Resolutions and their incongruities: Further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms

Christian F. Hempelmann; Salvatore Attardo

doi:10.1515/HUMR.2011.008

Article

Resolutions and their incongruities: Further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms

Christian F. Hempelmann and Salvatore Attardo

Published/Copyright: April 28, 2011

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Submit Manuscript Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal Volume 24 Issue 2

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the study of the resolution of incongruities in humor. We reject some criticisms of logical mechanisms and analyze three different types of incongruities in humorous texts: completely backgrounded, backgrounded, and foregrounded. Only the latter are addressed by logical mechanisms. We identify a mechanism of “incongruity shifting” which may be a candidate for “deep” logical mechanism (along the lines of “parallelism” in Attardo et al. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 15: 1–44, 2002). We finally discuss the similarities between Oring's (Engaging humor, University of Illinois Press, 2003) “appropriate incongruity” theory and our approach, which lead us to the conclusion that all resolution of incongruity in jokes is partial.

Keywords:: appropriate incongruity; GTVH; incongruity; incongruity shifting; Logical Mechanism; resolution

Published Online: 2011-04-28

Published in Print: 2011-May

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/HUMR.2011.008

Keywords for this article

appropriate incongruity; GTVH; incongruity; incongruity shifting; Logical Mechanism; resolution