Seediscussions,stats,andauthorprofilesforthispublicationat:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249929554

Introduction:Cognitivelinguisticapproachestohumor

ArticleinHumor-InternationalJournalofHumorResearch·August2006

DOI:10.1515/HUMOR.2006.012

CITATIONS

12

READS

311

3authors,including:

GeertBrône

UniversityofLeuven

46PUBLICATIONS178CITATIONS

SEEPROFILE

KurtFeyaerts

UniversityofLeuven

32PUBLICATIONS124CITATIONS

SEEPROFILE

AllcontentfollowingthispagewasuploadedbyKurtFeyaertson25January2015.

Theuserhasrequestedenhancementofthedownloadedfile.Allin-textreferencesunderlinedinbluearelinkedtopublicationsonResearchGate,lettingyouaccessandreadthemimmediately.

Introduction: Cognitive linguistic approachesto humor

GEERT BRONE,1 KURT FEYAERTS,1 and TONY VEALE2

Ever since the publication of Victor Raskin’s seminal work on the Seman-

tic Mechanisms of Humor (1985), linguistic humor research has had a de-

cidedly cognitive orientation. The cognitive psychological roots of the Se-

mantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) presented in the aforementioned

book, have been adopted in a large number of studies that have appeared

since. In this respect, Attardo, in a recent discussion on the cognitive turn

in literary studies, points out ‘‘that linguists who study humor may well

be pleased to find out that they were doing cognitive stylistics all along’’

(2002: 231). Indeed, the two most influential linguistic humor theories of

the last two decades, the SSTH and the General Theory of Verbal Humor

(GTVH, Attardo and Raskin 1991; Attardo 1994, 1997, 2001a), along

with a number of other theoretical studies (Giora 1991; Kottho¤ 1998;

Yus 2003) share some significant features with the broad linguistic frame-

work that is the methodological angle of the present thematic issue, viz.

Cognitive Linguistics (CL).

What is Cognitive Linguistics? Although introducing a highly diversi-

fied research endeavor like CL is a book project in itself (see e.g. Taylor

2002; Croft and Cruse 2004; Geeraerts and Cuyckens 2006), we necessar-

ily limit ourselves to the pinpoint motto of the Cognitive Linguistics Series

(Mouton de Gruyter):

Cognitive Linguistics subsumes a variety of concerns and broadly compatible the-

oretical approaches that have a common basic outlook: that language is an inte-

gral facet of cognition which reflects the interaction of social, cultural, psycho-

logical, communicative and functional considerations, and which can only be

understood in the context of a realistic view of acquisition, cognitive development

and mental processing . . . It seeks insofar as possible to explicate language struc-

ture in terms of the other facets of cognition on which it draws, as well as the

communicative function it serves.

Humor 19–3 (2006), 203–228 0933–1719/06/0019–0203

DOI 10.1515/HUMOR.2006.aaa 6 Walter de Gruyter

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 203)

The brief mission statement above can be interpreted as a reaction on two

levels against the formalist, Chomskyan tradition. First, rather than hy-

pothesizing that language is a separate cognitive module in the mind,

with its own principles, CL approaches language as part and parcel of

cognition, guided by general cognitive principles that are not restricted

to linguistic organization. In consequence, one of the major objectives of

cognitive linguists is the study of the reflection of general conceptual

mechanisms in language and linguistic structure. Second, the phrase ‘‘a

realistic view of acquisition, cognitive development and mental process-

ing’’ can be interpreted as a reaction against the generative-linguistic hy-

pothesis that grammar is essentially innate (‘‘Universal Grammar’’), and

exposure to language in use only plays a secondary role in language de-

velopment. CL argues, in contrast, that an individual’s knowledge of a

language is ‘‘based in knowledge of actual usage and of generalizations

made over usage events’’ (Taylor 2002: 27). In other words, grammar is

considered to be usage-based, grounded in experience (and hence not as

schematic as the generative grammar). This claim has important method-

ological consequences relevant to the present issue. If language acquisi-

tion is a bottom-up process of generalization over usage events, then lin-

guistic analysis should equally be bottom-up and data-driven, starting

from actual language in use and making generalizations/schemas on the

basis of patterns in the usage (rather than working the other way around,

formulating transformations of abstract principles so as to fit the surface

appearance of language). The further methodological implications of this

general CL claim of a usage-based grammar are elaborated in the next

section (‘‘humor theoretical interest in cognitive linguistics’’).

Given this somewhat simplifying description of CL, it should be noted

that the SSTH and GTVH both share with cognitive linguistics the funda-

mental interest in the interrelationship between language and cognition in

language use. In general, most recent linguistic humor research makes the

same basic assumption with respect to humor that cognitive linguistics

does with respect to linguistic structure in general, viz. that (humorous)

language is not to be treated as an isolated, autonomous cognitive phe-

nomenon. On the face of it, this observation may appear trivial, since

there seems to be general agreement that understanding verbal (as well

as non-verbal) humor implies the activation of higher-order cognitive

processes. Nevertheless, the observation that the same cognitive-semantic

strategies underlie cases of punning, referential humor, and visual humor

(Attardo 1996: 2) is highly relevant, since it implies a gradual loss of the

204 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 204)

artificially drawn boundaries between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics

that have been proposed in formalist theories of language. This question-

ing of traditional boundaries in linguistic structure is one of the corner-

stones of cognitive linguistics, since it aims at uncovering the role of do-

main general conceptualization principles at all levels of linguistic

structure.

This overlap in the basic philosophy of both traditions opens up re-

search perspectives for both cognitive linguists and humor researchers.

Thus, the aim of the present issue, dedicated to studies that analyze vari-

ous semantic aspects of verbal humor from the perspective of cognitive

linguistics, is essentially twofold. First, by embedding the linguistic study

of humor within a larger terminological-conceptual framework that

claims a cognitive-functional perspective, like cognitive linguistics, humor

researchers are urged to treat humorous language in relation (and in con-

trast) to general patterns of linguistic and cognitive structure rather than

in isolation. In other words, adopting the tools developed in cognitive lin-

guistics can shed new light on the specific semantic construal of humorous

texts and the ‘‘marked’’ character that these texts are generally considered

to have (Giora 1991, 2003; Kottho¤ 1998). Second, from the perspective

of cognitive linguistics, a linguistic framework that claims a focus on the

cross-cognitive and conceptual aspects of language use should be able to

naturally cover cases of linguistic expressivity that are motivated through

the marked, non-prototypical use of the everyday cognitive mechanisms

described in that paradigm. After all, humor is interpreted on the fly in

everyday discourse, just like the other cases of ‘‘figurative language’’ cog-

nitive linguistics has given center stage to, like metaphor, metonymy and

conceptual integration. And just like these other cases, the study of hu-

mor can yield interesting insights into some of the specifics of cognitive

processing, insights that extend beyond the perspective of linguistic hu-

mor theories alone. In the following paragraphs, both the humor theoret-

ical interest in cognitive linguistics and the cognitive linguistic importance

of studying humor is discussed in more detail, in order to give an overall

picture of this mutual interest.

1. Humor theoretical interest in cognitive linguistics

Given the cognitive orientation that most linguistic humor research has,

there should be a high compatibility between CL and humor research,

Introduction 205

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 205)

which promotes the exchange of insights in two directions. The true chal-

lenge for both traditions is to explore some of the ‘‘waste land’’ that can

be covered through this cooperative e¤ort (for an argument in favor of a

take-what-you-need strategy, see Ritchie 2004). In this section, we focus

somewhat more on the two cornerstones of the cognitive linguistics para-

digm introduced above, and the interesting implications these assump-

tions have for humor theories.

