Classical treatments of humor from Plato and Aristotle on revolved around the

doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00180-7hostility experienced toward some ridiculous object and the benecial eects ofhumor as a social corrective. Hobbes (1840, 1909) modern formulation of super-iority theory concentrated on the feeling of sudden glory we experience in laughingat the foibles and misfortunes of others. Bergson (1911), too, focused on humansituations which evoke laughter through our recognition of incongruity in themechanical encrusted upon the living. Kant was the rst to analyze the humorousobject in terms of incongruity arising from the disappointment of a strained expec-tation, and Schopenhauer was the rst to expressly describe the sudden perceptionof incongruity as the basis of laughter. Bateson (1953, 1972) proposed more expli-citly that the humorous incongruity consisted in a clash of opposed frames; andIn this article, I explore the main theoretical issues facing researchers in conversational

humor today. In particular, I address (1) the structure of humorous discourse; (2) the forms ofconversational humor: jokes, anecdotes, wordplay, irony; (3) the interpersonal functions ofconversational humor: aggression versus rapport; (4) single-stage versus multi-stage proces-

sing of humor; and (5) the description of timing in word play and narrative jokes.# 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Humor; Jokes; Conversation; Relevance; Frames; Aggression; Rapport

1. The structure of humorous discourseIssues in conversational joking

Neal R. Norrick

Chair of English Linguistics, Saarland University, 66041 Saarbrucken, Germany

Received 1 June 2001; received in revised form 19 October 2002

Abstract

Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma0378-2166/03/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

E-mail address: n.norrick@mx.uni-saarland.de (N.R. Norrick).Koestler (1964) developed the notion of bisociation as the simultaneous percep-tion of an object within two contrasting frames of reference. Though all so-called

incongruity theories describe the humorous object in terms of clashing frames ofreference or sets of expectations, they do not focus on the humorous text.Freud (1960) initiated the linguistic analysis of the humorous text in identifying

joke techniques in terms of sounds, syllables, repetition, and variation. Freud fur-ther related the compression he found in joke techniques to a saving of psychicenergy, which resulted in the release of repressed emotion as laughter. Otherapproaches to humor like Fry (1963) and Mindess (1971) posit similar types ofrelease, but they lack the exact description of language structures Freud oers, andso are of less interest to linguists. Raskin (1985) nally provided an explicitdescription of joke texts as simultaneously compatible with opposed semanticscripts. Attardo and Raskin (1991) and Raskin and Attardo (1994) subsequentlyeshed out the analysis of jokes to a General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH),including pragmatic components. Giora (1991, 1995) is developing a discourse the-ory of humor based on information ow and relevance in texts. This discourse the-ory accounts for both canned jokes and irony in a unied way, and this would makeit preferable to the GTVH, other things being equal; but as currently formulated,neither theory attempts to describe the spontaneous wordplay characteristic ofeveryday talk, so this will be a point of comparison in the following.Rather than taking sides in the debate between these two positions at this point, I

will briey present and compare the two approaches to humorous texts and leave tilllater questions about humor in conversational interaction. I hope to show fairlygeneral agreement about the underlying structure of the humorous text. Then I willpoint out various problems facing all the current theories.Raskin (1985) rst proposed the semantic script theory of jokes, since revised with

Attardo as the General Theory of Verbal Humor (Attardo and Raskin, 1991;Raskin and Attardo, 1994). The theory employs semantic scripts (frames, schemas)to model the recipients use of linguistic and real-world knowledge to interpret joketexts. The lexical entry for a word is a script, a cognitive structure including com-monsense knowledge of things, processes, and procedures; as such, it goes farbeyond what a standard dictionary entry normally contains. These scripts arerepresented as graphs with lexical nodes and semantic links between the nodes. Aseach succeeding sentence comes into play, combinatorial rules lter out inappropri-ate scripts on the way to a composite interpretation; the rules assign default readingsunless previous information forces a special interpretation, and they allow recursionto information in the foregoing text. Recursion models the recipients ability tochoose appropriate contexts, and to revise choices in light of new information.On the basis of this semantic theory, the GTVH denes the joke as a text compa-

tible with two scripts opposed to each other in specic ways: at the most abstractlevel, the joke opposes real to unreal, or the real world versus the world imagined inthe joke; at the next level, it creates oppositions like actual vs. non-actual, normal vs.abnormal, possible vs. impossible; at the deepest level, these are manifested as good vs.bad, life vs. death, sex vs. non-sex etc. Typically, some semantic script-switch triggerin the punchline of the joke forces the passage from one script to another, as in theclassic one-liner below, where I bit him compels the recipient to re-analyze the phrase

1334 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359have a bite in the build-up of the joke. The switch from an idiomatic to a non-idiomatic

aho

knowledge of the events they cover, and include conventional joke topoi associatedwith such matters as sex, eth

, and we learn theme conventions for soes joke patterns on the basis of their logical mechanisms and their scriptons, though it makenarrative strategy, in the situation described, and in the butt or particular targetgroup or person within a single basic joke.Let us now see how the GTVH, originally formulated as a theory of canned joke

texts, can also apply to spontaneous conversational joking: the wordplay, banter,and irony so familiar to and frequent in everyday talk. Since canned jokes are oftenstructured around puns and misunderstandings, indeed around dialogue, the theorynaturally extends to many types of joking, though irony presents manifold problemsof its own. A brief consideration of a conversational pun will demonstrate thepotential for script-based analysis of conversational joking. In the following tran-scription, (2), of a passage of recorded conversation,1 Roger is talking about dol-phins within an extended discussion of human and animal intelligence, when Jasoncreates a pun by reanalyzing the foregoing utterance: He picks up the invented wordpoddy from the previous turn due to its phonetic similarity with party, and cle-verly combines it with animal in reference to the dolphins being discussed to echothe popular phrase party animal.

(2)

Roger: And it seems to be a completely egalitarian band.There isnt a leader in a dolphin- do they have pods?

1 All conversational passages cited in this paper were recorded and transcribed by my students and me

according to the conventions summarized below. The examples in the rst four sections were previously

treated in Norrick (1993).

Shes out. Period shows falling tone in preceding element.

Oh yeah? Question mark shows rising tone in preceding element.

nine, ten. Comma indicates a level, continuing intonation.

Damn Italics show heavy stress.

bu- but A single dash indicates a cut o.

says Oh Double quotes mark speech set o by speakers voice.tinguishoppositi s allowances for dierences in language or wording, inof jokeslearn ththrough contact with the appropriate texts, just as wennets, romantic comedy, and so forth. The GTVH dis-nicity, and politics. These scripts pertain only to groupsA bum came up tome this morning and said he hadnt had a bite in weeks, so I bit him.

The GTVH includes a special set of humor scripts, which go beyond our world(1)emy and mophony, phonetic similarity, and so on.

reading is common script-switch trigger, as are situational ambiguity, true polys-N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1335{sigh} Curly braces enclose editorial comments and untranscribable elements.

of discourse in whicent, so that all itgeneralization gene

orms to the gradedually more informati(3) explicitly marke connector such asnitial phase of disce, which dictates thThe iprinciplourse interpretation is guided by the graded salienceat we always access salient meanings rst. Salience isdigressiv by the way or after all.

s any deviation from the previous requirements with aone; and

ve (but at least not less informative) than the preceding(2) confbe gradinformativeness condition, viz., that each proposition

topica rally stated explicitly at the beginning of the discourse;

requirem s messages are conceived of as related to a discourse

theory h a well-formed text: (1) conforms to the relevanceed toward (nonconventional) irony. Giora assumes abased aJason: I dont know what theyre called.Roger: Whales are pods. I dont know what dolphins are.

