8th International Summer School and
Symposium on Humour and Laughter
“Dunărea de Jos”
23-28 June, 2008
Abstracts
of Presentations
Version 2 : April 2008
CONTENTS
Dorota Brzozowska
·
Jokes about Women:
Gender, Nationality and Sexuality
·
Humour
in Foreign Language Teaching. On the example of coursebooks
for Polish as a foreign language
·
How are jokes transformed when they move between countries
and cultures
·
Part 1: Humour
Terminology across the Disciplines
·
Part II: Exploring
Satire, a Traditional “Style of Humour”
·
Experiencing Humour:
A Conceptual Model of an Interpersonal Transaction
·
European Farce as the
Life-blood of the Theatre
Christian
Hempelmann
·
Meaning for Humor Researchers
·
Is Incongruity that is Resolved
Humor?
·
Analyzing Texts with the General Theory of Verbal
Humor: Why and How?
Giselinde Kuipers
·
Social differences in
sense of humor (and how to study them)
·
Humor and social theory
·
The cultural industry
of humor
Diana E. Popa
·
Translating the
Language of Humour: Language vs. Culture
·
Political Satire and Parody in a Mediated World
Graeme Ritchie
·
An
overview of humour research
·
Computational Humour
·
The
methodology of testing humour theories
·
The
structure of puns
Willibald Ruch
·
Smiling &
Laughter: Typology, structure and dynamics
·
Who is fearing humour
and laughter: New insights into Gelotophobia
·
Enjoyment of humour
and pain tolerance
·
Unresolved issues in
terminology and classification in humour research
Andrea Samson
·
Theory of Mind,
Empathy and Humor
·
Psychological Humor Theories
Dorota Brzozowska
Jokes about Women: Gender, Nationality and Sexuality
The main thesis of the presentation is that
gender and citizenship are concepts that can be observable in different kinds
of texts, and among others also in jokes i.e. in the genre that is a very good
example of how condensed stereotypes could be reflected in short texts. The
question I am interested in is how the spheres of the public and the private
are illustrated in jokes and in which way they are similar to the stereotypical
roles of men and women in patriarchal societies – leaving the sphere of home to
women and the outside world to men. The next thesis is that out-group and
in-group jokes may differ in reflecting women’s or men’s positions in the
world. I have taken into consideration jokes written in Polish about Russians,
Germans and Jews as examples of outsiders’ views and Polish jokes about Poles,
German jokes about Germans and Jewish jokes about Jews as examples of insiders’
views on gendered roles in the Polish, Jewish, Russian and German societies.
The groups have been chosen as members of the nations that have lived in close
geographical proximity and have been connected with strong historical and
political bonds of many cultural influences often marked by love-hate types of
relationships. Besides, the picture of a Jewish woman in jokes is interesting
because it is believed that this picture is significantly different from that
of women representing other cultures (Raskin 1985,
Davies 2002).
Bibliography
Attardo, Salvatore. 2001. Humorous
Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Benton G., 1988, The
origins of the political joke. In:
Powell C., G. Paton, Humor in Society:
Resistance and Control, London: 33-55.
Davies C., 1990, An
explanation of Jewish jokes about Jewish women, “Humor” 3-4: 363-378.
Davies C., 2002, The
Mirth of Nations,
Draitser Emil A., 1998, Taking penguins
to the movies. Ethnic humor in Russia, Detriot:
Wayne State University Press.
Nilsen A. D., 2000, Encyclopedia of 20th
Century American Humor, Phoenix.
Raskin, Victor. 1985. Semantic
Mechanisms of Humor, Reidel Publishing Company.
Humor in Foreign
Language Teaching. On the example of coursebooks for Polish as a foreign
language
The presentation presents the
results of the study on books for learners of Polish as a foreign language. The
aim of the analysis is to examine if humorous texts are present in coursebooks, how much humor is included in them and what
type of humor is prevailing. Those questions are vital if we consider the fact
that humor is a part of cultural competence that learners should acquire altogether
with the target language skills. The presentation consists of the parts dealing
with several broader aspects of the examined problem. The first one covers the
language policy for minor languages (on the example of teaching Polish in the
country and abroad). The second one deals with humor as a factor facilitating
learning seen from the point of view of methodological investigations. And the
third issue under discussion is a link between humor studies and intercultural
studies. The analytical part shows types of humor present in the coursebooks, the topics touched by these humorous texts,
the ways of presenting and explaining culturally imprinted humorous
material. Several coursebooks
have been analyzed on different levels of language competence to check where
humor appears the earliest and if it is developed on the higher levels of
foreign language education.
