Asymmetry in script opposition
-
Amadeu Viana
Abstract
This article examines the relationship between targets and script distribution in humour, starting from some basic notions of GTVH. Script asymmetry, considered here as a property of Script Opposition, is defined in terms of a perceptual difference between scripts, which matches a fairly common distribution: a Foreground Script against a Background Script. Throughout this paper, the attributes of this script distribution are explored in verbal jokes, graphic humour and conversational spontaneous joking. This particular script distribution leads to an interesting consequence when overt targets are implied: the set of inferences that we attribute to the target arises regularly from the Foreground Script, the script that closes the joke. If this correlation of script distribution and target attribution holds, we can account for a formal connection between the structure of the joke and its derisive intention.
© 2010 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
Articles in the same Issue
- Humor appreciation and sensation seeking: Invariance of findings across culture and assessment instrument?
- Humor in intimate relationships: Ties among sense of humor, similarity in humor and relationship quality
- The faces of humor: Humor as catalyst of face in the context of the British and the Spanish Parliament
- Asymmetry in script opposition
- James Robson: Humour, Obscenity and Aristophanes
- Contents HUMOR Volume 23 (2010)
Articles in the same Issue
- Humor appreciation and sensation seeking: Invariance of findings across culture and assessment instrument?
- Humor in intimate relationships: Ties among sense of humor, similarity in humor and relationship quality
- The faces of humor: Humor as catalyst of face in the context of the British and the Spanish Parliament
- Asymmetry in script opposition
- James Robson: Humour, Obscenity and Aristophanes
- Contents HUMOR Volume 23 (2010)