I guess theyre pods too. Poddies. (1.3) Anyway{laughing}. Yeah but I mean-

Jason: Theyre poddy animals.Roger: {laughs}Jason: {laughs}Roger: Oooh. Thats- thats like a blow to the midri, yknow.

{laughing}

As in the canned joke in (1) above, we can recognize poddy animals as asemantic script-switch trigger which forces the passage from the script of dolphins toone of party fanatics. Again we have a switch from a real to a non-real script andfrom the animal to the human realm. Of course, theres no typical joke scriptinvolved, but this is as we would expect from a simple pun.The great strengths of the GTVH are its explicitness and testability. It has been

successfully implemented on the computer for the analysis of a wide range of joketexts (see Raskin and Attardo, 1994). Finally, Raskin and Attardo have developedthe notion of jokes as non-bona de communication to account for their failure toadhere to normal conditions on truthfulness and relevance in discoursea matter Iwill address in a separate section below.Of interest here is an evaluation of the GTVH as an account of conversational

humor. We have just seen initial evidence that it will apply to (some types of) con-versational puns; but much research remains to be done if we want to extend theGTVH to provide a unied account of jokes, anecdotes, joking, and irony, and thepersonal anecdotes told in conversation. Further, as conceived, formulated and tes-ted, GTVH describes joke texts rather than conversational joke performances. Itrelies on scripts attached to words, and says nothing of facial expressions, gestures,props, imitations of voices and noises, or other uncoded, non-script behavior. Eventhe prosody and timing of the oral joke performance remain outside its purview atpresent.Let us now consider a second theory of humor due to Giora and her associates

(Giora, 1985a,b, 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999; Giora and Fein, 1999; Giora et al., 1998).By contrast with Raskins semantic theory of joke texts, Gioras theory is discourse-

nd primarily orient

1336 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359coded in the mental lexicon, and aected by conventionality, frequency, familiarity,

and prototypicality. Less salient meanings get activated more slowly and mightreach sucient levels of activation, if the most salient meaning fails to match thecontext. In the second, contextual integration phase, activated meanings may beeither retained, or suppressed as irrelevant or disruptive, or they may be allowed tofade.As to irony, (1) conforms to the relevance requirement in that it introduces infor-

mation about the discourse topic; but (2) violates the graded informativeness con-dition in that it introduces a proposition whose salient meaning is either tooinformative or not informative enough; and (3) thereby forces the recipient to acti-vate a marked, less or nonsalient interpretation (in line with Gioras analysis ofirony as a kind of indirect negation of the stated proposition) without, however,suppressing the salient but inappropriate meaning.Jokes (to be precise: joke punchlines) also (1) conform to the relevance require-

ment; but (2) violate the graded informativeness condition in introducing a mark-edly too informative proposition; and (3) thereby force the recipient to go onbeyond (and suppress) the unmarked interpretation in order to discover a second,less salient or marked one. In the one-liner cited as (1) above, the most salientinterpretation of I bit him violates the graded informativeness condition in intro-ducing an unforeseen, less salient proposition involving jaws and teeth, and thisforces the recipient to switch from the most salient, idiomatic interpretation of thephrase have a bite to the decidedly less salient interpretation about a physicalassault.Clearly, this analysis covers roughly the same ground as the GTVH description

outlined above in dierent terms. If we equate Gioras meanings with semanticscripts, then her rst stage of interpretation accomplishes roughly the same work asRaskins compositional rule; a perceived violation of the informativeness principlecorresponds to Raskins script-switch trigger; and discarding the most salient inter-pretation in favor of an initially less salient interpretation coincides with recursivelynding a second script on the most abstract level of script opposition between thereal and unreal in the GTVH. The lower-level script oppositions represent col-lections and formalizations of saliency reversals characteristic of jokes, with nodirect representation in Gioras theory. Moreover, Attardos (1997) revision of theGTVH captures the notions of salience and accessibility by equating script oppo-siteness with low accessibility and high informativeness in the jocular script. Evenwith this revision, the theories are not quite notational variants of one another, buttheir dierences lie in areas requiring additional research before a more direct com-parison would be fruitful. As a rst tentative step in this direction, lets see howGioras theory applies to the pun in the conversational passage transcribed above.I suggest that punning, by contrast with irony and joke punchlines, runs afoul of

the relevance requirement in discourse, because puns are far more disruptive of con-versation than is irony (see Sherzer, 1985; Norrick, 1993), and far less expected thanthe structurally necessary punchlines in jokes. Conversationalists may either engagein further wordplay on the punning interpretation or return to relevant topical talk,so that puns must generate parallel interpretations rather than forcing replacement of

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1337the literal one. Thus, punning will (1) violate the relevance requirement in introducing

and irony. It extends naturally to the description of conversational punning, as

we have seen.However, like the GTVH, this discourse theory describes joke texts rather than

conversational joke performances. Although built around a discourse theory,Gioras treatment of jokes reduces them to independent texts, rather than treatingthem as elements of conversational interaction. As currently formulated, her theorydoes not integrate facial expressions, gestures, props, imitations, and other non-dis-course behavior, though, like the GTVH, it could probably be extended to do so.Again, the prosody and timing of the oral joke performance do not enter into thesetheoretical considerations. Moreover, unlike the GTVH, Gioras discourse theoryremains inexplicit and untested in many particulars. The notion of discourse topic isnotoriously dicult to dene even for orderly written texts (but see Giora, 1985a,b),let alone for conversation, where it is rarely if ever stated explicitly and almost neverat the outset. By making relevance central, the theory builds in all the imprecision ofthat concept as well. This promising theory, too, has a long way to go before it canclaim to describe the wide range of conversational humor.

2. Forms of conversational humor: jokes, anecdotes, wordplay, irony

The discussion so far has suggested that we already possess discrete denitions ofjokes, anecdotes, the various types of wordplay, and irony, or could at least separatethem in practice. In fact, I have argued that a clear distinction is neither possible norsensible, because the forms naturally fade into each other in conversation (Norrick,1993), and in literature as well (Nash, 1985). The exibility and protean character ofconversational joking forms is an integral part of their attraction: joke punchlinesturn into wisecracks, witty repartees grow into anecdotes, anecdotes develop intojokes, and so on. For the present, theoretically oriented purpose, it should be su-cient to distinguish a few clear cases, and show how they dier in terms of theirhumor mechanisms, their internal structure, and their integration into discourse.We have already seen how jokes, puns, and irony can be distinguished by theirinformation unrelated to the discourse topic; (2) violate the graded informativenesscondition, as irony does; and (3) thereby force the recipient to discover a second,unmarked interpretation beside the literal one.To illustrate, in example (2) above, the nominal poddy animals introduces

information unrelated to the topic of dolphins or intelligence, thus (1) violating therelevance requirement; it also (2) violates the graded informativeness condition inintroducing a markedly too informative proposition about avid party-goers; and (3)thereby forces the recipient to nd a less salient, marked interpretation relatingparty animal to poddy animal by virtue of a phonetic similarity (or identity insome dialects) and to discard the salient, unmarked interpretation.The great strengths of Gioras proposal are its direct connection with a

description of discourse which includes notions like topic and reference (Ariel,1990, 1991; Reinhart, 1983) and its potentially unied treatment of jokes, joking,