Bibliography
Attardo, Salvatore, 1994: Linguistic Theories of Humour.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Carrel, Amy,
1997: Joke Competence and Humor Competence, "Humor. International
Journal of. Humor Research", vol. 10, n. 2, pp. 173 - 185.
Gałyga, Danuta, 2001: Ach, ten język polski! Ćwiczenia komunikacyjne dla początkujących. Communicative Exercisses for Beginners, Kraków: Universitas.
Grala, Maria, 1982: Say It in Polish. An Intensive Course for Beginners, Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
Miodunka,
Władysław T., 2001: Cześć jak się masz? A Polish Language Textbook for Beginners, Kraków: Universitas.
Far more and better popular
political jokes were generated spontaneously by ordinary people in societies such as
Ceausescu’s
How
are jokes transformed when they move between countries and cultures
In the last fifty years several major joke cycles, for example ethnic jokes, jokes about blondes about lawyers and about disasters have begun in the United States and spread to other countries, where the local people both adapt the jokes and invent similar ones of their own. Yet in the process they impress upon the jokes their own local flavour. How by comparing the American originals with the ones subsequently told elsewhere can we explain the transformations in terms of social and cultural differences between the societies concerned?
There are many studies of ethnic jokes and many of sex jokes but fewer of jokes which ascribe sexual attributes to ethnic and national groups or of jokes that treat sexual minorities as being an identity group akin to an ethnic group. It is time to explore how these kinds of jokes are best analysed and explained. Why are particular groups and societies treated as under-sexed or over-sexed? Why are such groups humorously regarded as more likely to indulge in particular forms of unusual or forbidden sexual behaviour? Can we treat jokes about gay men and lesbians in the same way as ethnic jokes, generated sometimes from within the group, sometimes imposed from the outside? What has been the role of social change in this respect?
What do
we Mean by "Styles of Humour"?
Part 1: Humour Terminology across the
Disciplines
Varying concepts of “humour-styles” have emerged during academic research into humour and how people and societies use it. They range from traditional terms in literary theory, and joke-classifications to terminology now used in social psychology about how people use humour in daily life. Since later uses have evolved despite pre-existing uses in other disciplines, humour scholars are confronted by a clash of terms, just when collaboration between different disciplines studying humour is progressing. How problematic is this issue of terminology? Is there interaction between the notions of personal styles and artistic styles in humour? Do we tend to evolve fixed “humour-preferences”, not only in the way we use humour interpersonally, but also in our preferred kind/s of “entertainment humour”? If so, how might we measure that kind of “humour-style”, and what would we call it?
Bibliography
Craik, Kenneth H. and Aaron P. Wise (1998) ‘Humor and Personality in Everday
Life’, in Willibald Ruch (ed.), The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 63-94.
Derks, Peter, R. E. Staley and M. G. Haselton (1998) ‘“Sense” of Humor: Perception, Intelligence, or Expertise?’ in Willibald Ruch (ed.), The Sense of Humor, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 143-158.
Martin, Rod A. (2007) The Psychology of Humor. Elsevier Academic Press, 1-30 (‘Introduction to
the Psychology of Humor’) and 191-227 (‘Personality
Approaches to the Sense of Humor’).
Ross, Alison (1998) The Language of
Humour. Lond./
Suggested
Additional Reading
Dobson, Louise (2006) ‘What’s Your Humor Style? Are you a joker? A teaser? A clown? How you deploy your sense of humor says a lot about how you relate to others and to yourself.’ Psychology Today Magazine, Jul/Aug 2006. Available at:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20060623-000001&page=1
Dutton, Kenneth R (2001) ‘Farce/Farts: Divergent Styles of Comedy in
Medieval France’. Stylistyka
10, 351-361.
Kalliny, Morris, Kevin W. Cruthirds and Michael S. Minor (2006) ‘Differences between American, Egyptian and Lebanese Humor Styles: Implications for International Management’. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 6 (1), 121-134.
Part
II: Exploring Satire, a Traditional “Style of Humour”
Volumes have been written in an attempt to define satire, but so far there it has resisted capture, even though we all “know” what it is. Is it a form, style, genre, mood, or mode of discourse? In Anglo-Saxon cultures, loose usage makes satire almost synonymous with “ridicule” (i.e a “send-up”, or “put-down”). What can we learn from distinguishing between lampoon, parody, irony, and satire? International copyright law now requires artists and publishers to attend to these distinctions, especially if a “satirical” video, art-work or text borrows/appropriates intellectual property (eg for the purposes of parody). Comparing a video-clip of George Bush and Condi Rice’s mutual misunderstandings in the Oval Office with the savage satire of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal and with some recent cartoons illustrates the range of satire and its relation to other humorous genres.
