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Part of
Relevance Theory, Figuration, and Continuity in Pragmatics
Edited by Agnieszka Piskorska
[Figurative Thought and Language 8] 2020
► pp. 259–287

Chapter 9
Tropes of ill repute

Puns and (often thwarted) expectations of relevance

| University of Silesia, Poland

Puns, a form of figurative language exploiting ambiguity in its many guises, tend to be regarded as a trope of lesser value. The present article explores this tainted reputation of puns in the light of the relevance-theoretic model of utterance interpretation and attributes it to the fact that like no other figure of speech they often thwart our expectations of relevance. Moreover, many of them do so boldly, conspicuously, thus making us particularly likely to take note of the emotional reactions we experience and to articulate them. The article identifies six ways in which puns may go against our expectations about verbal inputs and attempts to specify the possible negative consequences this may have for our perception of puns.

Keywords: puns, wordplay, ambiguity, tropes, figurative language, paronomasia, utterance interpretation, pun perception
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Puns as ‘wayward’ stylistic devices
  • 3.Vocalizations that cash in on ambiguity
    • homonymy:
    • polysemy:
    • homophony:
    • imperfect homophony:
    • paronymy:
  • 4.Puns as victims of the western flight from ambiguity
  • 5.Puns as deviations from linguistic and communicative norms
    • 5.1Puns as mistakes or anomalies
    • 5.2Puns as violations of gricean maxims of conversation
  • 6.Relevance-theoretic model and the perception of puns
    • 6.1Reservations about the model’s adequacy for tackling the emotional reactions to puns
    • 6.2A tainted concept: Hanging a dog that’s been given a bad name
    • 6.3Key properties of punning utterances
    • 6.4Language users’ expectations about verbal inputs and the ways they are subverted in puns
  • 7.Consequences of puns falling short of expectations of relevance
    • 7.1The ‘Necker cube effect’: Unease at being unable to disambiguate
    • 7.2Nothing but sound? Irritation at the punster’s sometimes dubious informative intention
    • 7.3Offering ‘fool’s gold’: Annoyance at the often problematic cognitive effects
    • 7.4‘Here we go again’: Resentment at being made to do the same mental work twice
    • 7.5I seem to be missing something: The embarrassment at failing to construct an adequate context
    • 7.6The indignation at being made to ponder the inner workings of verbal processing
  • 8.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.8.09sol
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