Humour and Relevance
This book offers a cognitive-pragmatic, and specifically relevance-theoretic, analysis of different types of humorous discourse, together with the inferential strategies that are at work in the processing of such discourses. The book also provides a cognitive pragmatics description of how addressees obtain humorous effects. Although the inferences at work in the processing of normal, non-humorous discourses are the same as those employed in the interpretation of humour, in the latter case these strategies (and also the accessibility of contextual information) are predicted and manipulated by the speaker (or writer) for the sake of generating humorous effects. The book covers aspects of research on humour such as the incongruity-resolution pattern, jokes and stand-up comedy performances. It also offers an explanation of why ironies are sometimes labelled as humorous, and proposes a model for the translation of humorous discourses, an analysis of humour in multimodal discourses such as cartoons and advertisements, and a brief exploration of possible tendencies in relevance-theoretic research on conversational humour.
[Topics in Humor Research, 4] 2016. xix, 367 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
-
Acknowledgement | pp. xiii–xiv
-
Introduction | pp. xv–xx
-
Chapter 1. Relevance theory: Cognitive pragmatics of human communication | pp. 1–36
-
Chapter 2. Relevance theory: General implications for humour research | pp. 37–64
-
Chapter 3. Incongruity-resolution revisited | pp. 65–114
-
Chapter 4. The intersecting circles model of humorous communication | pp. 115–150
-
Chapter 5. Stand-up comedy monologues | pp. 151–190
-
Chapter 6. Humorous ironies | pp. 191–236
-
Chapter 7. Humour and translation | pp. 237–266
-
Chapter 8. Multimodal humour: The case of cartoons in the press | pp. 267–298
-
Chapter 9. Multimodal humour: The case of advertisements | pp. 299–320
-
Chapter 10. A note on conversational humour | pp. 321–330
-
References | pp. 331–360
-
Name Index | pp. 361–364
-
Subject Index | pp. 365–369
“
Humour and Relevance marries a clear focus on a specific theme to an admirable versatility within this theme. Yet again, Yus deserves acclaim for his courage to reach out to scholars in another discipline (here: humour scholarship). He clearly has done his homework: the discussions and bibliography testify to in-depth familiarity with concepts in various paradigms in humour research, which lends credence to his demonstrations how pertinent insights in this field can be accommodated within, and explained by, RT. At the same time, the author suggests how RT can fulfil its promise of being an all-encompassing communication theory by applying it to dimensions that have hitherto been under-researched or even neglected within RT, furthering that theory by coming up with various adaptations and refinements.”
Charles J. Forceville, University of Amsterdam, in Journal of Pragmatics Vol. 107 (2017)
“In sum, the work reviewed is undoubtedly an indispensable tool for anyone working in the
fields of humour studies and of relevance theory. The author has deeply examined and
simultaneously expanded the relevance-theoretical framework with his own genuine
contributions to offer the most comprehensive account of humour within this approach. As a
result, we may conclude that all four aspects, namely, the understanding of humour, its study
as a field of research, the relevance theoretical account of it, and also relevance theory as a
whole, have been enriched thanks to the analysis and the contributions offered by Francisco
Yus in this work.”
fields of humour studies and of relevance theory. The author has deeply examined and
simultaneously expanded the relevance-theoretical framework with his own genuine
contributions to offer the most comprehensive account of humour within this approach. As a
result, we may conclude that all four aspects, namely, the understanding of humour, its study
as a field of research, the relevance theoretical account of it, and also relevance theory as a
whole, have been enriched thanks to the analysis and the contributions offered by Francisco
Yus in this work.”
Maria Angeles Ruiz-Moneva, University of Zaragoza, in European Journal of Humour Research 6 (2) 123–127
Cited by (102)
Cited by 102 other publications
Bi, Xiaoyi
2024. A discourse analysis of critical commenting online: A study of comments on a self-mockery event. Discourse & Society 35:2 ► pp. 174 ff. 
Garrido Medina, Joaquín
2024. Coordinación y subordinación discursivas en la columna periodística. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 98 ► pp. 17 ff.