Bibliography
.
Condren, Conal (2002) ‘Between Social Constraint and the Public Sphere: On Misreading Early-Modern Political Satire’, Contemporary Political Theory 1 (1), 79-101.
Orwell, George (1961) 1984: a Novel. New York: Signet (or other good edition).
Phiddian, Robert (1996) ‘Have you Eaten
yet? The Reader in Swift’s A Modest Proposal’, Studies in English Literature 36, 603-621.
Swift, Jonathan (1729) ‘A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor
people from becoming a burthen to their parents of country, and for making them
beneficial to the publick.’
Suggested
Additional Reading
Dane,
Joseph (1980) ‘Parody and Satire: A Theoretical Model’, Genre, 13, 145-59.
Curtis, Catherine (2006) ‘From Sir Thomas More to Richard
Burton: the Laughing Philosopher in the Early Modern Period’, in Conal Condren, Stephen Gaukroger and Ian Hunter (eds.) The Philosopher in Early Modern
Dentith, Simon (2000) Parody. London: Routledge.
Draitser, Emil A. (1994) Techniques of Satire: The Case of Saltykov-Ščedrin. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
McAusland, Sally (2007) ‘Comedy Right on Target’, The Australian, Jan. 17. (available at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20493499-7583,00.html)
Rose, Margaret 1993 Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern.
Experiencing
Humour: A Conceptual Model of an Interpersonal Transaction
When humour is created, a number
of variables in structure, medium and content are selected and combined.
Alternatively, a combination may present itself by happenstance and be
perceived as humour. There are three
classical theories of what makes up humour (le
comique in the felicitous French term), i.e.
superiority; festivity and rule-breaking; and mechanical patterning. From these
it is possible to evolve a schema of how ‘humour potential’ translates into
‘humour product’, intentionally or accidentally, with varying formats and
modalities. The product’s reception by
its audience will depend on a number of personological
and environmental factors, which can also be graphed to produce a chart of what
might be called “the humour transaction”. How useful might this conceptual
approach be in humour research, or does it raise more questions than it
answers?
Bibliography
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984) Rabelais and
his World. Orig. ed. 1965. Trans. H. Iswolski, Bloomington, Ind.:
Indiana University Press.
Bergson, Henri (2004) Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Orig. ed. 1910. Trans. C. Brereton and F. Rothwell, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Pub. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4352
Freud, Sigmund (1993) Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious. Orig. ed. 1905. Trans. A. A. Brill, N.Y.: Dover.
Hobbes, Thomas (1985) Leviathan. Orig. ed. 1651. C. B. Macpherson, (ed.), Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 118-125. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3207
Morreall, John (1983) Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 4-37 (useful summary of humour theories).
Suggested
Additional Reading
Gregory Bateson,
Gregory (1972) ‘A Theory of Play and Fantasy’ in G. Bateson,
Steps to an Ecology of Mind. N.Y.: Ballentine, 177-193.
Handelman, Don (1992) ‘Passsages to Play:
Paradox and Process’, Play and Culture, 5
(1), Feb. 1992, 1-19.
Koestler, Arthur (1964) The Act of Creation. Lond.:
Kline, Paul (1977) ‘The Psychoanalytic Theory of Humour and Laughter’ in A. J. Chapman and H. C. Foot (eds.), It's a Funny Thing, Humour. Oxford: Pergamon, 7-12.
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1964) The World as Will and Idea. Trans. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, Lond: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Sutton, Dana F. (1994) The Catharsis of Comedy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994.
European
Farce as the Life-blood of the Theatre
Comedy has been a part of theatre since the Dionysia festivals of ancient Greece. Despite some important Graeco-Roman antecedents, farce (or low comedy) only emerged formally in early Renaissance Romance cultures (France, Spain and Italy). Name and generic characteristics have remained largely unchanged since then. Held in low critical esteem, farce is universally popular with audiences and examples range from Mr Bean movies to traditional Japanese theatre. It combines comic rebellion and revenge with social Realpolitik to create a largely visual comedy. Examples of contemporary film and stage-comedies show farce structures/techniques being appropriated for non-farce purposes, but the original genre persists. Writers Vsevolod Meyerhold and Dario Fo both saw farce as the life-giving blood of the theatre, renewing it for successive generations of actors and audiences.
