Humour as represented vis-a-vis situational comedy in general forms an important aspect of interpersonal communication. Though the reception of humour is often ascribed to personal taste, the exten...

Interpreting ‘Filler Pause’ in Interpersonal Communication: A Study of Situational Comedy The Big Bang Theory:

The cooperative principle proposes four maxims in communication. When any of the four maxims is violated or flouted, misunderstanding or implicature, and thus humor might be generated. Humor can also be studied pragmatically within the framework of the relevance theory, which proposes that communication is a process of ostension and inference and differentiates the maximal relevance and optimal relevance. According to RT, humor comes from the contrast between ostension and inference, maximal relevance and optimal relevance. This study attempts to employ theories in these two frameworks to analyze the verbal humor in the Big Bang Theory, so that Chinese audience can have a better understanding of this sitcom.

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An Analysis of Humor in The Big Bang Theory from Pragmatic Perspectives

The growing interest in humour within the field of Cognitive Linguistics during the past few years has led to the conclusion that humour exploits inferences through linguistic imagery and is highly creative. Following Yus (2003: 1299), we assume that humour uses discourse markers that allow the audience to see that what is being said should not be taken seriously. In this study, based on a large corpus of examples extracted from two American television series (House M.D. and The Big Bang Theory), we add a yet unexplored multimodal perspective – that of facial expressions accompanying humorous utterances, particularly pertaining to sarcasm and hyper-understanding. More specifically, we present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of raised eyebrows used in interactional humour, arguing that they play a role in switching the context to a humorous interpretation. Our study analyses humorous utterances against the background of Clark’s layering model and Fauconnier’s mental spaces theory. We illustrate how raised eyebrows function as “gestural triggers” allowing the hearer to make the connection between explicature (i.e. what is explicitly communicated by an utterance; cf. Carston 2002, 2004) and implicature (i.e. assumptions that are not explicit and that the hearer has to infer from the contextual environment; cf. Grice 1989). As such, we show that raised eyebrows play an important role in the understanding of the humorous message because they guide the hearer to interpret utterances in a humorous way and they contribute to meaning construction.

/pdf/raised-eyebrows-as-gestural-triggers-in-humour-the-case-of-18ixexztly.pdf

Raised eyebrows as gestural triggers in humour: The case of sarcasm and hyper-understanding

Linguistics should make significant contributions to literary and critical theory, but has failed to do so. This paper investigates the reasons for the failure and suggests an approach based in Relevance Theory for a working relationship between literary studies and pragmatics. Literary critics have misappropriated linguistic terminology and theories, because their model of language is outdated, and because they blur the distinction between scientific theories and interpretive frameworks —contexts in which assumptions are highly salient. Following an outline of Relevance Theory, an application of relevance stylistics demonstrates the distinctions between theories and interpretive frameworks, and how they can reinforce one another.

/pdf/a-modest-proposal-linguistics-and-literary-studies-7sgiqdla38.pdf

A modest proposal: Linguistics and literary studies

Following an overview of approaches to wit from the 17th to the late 20th centuries, I provide an account that focuses on the process by which witty effects are produced in the reader. I argue that...

Interpreting ‘Filler Pause’ in Interpersonal Communication: A Study of Situational Comedy The Big Bang Theory:

References

An Analysis of Humor in The Big Bang Theory from Pragmatic Perspectives

Raised eyebrows as gestural triggers in humour: The case of sarcasm and hyper-understanding

A modest proposal: Linguistics and literary studies

The soul of wit: A relevance theoretic discussion

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