1338 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359humor mechanisms in a discourse-based theory. In particular, jokes end in a

punchline, which adheres to the relevance requirement, but violates the gradedinformativeness condition, thereby forcing the recipient to discard the unmarkedinterpretation upon discovering a second, marked one. Puns violate the relevancerequirement and the graded informativeness condition, thereby forcing the recipientto discover a second, unmarked interpretation. According to Giora, irony conformsto the relevance requirement, but violates the graded informativeness condition,thereby forcing the recipient to discover a marked interpretation that represents akind of negation of the stated proposition.The humor mechanism seems to work the same way in personal anecdotes as in

narrative jokes, but the proposition (or the propositions) which violate(s) thegraded informativeness condition do(es) not necessarily conclude the anecdotetext. Indeed, personal anecdotes may contain several humorous propositionsintended to elicit laughter; this dierentiates them crucially from jokes, whichcharacteristically aim at a single response (preferably laughter) precisely at theirconclusion. Personal anecdotes are told as true reports of funny events experi-enced by the teller, and they are usually explicitly prefaced as such with state-ments like the funniest thing happened to me or I remember when I was veor six. Thus, they generally give hearers some new information about the teller;they bear direct relevance to the surrounding conversation, as well as followingprinciples of internal coherence. Consequently, anecdotes encourage active parti-cipation from listeners, including becoming full-edged co-tellers. Jokes, too, areannounced as such with standard prefaces like Have you heard the one about. . .?By contrast with personal anecdotes, narrative jokes are not about real people or

even realistic characters, but only about caricatures or types like this travelingsalesman or simply this guy. Any information that jokes relate about these sketchycharacters becomes irrelevant as soon as the joke ends. Jokes are generally dis-connected from surrounding conversation, though they adhere to the relevancerequirement internally. They tend to limit audience participation to laughter at cru-cial points. Stories told about mutual acquaintances and (literary) anecdotes repe-ated about famous people occupy a ground midway between narrative jokes andpersonal anecdotes.By contrast with jokes and personal anecdotes, which are usually explicitly set o

from surrounding turn-by-turn conversation by some kind of preface, punning(including wisecracks and sarcasm based on puns) is unannounced and disruptive oftopical conversation. This disruptive characterwhich amounts to a violation of therelevance requirementdistinguishes puns from all the other forms of conversa-tional humor. The same sort of abrupt script reversal (or salience imbalance) in thepunchlines of jokes adheres to the relevance requirement only because it is an inte-gral element of the genre. When punning joins with personal attack in sarcasm, thedisruptive element looms even larger. Consider passage (3) below, in which an initialpun provides the basis for several turns of word play at the expense of Jason, whowants to describe a favorite painting. Jason and his wife Margaret are at the homeof Trudy and Roger for dinner, and the four are seated at the table over dessert and

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1339coee.

aluhiclaothinoetod n,t81Gerrig, 1984; Kumon-Nakamura et al., 1995; Giora, 1995, 1997; Gibbs,1986, 1994), but more recent work by Colston and OBrien (2000a,b), Dews et al.,

Clark andrizing abouWilson, 19irony, the matter of humor rarely comes up (Grice, 1975; Sperber and; Sperber, 1984; Wilson and Sperber, 1992; Clark and Carlson, 1982;way; indeed they are often not even perceived as humorous. In much earlier theo-

Irony an on-punning sarcasm need not disrupt the ow of conversation in thisand return the ow of topical conversation which occasioned the initial pun.

recognize th aggressive and disruptive eect of punning, and attempt to ameliorate it

description f a painting. This indicates that participants in talk may themselves

frivolously to sacrosanct matters. In any case, the turn segues back into Jasons

a shock to e sensibilities of participants who feel the humor and laughter intrude

prevent it fr m being an unwelcome interruption to the speaker who lost the oor, or

attempted rication. Just because humor is technically o record, this does not

prompted t s reaction; after all, he neither laughed nor took a speaking turn after his

Gioras req irement for explicit digression marking). Jasons silence may have

the poor qu ity of the initial pun, for the topical digression or perhaps for both (see

directed to e interrupted speaker. In saying sorry Roger apologizes either for(3)

Jason: That painting in our living room of the boat in the-Margaret: Yawl in the channel? Maine?Jason: Theres a little boat and an island.Roger: Yall in the channel? {laughing}Jason: Yawl. Yawl.Margaret: Its a boat, yall.Roger: What are yall doing in the channel. {laughing}Margaret: I need a little port.Roger: {laughs}Trudy: {laughs}Margaret: Yall in that channel {laughing}.

What are yall in that channel for. I know.Roger: Sorry. Who painted yawl in the channel?Jason: Its a painting by a painter named. . .

This pun picks out a word in the preceding turn for humorous comment, violatingexpectations for sequential relevance by forcibly yoking the noun yawl with theAmerican Southern personal pronoun yall (the plural of you), based on theirfortuitous phonological identity. Roger marks his pun with a nal laugh, but Jasontreats it as a legitimate failure to understand, repeating the crucial word by way ofclarication. Margaret picks up on the pun, and produces a parallel play on words.Then Margaret delivers I need a little port in such a manner that it sounds morelike a request for a drink than an explanation of someones presence in a channel,and this amounts to a second pun, before she recycles yall in the channel.Roger, who instigated the word play, also returns to topical talk with a question

th

1340 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359(1995), Dews and Winner (1995), Gibbs (2000), Kreuz et al., (1991), Kreuz and

thereby forcing a marked interpretation (in Gioras terms), then it clearly makes two

raiecipient and the ironist himself, but it has little eect on the conversationotherwise. Both the Ill bet-construction and the word great are standard markersof irony, so that Neds utterance is unquestionably ironic even without the character-istic sarcastic intonation contour audible on the tape (see Kreuz and Roberts, 1995, onmarkers of irony). Though Brandon laughs, he nevertheless immediately reverts to theliteral (intended) terrible, rather than joining in the ironic approach, and proceeds tohis description of the lm. Irony often fails to generate further humorous talk, becauseit has come to be an unmarked form of expression for many conversationalists. Thisundisruptive interpretation of irony is reected in an analysis which sees irony asadhering to the relevance principle (and violating only the graded informativenessrequirement, by contrast with punning, which presents a violation at the highest level).This distinction between irony and punning raises the issue of aggression versus

rapport in conversational joking, a topic we take up in the following section.

3. Functions of conversational humor: aggression versus rapport

Joke telling and joking have been described both as aggressive and conduciveboth the r

Neds st ghtforwardly ironic Ill bet thats a great movie elicits laughter fromIt was pretty good. I had read the book. . .

Ned:Brandon:{laughs}

Brandon: {laughing} Its a terrible movie.

Ned: Boy Ill bet thats a great movie.With Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal-incompatible scripts simultaneously available and meets the conditions for humor inRaskins script theory. And if an ironic utterance literally outs the maxim of qualityto signal a particular intention represented by a second proposition, as in Grices(1975) classic account, we again have two opposed scripts. But if the interpretation ofirony involves only a single stage, recognizing it as pretense (Clark and Gerrig, 1984),or echoic mention (Wilson and Sperber, 1992), or simply as a special form of dero-gation (Gibbs, 1994), then the humorous potential of irony requires some separateexplanation. No single-stage description of irony has so far taken this challenge ser-iously, although irony is sometimes funny, as shown by the laughter in (4), below.Here the brothers Brandon and Ned are discussing movies, when Ned invokes ironyin the narrow semantic sense of saying the apparent opposite of what he believes:

(4)

Brandon: I watched The Fountainhead just a couple weeks ago.Roberts (1995), Roberts and Kreuz (1994) shows that irony, too, can elicit laughter,disrupt conversation, and lead to further joking. If irony violates the graded infor-mativeness condition in introducing a markedly too informative proposition,

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1341to rapport. I believe that careful analysis of real conversational examples leads to

an interactional account in which aggression and rapport play complementaryroles.