Bibliography
Davis, J. Milner (2003) Farce. Rev 2nd ed.,
Palmer, Jerry (987) The Logic of the Absurd on Film and Television. London: BFI Publications, 115-140 (on John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers etc).
Suggested
Additional Reading
Bermel, Albert (1990) Farce: A History from Aristophanes to Woody Allen. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press (originally Farce: the Complete and Definitive Account of One of the World’s Funniest Art Forms, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 22-24, 27-32, 137-166 (on Mack Sennett), 167-204 (on silent farce), 205-223 (on ‘the talkies’), and 224-235 (on animation).
Davis, J. Milner (2001) ‘Order and Disorder in Farce’. Stylistyka 10, 327-349.
Jacobson, Howard (1997) Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime. London: Viking.
Meyerhold, Vsevolod (1959) ‘Farce’, trans. Ruby Cohn, Tulane Drama Review 4 (1), 139-149.
Wells,
Marguerite and J. Milner Davis (2006) ‘Farce and Satire in Kyōgen’, in J. Milner Davis
(ed.), Understanding Humor
in
Christian Hempelmann
Meaning for Humor Researchers
In many, if not most, of its
manifestations humor is transmitted through language. But the most important
function of language, meaning, is such a matter of course for humans that we
hardly ever examine it or even able to. This leads to problems and oversights
when looking at humorous material and when using language in doing research
about it, e.g. building theories, terminology, questionnaires. This
presentation is intended to make available the store of knowledge semantics has
accumulated to humor researchers from all fields, in particular psychology and
literary studies. After a brief overview of the history, theories, and methods
of semantics, recent semantic work in the field of humor research is
introduced, where examples will come include central terms, such as
"humor" and "laughter."
Is Incongruity that is Resolved
Humor?
Among the major groups of
approaches to humor, incongruity theories focus on the humorous text and its
processing: Basically, two things in the text don't match. In contrast to
superiority and release theories, they are not interested in affectual, psycho- and socio-dynamic, or other functional
properties of humor, but rather the essence of the text's humorousness and,
potentially, funniness. This lecture will contrast incongruity theories and
other approaches, highlight the potential role of resolution, and provide an
overview of the main proponents of incongruity theories.
Analyzing Texts with the General Theory of
Verbal Humor: Why and How?
Among the linguistic approaches to
humor, the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) has achieved prominence as an
encompassing and formalized approach. In the first half of this double lecture
we will look at its development as a theory in Raskin
(1985) and its expansion in Attardo and Raskin (1991). Adjacent approaches and notational variants
will be briefly introduced. One emphasis will be on what the theory does *not*
attempt to be, but is usually claimed to be by uninformed critics. The emphasis
of the second half will be on introducing recent approaches to further develop
the theory and criticism of it, but most importantly, getting our hands dirty
on some sample analyses.
Giselinde Kuipers
Social differences in
sense of humor (and how to study them)
This lecture explores the relationship between humor and social background, and how such differences can be studies and explained using insights from social science. Humor is clearly related to social background - it differs between social groups both within and between cultures. Relations between humor and gender have been thoroughly explored by humor scholars, other social background characteristics, such as age, class and ethnicity have gained less scholarly attention.
Drawing on my own research experience, as well as studies by other humor scholars, this presentation will look at the way humor is related to social background. In this lecture, we will ask the question how humor is related to social background (and how this may differ between countries), and how such differences can be interpreted using a social science (i.e. cultural or social) rather than psychological framework. It will also focus on the more practical questions how the relation between humor and social background can be studied.
Bibliography
Kuipers, Giselinde (2006) Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Martin, Rod (2007) The Psychology of humor: An Integrative Approach. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Ruch, Willibald (1998) (ed.) The Sense of Humor: Explorations of a Personality Characteristic. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Humor and social theory
Humor scholars generally distinguish three classical theories of humor: superiority theory, relief theory, and incongruity theory. In this presentation, I will consider the relationship between these three classical theories of humor, which are generally philosophical or psychological in focus, and sociological (and anthropological) thought about humor: can questions about humor and its social functions be subsumed under these three theories? Do these theories lead to useful research questions or hypotheses about humor? I will argue that, while the three classical theories and their modern incarnations lead to interesting research questions about humor (and laughter), they do not provide a sufficient framework for understanding humor from a sociological perspective. Instead, we are better off using existing sociological theories, and connecting these with questions about, and insight from humor theory. If there will ever be a “social humor theory" in sociological thought about humor, it is more likely to spring from social theory, than from humor theory.