The first pillar of cognitive linguistics, the one that most clearly sepa-

rates CL from truth-conditional and generative approaches to language,

is the hypothesis that meaning is essentially conceptualization (Langacker

1987). This view runs counter to the classic formalist belief that there is a

one-to-one mapping between external world and linguistic-conceptual

structure. Rather, dynamic semantic theories like CL argue that ‘‘situa-

tions can be ‘‘construed’’ in di¤erent ways [ . . . ] and di¤erent ways of en-

coding a situation constitute di¤erent conceptualizations’’ (Lee 2001: 2).

In other words, situations can be framed in di¤erent ways and these dif-

ferent framings result in a di¤erent semantic structure. Bearing in mind

this cognitive linguistic view on language as a recipe for constructing

meaning, a recipe which relies on a lot of independent cognitive activity

(Saeed 1996: 319), the notion of conceptualization processes is of central

importance. Or as Croft and Cruse (2004: 42) put it, ‘‘in cognitive linguis-

tics conceptualization is the fundamental semantic phenomenon; whether

alternative construals give rise to di¤erences in truth conditions or not is a

derivative semantic fact.’’ So one of the tasks cognitive linguists set out to

do is to uncover the conceptualization processes that are used in everyday

language use. Over the last two decades, a whole range of construal oper-

ations or conceptualization mechanisms have been uncovered (Langacker

1987; Talmy 2000; Taylor 2002; Croft and Cruse 2004). These operations

are considered to be cognitive in nature in that they are active on all levels

of linguistic and conceptual organization, and are instances of more gen-

eral cognitive processes as described in cognitive psychology (Croft and

Cruse 2004: 45). Croft and Cruse present an overview of the vast litera-

ture on construal and propose an alternative, more encompassing (in

comparison to Talmy and Langacker) typology of construal operations,

including the general categories of attention and salience, comparison,

perspective and viewpoint, and Gestalt (see also Veale et al., this issue).

If these construal operations are indeed basic-level semantic-conceptual

mechanisms, then they may not only account for the semantic construal

of conventional language use, but also for more marked cases, like

206 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 206)

humor. And indeed, linguistic humor researchers have focussed on the

functionality of some of these operations in the semantics of jokes and

other humorous texts. For example, one of the fundamental construal

mechanisms that underlie various semantic phenomena, is comparison,

which has been developed in phenomenology and cognitive psychology.

And the most powerful reflection of this basic cognitive faculty is the hu-

man need for categorization or framing, i.e. viewing a linguistic expres-

sion against the background of a frame of reference or prior experience.

The hypothesis that frames (or scripts) as structured categories grounded

in experience (Fillmore 1982) play an essential role in producing and

comprehending linguistic utterances has not only been extremely influen-

tial in the development of the semantic theory of cognitive linguistics, but

is also the foundation of the SSTH and GTVH. The SSTH (Raskin 1985)

basically argues that jokes revolve around the opposition, overlap and

switch between two (or more) scripts or frames. Jokes, on this view, are

partly or fully compatible with two di¤erent, (con)textually opposed

scripts, only one of which is saliently activated in the first part of the

text. The punch line of the joke turns out to be incompatible with the first

script interpretation (incongruity), but there is a lexical cue in the text

(script-switch trigger) that enables the switch or shift from the first inter-

pretation to the second, backgrounded script (resolution). Coulson (2000)

and Coulson et al. (this issue) elaborate on this idea with a discussion of

frame-shifting within a larger cognitive linguistic framework of language

comprehension, labeled the space structuring model. It is argued that this

model better accounts for the influence of context in meaning construc-

tion and the flexible mechanisms that are involved in that process than

the SSTH and GTVH. The psychological reality of frame-shifting is sub-

sequently tested in a number of psycho- and neurolinguistic experiments.

The minimalist description above of the basic semantic idea of the

SSTH and Coulson’s approach touches upon a second principle of con-

strual that has gained increasing interest in both cognitive linguistics and

humor research, viz. salience. Jokes, it is argued, typically have a first,

contextually salient interpretation that is discarded at the punch line in

favor of a more marked reading (Giora 1991: 470). But as Giora has ex-

tensively argued, salience, defined as the coded meanings that are fore-

grounded in our mind, plays a central role not only in humor, but in a

large range of semantic phenomena, like metaphor (Giora 1997, 2003),

metonymy (Gibbs 1999; Langacker 1993), irony (Giora 2001; Giora

and Fein 1999a, 1999b), idioms (Giora 2003), and stylistic innovation in

Introduction 207

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 207)

general (Giora 2002, 2003). According to Giora’s graded salience hypoth-

esis, salient information is always accessed before any other, less salient

information, and this very general organizational principle is exploited

in many types of ‘‘expressive’’ language use, like novel metaphor, pun-

ning, irony, and humor.

Apart from the function of salience and framing, other general concep-

tualization mechanisms have been treated, directly or indirectly, at vari-

ous places in the humor literature, like figure-ground constellations (Hof-

stadter and Gabora 1989: 422; Attardo and Raskin 1991: 303; Attardo

2001a: 19; borrowed from Talmy 1975), metaphor (Pollio 1996, based

on Lako¤ ’s conceptual metaphor theory), and conceptual mappings in

general (Attardo et al. 2002). But since it is not our intention to give a

full review of all of these points of contact in the domain of semantic

principles, we will not further explore these issues here (for a more de-

tailed overview, see Brone and Feyaerts 2003). The basic intention of this

rough sketch is to illustrate some of the commonalities in the semantic

construal of di¤erent types of language use and open up new perspectives

for research exploring exactly this question of how everyday cognitive

mechanisms are exploited in various ways for humorous, stylistic, or

other purposes.

Despite this obvious movement towards cognitively motivated seman-

tic humor analysis, the tension between marked and unmarked semantic

construal, which can be plotted using the meaning construction mecha-

nisms of CL, and which accounts for the e¤ect of unexpectedness or in-

congruity (Kottho¤ 1998: 50), has not been explored to its fullest in

most of the linguistic humor research. The contributions to the present

issue are intended to open this debate. As mentioned above, the implica-

tions of these studies are not relevant to humor research alone, in that

they illustrate one of the central claims of CL, viz. that the human con-

ceptual system is prototypically structured and highly flexible (see also

the section on ‘‘cognitive linguistic interest in humor’’). The contributions

by Veale et al. and Kottho¤ especially draw attention to the heuristic im-

portance of prototypicality for describing humor in terms of ubiquitous

cognitive categories of construal and communication.

One central aspect of construal that has been widely discussed in CL,

but which has been poorly dealt with in humor research, is the role of im-

agery in linguistic meaning. Particularly the phenomena involving con-

ceptual mappings, like metaphor, metonymy and analogy, have been the

subject of an ever-growing body of research. Conceptual metaphor,

208 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 208)

defined as the conceptualization of one domain (target) in terms of an-

other domain (source), can be considered as a construal operation, since

the choice of a particular domain for conceptualizing a target inherently

construes the target in a specific fashion (cf. Croft and Cruse 2004: 194).