Jodłowiec, Maria & Agnieszka Piskorska
2024. Dynamism of context: A case of joke interpretation. Intercultural Pragmatics 21:3 ► pp. 431 ff.
Li, Hui
2024. Book Review: Francisco Yus, Pragmatics of Internet Humour. Discourse Studies 26:4 ► pp. 579 ff.
López Rubio, María
2024. An Approach to Audio Description of Humour in Different Cultural Settings. Estudios de Traducción 14 ► pp. 133 ff.
Miller, JTM
2024. The metaphysics of puns. Synthese 203:5
Pilyarchuk, Kateryna
2024. Wordplay-based humor. The European Journal of Humour Research 12:2 ► pp. 120 ff.
Rivas-Carmona, María del Mar & María del Carmen García-Manga
2024. The Cultural Background of Political Humor “Sung” by the Spanish People. In Political Humor Worldwide [The Language of Politics, ], ► pp. 193 ff.
Stwora, Anna
2024. The virtue and shades of aggressive humour in press advertising. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Andor, József
2023. Nemesi Attila László: A humor pragmatikai mechanizmusai. Jelentés és Nyelvhasználat 10:1 ► pp. 51 ff.
Bischetti, Luca, Irene Ceccato, Serena Lecce, Elena Cavallini & Valentina Bambini
2023. Pragmatics and theory of mind in older adults’ humor comprehension. Current Psychology 42:19 ► pp. 16191 ff.
Filani, Ibukun
2023. Nigerian stand-up comediennes performing femininity. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 33:2 ► pp. 209 ff.
Filani, Ibukun
2024. Comicasts as a form of interaction: some preliminary observations. Critical African Studies ► pp. 1 ff.
Filani, Ibukun & Catherine Olutoyin Williams
2023. A Preliminary Sketch on Intertextuality in Nigerian Stand-Up Comedy. In Humour Theory and Stylistic Enquiry, ► pp. 271 ff.
Heintz, Christophe & Thom Scott-Phillips
2023. Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46
Hernández-López, María de la O
2023. Millennial identity work in BlablaCar online reviews. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
Iliescu-Gheorghiu, Catalina
2023. Translating humour in children’s theatre for (unintended) diasporic audiences. The European Journal of Humour Research 11:2 ► pp. 142 ff.
Jodłowiec, Maria
2023. Deceptive clickbaits in the relevance-theoretic lens. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 33:3 ► pp. 418 ff.
Linares Bernabéu, Esther
2023. Co-constructing humour and gender identity in live stand-up comedy. In The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 335], ► pp. 200 ff.
Linares-Bernabéu, Esther
2021. Cognitive strategies and figurative language in subversive stand-up comedy: the case of trumping (Estrategias cognitivas y lenguaje figurativo en el monólogo humorístico subversivo: el caso de la baza lúdica). Studies in Psychology 42:2 ► pp. 428 ff.
Martínez, Javier
2023. A general mechanism of humor: reformulating the semantic overlap. HUMOR 36:4 ► pp. 529 ff.
Martínez Egido, José Joaquín
2023. Etiquetaje pragmático de un corpus de blogs económicos y financieros en español. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 96 ► pp. 101 ff.
Qafzezi, Eriola & Fabiola Kadi
2023. (S)Talking women: portrayal of females in online discourse of social media in Albania. Studies in Linguistics, Culture, and FLT 11:2 ► pp. 130 ff.
Sheikhan, Amir & Michael Haugh
2023. Epistemics and conversational humour in intercultural first conversations. In The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 335], ► pp. 110 ff.
Solska, Agnieszka
2023. The interpretative non-prototypicality of puns as a factor in the emergence of humor and in phatic communication. Intercultural Pragmatics 20:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
Săftoiu, Răzvan & Noémi Tudor
Uwen, God'sgift Ogban
2023. Every corona is not a virus. The European Journal of Humour Research 11:1 ► pp. 117 ff.
Wu, Baoqin
2023. Pragmatics of internet humor. The Social Science Journal ► pp. 1 ff.
Yus, Francisco & Carmen Maíz-Arévalo
2023. Interpreting Covid-related memes. In The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 335], ► pp. 6 ff.
Arróniz Parra, Santiago & Manuel Padilla Cruz
2022. Joke identification, comprehension and appreciation by Spanish intermediate ESL learners: an exploratory study. The European Journal of Humour Research 10:1 ► pp. 108 ff.
Aslan, Erhan
Forceville, Charles & Natalia Sánchez-Querubín
2022. Relevance theory perspectives on web-mediated communication. In Dynamism in Metaphor and Beyond [Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication, 9], ► pp. 325 ff.
Moreno Siles, José Antonio
2022. Corinnavirus, Zetapedro y Voxmitivo: reconocimiento e interpretación de algunos cruces deonomásticos. Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxía ► pp. 1 ff.