Bibliography
Apte, Mahadev L. (1985) Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Bergson, Henri (1935/1911) Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic. London:
MacMillan.
Billig, M. (2005). Laughter and Ridicule: toward a social critique of humour. London: Sage.
Coser, Rose (1959) Some Social Functions of Laughter: A Study of Humor in a Hospital
Setting. Human Relations 12 (2), 171-182.
____(1960) Laughter Among Colleagues: A Study of the Social Functions of Humor among
the Staff of a Mental Hospital. Psychiatry 23 (1): 81-95
Davies, Christie (1998) The Dog that didn't Bark in the Night: A New Sociological Approach to the Cross-Cultural Study of Humor. In: Ruch, (ed.) The Sense of Humor, 293-308.
Freud, Sigmund (1960). Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. London: Penguin.
Morreal, John (1983).
Taking Laughter
Seriously.
Oring, Elliott (1991) Review of 'Ethnic Humor around the World'. Humor 4(1), 109-114.
____(1992) Jokes and their Relations. Lexington: the University Press of Kentucky.
____ (2003) Engaging Humor.
Palmer, Jerry (1994). Taking Humour Seriously. London: Routledge.
The cultural industry
of humor
Much of the humor
people encounter in everyday life they encounter through mass media: television comedy, sitcoms,
films, cartoons. A whole industry is based on the invention, production,
distribution, and translation of humor. The main center of this global industry is in
This
presentation will explore the nature and organization of this "mass
production of humor" as well as the
international distribution of American comedy around the world. Moreover, it will explore in detail one of
the most successful of these commodified forms of humor: the sitcom. How can we understand the way sitcoms
use humor to garner mass audiences? And why has it
become such a central staple of the global television?
Bibliography
Gitlin, Todd (1994)
Inside Prime Time.
Gray, Jonathan (2005). Watching with the Simpsons. Television, Parody, and Intertextuality.
Kuipers, Giselinde (2006) Television and taste hierarchy: the case
of Dutch television
comedy. Media, Culture & Society 28 (3):
359-378.
Mills, Brett (2005). Television Sitcom.
Diana
E. Popa
Translating the
Language of Humour: Language vs. Culture
The debate that has dominated much of the translation of humour research is that of untranslatability of certain kinds of linguistic humour. Linguistic humour has been assigned to two distinct categories on the basis of its translatability. Accordingly, Cicero distinguishes between verbal humour (facetiae dicto), which involves the phonemic/graphemic representation of the humorous element that is untranslatable, and referential humour (facetiae re) that is translatable. As useful as the above categories may have once been, it ultimately relies on the somewhat outdated notion of strict formal equivalence. Contemporary translation studies have focused more on functional considerations and the equivalence effect.
As an application, we shall use the Skopos Theory and Christian Nord’s functionalist approach. The present analysis will highlight the cultural components of humour language translation. We strongly believe that these theories are excellent tools when analysing the linguistic and cultural coordinates that need to be rendered in a target text, in order to make for a successful translation of the language of humour.
Suggested reading
Armstrong, N. 2005. Translation, Linguistics, Culture.
A French-English Textbook. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Chiaro, D. 2005. ‘Foreword.
Verbally Expressed Humour and Translation: An Overview of a Neglected Field’, The International Journal of Humour Research
18 (2) 135-146
Laurian, A M. 1992. ‘Possible/Impossible Translation of
Jokes’, The International Journal of Humour Research 5 (1/2) p.111-127
Nord, C. 1991. Text Analysis in Translation. Theory, Methodology, and Didactic Application of a Model for
Translation-Oriented Text Analysis. Trans. C. Nord and P. Sparrow. Rodopi: Amsterdam and
Atlanta
Popa, Diana. 2005. ‘Jokes and Translation’. Perspectives:
Studies in Translatology 13(1). 48-57
Vermeer,
H. J. 1989. Skopos and Commission in Translational Action.
Vermeer,
H. J. 1992. ‘Translation Today: Old and New Problems’. In Mary Snell-Hornby and Franz Pochhacker &
Klaus Kaindl (eds.). Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline. Philadelphia & New York: John Benjamins. 3-16.
