Humor Enhancers in the Study of Humorous Literature

Katrina Triezenberg

Purdue University

Introduction

In 1985, Raskin introduced the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) and in

1991, Attardo and Raskin extended it into the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH).

The SSTH aimed to describe the necessary conditions a short text must satisfy in order to

be humorous—in other words, it defined the concept of “joke.” The GTVH explored

weaknesses in the SSTH and added to the original idea of semantic script opposition five

other dimensions, collectively called the six Knowledge Resources. Attardo has, since

then, extended the theory in order to make it applicable to longer humorous texts, those

which are not simply jokes, but literature (2001, 2002).

Adoption of these theories has been widespread; an instance of SO has become

synonymous with an instance of humor, working on the assumption that an ideal

audience will find it funny. This paper does not seek to deny the proposition that SO is

the necessary condition for the presence of textual humor; rather, to suggest that the

GTVH and its extensions are not sufficient to successfully describe the workings of

humorous literature: though the GTVH can, with more or less ingenuity, be made to

account for the various approaches and devices used by humor writers, its usefulness is,

in some cases, post-hoc: while it can account, it may not identify in the first place, and

the accounting may lead to an unnecessary proliferation of scripts from a handful of

basics to anything-goes. The position put forth here is that it would be much better if a
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theory of literary humor were developed to take over some of these phenomena from

GTVH, thus supplementing and collaborating with it, resulting in a fair division of labor;

this fusion of linguistics with literature would create an extremely useful new philology

(Triezenberg 2004).

In the same way that salt enhances the taste of food, thereby making it more

enjoyable, the literary artist utilizes a number of techniques to enhance the reader’s

experience of humor. In the same way that the taste of salt should not be confounded with

the taste of the food, though, the fact that these techniques—which will henceforth be

referred to as humor enhancers—add pleasure to the reading experience and probably

increase the reader’s experience of humor in the text, they should not be confused with

the humor itself, because they have nothing (or very little, tangentially) to do with the

GTVH’s script opposition, jab lines, or the six knowledge resources.

Before explicating some humor-enhancing techniques, it is necessary to recognize

that the acts of smiling and laughing are unrelated to the experience of humor. A person

may read a story which he or she finds extremely funny, and never manifest anything

more marked than a placid Mona Lisa smile—indeed, may have no outward reaction at

all. Conversely, smiling and laughter may be connected to a great many things different

from and, perhaps, less pleasant than humor such as compatriotism, delight, mirth,

desperation, greed, embarrassment, and triumph. Sociology and social psychology also

play a great role in the mediation between experience of humor and observable

manifestations of it. Comic plays are known to translate into movies very badly, because

the interaction between live performers and a live audience, and within the audience

itself, sets up a general disposition to laugh at and enjoy almost anything, including a
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great many things that would be practically unrecognizable as humor outside of the

theatre.

Humor enhancers probably act to increase the experience of a text’s humor in a

similar way: they serve to please us and make us feel generally well-disposed towards the

text, to trust the author’s mastery of his subject, to please our sense of aesthetics, to make

us feel that we are possessed of particularly good understanding and knowledge, that we

are part of the author’s intellectual in-crowd, and generally to put us in a good mood, to

make us feel good about ourselves and the text, and especially to lower our defenses, so

that we take nothing too seriously.

Diction and the LA KR

Language (LA) is one of the six Knowledge Resources (KR) in the GTVH, and

one of the least explored. Because the theory is, indeed, a theory of verbal humor, LA is

most easily used or abused to account for phenomena that don’t clearly fit into any other

KR; indeed, it is very much a dumping ground, where a humor analysis notes down

anything it finds useful. Idioms are often noted here, and things that operate similarly to

idioms. Consider a line from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, and a rewording of it:

1)

a) Major Major’s father was a long-limbed farmer

b) Major Major’s father was a tall farmer

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The literary instinct in anyone identifies (a) as more interesting, therefore more

enjoyable, and probably a better literary choice than (b); it is a little more descriptive, and

the alliteration is artistically pleasing. Strictly they are the same, and yet, the literary

instinct is again sure that (a) is more conducive to the humor of the piece as a whole than

(b), despite the fact that this particular phrase contains no semantic script opposition. The

reason is that (a), in addition to alliterating nicely, provokes and/or reinforces the

activation of scripts pertinent to the jokes being told much better than (b). Though “long-

limbed farmer” doesn’t have an idiomatic standing, it sounds as if it should: it rings of

rural America, in which setting indeed it is applied. Thus, though no semantic SO may be

obviously present in this particular phrase, it reinforces a state of mind necessary for the

reader to find humor in the larger text. As per the introduction, it is not impossible to

imagine several SOs to account for the enhancer—what is claimed here is that it should

not be seen as a responsibility of the GTVH to do so.