Skórka, Piotr, Beata Grzywacz, Dawid Moroń & Magdalena Lenda
2022. COVID-19 in Memes: The Adaptive Response of Societies to the Pandemic?. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19:19 ► pp. 12969 ff.
Tong, Ying & Chaoqun Xie
Caro Lopera, Miguel Angel
2021. Del humor/ironía a la ofensa en el aula: algunos factores detonantes. Enunciación 26:2 ► pp. 217 ff.
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier
2021. A relevance-theoretic account of translating jokes with sexual innuendos inModern Familyinto Spanish. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:3 ► pp. 331 ff.
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen
2021. Chapter 6. Humour and self-presentation on WhatsApp profile status. In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318], ► pp. 175 ff.
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen
2023. Multimodal Presentations of the Self. In The Power of Self-Presentation, ► pp. 165 ff.
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José & Inés Lozano-Palacio
2021. On verbal and situational irony. In Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and Usage [Figurative Thought and Language, 11], ► pp. 213 ff.
Simarro Vázquez, María, Nabiha El Khatib, Phillip Hamrick & Salvatore Attardo
2021. On the order of processing of humorous tweets with visual and verbal elements. Internet Pragmatics 4:1 ► pp. 150 ff.
Szeflińska-Baran, Magdalena & Marek Baran
2021. El humor verbal frente a los procedimientos de face-work. Studia Iberystyczne 19 ► pp. 7 ff.
Timofeeva-Timofeev, Larissa
2021. Phraseological manipulation as a humour tool in 8–12-year-olds’ written narratives in Spanish (La desautomatización fraseológica como recurso humorístico en narraciones escritas por niños y niñas de 8 a 12 años en español). Studies in Psychology 42:2 ► pp. 462 ff.
Yurchyshyn, Vita
2021. Types of satire interpretation in British media discourse. Synopsis: Text Context Media 27:2 ► pp. 77 ff.
Zhang, Leticia Tian & Daniel Cassany
Ajtony, Zsuzsanna
2020. Verbal Humour in Screen Translation: Officer Crabtree’s Case with the Fronch and Hungarian Longwodge. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 12:2 ► pp. 25 ff.
Bambini, Valentina, Luca Bischetti, Chiara Giuseppina Bonomi, Giorgio Arcara, Serena Lecce & Mauro Ceroni
2020. Beyond the motor account of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Verbal humour and its relationship with the cognitive and pragmatic profile. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 55:5 ► pp. 751 ff.
Nemesi, Attila L.
2020. Semantic and Pragmatic Mechanisms of Humour in Animal Jokes. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 12:2 ► pp. 1 ff.
Ruiz-Gurillo, Leonor & Esther Linares-Bernabéu
2020. Subversive humor in Spanish stand-up comedy. HUMOR 33:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Ruiz-Moneva, Maria Angeles
2020. Chapter 12. Humour and irony in George Mikes’ How to be a Brit. In Relevance Theory, Figuration, and Continuity in Pragmatics [Figurative Thought and Language, 8], ► pp. 327 ff.
Ruiz-Moneva, María Angeles
2019. Irony, humour and culture in George Mikes’ How to Be a Brit: relevance-theoretical perspectives. Diacronia :10
Ruiz-Moneva, María Angeles
2019. Ironie, umor și cultură în How to Be a Brit de George Mikes: perspective teoretice ale relevanței. Diacronia :10
Ruiz-Moneva, María Ángeles
2018. Irony and Parody in a Spanish Translation of Fowles’ "The French Lieutenant’s Woman": A Relevance-Theoretical Approach. Complutense Journal of English Studies 26 ► pp. 121 ff.
Stewart, Ronald
2020. Unlocking Verbal-Visual Puns in Late-Nineteenth-Century Japanese Cartoons. In The Palgrave Handbook of Humour, History, and Methodology, ► pp. 361 ff.
Wu, Zhiyi
2020. Patricia Bou-Franch and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (eds.), Analyzing digital discourse: New insights and future directions
. Pragmatics and Society 11:3 ► pp. 495 ff.
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick
2020. The Role of Humour in AVT: AVHT. In The Palgrave Handbook of Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility [Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, ], ► pp. 667 ff.
Buján Navarro, Marta
2019. Humour in interaction and cognitive linguistics: critical review and convergence of approaches. Complutense Journal of English Studies 27 ► pp. 139 ff.