3.1. Joke telling as an interactional achievement

To begin with joke telling, Sacks (1974) analyzed a dirty joke in conversation,concentrating on the organization of the telling, and postulated a test function forjokes: the speaker demonstrates knowledge and challenges hearers to prove theyunderstand by laughing at the proper place. Legman (1982) had earlier suggestedthat the teller of a dirty joke directs aggression at listeners in exposing them to itsoensive subject matter. Accordingly, the teller tests for understanding, but also fora kind of guilty complicity in the sexual or scatological scene the joke portrays.While this makes dirty jokes more aggressive, it also makes them more conducive tothe creation of conversational rapport.Sherzer (1985) goes beyond Sacks in identifying a twofold aggression in jokes:

against the hearer, who is subjected to a little intelligence test, and against the buttof the jokeperhaps a person or group the teller and hearer conspire to laugh at.Still, as Norrick (1993) shows, the aggression most speakers direct at their listenersin telling them jokes cannot rate very high on the scale of aggressive acts; rather thantesting for background knowledge, jokes presuppose it and oer an opportunity toratify shared attitudes. Even an erudite allusion joke like Though Will shake hisspear, Anne hath a way most likely appears in conversation between literary-minded cognoscenti as a show of mutual knowledge, rather than to test someonesdoubtful background in Shakespeare by way of aggression. If anything is beingprobed in such cases, it is the audiences willingness to laugh about the subjectmatter in question. It is up to the joker to signal a play frame in the sense of Bateson(1953, 1972) and to express the jest in a form accessible to members of a certaingroup, while it is up to the listener to interpret and get the joke, and to showappreciation with laughter. If the two coordinate their timing, they both share in thepayo of amusement and increased rapport (see Norrick, 1994).Tannen (1984) argues that humor makes a persons presence in a conversation

more strongly felt than other sorts of contributions. According to Goman (1967),we interact to present a personality, to gain knowledge of others, and to enhanceself-image for ourselves and others, so telling jokes should provide an opportunityfor the joker to gain credit for a performance and to gather relevant social dataabout the audiencedata on beliefs, attitudes, group membership, and so on. Sincejokes often trade on personal problems or slips and socially sensitive topics such asethnic identity, politics, and sex, they allow the joker to demonstrate a certain tol-erance and/or insensitivity, while oering hearers a chance to signal their agreement,shock, resentment, or what have you. In addition, since jokes allow us to directaggression at a third party, they can help create and enhance feelings of rapport.Joking works to establish and enhance group cohesion, and serves as a control onwhat sorts of talk and behavior are acceptable to participants in the interaction.Far from testing for background knowledge with jokes, tellers commonly ll the audi-

1342 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359ence in on any information the joke presupposes in the interest of ensuring understanding

fn

Brandon:

Ned

Ned:Brandon:

But it doesnt have anything to do with Dwight Yoakum.Ned: Oh. Dolly Parton. And you dont know Clint Black.Brandon: is what rang the bell.Ned: Clint Black is . . .

This passage illustrates a number of interesting points, which receive furtherNed:Brandon: No. But Dolly Parton is what-Ned:Brandon:{laughing} Thats pretty cute.I liked it.And he says Oh are you still sleeping around with Ginger Rogers?

And he says Oh Im Red Adair.

look familiar to me. Who are you?that its Dolly Parton. How can you call Dolly Parton Molly Parton.So their talk goes a little further and the guy says, By the way, youAnd Red Adair looks at the guy. Molly Parton. Everybody knowsguy was terric. Hes very old at this point but- boy he can still hoof.And Red Adair looks at the guy and says, Lenny Davis Jr. You meanSammy Davis Jr.{laughs}Sammy, Lenny, I dont know. But the guy was great. I tell you theentertainment here is terric. And he says, And last night. You knowwho I went to see? I saw the best country and western singer Ive seenin my life. This gal was just terric. Sings like an angel. Molly Parton.this stu but the entertainment here is just spectacular. Two nights agoI saw the greatest song-and-dance man ever. Lenny Davis Jr. And thisVegas is. He says, Not only is there gambling and good golf and allOkay. Hes coming back from Indonesia. Hes been over there a whileputting out res. And he stops o in Las Vegas. On his way back toHouston. He sits down at the bar next to a guy and he starts up aconversation and the guy starts talking about what a terrific town LasBrandon:You probably dont know Clint Black.I dont. Ive got a joke for you. You know who Red Adair is? RedAdair? Hes the guy who goes around and puts out oil well res?Yeah.Ned:

Oh Ive got a joke for you.Ned:Brandon:And Clint Black.

Brandon: Then they were going to go see Dwight Yoakum and Pol- Dolly Parton?(5)Brandon, a d he insists on telling it before continuing with serious topical talk.

their plans or the coming weekend, when a name makes a joke topically relevant for

excerpt (5) elow, before producing the actual joke text. Brandon and Ned are discussing

and enjoyment, and hence the success of the performance. Brandon does just this in the

b

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1343attention below, but of central importance here is Brandons concern that Ned

possesses crucial background information before he goes into the joke itself. Afterinterrupting the original discussion with Ive got a joke for you, then cutting oNeds attempted return to the topic with a terse I dont and a repetition of theannouncement of a coming joke, Brandon rst asks whether Ned knows the centralcharacter in the joke. Only when Ned responds positively, does Brandon signal thebeginning of the joke proper with okay. The primary interactional point of thisjoke telling clearly consists in performance and entertainment rather than in ascer-taining shared background knowledge or probing attitudes.Since joke telling counts as a performance, including an extended occupation of

the conversational oor with the intention of entertaining the other participants,some speakers revel in joke telling, while others avoid it. The decision to tell a jokeright here, right now in an ongoing conversation, shows the teller has no compunc-tion about derailing the interaction in progress for the ostensible purpose of amu-sement. Humor makes a persons presence more strongly felt in a multi-partyconversation, and performing jokes well certainly rates even higher than sponta-neous humoragain because it involves a performance which suspends the usualgive-and-take of everyday talk. Thus when conversationalists announce jokes, theyhave already revealed a lot about themselves, before they ever even get into theperformance proper.Moreover, the choice of joke materials strongly reects the personality of the

presenter. Conversationalists usually expect a joke to bear contextual relevance, andthey may negatively judge the logic and consistency of someone who tells a joke withno obvious topical point. If, as Freud (1960) suggests, joking provides a sociallyacceptable way of venting unconscious emotions, then the topics we choose to jokeabout suggest something about the feelings we suppress. Even the performance of ajoke itself reveals a particular personality. We expect the teller to present the build-up clearly and coherently, and to deliver the punchline without laughing or tele-graphing it in advance. Failure in any of these departments can blow the joke in thesense of Hockett (1977; see Norrick, 2001). Performance factors help determine theamount of aggression a joke expresses toward its butt as well. This, in turn, inu-ences the way we laugh, whether sympathetically or derisively, and hence the per-sonalities we ourselves reveal in telling and responding to jokes.We must also briey consider the reception of the performance of jokes in the

conversational context. As Sacks (1974) stresses, the performance of a joke criticallydepends on laughter for successful completion. Audience laughter demonstratesunderstanding, but at the same time, it raties and evaluates the tellers perfor-mance. Listeners may also interrupt the ongoing performance of a joke with com-plimentary laughter. Laughter during the build-up signals appreciation of theperformance itself rather than a positive evaluation of the joke text.Since a joke calls for laughter immediately upon its completion, silence on the part

of hearers becomes signicant. A lack of laughter shows that something has goneawry, but it remains initially ambiguous: either the recipients have failed to get thejoke, or they are withholding laughter purposely to show that they did not appreci-ate the performance. Beyond simply withholding laughter, members of the audience

