COGNITIVE-LINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO HUMOUR

Description and Aims of the Session

In concentrating on conceptual and cross-cognitive aspects of language use, cognitive linguists have given centre stage to phenomena like metaphor, metonymy and conceptual integration, which more traditional paradigms of linguistic inquiry have relegated to the periphery of cognitive processing. It is the organizers' firm belief that another peripheralized area of conceptual inquiry, humour, will return similar dividends as the study of metaphor, inasmuch as it will shed light on crucial aspects of cognitive processing that extend beyond the purely 'humorous'. Jokes, to take the prototype of a humorous text, are extremely fragile linguistic and conceptual constructs, the meaning of which depends vitally on a nexus of quantitative criteria (such as the time of delivery, and the activation of key expectations) and qualitative criteria (such as social context, cultural taboos, shared world models, etc.). This fragility of humorous language makes it an ideal linguistic form in which to theorize about the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative aspects of language and cognition. 

Nonetheless, humour is still a widely under-franchised topic in Cognitive Science in general, and Cognitive Linguistics in specific. Despite the articulate tools provided by Cognitive Linguistics to study the complex nexus of phenomena that combine to yield humour, actual symbiosis has emerged only occasionally (Coulson 2000; Attardo et al. 2002). The principal aim of this session is thus to provide a forum for the interaction between Cognitive Linguistics and the study of humour, since the latter may bring us one step closer to articulating a framework for exploring the systematicity, stability and dynamics of not just humour, but also artistic creativity and scientific insight.

The theme session will address humour by means of three interrelated questions central to a cognitive-linguistic approach. All three questions will constitute a separate subsession, each of which will be opened with a keynote talk by an invited speaker. The first topic to be discussed is the relevance of mental spaces and frames to the analysis of humorous texts. Second, a discussion will be opened on the interplay of metaphor, metonymy and conceptual integration in the generation and interpretation of humour. A third group of contributors will specifically focus on the logical basis of jokes and the role of inference in achieving humorous catharsis. In order to warrant a fruitful interaction, all abstracts have been selected such that no strict distinction can be made between the three subsessions. For example, presentations dealing with the metaphorical and/or metonymical nature of humorous texts have been chosen in virtue of their relevance to other thematic strands, such as mental spaces, logical inferencing, etc. Though cohesion is vital, papers have also been chosen so that no one theme or research agenda will dominate the session. It is our goal to give the participants a well-balanced account of the vibrancy of the Cognitive Linguistics field.

The papers have also been chosen to yield a coverage of the humour domain that reflects the diversity of forms that humour can assume. Thus, the session will consider humour not only from the perspective of the purely verbal/textual, but also from the perspective of the visually enhanced, in printed advertising and in comic-strips.

References

Attardo, Salvatore; Hempelmann, Christian F. & Di Maio, Sara
2002   "Script oppositions and logical mechanisms: Modelling incongruities and their  
           resolutions". In: HUMOR. International Journal of Humor Research 15 (1), 
           3-46.

Seana Coulson
2000  Semantic Leaps: Frame-shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning 
          Construction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.