Although it has been repeatedly pointed out that there is a theoretically

interesting (vague) conceptual boundary between humor and metaphor/

analogy (Koestler 1964; Hofstadter and Gabora 1989), humor theorists

have, until recently, only focused on the potentially humorous ambiguity

of a literal vs. figurative reading of a metaphorical expression (Alexander

1997; Attardo 1994). Pollio (1996) explores the boundaries in humor and

metaphor, using insights from the interaction theory of metaphor (Black

1962) and the Lakovian approach (Lako¤ and Johnson 1980; Lako¤

1987). It is argued that humorous bisociation (to use Koestler’s 1964

term) di¤ers from metaphorical conceptualization in the profiling of do-

main boundaries. Whereas metaphors essentially fuse the source and tar-

get to form a single entity (Gestalt), suppressing the obvious domain

boundaries, humorous stimuli (un)intentionally emphasize the dissimilar-

ities between domains. Veale et al. (this issue) follow a similar argument,

in that they illustrate that in many cases of interactional humor, utter-

ances with an underlying metaphorical (and/or metonymical) structure

are used as a cue for a trumping strategy. This strategy consists of a

speaker B subverting a speaker A’s utterance, e.g. by distorting the

source/target structure of the initial metaphorical utterance.

Metonymy, in a cognitive linguistic approach, is generally viewed as a

cognitive mechanism enabling the selection of a salient reference point in

a frame to refer to a di¤erent concept in the same frame or to the frame

as a whole (Langacker 1993; Panther and Radden 1999). This conceptual

approach to metonymy covers phenomena that were previously treated in

pragmatics as inferences or conversational implicatures (Gibbs 1999; Pan-

ther and Thornburg 2003). Given the general agreement that humor in-

terpretation involves complex inferential activity, metonymy can be ar-

gued to play a substantial role in this process. Barcelona (2003) argues

that the inferential work in joke interpretation is facilitated by pre-

existing metonymic connections in a cognitive frame. Metonymic con-

nections, on his account, are the driving force behind the script switching

process (Raskin 1985) that yields the resolution. Brone and Feyaerts

(2003) illustrate, using various types of verbal as well as non-verbal

humor, that the interpretation process is often complicated through

the use of marked metonymic reference-point structures. This process of

Introduction 209

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 209)

de-automatization results in a balanced processing di‰culty, which is ar-

gued to contribute to the humorous e¤ect (see also Giora 1991, 2003).

Another construal operation that has only very recently received scru-

tiny in humor research is viewpoint. If meaning, in the CL framework is

essentially construed from a specific perspective, then adopting a di¤erent

viewpoint automatically entails a di¤erent conceptualization. Of particu-

lar interest for humor researchers is the treatment of viewpoint in mental

spaces theory (Fauconnier 1994 [1985], 1997). The theory of mental

spaces has been introduced to linguistics and cognitive science to co-

herently deal with a wide range of problematic semantic phenomena,

such as indirect reference, pragmatic functions (Nunberg 1979), referen-

tial opacity, (counterfactual) conditionals, compositionality, etc. Mental

spaces, on Fauconnier’s account, are small conceptual structures ‘‘that

proliferate when we think and talk, allowing a fine-grained partitioning

of our discourse and knowledge structures’’ (Fauconnier 1997: 11). On

this account, viewpoint is dealt with in terms of di¤erent mental spaces:

the viewpoint space is the structure from which others are accessed.

Humor research has only very recently touched upon the relevance of

mental spaces. Ritchie (this issue) argues that the accepted dichotomy be-

tween referential and linguistic jokes is not sanctifying, since both create

an event which is open to alternative interpretations, albeit by di¤erent

means. By the same token, the generally accepted view that a reader/

hearer of a joke is forced into a reinterpretation from an incorrect to a

correct interpretation of a lexical element or grammatical construction,

thus performing a frame-shifting operation, does not account for all (or

even the majority) of verbal jokes. Ritchie explores a number of jokes

that revolve around a misinterpretation by a story character, and pro-

poses an account of viewpoint shifts/reinterpretations in terms of mental

spaces. Attardo (2001b) uses a mental space account of ironical mode

adoption. Mode factive utterances (i.e. utterances allowing mode adop-

tion), such as irony, metaphorical utterances, fiction, etc., trigger the con-

struction of a new mental space (next to the base/reality space) so as to

allow the hearer to avoid having to reject the utterance as ill-formed. In

accordance with Fauconnier’s presupposition float principle (1994 [1985]:

61), it is argued that the construction of e.g. an ironical mental space

avoids a clash between the presuppositions of an utterance and those of

the speaker and hearer.

What this brief overview of some of the general purpose construal op-

erations and their relevance for humor research aims to show is that CL

210 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 210)

indeed provides some articulate tools that have not been fully explored

in linguistic humor theories. Uncovering patterns in the semantics of hu-

morous texts, using these mechanisms, can provide useful insights into

the essentially marked character of these texts. The tension between

normal and marked use (or between prototypical and peripheral use) of

semantic-pragmatic devices seems to play an essential role in the humor

game. One of the general conclusions that can be drawn from the papers

in the present issue is that a prototypical model is needed for the use of

conceptualization operations, di¤ering core cases in conventionalized lan-

guage use from more marked uses. Analogously, from a more pragmatic

point of view, the contribution by Kottho¤ advocates a highly flexible de-

scription of communication principles in terms of prototypical categories.

The second cornerstone of the cognitive linguistic philosophy of lan-

guage is that linguistic structure is usage-based. Usage-based models of

language essentially state that a speaker’s linguistic system is grounded

in usage events, and hence is experientially driven (Langacker 1987,

1988; Barlow and Kemmer 2000). Langacker (1988: 131) notes concisely

that ‘‘[i]n describing cognitive grammar as a ‘usage-based’ model of lan-

guage structure, I have in mind the ‘maximalist’, ‘non-reductive’, and

‘bottom-up’ character of the general approach (as compared to the mini-

malist, reductive and top-down spirit of the generative tradition).’’ If the

linguistic system is indeed inherently tied to usage (‘‘bottom-up’’), then

the primary source of information is the actual use of language in context.

In contrast to most formal approaches to language, CL argues that lin-

guistic and non-linguistic context both play an essential role in the pro-

duction and processing of language. There is no strict boundary between

linguistic and contextual information, in that features of contextual (and

pragmatic) information can, through conventionalization, become part of

the linguistic system as such. The linguistic utterance as such merely func-

tions as a cue the processor uses as a starting point in the meaning con-

struction process (supra).