1344 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359may respond at the proper juncture with a mirthless ha-ha-ha, a disgusted oh, or

some other sign that they have understood the joke but are not amused. Theseresponses then allow the audience to signal that the problem lies not with them buton the side of the teller. Both initial silence and mirthless laughter often herald somemore explicit comment by the audience on the joke performance.Of course, audiences also comment upon completion of a joke they like, some-

times while they laugh about it and sometimes afterward. In response to the RedAdair joke in example (5), Ned comments Thats pretty cute, as he nisheslaughing, and the teller Brandon says I liked it. Then Ned goes on to question thejokes contextual relevance, and Brandon responds to this. Audiences comment onjokes in all kinds of ways, and their comments may lead to talk on serious matters;but not rarely, the talk after one joke tends to turn to other jokes.

3.2. The interpersonal dimension of conversational joking

We turn now from joke telling to spontaneous conversational joking. Theaggressive aspects of conversational joking follow from the fact that humor calls forlaughter immediately upon its completion, which narrowly determines the range ofresponses the listener can make. But conversationalists also use stock and sponta-neous humor to negotiate openings, closings, topic changes, and realignments, andhow they interact in so-called banter to produce extended sequences of word playoriented toward some topic. Conversational joking allows participants to performfor their mutual entertainment with a consequent enhancement of rapport. Humorcan be seen as helping smooth the work in everyday conversation, as well as oeringus a chance to play: to present a personality and create rapport in entertainingfashion.From canned jokes, we now move into forms of word play such as punning,

hyperbole, and allusion, and then on to mocking and sarcasmthat is, from thoseapparently harmless forms geared to mutual revelation to those forms clearlyaggressive in attacking the personal characteristics and errors of others. It is easy tosee that swapping jokes allows self-presentation and contributes to rapport directly,whereas competitive word play substitutes a show of wit for the self-presentation,and its aggressive aspects loom large. On the positive side, puns may enhance rap-port indirectly, since reacting properly demonstrates shared attitudes and groupmembership. By contrast, sarcastic comments on the foibles and slips of fellowconversationalists seem geared to produce animosity rather than rapport, whichmakes their interpersonal function as a whole problematic. Nevertheless, some con-versationalists apparently thrill to the competition and hardly covert aggression ofmocking and sarcasm, word play, and innuendo. In fact, some friends and collea-gues develop a relationship where joking routinely takes the form of verbal attack,competitive word play, teasing, and so on (Norrick, 1993). Such a customary jokingrelationship may serve a rapport function between some conversationalists; and thishelps explain the apparently positive role of mocking and sarcasm in their talkexchanges (see Kottho, 2002).Punning in particular enjoys a rather poor reputation traditionally. Puns count as

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1345frivolous and supercial even among the various types of humor, and they rank

xprersse

r into a punning attack on him. This points up one sort of verbal aggressionwith one or more listeners, thus realigning the participants in the conversation. Thisattack diers from the rather mild aggression associated with puns as context-boundwit, not only in severity, but also in the clear aim it takes at an individual. Beth mustsimply get the joke, but Arnold must also retain his composure and reply in kind.Verbal aggression of this sort reveals something of the personality Judy chooses toexpress and her relationship with Arnold; at the same time, Arnolds weak response,saying that the print is Toms, also provides relevant, though initially ambiguous,social data about him.Once a pun has introduced a play frame, all kinds of humor become acceptable.

And this holds for word play generally. In example (7) below, Frank establishes ahumorous key with hyperbole, rst in his choice of aeronautical vocabulary liketake o and payload, then in his grossly exaggerated twenty tons, though nolaughter ensues until he commences his claim to have never seen an insect thatbig. The play frame takes rm hold when Ned and Brandon begin suggestinginappropriate names for the insect. Frank enlists Brandon as a witness to hishyperbole, then extends his aeronautical metaphor, using the specically aircraftoften associated with puns: The punster moves into an antagonistic relationship

entice hesome papgurativehe is cutting, then applies it to Arnold himself, so that it takes on itsnse. She lets the dual meaning potential of Arnolds phrase o centerJudy e opriates a phrase Arnold initially introduced with literal reference toArnold: No its Toms print.quite high on the scale of aggression, because they disrupt topical talk by mis-construing and redirecting it. Moreover, puns often revolve around rather marginal,less salient senses of a word, those related to arcane or abstract areas of knowledge.And we may play on more or less covert sexual and religious connotations of wordsand phrases. Puns presuppose our close attention to the local context and engageour wits to reanalyze the talk within it rapidly, as well as requiring us to be able totake a joke in some cases.Interactionally, puns can be viewed as skewed responses to foregoing talk. The

punster constructs an ambivalent utterance with one meaning oriented towardunderstanding the preceding utterance and a second meaning also tted to thatutterance but based on a contextually inappropriate analysis of it. In passage (6),below, involving three undergraduate student assistants in the departmental copyingroom, talk shifts abruptly from the activity of cutting paper to Arnolds mentalcondition via the fortuitous connection between the concrete and mental senses ofthe phrase o center.

(6)

Arnold: An exact cut. Oh no. This one is a little o center.Judy: Thats because youre a little o center.Beth: {laughs}

1346 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359term fuselage twice and wingspan once. Finally, he puts an end to his own

noQuestion: What do you call a seven-foot, three-hundred-pound bully armed to theteeth?(8)Notice pjoke, one varticularly that Brandons call it sir echoes a line from an old riddleersion of which appears as example (8) below.allusion.

f them experienced rst hand via extended metaphor, hyperbole, andthe three ponly twoarticipants succeed, as a group, in humorously describing a past event

Easy. At the end, even Ned kicks in primordial as a show of solidarity. Here,g, and Brandon goes even one step further in saying Oh no. No.

reaches itsexaggeratihigh point when Frank appeals to Brandon for testimony that he is not

at naming the bug and commenting hyperbolically on its size. The conspiracy

tributions to the humorous framework once established. All three men take a shot

Of particular interest here is the way participants take turns in making con-Frank: It was just slightly smaller than a hummingbird.

So were talking primordial here.Ned:

And a wingspan like that. Oh man. Never seen one like that.Ned:Frank:{laughs}

Frank: It had a fuselage like that.

Brandon: Oh no. No. Easy.

Frank: Yeah. Brandon, Im not exaggerating, am I?

Ned: {laughs}{holds up ngers}

It had a fuselage that big.Frank: Let me tell you what I call it. My God look at that big bug.Ned: I keep hearing people call them things like hornets.Frank: Let me tell you. That dude was big enough to take o with a payload of

about twenty tons.Ned: Well what do you call it?Frank: I didnt know what to call it.

