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Wordplay in church marquees
-
Nancy D. Bell
,
Scott Crossley
and
Christian F. Hempelmann
Published/Copyright:
April 28, 2011
Abstract
Despite research demonstrating a certain degree of incompatibility between humor and religion, church marquees in the United States frequently use humor, and especially puns, as a way of advertising religious messages. Is the wordplay found in this context different from wordplay in general? Our comparison of the puns found on church billboards versus those found in a general corpus of puns reveals significant differences in structure and content, suggesting that these puns represent a specific type of humor. The discussion outlines possible reasons for these differences, with a focus on social context.
Published Online: 2011-04-28
Published in Print: 2011-May
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
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Articles in the same Issue
- Preface: The General Theory of Verbal Humor, twenty years after
- Resolutions and their incongruities: Further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms
- Still further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms: A response to Christian F. Hempelmann and Salvatore Attardo
- Logical mechanisms: A critique
- Humor with backgrounded incongruity: Does more required suspension of disbelief affect humor perception?
- Wordplay in church marquees
- Parsing the joke: The General Theory of Verbal Humor and appropriate incongruity
- On Oring on GTVH
- Timing in the performance of jokes
- Diana Popa and Salvatore Attardo: New Approaches to the Linguistic of Humour
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface: The General Theory of Verbal Humor, twenty years after
- Resolutions and their incongruities: Further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms
- Still further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms: A response to Christian F. Hempelmann and Salvatore Attardo
- Logical mechanisms: A critique
- Humor with backgrounded incongruity: Does more required suspension of disbelief affect humor perception?
- Wordplay in church marquees
- Parsing the joke: The General Theory of Verbal Humor and appropriate incongruity
- On Oring on GTVH
- Timing in the performance of jokes
- Diana Popa and Salvatore Attardo: New Approaches to the Linguistic of Humour