Uncovering the tight interaction between contextual and linguistic un-

derstanding is the main research goal of the steadily growing field of cog-

nitive discourse analysis (Langacker 2001; Van Hoek et al. 1999). One of

the advantages of such a perspective is that it can provide ‘‘a valuable

corrective to the often-assumed dichotomy between cognitively-oriented

studies, which often ignore the interactional aspects of discourse, vs. in-

teraction models, which often de-emphasize cognitive processes’’ (Barlow

and Kemmer 2000: xvii). This multidimensional approach can be of

Introduction 211

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 211)

obvious interest to humor researchers studying the interpersonal and in-

ferential nature of humor. On the level of interpersonal dynamics, it needs

to be observed that many cases of humor directly or indirectly draw on

collaborative (Kottho¤, this issue) and adversarial (Veale et al., this

issue) strategies in interaction. Speakers in running (humorous) discourse

often build on previously introduced strands or themes (Davies 1984),

and thus either proceed on a humorous topic in collaboration with other

participants, or counter another participant’s utterance by means of ad-

versarial humor strategies (cf. Davies 1984 on the thematic principles of

contradiction and elaboration). The semantics of multi-agent forms of

humor has been poorly analyzed in humor research, especially in compar-

ison to the bulk of literature on (canned) jokes, which often does not refer

to the context these jokes are delivered in. Cognitive linguistics explicitly

states that language is grounded in discourse and social interactions (Lan-

gacker 2001: 143), which means that the context of speech and shared

knowledge all play a central role in semantics, and they cannot be sepa-

rated from the ‘‘core meaning’’ of an utterance. Langacker’s notion of a

current discourse space, defined as a mental space ‘‘comprising those ele-

ments and relations construed as being shared by the speaker and hearer

as a basis for communication at a given moment in the flow of discourse’’

(2001: 144), illustrates this unified treatment of semantics. On this view,

meaning arises in discourse through a range of cues, rather than by sim-

ply processing stored semantic information (see also the papers by Kotth-

o¤ and Coulson et al., this issue).

Apart from the general theoretical importance, positing a usage-based

model of language and conceptualization has major methodological impli-

cations as well. Usage-based theories hypothesizing a tight relationship

between linguistic structures and real usage necessarily need to base their

claims on the observation of actual data, rather than on constructed ex-

amples. This has led to a renewed attention to the empirical support of

theoretical claims, both on the level of production and processing. Pro-

duction data can be drawn from corpora collecting usage material. This

way, corpus analysis can chart linguistic variation at all possible levels,

including sociolectic, dialectic, idiolectic, but also expressive variation.

As a central instance of linguistic variation, expressivity and creativity

should not be neglected in a usage-based model (see also the next section).

Kottho¤ (1998, this issue) and Priego-Valverde (2003) illustrate that a

semantic-pragmatic account of meaning construction in humor can draw

interesting insights from corpus-based conversation analysis.

212 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 212)

Data on the processing of linguistic input can be drawn from simula-

tion experiments like reading times, priming tests, ERP-analyses, etc.

Vaid et al. (2003) provide an overview of the various accounts that have

been proposed of the di¤erent stages of meaning activation in joke com-

prehension. In order to empirically test the conflicting hypotheses in the

literature, the authors used a lexical decision semantic priming experi-

ment to measure the time course of meaning activation. Coulson et al.

(this issue) report on a number of studies that test the psychological real-

ity of frame-shifting (supra) in joke comprehension. Self-paced reading

times for one-line jokes (see also Coulson and Kutas 1998) show that

jokes that require frame-shifting take longer to process than straight end-

ings. These data suggest that frame-shifting requires an extra processing

cost. A complementary ERP-experiment (event-related brain potentials)

was conducted to get a more fine-grained view of the cognitive process

involved in frame-shifting (see also Coulson and Kutas 2001). It is argued

that a sustained negativity 500–900 ms is the ERP e¤ect that indexes the

frame-shifting needed for joke comprehension. In a third experiment,

Coulson et al. measure eye movements to examine whether the reinterpre-

tation process of frame-shifting involves an increased amount of regres-

sions (leftward eye movements) in comparison to non-joke endings. The

eye tracking data show that total viewing duration is longer for jokes

than for non-joke controls, and that participants make more regressive

eye movements when frame-shifting is required for the interpretation. In

general, these empirical studies show a renewed awareness of the need for

experimental backup of theoretical hypotheses, a need that has been ex-

pressed, among others, by Attardo (2001a: 208). Nevertheless, this field

is still in its infancy (partly because it is notoriously di‰cult to design

methodologically sound tests), and needs a fair amount of basic data.

In summation, in this first section we have connected some of the basic

concepts of the Cognitive Linguistics framework to the specific linguistics

of humor in an attempt to uncover common ground and new perspectives

for both cognitive linguists and humor researchers. As a stepping stone,

we used two of the key ideas in CL. First, the broad, dynamic view on

meaning as comprehensive conceptualization leads to a focus on the re-

flection of higher-level construal mechanisms or conceptualization opera-

tions in language. Although some of these mechanisms have been studied

at length in their relevance in the meaning construction process in humor

(e.g. framing, salience), others have gone largely unnoticed (e.g. meta-

phor, metonymy). It is argued in a number of papers in this issue that

Introduction 213

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 213)

including these general cognitive mechanisms may contribute to the de-

velopment of a genuinely cognitive account of verbal (as well as non-

verbal) humor. A second trigger in the discussion is the cognitive linguis-

tic view on linguistic structure as usage-based. The implications of this

basic claim for the scope of semantic analysis and for the methodologies

that are used, are not trivial. From the perspective of production, the cog-

nitive semantic analysis needs to take into account the rich conceptual

landscape in which meaning emerges, including semantic, pragmatic, con-

textual, cultural, and even (inter)personal information. This multidimen-

sional perspective may contribute to a better understanding of the way

in which di¤erent cues jointly trigger a humorous e¤ect. On the level of

processing, a cognitive linguistic account generates direct hypotheses that

can be tested in a simulation setting. This may provide a new impetus

for the much-needed interaction between descriptive-theoretical work and

empirical testing in linguistic humor research.

This general account of the potential contribution of a cognitive lin-

guistic perspective on humor does not, as such, motivate why cognitive

linguists interested in linguistic structure in general, may find the study

of humor compelling and worthwhile. In the next section, we pursue the

question why cognitive linguists should (occasionally) deviate from the

accepted path of conventional language use to study more creative cases.

To a large extent, this interest arises from looking at the arguments pro-

posed in this section from a di¤erent angle.

2. Cognitive linguistic interest in humor

There are several levels on which a cognitive linguistic theory of meaning,

defined in a broad sense, might benefit from the inclusion of humor and

creative language as an object of research. Not claiming any exhaustive-

ness in this regard, we will restrict our observation to those matters which

appear most relevant to the aim and set-up of this issue.

Vis-a-vis its characterization as a usage-based, dynamic theory of

meaning as conceptualization, treating language on a par with other cog-

nitive abilities, Cognitive Linguistics is urged to take creativity into ac-

count as a fundamental cognitive ability. In their study of scalar humor,

Bergen and Binsted (2003) emphasize the theoretical as well as method-

ological importance of broadening one’s empirical scope to cover cases

of creativity as well: ‘‘Only by expanding our range of data to include

214 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 214)

this most human of cognitive behaviors do we do justice to our theories of

language. Artificially restricting language data to that which is considered

core or central can only serve to keep our models of language blind to the

realities of human language knowledge, and thus hobbled with respect to

the scientific method.’’ Generally, the analysis of creative language use—

used as a cover term including all kinds of verbal humor and wit—allows

a more accurate picture to be drawn of the way in which our experience is

structured by cognitive construal mechanisms such as metaphor, meton-

ymy, figure/ground-arrangement, frames, etc. In the following, the im-

pact of this observation will be discussed in more detail both with respect

to the level of descriptive semantic theory as well as regarding psycholin-

guistic experiments on the processing of language.

