The semantics of humor

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Salvatore Attardo
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Theory ◽  
Script Theory ◽  
Ontological Semantics ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Pragmatic Aspects ◽  
Word Senses

This chapter opens the second part of the book on humor competence (chapters 6-9). This chapter introduces Raskin’s semantic theory of humor competence based on scripts (Semantic-Script Theory of Humor, SSTH). The concept of script (or frame) is introduced. Dynamic scripts (i.e., scripts that are updated with new informatiom) are described as well as the mechanics of combinations of word senses and disambiguation. The two conditions for a text to be a joke are described: 1) two scripts must be opposite, and 2) they must overlap fully or in part, i.e., be compatible with (parts of) the text. The pragmatic aspects of the SSTH are also discussed, with the idea of non-bona-fide communication, i.e., communication not entirely focused on cooperative (in the Gricean sense) communication. Finally, the recent development of Ontological semantics and its application to humor is discussed.

Verbal humor without switching scripts and without non-bona fide communication

2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Morreall
Keyword(s):  
Script Theory ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
Bona Fide

AbstractAccording to Raskin's script-theory, five factors are necessary for verbal humor: 1) a switch from the bona fide mode of communication to the non-bona fide mode of joke-telling; 2) the text of an intended joke; 3) two (partially) overlapping scripts compatible with the text; 4) an oppositeness relation between the two scripts; and 5) a trigger, obvious or implied, realizing the oppositeness relation. I argue that although this theory works well with prepared fictional jokes, it does not explain all verbal humor. The reason is that prepared fictional jokes are a sophisticated kind of verbal humor with features which are not shared by other kinds of verbal humor. I illustrate with examples of semantic, phonetic, and pragmatic techniques for creating verbal humor without switching scripts and/or without switching to non-bona fide communication.

Oppositions, overlaps, and ontologies: The general theory of verbal humor revisited

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Oring
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Script Theory ◽  
Ontological Semantics ◽  
Humor Theory ◽  
Humor Studies ◽  
Language Input

Abstract The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) has dominated the discussion of humor theory for the last quarter of a century. It generated a great deal of interest in humor studies by scholars both within and outside the discipline of linguistics. Problems are resident in GTVH, however, which have been inherited from its predecessor the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH). Script Opposition and Script Overlap are not adequately defined, nor are they sufficient for the identification of a joke-carrying text. The resource of the Logical Mechanism posited by GTVH may have complicated rather than simplified the matter as the list of proposed mechanisms are too loosely defined and woefully incomplete. The Ontological Semantics Theory of Humor (OSTH) has promised to demonstrate the adequacy of the linguistic theories of humor by the ability of computers to process natural language input to discriminate between joke-carrying and non-joke-carrying texts. That promise, also decades old, remains to be fulfilled, and it is questionable whether it can be fulfilled if based on SSTH and GTVH platforms.

Confidentiality of Statistical Records: A Threat-Monitoring Scheme for On Line Dialogue

1976 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 36-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schlörer
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Data ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
High Ratio ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Monitoring Scheme ◽  
Access Controls ◽  
On Line ◽  
Bona Fide

From a statistical data bank containing only anonymous records, the records sometimes may be identified and then retrieved, as personal records, by on line dialogue. The risk mainly applies to statistical data sets representing populations, or samples with a high ratio n/N. On the other hand, access controls are unsatisfactory as a general means of protection for statistical data banks, which should be open to large user communities. A threat monitoring scheme is proposed, which will largely block the techniques for retrieval of complete records. If combined with additional measures (e.g., slight modifications of output), it may be expected to render, from a cost-benefit point of view, intrusion attempts by dialogue valueless, if not absolutely impossible. The bona fide user has to pay by some loss of information, but considerable flexibility in evaluation is retained. The proposal of controlled classification included in the scheme may also be useful for off line dialogue systems.