Stereotypes

The humor of stock characters is a particularly convenient one for an author,

because the audience already knows a great deal about the character’s inherent

contradictions. The mere presence of a familiar comic character gives the audience a

pleasant expectation of humor to come. This is all-important in performance comedy,

which relies heavily on the social dynamics within the audience and between the

audience and the performers, and quite helpful in verbal humor also, usually in the form

of jokes aimed at a gender, religion, ethnicity, or class. Independently of their script

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oppositions, these jokes are funnier if the audience is privy to the stereotype of the target.

Take, for example, this light bulb joke:

2) Q: How many Poles does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Five, one to hold the bulb and four to turn the table he’s standing on.

A great deal goes on in this joke, and the target of it is very much incidental: one

can replace Poles with any group whose intelligence one wants to malign, and because

the SO and LM have nothing to do with Poles, the joke is still funny. However, the joke

serves to educate the audience about whatever group was made the TA. The audience has

learned that part of that group’s stereotype is stupidity. Probably the audience already

knew this, and if the audience did, resolution of the incongruity was easier, thus

supposedly making the joke more enjoyable (though see Raskin and Triezenberg 2003);

in addition, a stereotype which includes such stupidity contains the normal/abnormal SO

and is thus inherently funny, so any joke which invokes it is enriched. Stereotypes thus

form a circle of humor-enhancement in which the joke makes the stereotype funnier,

which makes the joke funnier, which makes the stereotype funnier, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Notice that this joke cannot be successfully adapted to intelligent or “normal”

stereotypes. A savvy joker would probably not try to apply it to Jews, Scots, or WASPs.

Stereotypes are funny because they take small differences that everyone half-

consciously notices, and blow them all out of proportion; they create a normal/abnormal

opposition. In addition to this inherent SO, though, stereotypes grab the reader’s

attention. People enjoy reading about things they understand, because it makes the action
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that much easier to understand and the experience that much deeper and more satisfying.

Stereotypes are a cheap way to invoke this feeling of knowingness in one’s readers; most

stereotypes are stock characters that have been used in countless other texts, and have

countless other jokes attached to them. A reader who stumbles upon one therefore finds

himself in the realm of a familiar fiction. If one wishes to write high literature, one must

stick to subtle details that the primitive or inattentive reader will probably not notice.

Stereotypes are a convenient way to get through to a relaxed audience; and certainly, the

humor writer wants his audience relaxed. In order to laugh, belief must be suspended and

sensitivities dulled. Stereotypes are therefore ideally suited to humorous literature.

Cultural Factors

The obvious question arising from the previous section is whose stereotypes?

Catch-22 is an American novel full of American types, and a person not familiar with the

culture may be able to follow the story and get the jist of characters, but will lose much of

the nuance that separates good writing from great. Outside of Renaissance Europe, the

characters of Commedia del’Arte are just clowns; no one would recognize the bumbling

hunter outside of Warner Bros. cartoons.

This comes to our minds immediately in the context of stereotypes and stock

characters, but it extends into all of humor as well. If humor is defined as the

juxtaposition of two incompatible scripts, then the audience must 1) recognize the scripts

and 2) recognize them as incompatible. A person whose script farmer is the British

gentleman farmer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will find far less to laugh at

in Catch-22’s description of Major Major’s father, than a sixth-generation Midwesterner

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intimately familiar with America’s special flavor of fundamentalist hypocrisy, not only

because the behavior of Major Major’s father is more like that generally associated with

tenants than with the landowning farmers themselves (the gentleman being, after all,

genetically generous), but because the gentleman farmer is far more educated and cynical

or, failing that, bawdy, than his American equivalent is supposed to be.

Familiarity

An outgrowth of the previous two sections is the appeal of familiarity. Humor

exists in stereotypes, as discussed above, but also when the reader feels that he is oriented

in the text, he is more relaxed. He is more likely to understand nuance and to find meta-

humor, whether the author intended it or not. Knowing exactly what’s going on and how

things are going to work also inflates the reader’s self-confidence, making it more likely

that he’ll understand sophisticated jokes (by reducing any literature-related learned

helplessness), and deadening his personal sensitivities: if he identifies with the author and

the text, then he cannot be laughed at unless he is also laughing along.

