Features = characteristics

FEATURES = CHARACTERISTICS

• FEATURES = CHARACTERISTICS

• FUNCTIONS = THE PURPOSE(S)

• SUBJECTS = THE TOPIC(S)

• Ambiguity

• Exaggeration

• Understatement

• Hostility

• Incongruity or Irony

• Situation-Insight

• Sudden Insight

Features:

• Features:

• Ambiguity

• Sudden Insight

• Surprise

• Visual Imagery

• Word Play

Features

• Features

• Ambiguity

• Incongruity

• Surprise

• Visual Imagery

• Word Play

• Later philosophers, including Frances Hutcheson, argue that what we are really laughing about is incongruity.

• We do not go to asylums to laugh at the “inferior” beings, nor do we laugh at animals unless they resemble human beings.

• We laugh at someone who slips on a banana peel not because we feel superior, but because of the incongruity between our expectations and the sudden insight.

PSYCHOLOGICAL

• PSYCHOLOGICAL

• To amuse

• To establish superiority

• To gain control

• To persuade

• To save face

• To test limits

• To inbond/outbond

• “The text of a joke is always fully or in part compatible with two distinct scripts and the two scripts are opposed to each other in a special way.”

• “The punch line triggers the switch from the one script to the other by making the hearer backtrack and realize that a different interpretation [of the joke] was possible from the very beginning.”

• Attardo and Raskin [1991] 308

Self-disparagement humor illustrates how it is not always easy to recognize the functions of humor. On the surface, it appears to be humbling oneself, but oftentimes the mock-humility really puts the speaker in a position of power as in these commercials:

• Self-disparagement humor illustrates how it is not always easy to recognize the functions of humor. On the surface, it appears to be humbling oneself, but oftentimes the mock-humility really puts the speaker in a position of power as in these commercials:

• Terminex Pest Control: “When you think of pests, think of us.”

• Twist Lemon-Menthol Cigarettes: “Our new menthol is a lemon.”

• Champion International Trend Carpet: “Eight million people walked all over us. And they don’t even know our name.”

• Quaker Oats as a diet food: “Quaker Oats: Breakfast of losers.”

• Simmons bunk beds: “Simmons beds are a lot of bunk.”

Relax Students

• Relax Students

• Teach Facts

• Argue and Persuade

• Teach Vocabulary Concepts

• Teach Careful Observation

• Model Problem Solving

This is an amusing lesson in careful observation.

• This is an amusing lesson in careful observation.

• What are the clues that it is a painting?

• Were such paintings precursors to today’s PhotoShop fun?

• http://biggeekdad.com/2013/04/jonathan-winters-stick/#.UXfWSphGZzg.email

The subjects we joke about are the very subjects that we hesitate to talk about in real life.

• The subjects we joke about are the very subjects that we hesitate to talk about in real life.
• To test out the attitudes of new friends, we often send up “trial balloons” disguised as jokes.

OLD TABOOS

• OLD TABOOS

• Vulgarities

• Swear Words

• Body Parts

• Sex

• Religion

• Obscenities

The subject matter that people choose to joke about goes a long ways in determining whether they are using humor as release of moderate levels of discomfort, or whether they are really engaging in “hate-speech” disguised as humor.

• The subject matter that people choose to joke about goes a long ways in determining whether they are using humor as release of moderate levels of discomfort, or whether they are really engaging in “hate-speech” disguised as humor.

• The important question to ask is whether the humor is used to weaken the target or strengthen the target.