Florida Agritourism Building and Fire Codes

EDIS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Henry ◽  
Kathryn A Stofer
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Education ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Regulatory Authority ◽  
Building Codes ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Agricultural Operations ◽  
On Farm ◽  
Fire Codes

Agritourism marries Florida’s two largest industries, tourism and agriculture, to provide an on-farm recreational experience for consumers. Although Florida trails many other states in the number of agritourism operations, the number of Florida farms offering recreational experiences more than doubled from 2007 to 2012. This new 4-page document describes building codes relevant to Florida agritourism operations. Written by Mary Beth Henry and Kathryn A. Stofer, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural Education and Communication.https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/wc349 A companion document, Florida’s Agritourism Laws, EDIS publication AEC623, Florida’s Agritourism Laws, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/wc285, discusses Florida Statutes related to definitions, liability protections, and limits to regulatory authority of local governments over bona fide agricultural operations engaged in agritourism.

Duality, Opposition and Typology in the Qur'an: The Apocalyptic Substrate

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Structural Elements ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Apocalyptic Literature ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Bona Fide

This article highlights two features of Qur'anic style and content: duality/opposition and typological figuration, which can be seen as providing a continuous and consistent ‘narrative stream’ through the Qur'an. It is of some interest that both of these features have been singled out as distinctive of apocalypse as a genre in the study of numerous religious and cultural traditions. As debate on whether or not the Qur'an is a bona fide example of apocalyptic literature quietly continues, the interplay of conceptual and substantive oppositions and dualities is discussed in order to highlight the importance of this prominent feature to both the form and contents of the Book. It is suggested that its function is profoundly related to the typological figuration indispensable to the Qur'anic depiction of, for example, the character of the prophets and therefore prophethood. Whether or not this represents a genuine instance of apocalyptic literature, it nonetheless remains that the prominence of the motif renders the Qur'an susceptible of a reading expressive of something called an apocalyptic imagination. It is hoped that this article succeeds in demonstrating that in fact these apparently familiar subjects are stimulated to new life by considering them as defining, interlocking, structural elements of a distinctive Islamic apocalypse.

Transformation and Education in GDR Youth Literature: A Script Theory Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-82
Author(s):  
Jean E. Conacher
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Script Theory ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Youth Literature

Youth literature within the German Democratic Republic (GDR) officially enjoyed equal status with adult literature, with authors often writing for both audiences. Such parity of esteem pre-supposed that youth literature would also adopt the cultural–political frameworks designed to nurture the establishment of socialism on German soil. In their quest to forge a legitimate national literature capable of transforming the population, politicians and writers drew repeatedly upon the cultural heritage of Weimar classicism and the Bildungsroman, Humboldtian educational traditions and Soviet-inspired models of socialist realism. Adopting a script theory approach inspired by Jean Matter Mandler, this article explores how directive cultural policies lead to the emergence of multiple scripts which inform the nature and narrative of individual works. Three broad ideological scripts within GDR youth literature are identified which underpin four distinct narrative scripts employed by individual writers to support, challenge and ultimately subvert the primacy of the Bildungsroman genre. A close reading of works by Strittmatter, Pludra, Görlich, Tetzner and Saalmann reveals further how conceptual blending with classical and fairy-tale scripts is exploited to legitimise and at times mask critique of transformation and education inside and outside the classroom and to offer young protagonists a voice often denied their readers.

Archias the Good Immigrant

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-410
Author(s):  
Hannah Čulík-Baird
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Roman Poet ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Cultural Tensions

Cicero's Pro Archia has historically been taken as a bona fide expression of humanism. In this article, I demonstrate how this reading of the Pro Archia has allowed the political and cultural tensions in the speech to remain hidden. Cicero's vision of Archias as an idealized amalgam sanitizes both the poetic and the cultural identity of his Syrian client in favour of a projection which combined generic “Greekness” with a politicized invocation of the Roman poet, Q. Ennius. Contextualizing the Pro Archia within its contemporary political moment reveals that Cicero is consciously constructing a narrative of Archias as a “good immigrant.”

