A general mechanism of humor: reformulating the semantic overlap

Javier Martínez

doi:10.1515/humor-2023-0032

Article

A general mechanism of humor: reformulating the semantic overlap

Javier Martínez
Javier Martínez (José Javier Martínez-García), MFA in Film and Television from the University of California, Los Angeles, is a writer of children’s and young adult literature, a writer/director of animated series, and a high-school teacher. He has recently shifted his interest to humor theory. javiermartinezauthor.wordpress.com.

Published/Copyright: September 11, 2023

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From the journal HUMOR Volume 36 Issue 4

Abstract

This article proposes a cognitive mechanism of humor of general applicability, not restricted to verbal communication. It is indebted to Raskin’s concept of script overlap, and conforms to the incongruity-resolution theoretical framework, but it is built on the notion of constraint, an evoked correspondence between sets of data. Under this view, script overlap is an outcome of a more abstractly described phenomenon, constraint overlap. The important concept of the overlooked argument is introduced to characterize the two overlapping constraints—overt and covert. Their inputs and outputs are not directly encoded in utterances, but implicated by them, and their overlap results in another overlap at the level of the communicated utterances, that the incongruity reveals. Our hypothesis assumes as a given that the evocation of such constraints is a cognitive effect of the inferential process by which a hearer interprets utterances. We base this assumption on Hofstadter’s theory of analogy-making as the essence of human thought. By substituting “stimuli” of any kind for “utterances” in this model, we obtain a mechanism as easily applicable to non-verbal communication—slapstick, cartoons—and we propose it describes the necessary and sufficient conditions for a communicative act in any modality to carry humor.

Keywords: cognitive processing; humor theory; incongruity; Logical Mechanism; non-verbal; overlap

Corresponding author: Javier Martínez, UNED, Madrid, Spain, E-mail: jvermartinez@gmail.com

Special thanks go to Prof. Laura Alba-Juez.

About the author

Javier Martínez

Javier Martínez (José Javier Martínez-García), MFA in Film and Television from the University of California, Los Angeles, is a writer of children’s and young adult literature, a writer/director of animated series, and a high-school teacher. He has recently shifted his interest to humor theory. javiermartinezauthor.wordpress.com.

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Received: 2022-08-15

Accepted: 2023-06-13

Published Online: 2023-09-11

Published in Print: 2023-10-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0032

Keywords for this article

cognitive processing; humor theory; incongruity; Logical Mechanism; non-verbal; overlap