From the perspective of semantic theory, we draw attention to four di-

mensions of semantic structure, in which the functionality of analyzing

non-conventionalized, creative language use for CL theory becomes ap-

parent. A first aspect pertains to the basic CL claim concerning the non-

restrictive, encyclopedic nature of the meaning of an utterance. In many

humorous contexts like jokes, collaborative or adversarial interaction,

wordplay etc. (see Kottho¤; Veale et al., this issue), the successful pro-

cessing of the intended meaning heavily depends on the activation of

experiential (cultural, social, embodied . . .) knowledge shared by both

speaker and hearer in the current discourse space (Langacker 2001). The

witty e¤ect in an exchange like (1), for instance, hinges only partially on

the exploitation of the linguistic structure of the verb to aim for. Crucial is

the activation of encyclopedic knowledge concerning Von Braun’s early

career as a scientist at the service of Nazi-Germany (see Veale et al., this

issue).

(1) Von Braun (S): I aim for the stars! (title of co¤ee-table book)

Book critic (H): I aim for the stars, but I keep hitting London.

(title of book review)

A second aspect of meaning construal which is inherent to any semantic

structure, but frequently exploited in creative language use, concerns the

varying degrees of salience displayed by di¤erent meanings of a single

word with respect to its usage in a given context or frame. Salience of a

word or utterance is defined in Giora (1997: 185) as ‘‘a function of its

conventionality, frequency, or givenness status in a certain (linguistic

and non-linguistic) context’’ (see also Giora 2003: 15¤ ). In the same

vein, Attardo (2001a) relates salience phenomena to the activation of

Introduction 215

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 215)

scripts against the background of which meanings are being profiled. In

humorous utterances like (1), it is apparent that at any moment in unfold-

ing discourse, a speech act participant may decide not to realize the cog-

nitively salient meaning by altering the conceptual background.

A third aspect, in which the analysis of humorous material might add

to a more comprehensive view on conceptualization concerns the inclu-

sion of discourse as a relevant dimension for an adequate determination

of semantic structure. With regard to a discursive-cognitive analysis of

jokes, Giora (1991: 469) formulates the marked informativeness require-

ment, according to which ‘‘jokes and point-stories are markedly infor-

mative. Their final informative messages are marked in that they are too

distant, in terms of the number of similar features, from the messages pre-

ceding them’’. As such, they provide a cognitive link to the preceding

text, but at the same time they violate the expected, conventional pattern

of gradual increase in informativeness (see also Coulson 2000: 33¤; Coul-

son and Kutas 2001). In her pragmatically oriented contribution, Kotth-

o¤ (this issue) emphasizes the impact of discursive elements on the gener-

ation of a humorous meaning in collaborative conversation. In CL, this

observation parallels a broadening of the analytical scope, integrating dis-

course elements into the paradigm of Cognitive Grammar as apparent in

the Current Discourse Space model, as proposed by Langacker (2001).

Finally, the analysis of creative language use (humor) highlights proto-

typicality as a major structural characteristic of semantic-conceptual or-

ganization. Although since the very beginning, CL has embraced prototy-

picality as a basic feature of categorization, which integrates flexibility

with structural stability (see, among others, Geeraerts 1989, 1997), most

studies in the field have related this notion to the structure of lexical-

semantic categories. Linguistic studies of creative language demonstrate

that humorous e¤ects tend to be generated through the exploitation of

prototypical categories throughout the current discourse space. Interest-

ingly, these categories are not restricted to the level of lexical semantics

(Veale et al., this issue), as they are also identified on the pragmatic plane

(Kottho¤, this issue). In their survey of di¤erent kinds of verbal as well as

non-verbal humor, Brone and Feyaerts (2003) demonstrate that even on a

meta-linguistic level, construal mechanisms appear as prototypically or-

ganized categories. Their analysis of one-panel cartoons and di¤erent

types of verbal expressions illustrates that a balanced processing di‰culty

is achieved through the strategic manipulation and distortion of the pro-

totypical metonymic reference-point structure, according to which ‘‘a

216 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 216)

well-chosen metonymic expression lets us mention one entity that is sa-

lient and easily coded, and thereby evoke—essentially automatically—a

target that is either of lesser interest or harder to name’’ (Langacker 1993:

30). Such manipulations may rely on, for instance, the profiling of non-

essential side elements in a visual setting or an event structure as reference

points, or also the non-profiling of highly salient elements (‘‘profile gap’’,

Brone and Feyaerts 2003: 31¤ ). The analysis of these phenomena in

terms of non-prototypical cases of metonymic construal, rather than

humor-specific logical mechanisms, strongly invites an integrated, non-

modular CL account of humor. At the same time, however, it calls upon

CL to further refine its heuristic tools in order to live up to its name as the

framework most suitable for the analysis of dynamic meaning construc-

tion. More specifically, as instances of creative language use show, con-

strual mechanisms seem to require a more elastic definition in terms of

prototypical characteristics in order to bring even full creativity (Bergen

and Binsted 2003) within reach of basic cognitive construal mechanisms.

By adopting a construal approach to incongruity resolution, the linguistic

interest in humor interpretation might stretch beyond the purely humor

theoretical perspective. Instead of focusing on the uniqueness of the hu-

mor phenomenon (e.g. in logical mechanisms), a CL account may reveal

the way in which day-to-day cognitive capacities are explored and pushed

to the limit for humorous purposes.

Besides its relevance for descriptive semantic theory, the analysis of cre-

ative language use (humor) also promises new insights to psycholinguistic

studies on the processing of language. In the context of this issue we

briefly refer to two observations whose relevance extends beyond the se-

mantic structure of humorous utterances alone. A first benefit of tackling

humorous material through the application of experimental methods con-

cerns the psychological reality of frames, more specifically, the process of

frame shifting. In their observation of regressive eye movements, Coulson

et al. (this issue) confirm earlier reading time findings by Coulson and

Kutas (1998, 2001) as they note that ‘‘people were more likely to make

regressive eye movements when they read the joke than the straight end-

ings, as if they wanted to re-examine earlier parts of the sentence for clues

to which alternative frames should be retrieved’’ (Coulson et al., this

issue). A second, related observation pertains to the multifold interaction

between the processing of both word and surrounding context (message).

Analyzing the complexity of frame-shifting jokes, Coulson et al. (this

issue) arrive at an upgraded notion of context compared to traditional

Introduction 217

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 217)

psycholinguistics. Whereas the traditional psycholinguistic approach to

meaning construction focuses on the way in which context determines

the processing of lexical items (rather than how these items may have

any impact on the representation of the broader discourse event (context,

frame, message . . .), Coulson et al. (this issue) use frame-shifting jokes to

demonstrate ‘‘the need for a model of message-level processing prompted

by language’’.

3. Outline of the issue

In the opening paper of the issue Seana Coulson, Thomas Urbach and

Marta Kutas present the space structuring model, a cognitive linguistics

inspired model of linguistic comprehension that focuses on the interaction

between sentence processing and text processing. Using insights from that

model, the authors report on a number of experiments that test the psy-

chological reality of frame-shifting, the semantic and pragmatic reanalysis

that is necessary for the interpretation of the punchline of a joke. In the

case of frame-shifting, the lexical processing of the punchline triggers the

construction of cognitive models in working memory. Previous self-paced

reading and ERP (event-related brain potentials) experiments both sug-

gest that frame-shifting involves an additional processing cost in compar-

ison to non-joke controls. The eye-tracking study presented in this issue

confirms the results of previous studies under the more natural reading

conditions this methodology provides. In addition to the other studies,

the eye movement data show that the extra cognitive cost is not simply a

question of word recognition, since the length of the readers’ initial gaze

duration of a word did not di¤er significantly for jokes and controls.