Political Satire and Parody in a Mediated World
The media have become so pervasive that they
constitute public life in contemporary societies. The rise of television in the
20th century has turned the concept of publicness
into a genuinely mediated form of communication that is time and space
flexible. Since the communicative forms of the media have often blurred the
clear-cut distinction between private and public, between factual and fictional
representation, they have complicated the field of politics.
On the other hand, politics has
always been among the most important sources of inspiration for humorists.
Authority is a perpetual source of humour and such
subjects as chicanery, self-importance, corruption and scandals are perennial.
However, humour about a particular subject, be it
politics or public life, for instance, is not necessarily satirical because the
subject itself is often a subject of satire. Nor is humour
using the great satirical tools of parody and caricature meant in a satirical
sense, per se. What is the role played by political satire and parody in the
contemporary mediated public life? We cautiously posit that by problematising social and political order, both political
satire and parody work as a corrective for the poor social and political behaviour.
Suggested reading
Calhoun, C. (ed.). 1992. ‘Introduction: Habermas and the public sphere’. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, Cambridge, Mass., and London: the MIT Press, 1-48.
Habermas, J. 1962/1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (trans. T. Burger and F. Lawrence). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Lockyer, Sharon. 2006. ‘A Two-Prolonged Attack? Exploring Private Eye’s Satirical Humour and investigative reporting’. Journalism Studies 7 (5). 765-781.
Ruben, Quintero (ed.). 2007.
A Companion to Satire.
Graeme Ritchie
An overview of humour research
This
talk is a very general and gentle introduction to humour research, aimed at
complete newcomers to the field. It will consider issues such as “what do
humour researchers do?” and “is humour research a
discipline in its own right?” Brief mentions will be given to some of the
principal application areas and to the most commonly proposed types of theory.
Suggested reading:
Attardo, S. (1994) Linguistic
Theories of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Chapman,
A. J. & Foot, H. C. (1996) (Eds.). Humor
and Laughter: Theory, Research and Applications. London: Transaction
Publishers. (First published 1976.)
McGhee,
P.E. & Goldstein, J. (Eds.) (1983). Handbook of Humor Research. New York:
Springer-Verlag.
Morreall,
J. (1987) (Ed). The Philosophy of Laughter and Humour. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Computational
Humour
This talk starts by
outlining the motivation, methodology and results of recent computational work
on humour, summarising the two main strands: automatic classification of texts,
and computer generation of verbal humour. This will be followed by a brief
demonstration of the STANDUP interactive riddle generator, which was developed
recently at three Scottish universities (http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/research/standup). This software,
specially designed for children with language impairment, allows the user to
explore words and phrases by building simple puns.
Suggested reading:
Hulstijn, J. & Nijholt, A. (1996). Proceedings of the
International Workshop on Computational Humor.
Twente Workshops on Language
Technology 12.
Mihalcea, R. & Pulman, S. (2007) Characterizing
Humour: An Exploration of Features in Humorous Texts. Proceedings of the
Conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing (CICLing), Springer,
Mihalcea, R. & Strapparava, C. (2006) Learning to Laugh
(Automatically): Computational Models for Humor
Recognition. Journal of Computational Intelligence 22(2). Pp 126–142.
Ritchie, G. (2004). The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes. London: Routledge. (Chapter 10)
Ritchie,
G., Manurung, R., Pain, H., Waller, A., O’Mara,D. (2006) The STANDUP
Interactive Riddle Builder. IEEE Intelligent Systems 21 (2), March/April.
Pp. 67-69.
Stock, O., Strapparava,
C. & Nijholt, A. (2002). Proceedings of the
International Workshop on Computational Humor
(TWLT14). University of Twente: Enschede, NL.
The
methodology of testing humour theories
If we adopt the long-term aim of constructing a rigorous
scientific theory of humour, then we have to develop methodologically
appropriate working practices for testing potential theories. In this talk we
discuss some of the issues and make some suggestions, drawing illustrations
where possible from recent humour research.
Suggested reading:
Ritchie, G. (2004). The
Linguistic Analysis of Jokes. London: Routledge. (Chapter 2)
Ruch,W., Attardo,
S. , Raskin, V. (1993). Toward an empirical verification of the General Theory
of Verbal Humor. HUMOR, 6(2), pp.
123-136.
Vaid,J., Hull, R., Heredia, R., Gerkens, D., Martinez, F. (2003).
Getting a joke: the time course of meaning activation in verbal humor. Journal
of Pragmatics 35, pp. 1431-1449.
