LINGUA INGLESE 2-17/03/2022

Today we’re going to talk about what Grice’s theories of communication have to do with humour and we’re
going to look specifically at the examples from the sitcoms.
So, specifically we’ll be looking at how the violation of these maxims creates humorous results, so we’re
taking sitcoms as an example and we’ll get later in the lesson to the concept of how sitcoms are different
from natural talk.
So, first we’ll look at some maximun violation and then we’ll think about what is the nature of a sitcom and
how participants are expecting to be overheard by the viewers and what that means for pragmatic analysis, of
the humour specifically, but firstly we look at examples of maxim violation.
Generally, these will be categorized as flouting because generally flouting creates humour, but obviously for
example the case of infringement that we saw yesterday, that was very funny.
RECAP
Let’s just look again

So being cooperative when you’re communicating. To be cooperative you must say that which you believed
to be true and not that for which you lack adequate evidence, this is interesting, someone in the collaboration
space yesterday said, do you remember the example about the teacher: the student said: Dublin is in Scotland
amd teacher says yes, Paris is in Azerbaijian or something like that. So, somebody said that there were 2
flouting of quality: the student said something that wasn’t true and teacher said something sarcastic, but
that’s not the case.
So, if the student genuinely thinks that Dublin is in Scotland, that’s not flouting, that’s just being wrong, so
giving false information but if you don’t believe that information to be false, you’re not flouting the maxim
of quality. So, it’s interesting how this is worded.
And tries to be truthful and does not give that is false, does not give information that wouldn’t believe to be
false, does not give information that does not to be true. So, if you genuinely believe that Dublin is in Scolt-
land in saying, you’re not lying, you’re not flouting, you’re not queitly and ostentatiously violating the
maxim either and you’re not flouting, you’re just wrong.
And when the teacher response and saying: Yes, Paris is in Azerbaijian, that’s flouting, because there’s an
intention that the hearer would understand.
Just being wrong isn’t violating the maxim of quality, knowing that you’re wrong, knowing that you’re say-
ing something wrong is flouting or saying something for which you have no evidence. So, if I say, there’s a
mob attacking the university building. I have absolutely no evidence to say such a thing, I’m saying it to in-
cite fear, that’s quietly and obstentatiously violating because I’m intending for you to understand that I don’t
believe but it’s something for which I lack adequate evidence. So, being wrong is slightly different to flout-
ing the maxim of quaity.
Maxim of quantity, be informative, not overly informative not underly iformative, so give enough informa-
tion as is required. Obviously that’s determined by the context, so, if somebody asks me how many people
were at the concert? I say 500, that’s an estimate and that’s fine, and if there were 503, I’m not flouting the
maxim of quantity. So, that’s determined by the context.
However, if I’m writing a legal report about witnesses to a crime that occurred at the concert and I need to
know exactly how many people were and exactly how many people turned up.
I need to give the precise information of 503. So, the maxim of quantity like all of these maxms, is deter-
mined by the context. So, the level of precision that is required in the communivative context is determined
by that context. So, enough information, not too much not too little.
Maxim of relation is to be pertinent to the discussion and if you say something that’s not pertinent, I’m go-
ing to assume that in some way it is. You’re being relevant even though you’re seemingly irrelevant.
Maxim of manner is when one tries to be clear, brief and orderly, so to avoid ambiguity, obscurity of lan-
guage, this is the maxim that determines what we speak in a way that is intended to be understood. If I’m
speaking to a 5 years old child I’m speaking in one way. If I’m here and giving a lesson that means I’m
speaking in another way. It’s determined by the context. So, being orderly and unambiguous with a 5 year
old child might mean not spelling out word might mean not using difficlut word etc... So that they can be in-
cluded in the conversation. I’m going to use a particular kind of languages and that is the clearest way for me
to express these concepts.
And again we know these, we just remind ourselves so that we can apply it to sitcom instances.

So flouting is overt inadherence to the maxims, intended to be understood by the hearer as creating an impli -
cature. We reminded ourselves that is slightly similar to the idea of the indirect speech act, so I’m saying one
thing, but actualy on communicative level I’m achieving something else. So somebody asks me did you en-
joy dinner last night and I say even in a lovely day we’re having. I’m intending to communicate but I don’t
want to talk about it, I’m intending to communicate that either that dinner was terrible or there’s something I
don’t want to talk about, I’m achieving something through that overt in adherence to the maxim and that was
the maxim relation. So, the speaker assumes that he knows how to infer the implicature. So, we have faith in
the hearer’s ability to get to that implicature otherwise I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think you could get
there, I wouldn’t have said it I would have said it in a clearer and simpler ways. So, when we do this when I
fly out the maxims, we’re assuming that the person is going to be able to pick up on what we’re saying. So,
generally the dialogues we’ve been looking at have been just that dialogue, so between 2 people often when
there’s more than one speaker involved, we can perhaps intend that some of those people would pick up on
what I’m doing and that others wouldn’t, so we talked about with the maxim of manner. So, I could say in a
room full of people to my mum: did you get the thing for the person? Did you get that? And my mother will
know what I’m taliking about but not everybody else will.
So, sometimes the maxims can be flouted because we know one hearer will be abe to arrive at that implica-
ture and other hearer may not. So, that’s important as well when there’s a plurality of hearers, so the maxim
is being flouted, the maxim may being flouted for the benifit of some hearers and for the exclusion of others.
I assume that my hearer knows how to infer the implicature and furthermore I may assume that some of my
hearer can infer the implicature, another of my hearer cannot or may infer something else, may arrive at an-
other implicature which would be her mother knows what she’s talking about.