Rather, the cost is related to higher-level processing, as indexed by the

longer total viewing duration of words in jokes. The fact that jokes elicit

more regressive eye movements upon encountering the punch word than

straight controls provides additional evidence for the psychological reality

of a reanalysis process like frame-shifting.

Graeme Ritchie starts from the widely accepted idea in humor theories

that many jokes consist of a set-up phase, which has a salient interpreta-

tion and a punch line that suddenly forces the reader or hearer to reinter-

pret the set-up di¤erently. However, the level at which the reinterpreta-

tion process occurs, is not as unambiguous as most theories observe,

since the initial misinterpretation can be situated on the level of either

218 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 218)

the reader/hearer or a character in the joke. In order to capture this strat-

ification, Ritchie presents an account in terms of viewpoints or belief sets,

formalized by means of mental spaces (Fauconnier 1994 [1985]). It is ar-

gued that the reinterpretation process does not necessarily have to be di-

rectly in the mental space of the audience, but rather, it su‰ces that it

happens in a viewpoint that is accessible to the audience (nested view-

point). An in-depth analysis shows that the change of interpretation can

occur in the hearer’s viewpoint, in the narrative viewpoint or in the view-

point of a story character, hence widening the canonical view that the

reinterpretation process involves a hearer making a revision from a previ-

ously false to a correct interpretation. What is more, the higher-level, for-

mal treatment of forced reinterpretation provides a generalization that

can not be captured by some other taxonomies (like e.g. the widely ac-

cepted verbal-referential distinction). In using a mental space account to

capture this generalization, Ritchie seems to corroborate one of the basis

claims of cognitive linguistics, viz. that it is possible to account for a wide

range of phenomena, verbal as well as non-verbal, using a restricted set of

basis conceptual mechanisms.

Although Helga Kottho¤ ’s analysis of conversational humor formally

figures as a pragmatic approach, this contribution also provides valuable

input to the recent discussion in Cognitive Linguistics to pursue the con-

cept of ‘usage-based linguistics’ to the full (see, among others, Geeraerts

2003). Specifically, three key notions of CL-theory may be identified, mo-

tivating the relevance of this paper for the theoretical orientation of the

present issue. First, and most importantly, Kottho¤ highlights flexibility

as a crucial characteristic of semantic/pragmatic categories such as com-

munication principles. By doing so, she adopts an ecological view on (lin-

guistic) categorization, which basically boils down to the adaptation

of prototype theory to linguistic analysis. Without any restriction, this

theory still represents one of the methodological cornerstones of CL, pro-

viding a structural explanation for the di¤erentiation between, among

others, preferred (salient) and non-preferred (less-salient) meaning struc-

tures. Although she does not explicitly argue in terms of ‘prototypicality,’

a major point of Kottho¤ ’s paper concerns the flexible extension of com-

municative principles, thus rejecting an ‘‘explosion of maxims’’ in favor

of ‘‘maxim exploitation’’ allowing humorous utterances to be described

as ‘‘[d]eviations from normal conventional ways of speaking.’’ Second,

Kottho¤ clearly adopts an encylopedic view on semantics according to

which meaning resides in the interplay of linguistic, social and cultural

Introduction 219

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 219)

factors. Although this may not be an exclusive characteristic of CL, it

does represent an essential facet of its characterising semantic structure

in terms of conceptual structure. Third, Kottho¤ ’s approach—although

mainly articulated in terms of a pragmatic model—adheres to Lan-

gacker’s description (2001) of the ‘‘viewing frame’’ (or: ‘‘immediate scope

of predication’’) being built up through di¤erent channels of conceptual-

ization which, besides the objective content, also contain features such as

gesture, intonation, sequencing, etc. As Kottho¤ puts it: ‘‘In order to de-

scribe the production of meaning in concrete sequences, other sorts of

knowledge must be referred to (e.g. knowledge of sequencing, stylistic

expectations, discursive genres and contextualization procedures) which

constitute a collateral system of communication.’’ To put it the other

way around: in recent years, Langacker (CDS-model) and CL have them-

selves embraced a more discursive approach of meaning description, thus

complementing the traditional CL-focus on lexical-semantic and gram-

matical constructs.

It is clear that on the basis of each of these three notions alone, a lin-

guistic analysis cannot be claimed to be part of the Cognitive Linguistic

paradigm, especially since the two latter may be characteristic for other

approaches as well. Yet, it is the combined application of these three

features, which renders this contribution particularly relevant for a CL-

approach of humor.

Tony Veale, Kurt Feyaerts and Geert Brone pursue a similar argument

for the case of adversarial humor in conversation, using the cognitive lin-

guistic notion of construal operations. A specific adversarial humor strat-

egy is singled out, which revolves around the subversion of the linguistic

forms of exchange. Based on a technical definition of this phenomenon

they label ‘‘trumping’’, the authors illustrate how agents in a conversa-

tional setting can ‘‘reflect’’ and ‘‘distort’’ the linguistic-conceptual con-

strual set up in a prior turn in conversation. A typology of trumping

mechanisms is presented, based on the di¤erent levels of linguistic organi-

zation on which the reflection or parallelism in the trumping game can be

situated. More specifically, the use insights from cognitive linguistics re-

veals that adversarial agents exploit the various conceptual mechanisms

underlying an opponent’s utterances in order to turn the tables in the hu-

mor game. In doing so, an agent can trump an adversary by demonstrat-

ing a ‘‘hyper-understanding’’ of the lexico-conceptual meaning of an op-

ponent’s utterance. A humorous e¤ect arises partly because the sudden

manipulation of construal operations like metaphor, metonymy and

220 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 220)

salience abruptly redirects the information flow of the discourse space set

up in the previous utterance(s) (Langacker 2001). On the basis of the

analysis, the authors conclude that a cognitive semantic account in terms

of general principles of conceptual organization provides an adequate ac-

count of the tension markedness and transparency in humor and exhibits

an ecological validity that is lacking in most linguistic humor research.

4. Perspectives for future research

If cognitive linguistics is to live up to its reputation as a framework of dy-

namic meaning construction, it should be demonstrably capable of han-

dling the most dynamic aspects of humorous meaning. The papers in

this special issue, we believe, go some way toward providing such a dem-

onstration. However, many key questions remain either unanswered, or

worse, unasked, and cognitive linguistics must prove its value on these

questions also. For instance, how does humor relate to other cognitive

and social phenomena that appear to have a strong family resemblance?

Such phenomena include: gossip ( jokes, like scandalous stories of the mis-

behavior of others, are amongst the most contagious memes that human

society has evolved; what makes these forms such compelling vehicles

for dynamic meaning, and what meaning-construction and meaning-

grounding mechanisms do they share?); insults (not always humorous,

but the most valued are always creative; why does society prize indirect

and ambiguous assaults on character as clever over more direct and un-

ambiguous attacks?); understatement (surely some mechanism of under-

specification is shared with humor?); overstatement (like metaphors, hu-

mor often exploits literal mistruth); and so on. Since cognitive linguistics

refuses to box language and meaning into strict modular compartments

of mind, we should expect the cognitive ecology it fosters to have direct

application to all of these questions.

