Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon
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Esme Winter-Froemel
Abstract
Lexical items with a ludic potential have not been systematically studied up to now. The aim of this paper is thus to explore sources of humor in the French and Italian lexicon and to investigate to what extent the notion of incongruity can explain the humorous effects and ludic usage of lexical items. Incongruity will be reinterpreted from a usage-based perspective, stressing the interactional dimension of communication (see also Kotthoff, 1998; Onysko, 2016), which defines the relative inappropriateness and pragmatic markedness of the items. In addition, the semantic distance and (in)compatibility of the meanings as well as the semiotic nature of the relevant reference entities will be taken into account, and a typology of relevant subtypes of incongruity will be proposed.
Abstract
Lexical items with a ludic potential have not been systematically studied up to now. The aim of this paper is thus to explore sources of humor in the French and Italian lexicon and to investigate to what extent the notion of incongruity can explain the humorous effects and ludic usage of lexical items. Incongruity will be reinterpreted from a usage-based perspective, stressing the interactional dimension of communication (see also Kotthoff, 1998; Onysko, 2016), which defines the relative inappropriateness and pragmatic markedness of the items. In addition, the semantic distance and (in)compatibility of the meanings as well as the semiotic nature of the relevant reference entities will be taken into account, and a typology of relevant subtypes of incongruity will be proposed.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction. Figurative language 1
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Part I. Intersubjectivity and interaction
- Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony 19
- Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes 41
- Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects 75
- The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction 109
-
Part II. Mechanisms and processes
- Metaphor and irony 139
- Metonymic indeterminacy and metalepsis 175
- On verbal and situational irony 213
- On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings 241
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Part III. Usage and variation
- Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy 287
- Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration 307
- The fabric of metaphor in discourse 339
- Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon 357
- Measuring the impact of (non)figurativity in the cultural conceptualization of emotions in the two main national varieties of Portuguese 387
- Index 439
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction. Figurative language 1
-
Part I. Intersubjectivity and interaction
- Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony 19
- Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes 41
- Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects 75
- The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction 109
-
Part II. Mechanisms and processes
- Metaphor and irony 139
- Metonymic indeterminacy and metalepsis 175
- On verbal and situational irony 213
- On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings 241
-
Part III. Usage and variation
- Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy 287
- Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration 307
- The fabric of metaphor in discourse 339
- Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon 357
- Measuring the impact of (non)figurativity in the cultural conceptualization of emotions in the two main national varieties of Portuguese 387
- Index 439