I had never seen an insect that big. Ever.Ned: {laughs}Frank: The only thing I could think to call it-Ned: {laughing} Call it, get thee hence.Brandon: Call it sir.Ned: {laughs}(7)extended mwith a humetaphor and hyperbole in oering an objectively appropriate comparisonmingbird.N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1347Answer: Sir.

purposes of conversational humor. Allusion to a text funny in itself has an obvious

double humorous potential, rst in its actual contribution to the current text, andsecond by recalling the original text for listeners in the know. Moreover, in the pre-sent case, the original joke revolves around a pun. In the question, what do youcall has the force of how do you designate, whereas sir in the answer reanalyzesthe question as something like how do you address. So, Brandons turn also worksas a pun itself along with the allusion and word play proper based on the inappro-priateness of sir as a class name. The allusion is especially apt in its reference to arather large member of the species as well, so that it works on several levels simul-taneously. Interestingly, Ned responds immediately and appreciatively, while Frankfails to react, perhaps because he was intent on delivering his own line, though hemay simply have been unfamiliar with the joke in question. This appreciation for awitty allusion and the dierential reaction to it are the sorts of data participants takemore or less conscious note of, and they ultimately accrue to the personalities con-veyed in humorous conversational interaction.Conversational humor generally allows us to present a personality, share experi-

ences and attitudes, and promote rapport. Punning as a type of word play mayfunction either to amuse or to verbally attack. Both types are aggressive in disrupt-ing turn-taking and topical talk, but the punning attack adds personal aggression aswell. When directed at participants within the group, the more aggressive forms ofjoking depend on a customary joking relationship developed through a history ofinteraction: they convey positive politeness or solidarity by outing negative polite-ness conventions, and hence showing the relationship need not stand on formalities.At the same time, apparently aggressive conversational joking enhances rapport bydemonstrating coparticipation in competitive play on an equal basis. While theycause competition in interaction as a whole, mocking, sarcasm, and irony producelittle local eect on the organization of talk; they work more as social control on therecipient than to present a personality for the joker.

4. Single-stage versus multi-stage processing

This section addresses the current debate between single-stage versus multi-stagemodels for processing humor. In single-stage models like those proposed by Sperberand Wilson (1986) and Gibbs (1994), the recipient produces a coherent interpreta-tion of a discourse, revising the analysis of context on the y. Irony is understood asirony, but is not opposed to some literal meaning: the appreciation of its humorousThe allusion works on several levels at once in conversational humor. Accordingto Freud (1960), we derive a childlike pleasure from the serendipity of nding oldacquaintances in unaccustomed guises. Hence, even unfunny allusion can excite alaugh of recognition and a moment of rapport between participants in a conversa-tion, because they can bask in their shared ability to identify the relevant piece ofpre-existing text.Further, reference to a joke makes Brandons line a special type of allusion for

1348 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359eect requires a separate explanation. All classical views of humor as well as current

linguistic models of humor appreciation require some recognition of incongruitybased on two opposed meanings for a single stretch of discourse. Thus, single stagetheories will need additional mechanisms to explain humor appreciation. In tradi-tional terms, how can humor consist in the recognition of sense in nonsense, ifrecipients constantly block out nonsense in search of sense?Grice (1975) distinguished literal meaning from speaker intention. Recipients rst

process the literal meaning of an utterance, assuming the speaker was adhering tothe Cooperative Principle (CP) and its associated maxims, then they check thisinterpretation against the context. If it ts, it can be taken to reect the speakersintention; if it violates any of the maxims, the recipient works out possible impli-catures corresponding to what the speaker intended. The clash between the initialliteral interpretation and the implicature serves the purpose of humor theoriesrequiring two opposed meaningsframes of reference or scripts.But joke-tellers are not committed to the truth of their texts, and we certainly do

not expect conversational humor to present trustworthy information. Variousresearchers have demonstrated how jokes regularly violate the Gricean maxims,particularly the maxims of quality and quantity (see Attardo, 1994, chapter 9 andreferences therein). Raskin (1985) argued that humor must count as non-bona decommunication, because it systematically violates the CP. He proposed that humorfollows its own CP and separate set of maxims, which account for internal con-sistency and inferencing within humorous discourse. These maxims and CP providea background against which violations within the joke text can create the scriptswitch necessary for humor, without overextending the Gricean framework.Robin Lako (1973, 1977) outlined a more radical revision along similar lines.

Lako sees Grices CP and maxims as adequate for more formal, consultative stylesof communication where deference and distance between participants reignsupreme. This sort of communication rests on negative politeness geared towardnegative face, as Goman (1967) dened it (see Brown and Levinson, 1987). Talkbetween friends, by contrast, reects positive politeness and positive face. It isbased on solidarity and making others feel good about themselves. Joking is, ofcourse, a strategy of positive politeness, and hence it need not adhere to the Griceanmaxims. By including notions like solidarity and distance, Lako can account forinferences about relative power and group relations like the aggression and rapportwe found to be so important in the interpersonal dimension of humor in the pre-vious section.The revisions of Grices framework by Raskin and Lako retain the notion of

implicature as indicative of speaker intention. Processing a joke in conversationbegins with attuning oneself to the peculiar conventions of joke telling, regardless ofthe apparently logical build-up. The incongruity necessary for semantic script switchand humor recognition derives from a discrepancy between two opposed inter-pretations of the text, one apparently relevant and a second initially unexpected, butrepresenting the tellers intention. This sort of description represents a multi-stagemodel of processing, and hooks directly into standard descriptions of humorappreciation as well. Discourse-based theories like Gioras also envision interpreta-

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1349tion as a multi-stage process, though they do not rely on the Gricean notions of

e ongoing discourse lead recipients to a second stage of processing to access

yt seek a basis for appreciating the humor involved elsewhere. In fact, it is not clearpivotal phrase, the tertium comparationis in traditional terms, and for the punningcomparisons above this must include recognition that the phrase is ambiguous.Perhaps the context of the soundings above forces the sexual interpretation,

whereas the other interpretations would remain the salient ones in normal contexts,and this tension between the two types of contexts might function as the incongruitynecessary for humor. This would jibe with the fact that recipients tend to see other-wise non-salient interpretations only in cases where some risque matter is involved.Thus, in the structurally parallel examples below, only the second (10b) involvingsex makes us work out the less salient, but more salacious interpretation, whereas weremain satised with the innocent interpretation of (10a), in which each man jogswith his own wife. The structural ambiguity is always present, but the less salientmeaning remains latent without the promise of hanky-panky.

(10)

a. Allen jogs with his wife twice a week, and so does Paul.how one can be said to have comprehended a comparison without having grasped the

mussematelantic script oppositions in both cases. But if the sexual meanings appear immedi-, as in single-stage theories like Gibbs, no explicit script opposition arises, and wedet ctive sense of dick in (9b) would surface before the sex organ sense, yieldingIf, however, listeners simply seek to produce a single coherent interpretation con-sistent with the main thrust of the discourse in progress, how can they detect theincongruity central to the recognition of humor? The single-stage models of Sperberand Wilson (1986) and Gibbs (1994) maintain that recipients understand irony andmetaphor without actually deriving a second-order meaning from a rst-ordermeaning (but see Curco, 2000). This seems to entail that puns and jokes could beunderstood without experiencing the sudden reversal of sense humor theoriesrequire. Gibbs (1994: 13) speaks of a fundamental ability to conceptualize situa-tions as being ironic and a recognition of the incongruity between an expecta-tion. . .and . . .reality, but he never attempts any more explicit formulation of thisability. He treats the puns in the ritualized insults below (from Abrahams, 1962) as ifthey were interpreted in the same way as metaphors (Gibbs, 1994: 139).

(9)

a. At least my mother aint no railroad track, laid all over the country.b. Your mothers like a police stationdicks going in and out all the time.

In multi-stage theories like Raskins and Gioras, the appropriate literal meaning oflaid in (9a) would surface rst only to give way to the sex act meaning, and the

evis thinitially unexpected interpretations.implicature and intention. Instead, violations of relevance and informativeness vis-a`-1350 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359b. Allen sleeps with his wife twice a week, and so does Paul.