In line with this cognitive ecology, according to which humor figures

among other cognitive phenomena requiring a holistic, integrated ap-

proach, future research is expected to benefit from an even more intensi-

fied focus on commonalities with day-to-day communication in terms of

construal mechanisms, principles of communication, etc. On this view,

the awareness of prototypicality as an inherent property of conceptual

and linguistic categories is of crucial importance. To what extent and in

what ways a flexible category structure may be stretched for humorous

Introduction 221

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 221)

purposes represents a complex research topic. Ultimately, pursuing this

approach must lead to the conclusion that humor is a marked (deautom-

atized ) yet structurally not irregular kind of language use. In terms of

specific research questions further elaborating this general hypothesis,

several topics of interest may be discerned. Closing o¤, we therefore o¤er

a survey of four such topics, located on a theoretical/descriptive as well

as an empirical/methodological spectrum. Each of these topics comprises

an indicative, yet non-exhaustive list of concrete research questions.

4.1. The relationship between creativity and humor

Circumscribing the boundaries of humorous language is not a straight-

forward task. Although the mechanisms of humor on the one hand, and

those of metaphor, irony and linguistic creativity on the other are not

identical, neither are they are clearly demarcated categories of cognition.

To what extent does humor exploit di¤erent kinds of figurative and idi-

omatic language use? Is there a real di¤erence between literal and figura-

tive humorous language use, or is the di¤erence as elusive, and in some

ways ideological, as it is in the study of metaphor? Just as all metaphors

are neither literally anomalous nor false, neither should a joke rely on the

perception of an incongruity to force a humorous interpretation. Cer-

tainly, metaphors can be stretched so far as to cross the line from persua-

sive analogy into humorous juxtaposition, but metaphors can be perceived

as humorous without negating their truth-theoretic content. Humor, like

other forms of playful creativity, rely to some extent on the ‘‘ludic’’ spirit

of participants. Further research is required to elucidate precisely which

mechanisms of mind are shared by creative language and humorous lan-

guage, and which, if any, predates the other.

4.2. Construal mechanisms in humor

Di¤erent types of humorous texts involve the creative manipulation of

cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor, metonymy, compression, figure/

ground alignment, generalization, specialization, etc. in order to achieve

an interpretational e¤ect of deautomatization. To what extent does the

interpretation of di¤erent types of humorous texts involve cognitive

mechanisms of construal? Do these mechanisms operate in the same, a

222 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 222)

similar or a di¤erent way compared to non-humorous language use? To

what extent can conceptual mechanisms be characterized as essentially

flexible, prototypically organized categories?

4.3. Interplay of quantitative and qualitative variables

Humorous utterances are extremely fragile linguistic and conceptual con-

structs, the meaning of which depends vitally on a nexus of quantitative

criteria (such as the time of delivery, and the activation of key expecta-

tions) and qualitative criteria (such as social context, cultural taboos,

shared world models, etc.). This fragility of humorous language makes it

an ideal linguistic form in which to theorize about the relationship be-

tween the quantitative and qualitative aspects of language and cognition.

How can we objectively determine the complexity of a given stimulus or

complexity of the intended cognitive resolution process? Should this be

based on degree of conventionality, contextual expectation, complexity

of inferential work, the cognitive mechanisms that are exploited (e.g.

frame-shifting), or maybe a combination of all of these parameters?

4.4. Empirical methods on the processing of humor

Many of the notions introduced in support of conceptual models of

humor are in serious need of experimental (which is to say, psycholinguis-

tic, neurolinguistic and corpus-linguistic) support if they are to hold theo-

retical water. Cognitive linguistics, in prescribing a usage-based model of

language, explicitly aims to develop a conceptual apparatus that is both a

beneficiary of insights from, and a source of testable hypothesizes for,

psycholinguistics (Tomasello 1998, 2002; Barlow and Kemmer 2000).

With respect to this inherent symbiosis between theory and empiricism,

the analysis of humor elicits a set of compelling issues that present a

methodological and theoretical challenge to cognitive science. To what

extent do the existing empirical methods meet the requirements of testing

the processing of complex data such as humorous expressions? What type

of methodological adjustments may be required with regard to their ap-

plication to di¤erent types of humor? To what extent can formalization

models be useful in delineating hypotheses testable in an experimental

environment?

Introduction 223

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 223)

Many of the questions raised here are still largely unsolved, though

they have an important catalyzing role to play in deciding the future

direction of our discipline. Indeed, we expect that in the short-term a

cognitive-linguistic approach to humor will raise as many questions as it

helps to answer. With this inevitability in mind, we conclude this intro-

duction with a question that is, for the most part, rhetorical, since we be-

lieve we already have a partial answer that is worth sharing. If the remit

of Cognitive Linguistics is considered in its broadest sense, as the Cogni-

tive Science of language, then no account of humor will be complete with-

out a computational dimension. This does not necessarily mean that re-

searchers should implement computational realizations of their models,

merely that the models are unambiguous to the extent that such realiza-

tions are at least possible. The goal of course is to take subjectivity out

of the loop and to somehow capture that aspect of a humorous meaning

that humans themselves cannot always quantify without recourse to ‘‘it’s

funny because it makes me laugh.’’ This is an immense challenge and one

that we should at least aspire to. Our question then is: how should one

engage of a computationally-viable program of humor research in a cog-

nitive linguistics framework? One should, we suggest, select a humorous

sub-phenomenon that is at once both small and easily circumscribed

(light-bulb jokes, puns, hyperbolic insults, etc.) and conceptually scalable.

Scalability is the key issue here: having constructed a detailed model of a

very specific humorous niche, one will of course want to build on this

model to capture further aspects of the humor phenomenon, but one can

only scale if an upgrade path exists between the initial niche and the

broader picture. Note that scalability depends not only on the phenome-

non itself, but also on how the phenomenon is tackled and on the as-

sumptions that are made in formalizing a model.

For instance, we would submit that while punning has the potential to

be a scalable phenomenon, the sub-phenomenon of wholly-homophonous

punning is not scalable yet that the sub-phenomenon of polysemous-

punning is scalable. We base this claim on the realization that polyse-

mous punning requires a conceptual as well as a phonetic understanding

of the domain of discourse, and this opens the door to more complex

forms of conceptual humor. Speaking for ourselves and our own contri-

bution to this special issue, consider how the phenomenon of the ‘‘trump-

ing insult’’ can be seen as a scalable sub-phenomenon. Starting with

a very limited model of deautomatized idioms, one can construct a

computationally-viable model of trumping that subverts well-known

224 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 224)

idioms using just lexico-semantic information. Thus, from this humble be-

ginning, trumps like ‘‘he is the cream in my co¤ee; yes, sour cream’’ can

be understood and generated. From here it is a steep, but essentially

climbable upgrade path to trumps like ‘‘I am a great believer in the idiom

‘drown your sorrows’, but I can never persuade my wife to go swimming

with me.’’ And from here it is an even steeper climb to humorous sub-

version in general, such as ‘‘the world would have a lot less litter if they

gave pointed sticks to blind people’’.

To this end, we believe that humor researchers should always have an

upgrade path, no matter how ambitious, and that we should always ask

the questions: ‘‘how formalizable is this phenomenon, how scalable is

this phenomenon, and where does its upgrade path lead?’’

1University of Leuven2University College Dublin

Note

Correspondence address: kurt.feyaerts@arts.kuleuven.be

References

Alexander, Richard J.