The structure of puns
Much
of humour research focusses on humour in language,
and there have been several studies of puns (jokes where phonetic
similarity between words is central). This talk looks at a few of the commoner
types of puns, analysing what combinations of linguistic relations are
typically used. In particular, we shall look at puns made in context, such as
occur in everyday life (in some cultures). We will not provide a complete
explanation of why puns are funny, but will instead throw some light on what
aspects of a text make it a pun.
Suggested
reading:
Attardo, S. (1994) Linguistic
Theories of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Ritchie,
G. (2004). The
Linguistic Analysis of Jokes.
London: Routledge. (Chapter 9)
Willibald
Ruch
Smiling
& Laughter: Typology, structure and dynamics
Smiling and laughter are the most frequent responses to humour. In the presentation I will address the following questions essential for empirical research: How many types of smiles and laughter exist and what is their nature? What is the relationship between smiling and laughter? How to measure smiling and laughter? Which type of smile and laugher signals amusement? We will learn that research on facial expression distinguishes among altogether about 20 types of smiles that are functionally and anatomically different. I will present our current research aimed at distinguishing among types of laughter. We will discuss what speaks in favour of smiling and laughter being qualitatively (not quantitatively) different. Traditionally humour researchers used the so-called “mirth-spectrum” and the mirth-index to recorded smiling and laughter. More recently, humour researchers started to adopt the Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Ekman, Friesen & Hager, 2003), an anatomically based assessment tool for the measurement of 44 facial actions. We will define the so-called Duchenne display as the expression of genuine enjoyment of humour and discuss the criteria to distinguish it from others (e.g., phoney, masking, miserable, and contempt smiles). Finally, the minimal number of facial displays relevant to humour research will be discussed and participants will learn how to distinguish among them.
Suggested*
and further reading
Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and
Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. New York: Henry Holt
& Company.
Ekman, P.,
Friesen, W. & Hager, J. (2003). The
facial action coding system. CD-ROM. http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/facs/new_version.jsp, http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/general/homepage.jsp
Ekman, P. &
Rosenberg, E. L. (Eds.) (2005). What the face
reveals. Basic and applied studies of spontaneous expression using the Facial
Action Coding System.
Ruch, W. (in
press). The FACS in research on humour and laughter. In Doris Peham & Eva Bänninger-Huber (Eds.) Proceedings of the FACS-Workshop
2007. Innsbruck, Austria: Innsbruck University Press
Who
is fearing humour and laughter: New insights into Gelotophobia
Based on clinical practice and observations Titze (1996) described the phenomenology and behavioural
manifestations of gelotophobia--the
fear of being laughed at—and one consequence: the Pinocchio Complex. A research project was developed aimed at
examining whether the findings of case studies can be generalized to the
population of healthy adults. Indeed, research with the GELOPH (a 46 items
questionnaire assessing gelotophobia) showed that the
fear of being laughed at is a valid individual differences variable, which can
also be assessed via a semi-projective test (i.e., the Picture-Geloph). Meanwhile, the fear of being laughed at has been
verified in a multi-nation study (comprising app. 80 nations and 40 languages; Proyer et al. 2008) and several experiments and correlational studies with normal adults and patients were
conducted to learn about it. For example, Platt (in press) showed that gelotophobes cannot discriminate well between good-natured
teasing and bullying. The lecture will explore possible antecedents
(dispositions for emotion, experiences of shame, being laughed at, personality) and consequences (humorlessness, psychosomatic
complaints) of this fear. It will be highlighted that humour researchers and
practitioners need to be aware or the existence of individuals fearing humour
and laughter.
Suggested* and further reading:
Platt,
T. (in press). Emotional responses to ridicule and teasing: Should gelotophobes react differently? Humor: International Journal of Humor Research.
Proyer, R.T., Hempelmann, C.F., & Ruch, W.
(2008). They’re
all gonna laugh at you! Or are they? Are gelotophobes actually laughed at? Manuscript submitted for publication.
Ruch, W., & Proyer, R. T.
(2008a). The fear of being laughed at: Individual and group differences in gelotophobia. Humor: International Journal
of Humor Research, 21(1), 47-67.
Ruch, W., & Proyer, R.T.
(2008b). Who is gelotophobic? Assessment
criteria for the fear of being laughed at. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 26, 1-9.
Titze, M. (1996).
The Pinocchio Complex: Overcoming the fear of laughter. Humor & Health Journal, 5, 1–11.