Repetition and Variation

Repetition is inherently funny in itself. The humor in it can derive from several

different sources. First, the fact that the same thing is happening over and over defies

reality (or, if one takes Mark Twain’s philosophical stance that life is the same damn

thing over and over, it is an exaggeration of reality); a script opposition of

normal/abnormal, real/unreal, or expected/exaggerated is therefore set up, which opens

the door to humor. Second, the repetitions may be funnier than the original because the
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audience knows what is coming. The text can then pretend to hold the audience in

suspense, it can glorify and embellish, it can defeat expectations, and any number of

other devices, all of which contain script oppositions at the whole-text level, rather than

the jab-line level. Third, each repetition can be repeated in an artistic and clever way. The

description of Major Major’s father works this way; first Major Major’s father does not

grow alfalfa, then he makes a good thing of not growing it, then the government pays him

well for not growing it, then he buys more land so he can not grow more alfalfa, etc. The

situation escalates with each repetition and, despite the facts that it’s the same joke which

ought to be getting tired and that it actually makes perfect sense according to U. S.

subsidy laws, it’s still hilariously funny. The reason for this is twofold. The inherent

contradiction—that one can be paid for doing nothing—is highlighted more and more

clearly as the passage goes on. The incongruity becomes more and more incongruous,

and therefore we may suppose funnier. Also, Heller is being very clever; it takes a certain

kind of artistic genius to build up a joke in this way, and we admire Heller for doing it.

We are delighted. Our laughter is therefore not entirely due to humor; we’re laughing in

sheer admiration for the construction of the text. Still, we are laughing, and the difference

between laughter and humor is not an intuitive one. Matsumoto (1987) demonstrated that

forcing a smile can make people feel happy; if this is true, then it is reasonable to assume

that simply laughing can make people think things are funny. The craftsmanship of

repetition with skillful variation is therefore a potent humor enhancer.

Conclusion
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In concluding, I would like to emphasize that I am not attacking the GTVH in

itself, but the idea that it can someway wholly account for the craft of literary humor.

Certainly, the GTVH correctly identifies necessary conditions for humor; what I am

disputing is their sufficiency. The authors themselves have been perfectly aware that

those conditions are not fully sufficient and that, in humor as well as in other language-

related areas, sufficiency remains a huge problem. But Attardo (2001) gives the

impression, obviously unintended but open to such a misinterpretation, that one can

create a joke simply by inserting fillers into each of the six KRs. This is obviously not

true; life and literature are not so simple. Even with a given set of fillers for the KR, the

joke must still be crafted, and can be so crafted either well or badly, which will heavily

influence the experience of humor by a non-ideal audience. I certainly share Raskin’s

view that any application of linguistics to an adjacent area is inherently limited (see, for

instance, Raskin and Weiser 1987: 259-261), and I agree with Attardo that the GTVH

methods can be somehow extended to account for most of the humor enhancers. I am

simply not sure that this is necessarily the best way to go about it: let the literary studies

of humor develop its own theory and methodology for dealing with these phenomena.

The proposed humor enhancers should be a component of such a theory.

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REFERENCES

Attardo, Salvatore. 2001. Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis.

Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Attardo, Salvatore. Christian F. Hempelmann and Sara Di Maio. 2002. Script oppositions

and logical mechanisms: Modeling incongruities and their resolutions. HUMOR. 15:1. 3-

46.

Attardo, Salvatore and Victor Raskin. 1991. Script theory revis(it)ed: joke similarity and

joke representation model. HUMOR. 4:3-4. 293-347.

Matsumoto, D. 1987. The role of facial response in the experience of emotion: More

methodological problems and a meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology. 52. 769-774.

Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: D.

Reidel, 1985.

Raskin, Victor and Katrina Triezenberg. 2003. Getting Sophisticated About

Sophistication: Inference at the Service of Humor. Keynote address, ISHS 2003:

International Conference on Humor Research, NEIU at Chicago, Illinois, USA, July.

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Raskin, Victor, and Irwin Weiser. 1987. Language and Writing: Applications of

Linguistics to Rhetotic and Composition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Triezenberg, Katrina E. 2004. New Philology: A Call For (Inter)Disciplinary Action. An

unpublished M.A. Thesis, Program in Linguistics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.