1997 Aspects of Verbal Humour in English. Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

Attardo, Salvatore

1994 Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

1996 Humor. In Verschueren, Jef et al. (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics.

1997 The semantic foundations of cognitive theories of humor. Humor. Interna-

tional Journal of Humor Research 10 (4), 395–420.

2001a Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Berlin/New York:

Mouton de Gruyter.

2001b Humor and irony in interaction: From mode adoption to failure of detec-

tion. In Anolli, Luigi, Rita Ciceri, and Giuseppe Riva (eds.), Say Not

to Say: New Perspectives on Miscommunication. Amsterdam: IOS Press,

165–185.

2002 Cognitive stylistics of humorous texts. In Semino, Elena and Jonathan

Culpeper (eds.), Cognitive Stylistics: Language and Cognition in Text Analy-

sis. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 231–250.

Attardo, Salvatore, and Victor Raskin

1991 Script theory revis(it)ed: Joke similarity and joke representational model.

Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 4 (3), 293–347.

Introduction 225

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 225)

Attardo, Salvatore, Christian F. Hempelmann, and Sara Di Maio

2002 Script oppositions and logical mechanisms: Modeling incongruities and

their resolutions. Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 15 (1),

3–46.

Barcelona, Antonio

2003 The case for a metonymic basis of pragmatic inferencing: Evidence from

jokes and funny anecdotes. In Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Linda Thornburg

(eds.), Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:

John Benjamins, 81–102.

Barlow, Michael, and Suzanne Kemmer (eds.)

2000 Usage-based Models of Language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Bergen, Benjamin, and Kim Binsted

2003 The cognitive linguistics of scalar humor. In Achard, Michel and Suzanne

Kemmer (eds.), Language, Culture and Mind. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Black, Max

1962 Models and Metaphors. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Brone, Geert and Kurt Feyaerts

2003 The cognitive linguistics of incongruity resolution: Marked reference-point

structures in humor. University of Leuven, Department of Linguistics pre-

print no. 205.

Coulson, Seana

2000 Semantic Leaps: Frame-shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Con-

struction. New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Coulson, Seana, and Marta Kutas

1998 Frame-Shifting and Sentential Integration (Cognitive Science Technical Re-

port No. 98.02). La Jolla, CA: UCSD.

2001 Getting it: Human event-related brain response to jokes in good and poor

comprehenders. Neuroscience Letters 316, 71–74.

Croft, William, and Alan D. Cruse

2004 Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Davies, Catherine E.

1984 Joint joking. Improvisational humorous episodes in conversation. In Brug-

man, Claudia et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Annual Meeting of

the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press,

360–371.

Fauconnier, Gilles

1994 [1985] Mental Spaces. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

1997 Mappings in Thought and Language. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Fillmore, Charles J.

1982 Frame semantics. In the Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the

Morning Calm. Seoul: Hanshin, 111–137.

Geeraerts, Dirk

1989 Prospects and problems of prototype theory. Linguistics 27, 587–612.

1997 Diachronic Prototype Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2003 Decontextualizing and recontextualizing tendencies in 20th-century linguis-

tics and literary theory. In Mengel, Ewald, Hans-Joerg Schmid, and Michael

Steppat (eds.), Anglistentag 2002 Bayreuth. Trier: Trier Wissenschaftlicher

Verlag, 369–379.

226 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 226)

Geeraerts, Dirk, and Hubert Cuyckens (eds.)

2006 Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr.

1999 Speaking and thinking with metonymy. In Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Gunter

Radden (eds.), Metonymy in Language and Thought. Amsterdam/Philadel-

phia: John Benjamins, 61–76.

Giora, Rachel

1991 On the cognitive aspects of the joke. Journal of Pragmatics 16, 465–485.

1997 Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothe-

sis. Cognitive Linguistics 8 (3), 183–206.

2001 Irony and its discontent. In Steen, Gerard and Dick Schram (eds.), The Psy-

chology and Sociology of Literature. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 165–184.

2002 Optimal innovation and pleasure. In Stock, Oliviero et al. (eds.), The April

Fools’ Day Workshop on Computational Humour: Proceedings of the Twen-

tieth Twente Workshop on Language Technology (Series TWTL 20). En-

schede: UT Service Centrum, 11–28.

2003 On our Mind: Salience, Context and Figurative Language. New York: Ox-

ford University Press.

Giora, Rachel, and Ofer Fein

1999a Irony: Context and salience. Metaphor and Symbol 14, 241–257.

1999b Irony comprehension: The graded salience hypothesis. Humor: International

Journal of Humor Research 12 (4), 425–436.

Hofstadter, Douglas, and Liane Gabora

1989 Synopsis of the workshop on humor and cognition. Humor: International

Journal of Humor Research 2 (4), 417–440.

Koestler, Arthur

1964 The Act of Creation. London: Hutchinson.

Kottho¤, Helga

1998 Spaß Verstehen. Zur Pragmatik von konversationellem Humor. Tubingen:

Niemeyer.

Lako¤, George

1987 Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the

Mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Lako¤, George, and Mark Johnson

1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W.

1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 1. Stanford: Stanford University

Press.

1988 A usage-based model. In Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida (ed.), Topics in Cognitive

Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 127–161.

1993 Reference-point constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 4 (1), 1–38.

2001 Discourse in cognitive grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 12 (2), 143–188.

Lee, David

2001 Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nunberg, Geo¤rey D.

1979 The non-uniqueness of semantic solutions: Polysemy. Linguistics and Philos-

ophy 3, 143–184.

Panther, Klaus-Uwe, and Gunter Radden (eds.)

1999 Metonymy in Language and Thought. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John

Benjamins.

Introduction 227

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 227)

Panther, Klaus-Uwe, and Linda Thornburg (eds.)

2003 Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing (Pragmatics and Beyond 113).

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Pollio, Howard R.

1996 Boundaries in humor and metaphor. In Mio, Je¤ery Scott and Albert N.

Katz (eds.), Metaphor: Implications and Applications. Mahwah, NJ: Law-

rence Erlbaum, 231–253.

Priego-Valverde, Beatrice

2003 L’humour dans la conversation familiere: description et analyse linguistiques.

Paris: L’Harmattan.

Raskin, Victor

1985 Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.

Ritchie, Graeme

2004 The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes. London/New York: Routledge.

Saeed, John

1996 Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Talmy, Leonard

1975 Figure and ground in complex sentences. In Cogen, C. et al. (eds.), Proceed-

ings of the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berke-

ley, CA, 419–430.

2000 Toward a Cognitive Semantics, vols. 1 and 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Taylor, John

2002 Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tomasello, Michael (ed.)

1998 The New Psychology. Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language

Structure, vol. 1. Mahwah/London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

2002 The New Psychology. Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language

Structure, vol. 2. Mahwah/London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Vaid, Jyotsna, Rachel Hull, Roberto Heredia, David Gerkens, and Francisco Martinez

2003 Getting a joke: The time course of meaning activation in verbal humor.

Journal of Pragmatics 35, 1431–1449.

Van Hoek, Karen et al. (eds.)

1999 Discourse Studies in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John

Benjamins.

Yus, Francisco

2003 Humor and the search for relevance. Journal of Pragmatics 35, 1295–1331.

228 G. Brone et al.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

(AutoPDF V7 7/6/06 08:18) WDG (148�225mm) TimesM J-1537 Humor, 19:3 PMU:I(CKN[A])6/6/2006 pp. 203–228 1537_19-3_01 (p. 228)