looking for empirical results and analytical methodologies to be applied to humor studies or exported from humor studies to other areas; non-linguist academics interested in the interdisciplinary role of linguistics, both as a substantive field and methodologically (i.e., what linguists have found out about humor and how they do it); and, last but not least, the educated non-academic wishing to in form him/herself about humor research from the point of view of the study of language. This broad audience has dictated some choices in organization, but primarily it is reflected in a special care in defining all non-elementary technical terms (or providing pointers to such definitions) so that non-linguists may be able to follow the discussion, or may decide to skip some sections in which the technical aspects of the discussion offer few insight into humor research (but many into a linguistic issue).Metatheory of humor
The Definition of Humor
Survey of the LiteratureThe Greeks
The Latins
The Renaissance
Modern Approaches to Humor Theory
The Linear Organization of the Joke
The Isotopy-Disjunction Model
The Definition of Function
Linearity of the Joke
The Analysis of Puns
Generalities
Linguistic Mechanisms of the Pun
Why Study Puns? Puns as Linguistic Evidence
Resolution in Puns
Phonosymbolism as an Explanation for Puns
Poststructuralism and Puns
Semiotic and Text Theories
Semiotic Theories
Linguo-literary ApproachesScript-based Theories
The Semantic Script Theory of Humor
The Reception of the SSTH
Raskin's Follow-Ups (1985 - 1993)
The Revision of the SSTH
Register-based Humor
Bally's Stylistics of Humor
Recent Studies on Register Humor
Non-joke Humor Texts
A Short Story by E. A. Poe
Register Humor in T. 1. Peacock
A Passage from Voltaire's Candide
An Example of Menu-Propos
The Cooperative Nature of Humor
Jokes as the Violation of Grice's Maxims
Violating the Maxims
The Mention Account
The Communicative Status of Humorous Texts
The Importance of the Implicit in Jokes
Relative Position of the MaximsHumor in ContextCanned Jokes and Conversational Jokes.
Literature Review
The Communicative Function of Humor
Summary: Humor Research and CA
Directions in Humor Research