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar & Patricia Bou-Franch
2019. Introduction to Analyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions. In Analyzing Digital Discourse, ► pp. 3 ff.
Giczela-Pastwa, Justyna & Paula Gorszczyńska
2019. Humour Translation Studies as a New Research Discipline: Approaches to Translating Humorous Texts. Tekstualia 4:59 ► pp. 117 ff.
Piskorska, Agnieszka
2019. Neo-Gricean perspective on irony, deception, and humor vs. some insights from experimental studies
. Intercultural Pragmatics 16:5 ► pp. 591 ff.
Piskorska, Agnieszka
2021. Humorous means, serious messages. In Beyond Meaning [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 324], ► pp. 119 ff.
Piskorska, Agnieszka
2021. The internet and social media as a theme and channel of humor. Internet Pragmatics 4:1 ► pp. 12 ff.
Piskorska, Agnieszka
2022. Review of Forceville (2020): Visual and multimodal communication: Applying the relevance principle. Functions of Language 29:3 ► pp. 328 ff.
Sánchez-Naranjo, Jeannette
2019. La producción de significado y la construcción de la identidad social en el uso humorístico del lenguaje. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 12:2 ► pp. 423 ff.
Chovanec, Jan & Villy Tsakona
2018. Chapter 1. Investigating the dynamics of humor. In The Dynamics of Interactional Humor [Topics in Humor Research, 7], ► pp. 1 ff.
Wieczorek, Magdalena
2018. Relevance in Sitcom Discourse: The Viewer’s Perspective. Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies :27/2 ► pp. 127 ff.
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
2017. Decoding images: Toward a theory of pictorial framing. Discourse & Society 28:4 ► pp. 327 ff.
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
2018. Mental models, (de)compressions, and the actor’s process in body-swap movies. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 5:2 ► pp. 376 ff.
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
2023. Cartooning and sexism in the time of Covid-19: Metaphors and metonymies in the Arab mind. Discourse & Society 34:2 ► pp. 147 ff.
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
Fortanet-Gómez, Inmaculada & Noelia Ruiz-Madrid
2016. Multimodal Humor in Plenary Lectures in English and in Spanish. Multimodal Communication 5:1 ► pp. 55 ff.
Padilla Cruz, Manuel
2016. Three decades of relevance theory. In Relevance Theory [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 268], ► pp. 1 ff.
Padilla Cruz, Manuel
2021. The role of humorous elements in Cádizchirigotasin creating/reinforcing a local identity. Spanish in Context 18:1 ► pp. 136 ff.
Pinar Sanz, María Jesús & Arsenio Jesús Moya Guijarro
2016. Irony and humor in Princess Smartypants. Brno studies in English :1 ► pp. [93] ff.
Yus, Francisco
2016. Propositional attitude, affective attitude and irony comprehension. Pragmatics & Cognition 23:1 ► pp. 92 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2016. Relevance theory and contextual sources-centred analysis of irony. In Relevance Theory [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 268], ► pp. 147 ff.
Yus, Francisco
Yus, Francisco
2018. The interface between pragmatics and internet-mediated communication. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 267 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2019. An outline of some future research issues for internet pragmatics. Internet Pragmatics 2:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2019. Multimodality in Memes: A Cyberpragmatic Approach. In Analyzing Digital Discourse, ► pp. 105 ff.
Yus, Francisco
Yus, Francisco
Yus, Francisco
Yus, Francisco
2021. Incongruity-resolution humorous strategies in image macro memes. Internet Pragmatics 4:1 ► pp. 131 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2022. Book review: Visual and Multimodal Communication: Applying the Relevance Principle. Visual Communication 21:4 ► pp. 670 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Introduction. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 1 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Beyond Humour: Relevant Affective Effects. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 309 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Meme-Mediated Humorous Communication. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 245 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Humour on Social Networking Sites. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 189 ff.
Yus, Francisco
Yus, Francisco
2023. Social Media and Computer-Mediated Communication. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context, ► pp. 455 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Humour in Messaging Interactions. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 107 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Relevance Theory, Humour and Internet Communication. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 9 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Contextual Constraints on Internet Humour. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 79 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Inferring Irony Online. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 160 ff.
Yus, Francisco
2023. Internet Humour. In Pragmatics of Internet Humour, ► pp. 59 ff.
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
2023. Irony in Linguistic Communication. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 129 ff.
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General