:(12) Lion tamer seeks tamer lion

Pure wordplay lacking in lurid matter and aggression, as in example (13), alsoany obelowther aspect of content fails to account for innocent jokes like the gag want ad.requiMore extension to be able to describe the mechanism of humorous allusion.reover, any theory of humor based on risque topics, aggressive tendency, orerstanding of its contextual signicance, so that any single-stage theory will

the rundecognition of an external source for an allusion must remain separate from an

ent context will fail to register its source text and its humorous potential. Clearly,curr(11)

a. Jenny Schwarz made the best muns in town,but it was her fathers luscious buns that kept the crowds coming.

b. Lenny Schwarz made the best muns in town,but it was his daughters luscious buns that kept the crowds coming.

If the joking context and the promise of prurient content clash with normalexpectations for ambiguous structures and words, then single-stage theories, too,might claim a basis for humor appreciation.This move again appeals to multi-stage interpretationor at least dual proces-

singsince it involves both an initial interpretation and a comparison of this inter-pretation with some norm. If recipients recognize incongruity between expectationsand actual interpretations, as Gibbs maintains, then they are performing a two-stageor dual process on beyond the initial comprehension process. In any case, examples(9)(11) seem to suggest that recipients can access all available readings, discardingthose which fail to match the context and oer no other interesting interpretation.While comprehension may usually proceed as a single-stage process, humor appre-ciation requires additional processing, as in a discourse theory which checks eachitem of a text for relevance and informativeness against the ongoing interpretation.Humor via allusion presents perhaps the greatest problem for single-stage the-

ories. Central to the appreciation of allusion and intertextuality generally is therecognition that some element somehow ts the current context, although it derivesfrom another context with a distinct meaning (see Norrick, 1989). Freud (1960)hypothesized that we derive serendipitous pleasure from recognizing familiar items innew places. We saw (in the case of the call it sir-allusion in the excerpt in Section3.2, above) how identication of the source text must precede humor understanding:full appreciation of the allusion required recognizing aspects of the source in the newcontext as well. Single-stage interpretation of an allusion as a coherent element of theexam(11b)les: The ambiguity only surfaces if some sexy interpretation beckons, as in

The same eect appears with polysemous words like buns in the next pair of

p

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1351presents a problem for any content-based account of humor.

Jason: {laughs}

ng

sfethe basis of the oral joke telling performance. Everyday conversation is the

hoinuence our perception of timing, as does the tellers style of delivery. The overall

on the clock, because spoken and semantic features of the build-up and the punchlineWe must avoid reifying timing as a unitary notion. Timing is compounded ofmany factors and does not reduce to a single variable in the joke performance, orrelate to a single talent on the part of the joke teller; timing has both textual and oralaspects, yet it requires interactional denition, since a successful joke telling dependson the audience. Timing in the joke performance does not depend primarily on thepause between the build-up and punchline, nor can it be directly measured in secondsstudy onnatural me of joke telling, so it seems a logical place to begin (see Norrick, 2001).mance ounresolvjokes. In a recent article, Attardo (1997) lists Timing rst among thed issues in humor studies. Timing is by its very nature a topic we mustnal section, I look at the perennial question of timing in the oral perfor-In thi5. Timicompreh nsion.Roger: Oooh. Thats- thats like a blow to the midri, yknow. {laughing}

A discourse theory which describes the pun as a relevance violation forcing anunexpected interpretation of a word could account for the linguistic data and hookup with a humor theory built around conicting semantic frames as well. A theoryoperating with notions of power and solidarity could further explain why Jason feelsfree to disrupt Rogers turn, and why Roger can respond after laughing with theapparently oensive comment Thats like a blow to the midri with an ameliora-tive eect on rapport. In order to describe the structures and mechanisms of con-versational humor, we need a theory that goes beyond straightforward

e(13) I lack a lass, alack alas; alas alack, a lass I lack.

If anything, these jokes seem to target the language structures themselves.In conversational joking, we also frequently nd spontaneous wordplay, as in

example (1) cited earlier (excerpted here as (14) for convenience), where the spurioussimilarity between the words poddy and party suces for Jason to insert thepunning phrase Theyre poddy animals:

(14)

Roger: Whales are pods. I dont know what dolphins are.I guess theyre pods too. Poddies. (1.3) Anyway{laughing}. Yeah but I mean-

Jason: Theyre poddy animals.Roger: {laughs}

1352 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359tempo of the performance, the ebb and ow of given and new information highlighted

by rhythms of hesitation, repetition, and uent passages, all co-determine timing.Many of these features of timing come to light only in the joke performance anddiverge from what we are accustomed to seeing in printed joke texts.One obvious feature that dierentiates jokes told in conversation from those

printed in magazines and books (and even from those performed by professionalcomedians) is the prefaces intended to announce jokes and to determine whetherthey are already known to the listeners. Conversational joke tellers typically ask,Have you heard the one. . ., or simply say, Oh Ive got a joke for you, as Brandondoes to preface the Red Adair joke excerpted as example (5).Secondly, in real conversational joke performances, tellers frequently repeat

themselves or correct themselves at the beginning of the performance: they typicallystart the joke, then hesitate, backtrack and re-start, often in a slightly dierent way.It may seem that they plunge into the joke, then spin their wheels for a few secondsto organize their performance; but this happens so frequently that we might wellview it as a standard strategy in oral joke performance. As Jeerson (1974) shows,self-correction can serve as an interactional resource for enlisting hearer attentionand securing uptake. The repetitions, hesitations, and self-corrections cluster at thebeginning and at turning points in the development of a narrative joke. They oftenmark the last few phrases leading up to the punchline, thoughand this is sig-nicantthe punchlines themselves typically come o without a hitch.In fact, the general use of repetition and formulaic phrasing amounts to a third

characteristic of the conversational joke performance. Not only do we nd stockjoke phrases like guy walks into a bar at the beginning, but also formulaic mate-rial repeated in the body of the joke. Jokes often use repetition of a scenario orformulaic phrasing to establish a pattern, only to skew it the third time around inthe punchline.The semantic reversal between the build-up and the punchline is a feature of the

joke text which relates to joke timing, because it is often accompanied by a shift invoice quality, speaking tempo, and uency with signicance for the perception oftiming in the joke performance. While the semantics of the joke suggests specicteller strategies, these strategies determine the form of verbalization which ultimatelyguides audience perception of the text.With this theoretical basis in place, we can go on to investigate two conversational

joke performances. We will explore both their conversational contexts and theirinternal structure for cues to the strategies and eects of timing. We will see thattiming is compounded of hesitations, false starts, repetitions, and formulaicity in thebuild-up, along with a more rapid, uid delivery of the punchline, often highlightedby a swift accumulation of information and a perspective switch just before thepunchline.In passage (15), several graduate students are telling jokes after class. Ellen has

just nished a joke which elicited no laughter. Grant and Robert explained that theyknew versions of the joke Ellen told, but Ginger gave no reason for not laughing.Robert wonders whether Ginger ever laughs at jokes in the initial turn in thisexample; and Ginger is responding to Roberts question in the rst part of her turn,

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1353I dont, actually I dont, while her No comes in direct reply to the preface.

o(15)

Robert:Grant:

Ginger:Grant:Ginger:Grant:

the bar, goes there to the bartender and asks, Whats up? And he says:Robert: {laughs}Ginger: {laughs} Thats cute.Grant: See.Robert: {laughs}