Enjoyment
of humour and pain tolerance
Among the many putative positive effects of
humour and laughter on physical and psychological well-being, the link with
pain perception seems to be one of the most promising. As early as 1928, Walsh
observed that laughter seemed to have analgesic effects on postoperative pain.
More recently, the famous case of Norman Cousins gave rise to the idea that
laughter may lead to the release of endorphins, but two studies did not support
this claim. Nevertheless, a review of the literature shows that overall results
seem to favour the existence of such a link. While both negative and positive
emotions do seem to enhance pain tolerance immediately after viewing an
arousing film, research by Weisenberg et al. (1998)
demonstrates that 30 minutes after the film the
enhanced pain tolerance prevails only in the humour group. Zweyer
et al. (2004) and Baumann, Städeli and Ruch (submitted) replicate this finding and show that the
effects are contingent on genuine enjoyment of humour. Only participants
showing the so-called Duchenne display often are the
ones tolerating pain immediately after and 20 minute after
watching the funny film. Implications for further applied studies are
discussed.
Suggested* and further reading:
Weisenberg, M., Raz,
T. & Hener, T. (1998). The
influence of film-induced mood on pain perception. Pain, 76, 365-375.
Zweyer, K, Velker,
B. & Ruch, W. (2004). Do
cheerfulness, exhilaration and humour production moderate pain tolerance? A FACS study. In R.A. Martin (Ed.), Sense of Humor and
Health [special issue]. Humor: International Journal of Humor
Research, 17, 67-84.
Unresolved
issues in terminology and classification in humour research
Humour researchers are spread all over the world, were raised in different cultural backgrounds, speak different languages, and had their training in different disciplines. Progress in other disciplines started once a common classification and common terminology existed, i.e., common frame of reference was achieved. For example, the DSM and ICD provide classifications systems in Psychiatry and the periodic system in chemistry. Humour research as not yet achieved a common terminology; in fact, different terminologies seem to coexist. Tracing the meaning of the words “humour” and “wit” in the English language will allow explaining the current confusion occasionally to be found in current literature. The second part of the talk will be dedicated to presenting attempts to classify humour behaviour, humour stimuli and responses to humour.
Suggested* and further reading:
Martin, R. A. (2007). The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative
Approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.
Ruch, W. (2007). Tools used for diagnosing humor states and traits. In:
Andrea C. Samson
Theory of Mind,
Empathy and Humor
Is humor
processing influenced by abilities such as empathy or Theory of Mind?
Theory of Mind can be seen as the
cognitive aspect of empathy which describes the ability to attribute mental
states to others such as beliefs, intentions or motivations (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). Empathy includes also more
emotional components such as empathizing. Some humor
models state that the ability of Theory of Mind is necessary to comprehend and
appreciate humor (Howe, 2002; Jung, 2003). This
presentation gives an overview on the existing studies that addressed these
issues: Some studies used questionnaires to measure empathy and sense of humor,
others investigated subjects with minor Theory of mind abilities (patients with
the Asperger syndrome or autism) and their
performance in humor experiments. Studies that used
the method of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging will also be taken into
account. The several studies come to an inconsistent picture on the
relationship of Theory of Mind, empathy and humor.
Therefore the influence of the methods to measure empathy, theory of mind and humor as well as the influence of the stimuli used in the
experiments will be discussed.
Suggested and
further* reading:
Howe, N.E. (2002). The
origin of humor. Medical Hypotheses, 59 (3), 252-254.
*Jung, W. E. (2003). The Inner Eye
Theory of Laughter: Mindreader Signals Cooperator Value. Evolutionary
Psychology, 1, 214-253.
*
*Premack, D. & Woodruff,
G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, 515-526.
Psychological Humor Theories
This
introductory talk gives an overview on the main psychological humor theories: Disparagement/Superiority theories,
Psychoanalytic Theories and incongruity-resolution theories. Its roots and
developments as well as empirical data that (do not) support this theories will
be presented.
Suggested and further* reading:
*Freud,
S. (1928). Humor. International
Journal of Psychoanalysis, 9, 1-6.
*Gruner, Charles R. (1978). Understanding laughter: The workings of wit and humor.
Martin, R.
(2007). The Psychology of Humor. An Integrative Approach.
Ruch, W. (1998).
The Sense of Humor:
Exploration of a Personality characteristic.
*Suls (1972), J.M. A two-stage model for the appreciation of
jokes and cartoons: an information-processing analysis .
In J.H. Goldstein & P.E. McGhee (eds).
The psychology of humor:
Theoretical perspectives and empirical issues.