Interaction Order and Anxiety Disorder: A “Batesonian” Heuristic of Speaking Patterns during Psychotherapy

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-272
Author(s):  
Jürgen Streeck
Keyword(s):  
Young Female ◽  
Panic Attacks ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Social Phobias ◽  
Interactional Theory ◽  
Panic Disorders ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Interaction Order ◽  
Interdisciplinary Effort ◽  
Pragmatic Aspects

This paper describes speaking practices enacted by young female in-patients during psychotherapy sessions. The patients are in treatment for anxiety and panic disorders (social phobias). The practices involve prosodic, lexical, and pragmatic aspects of utterance construction. An effect that they share is that the speaker’s embodied presence in her talk and her epistemic commitment to it are reduced as the utterance progresses. The practices are interpreted in light of Bateson’s interactional theory of character formation: as elements of a self-sustaining system Angst (anxiety). The study has grown out of an interdisciplinary effort to explore possible relationships between types of anxiety and the communicative and linguistic patterns by which patients describe panic attacks and other highly emotional experiences.

From the Synergy to the Discrimination - Analysis of Attitudes and Decisions of the Prison Staff Towards Muslim Prisoners in the Context of Multicultural Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Urbanek
Keyword(s):  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Prison Staff ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Personal Attitudes ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pragmatic Aspects ◽  
Diverse Groups

The aspiration to keep the synergy in relations between majorities and minorities repeatedly emerges as the cause of conflicts in social relations. It is also a subject of the interest of the multicultural education, particularly in countries of Eastern Europe, building contacts with the culturally and ethnically diverse groups to a wider scale. Relations in culturally, religiously and ethnic diverse societies, are becoming more and more related to the personal attitudes and a given policy. These issues acquire in the prison circumstances even greater significance, as given moods and personal attitudes of the prison staff create the pragmatic aspects of the professional activities addressed to the sentenced. Additionally, the key role is played by the quality of the penitentiary policy and the legal culture. The article presents the comparative analysis of the research carried out in 2016 amongst the prison staff in Poland. The subject of the research concerned attitudes that influence the decisive processes. The personal relations have been analyzed in the context of the relation with the sentenced Muslims. The aim of the research was not only to reveal the quality of the decisions concerning the sentenced Muslims, but also the sources of such decisions. The latter, in consequence, may shift, as the research results prove, towards synergy or discrimination. The diversification of the discrimination was one of the intriguing aspects, disclosed at various levels that not always explicitly concerned the discrimination of the minority.

Liquid Crystal Trimers Incorporating Saturated Isosteres of Benzene and Exhibiting Modulated Nematic Phases

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Al-Janabi ◽  
Richard Mandle
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Helical Structure ◽  
Molecular Shape ◽  
Saturated Hydrocarbons ◽  
Fluid System ◽  
Structural Requirement ◽  
Disubstituted Benzene ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Nematic Phases ◽  
Bend Angles

<p>The nematic twist-bend (N<sub>TB</sub>) liquid crystal phase possesses a local helical structure with a pitch length of a few nanometres and is the first example of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a fluid system. All known examples of the N­<sub>TB­</sub> phase occur in materials whose constituent mesogenic units are aromatic hydrocarbons. It is not clear if this is due to synthetic convenience or a <i>bona fide</i> structural requirement for a material to exhibit this phase of matter. In this work we demonstrate that materials consisting largely of saturated hydrocarbons could also give rise to this mesophase. Furthermore, replacement of 1,4-disubstituted benzene with <i>trans</i> 1,4-cyclohexane or even 1,4-cubane does not especially alter the transition temperatures of the resulting material nor does it appear to impact upon the heliconical tilt angle, suggesting the local structure of the phase is unperturbed. Calculating the probability distribution of bend angles reveals that the choice of isosteric group has little impact on the overall molecular shape, demonstrating the shape-driven nature of the N<sub>TB</sub> phase. </p>

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