Grant begins the joke text in characteristic fashion with a sentence that breaks oand requires patching together. Grant discards the whole initial phrase, Guy walksinto a bar, and restarts, theres theres a a drunken Irishman sitting at the bar andanother Irishman walks into the bar. Now, Guy walks into a bar is of course aOh, nothing, just the OMalley twins getting drunk again.seven- in seventy-two just as well. And so they were like Lets haveanother drink. So they have another drink and another guy walks intograduate? He says, Well, I graduated back in seventy-two. And hegoes, Now this is getting downright perplexed because I graduated fromanother drink. And then the guy says, Well, what year did you

have another drink. So lets lets drink to St. Marys. And they have

so like, What a coincidence this is so odd, I went there, too. And theyMaybe you dont ever laugh at jokesDo you- have you heard the drunken Irishman one thats making therounds latelyI dont, actually I dont. No.Ok. Its a two drunken Irishmen. Maybe maybe you know it now?No.Okay, so. Guy walks into a bar theres theres a a drunken Irishmansitting at the bar and another Irishman walks into the bar and he is like,Oh. H- how do you do? And the guy says Im doing just ne. Andso he says, Well, lets have a drink. And then so they have a drink.And then eh {Audience laughter} he says, Well, where are you from?And he goes, I am from Dublin. He goes Well, imagine that, Im fromDublin as well. So they have another drink. And then he says, Well,where did you go to school in Dublin? And he says Oh, Im from- eh Iwent to St. Marys down in and he- he gives a street address. And thensecond c nrming response with Okay, so before launching into the joke proper:

mented positively on his performance, Thats cute, and his pause after Gingers

withhold laughter after jokes: notice his see, once Ginger has laughed and com-

joke is unfamiliar to Ginger, since he apparently wants to test her propensity toGrant realizes that his description of the intended joke as the drunken Irishmanone may be misleading, so he revises his preface, saying Its uh two drunkenIrishmen. When Ginger again says she does not know the joke, Grant launchesinto the text. This second preface shows that Grant wants to make quite sure his

1354 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359classic joke introduction, particularly due to the bare noun guy with no article.

We migh

jn

pytmisleading garden path, since it suggests a state of aairs which turns out not tohold. The phrases a drunken Irishman and another Irishman suggest that thetwo drinkers are unrelated. Even the punchline discloses the contrivance of the joke,since it indicates that the bartender knew the two were twins. In responding, Oh,nothing, just the OMalley twins getting drunk again, he suggests that their rela-tionship is trivial, general knowledge. The teller also drawls out the three wordsOh, nothing, and just to further extend the garden path and put o thepunchline so as to render the path more eective. This is one more timing strategytellers typically employ.Repetition and formulaicity help determine the rhythm of the joke performance.

One nds repetition of formulas like lets have a drink as well as repeated phraseslike And so they have another drink. In fact, the joke is built around nding newreasons for drinking and having another drink. The elicitation of interruptivelaughter also works as a timing mechanism in slowing down the build-up.Notice nally the perspective changes preceding the punchline. We see the build-

up of the joke through the eyes of the second drunk who enters the bar. Then astranger enters the bar and asks the bartender what is going on, forcing us to see thesituation from a new point of view. The perspective switches again when the bar-tender answers the question and thus delivers the punchline. Such perspectivechanges slow the action down and complicate the processing task facing the audi-ence; they also intertwine with teller strategies for retarding the delivery of thepunchline, so that it intrudes itself with added force.Consider now a nal joke from spontaneous conversation.

(16)

Larry: Whats the- did- didnt you tell the one about the- the guy in the bar whowho suddenly uh- starts hearing these very nice things said about him?

Claire: I dont know.Larry: Who told me that?Claire: What were the nice things?Larry: Guys standing there at the bar. And he- and this voice says, Gee, youre

such a great looking guy. And he looks around and theres nobody there.Turns back around and he hears the same voice say, Yknow I just thinkIn anits pivowalks in: theres a a drunken Irishman sitting at the bar and another Irishmanto the bar. This sentence works both as the pivot for the joke and as away on

cannot reasonably exclude the possibility that Grant begins the joke thisurpose.case, it remains for the correct introduction to set up the joke and act asThe conthat wefusion of identities contributes to the obfuscation at work in this joke, so

stateme t even here, so that Grant may be excused for beginning the joke this way.

an oral oke performance and comes close to providing an appropriate expository

the formt say that Grant falls victim to formulaicity here at the beginning, and yetula with the following correction actually provides a serviceable prologue to

N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359 1355youre a really good person.

trepetitioWe ha

poundeddeaudienc

joke prefaces, formulas and patterns, the tellers style of delivery, andresponse. Hesitation, formulaicity, and repetition help tellers gain planningstandarcome o without a hitchby contrast with the false starts, llers, andns in the build up.ve seen that timing in the conversational joke telling performance is com-of disparate elements: features of the basic joke text, teller strategies,up to i

hen the actual punchline theyre complimentary and the clauses leadinginitial adense. Tswer Its the peanuts, serves to make the nal segment of the build-up{Several listeners giggle}Yknow he keeps looking around, he cant see anybody talking. And itkeeps happening and he nally says to the bartender, he says, Whats-whats going on here. I keep hearing all these- and I look up- And thebartender says, Its the peanuts, theyre complimentary.{General laughter}

Claire: Now thats {laughing} thats cute.

Claire is visiting Larry. She just arrived two days earlier, and Larry thinks he rstheard the joke from her (did- didnt you tell the one about the- the guy in the bar),so we can assume that hes telling it for the rst time. Although Claire rst answersthat she doesnt know if she told the joke, her question What were the nice things?apparently convinces Larry that Claire has no prior claim to tell it, so he forgesahead with the performance.Notice rst the characteristic joke syntax, namely the missing article in Guys

standing there at the bar (line 7); the subjectless clause Turns back around (line9); repetition of says in he nally says to the bartender, he says (lines 1415);false starts: And he- and this voice says (lines 7-8) and Whats- whats going on(line 15); and llers: Gee, youre (line 8) and Yknow (lines 10 and 13). Here,too, interruptive laughter serves to prolong the build-up as well.Again, a rapid accumulation of information occurs just before the punchline,

through incomplete structures and the switch of perspective:

I keep hearing all these- and I look up- And the bartender says,

Maybe the break after all these- is due to a planning switch, because the tellerintends to say all these compliments, then realizes it would spoil the punch; butthe break after look up- seems to reect a rush to the punchline, i.e. a desire towrap up the joke quickly once enough build-up has been delivered. Larry is tellingthis joke for the rst time, so hes feeling his way, especially at this transitionalinterval between the build up and the punchline. Clearly, he opts to end the build upand get on to the punch, even though he leaves two structures incomplete. In fact, hecould have left out the whole sequence I keep hearing all these- and I look up-without damage to the joke text.The nal sentence puts o the crucial punchline phrase theyre complimentary

as long as possible. The switch to the perspective of the bartender, followed by then

1356 N.R. Norrick / Journal of Pragmatics 35 (2003) 13331359time, but they also contribute to the overall rhythm of the performance, marking the

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Neal R. Norrick holds the chair of English Linguistics at Saarland University in Saarbrucken, Germany.

He has taught English Linguistics at Northern Illinois University and the Universities of Wurzburg,

Kassel, Hamburg, Braunschweig and Regensburg. His research specializations in linguistics include con-

versation, verbal humor, pragmatics, semantics and poetics. In recent years, Professor Norrick has

focused his research on spoken language. His recent publications include the monographs: Conversational

Narrative (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2000), Conversational Joking (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1993).