Metarepresentation in linguistic jokes

1
Metarepresentation in linguistic jokes

• Peiling Cui
• University of Bremen
• 29.09.2006

2
Jokes combination of two different semantic
respresentations (1)

• SSTH Semantic Script Theory of Humor
• A text can be characterized as a
  single-joke-carrying text if both of the
  following conditions are satisfied.
• 1. The text is compatible, fully or in part, with
  two different scripts. (Script overlapping)
• 2. The two scripts with which the text is
  compatible are opposite. (Script opposition)
• The two scripts with which some text is
  compatible are said to overlap fully or in part
  on this text.
• (Raskin 1985 99)

3
Jokes combination of two different semantic
respresentations (2)

• The two overlapping and opposite scripts are the
  two different semantic interpretations of the
  joke text (see Attardo Raskin 1991 308).
• At the mean while, they also represent two
  different worlds
• One of them is our expectation of the story in
  the joke before the punch line, and the other one
  is the real occurrence in the text (see Schultz
  1976 12).

4
A joke example

• Is the doctor at home? the patient asked in his
  bronchial whisper. No, the doctors young and
  pretty wife whispered in reply. Come right in.
  (American, 20th century, Raskin 1985 100)
• Script 1 vs. Script 2
• Representation 1 vs. Representation 2
• patient vs. lover

5
Linguistic jokes

• Jokes which are expressed by means of a
  linguistic system. (Attardo 1994 96)
• Jokes whose effect is produced through the
  special use of some linguistic elements with
  their semantic potentials. (see Jurasz 2001 169)

6
Examples for linguistic jokes

• A miser who heard the water running in his house
  rushed downstairs and into the street shouting,
  Im being robbed! Someone is taking a bath.
  (Koestler 1964)
• A very famous German company which serves as a
  job offer center is called Bindan. (The
  authors own observation)
• Bindan sounds similar to the Chinese word
  bendan which means fools.

7
The mechanism of linguistic jokes

• - A description of the combinational rules of the
  two scripts/representations in linguistic jokes.
• - The metarespresentation in linguistic jokes.
• homophone
• homograph
• polyseme
• syntactic ambiguity

8
Homophone

• Two or more words that share the same or similar
  pronunciation but different writing forms and
  meanings. (see Bußmann 2002 284)

9
A joke example for homophone

• A foreigner saw a young and pretty Chinese woman
  wearing a T-shirt with 9 9 on the breast. He
  found it very nice and wanted to give her a
  compliment, but he didnt remember how to say 9
  in Chinese, so the foreigner just pointed to the
  numbers and said Both of your nine nine are
  very beautiful (http//joke.tom.com. Authors
  translation from the Chinese)
• /nain/
• 1) nine a number in English
• 2) ?(nai) breast in Chinese

10
Homograph

• Two or more words share the same or similar
  writing form but different sounds and meanings.
  (see Bußmann 2002 283)

11
A joke example for homograph

• A foreign student who has just begun with
  Chinese learning once wrote an article with the
  title A letter to my mother, and his first
  sentence was Dear????(nü ma nü ma)
  (joke.tom.com, authors translation from the
  Chinese)
• ? ? / ????
• ma ma / nü ma nü ma
• mama / female horse female horse

12
Some more examples for homograph - acronym jokes

• BS, MS, PhD Bull Shit, More of the Same, Piled
  Higher and Deeper. (see Nilsen Nilsen 2000
  175)
• BMW Bavarian Must Wander.
• Bayerischer Müll Wagen (Bavarian dust car).
  (www.witze.ag)

13
Polyseme

• A word or phrase with different meanings (in
  different contexts) which share the same meaning
  core. (see Bußmann 2002 524)

14
A joke example for polyseme

• The first thing which strikes a stranger in New
  York is a big car. (Esar, 1952 77, Raskin 1985
  26)

15
Syntactic ambiguity

• A property of sentences which have more than one
  syntactic derivation, i.e., a sentence which may
  be reasonably interpreted in more than one way
  (see Deemter Peters 1996 XV)

16
Joke examples for syntactic ambiguity

• In the Frank and Ernest comic strip, Frank says
  to a real estate agent, Sure, wed like to see a
  model home. What time does she get off work?
  (Nilsen Nilsen 2000 26)
• Diner Sign Wanted Man to scrub floor and two
  waitresses. (Norman Stageberg)

17
Conclusions

• Metarepresentation the two representations
• (joke mechanism)
• Homophone Script 1, representation 1
• Homograph linguistic joke
• Polyseme
• Syntactic ambiguity Script 2, representation 2

18
Main References (1)

• Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor.
  Dordrecht D. Reidel, 1985.
• Attardo, Salvatore. Humorous Texts A Semantic
  and Pragmatic Analysis. Berlin/New York Mouton
  de Gruyter, 2001.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 2000.
• Sperber, Dan (ed.). Metarepresentations. A
  Multidisplinary Perspective. Oxford Oxford
  University Press, 2000.

19
Main References (2)

• Van Deemter, Kees, and Stanley Peters (ed.).
  Semantic Ambiguity and Underspecification.
  California Center for the study of language and
  information Stanford, 1996.
• Bußmann, Hadumod (ed.). Lexikon der
  Sprachwissenschaft. Dritte, aktualisierte und
  erweiterte Auflage. Stuttgart Alfred Kröner
  Verlag, 2002.
• Stageberg, Norman C. "Structural Ambiguity Some
  Sources." English Journal 55 (1966) 558-563.