Now we look at kinds of violation, so we had infringing, so unwittingly not adhering to a maxim, so mala-
propism, mishearing or misunderstanding etc. If I don’t understand your question, if I don’t hear it correctly,
I may sound like I’m flouting the maxim of relation when I respond, so, you asked me how are you and I
hear where are you from. It sounds like I’m flouting the maxim of relation but generally in a communicative
situation like that someone might understand that with our masks on, we haven’t been able to hear or hear it
properly and they’ll repeat the question, because they’ve understood that I’ve been infringing.
Opting out: Making it clear, overtly declaring that one does not intend to adhere to a maxim. It’s not the
same as flouting which is not adhering, overtly stating that one does not want to adhere to the maxim and so
choosing not to cooperate and not a liberty to discuss that also. Every time we say by the way, we are opting
out of the maxim of relation, so when we change the topic, that we use to change topic and that’s actually a
opting out in the maxim of relation. From talking with my friends about the courses that I’m taking at uni-
versity and then I remember that there’s something I want to go see at the cinema tonight and I say by the
way, tonight the Spiderman’s out, is anybody going? That’s changing the topic and in order to do that kind
of asked permission to the group by opting out of a maxim. So I say I know we were all talking about prag-
matics here, but let’s talk about going to the cinema, ok? So, by the way is a kind of opting out and that’s
how we generally use it.
Flouting is the one that we concentrate on the most, because it’s the most fun and the most exciting over vio-
lating a maxim in order to create an implicature. So, this is what Grice was focused on this creation of impli-
cature, so that my hearer knows that I’m not respecting the maxim, my hearer knows that I’m trying to say
something by not respecting them.
And then we have quietly and unostentatiously violating the maxims, so the classical example of that is
lying, in that I don’t respect the quality maxim, but I don’t intend for you to understand that and I don’t in-
tend for you to draw any further implicature from what I’m saying, I attended for you to take what I’ve said
as fact. So, that’s quietly and obstentiously violating the maxim of quality, a classical and prototypical case
is lying.
And the suspension of the maxims: the speakers are in a context where there is a mutual lack of expectation
that one or more maxims be fulfilled and again we said some of the examples of these are a little bit strange,
so something like improv theatre, improv comedy that nobody expects the maxim of relation to be respected
there, anything could happen that doesn’t necessarily have to do what was just happened. A lot of strange ex-
amples, hard to think than which we do suspend the maxims, but it does happen that we decide that relation
or quantity or quality isn’t relevant.
So, that’s just to remind us what we’re thinking of when we’re looking at sitcom humor through the perspec-
tive of Grice’s maxims.
So, humour is a question of pragmatics, do you agree? So from what we know of pragmatics at this point, do
you think humour has to do with pragmatics? Risponde i ragazzi nell’aula poi la prof ripete: Yeah, it’s about
context, it’s about communication, it’s about making meanings essentially. So, I’m making a meaning that
makes you laugh but you need to understand that you need to get that.

So how would you guys define pragmatics? It’s the study of the makers of those meaning, so with pragmat-
ics we concentrate a lot on the user, the user of language, so it’s about languages users and how they use lan-
guage, perhaps it’s more clear to say meaning making, so that we’re really figuring out how those meaning
are created and how they’re understood and how users know how to create them and how users know how to
infer meaning from what’s being done.
How do you think it can help us to understand and analyze humour? Una ragazza rispnde: It’s important to
understand who is making the joke in order to understand it, because sometimes it can be really hard if you
don’t know how to interface with.
Prof aggiunge: so it’s important to understand who is making the humour, or making a joke, so who is being
humorous in order to understand how that is being made, so obviously we need to think about language users
and the context. Can you think of any forms of humour? How would you categorize different kind of hu-
mour? I ragazzi in classe rispondono: Irony and sarcasm.
Prof: there are 2 we’ve already looke at when we were looking at the flouting of quality, we basically fo-
cused on irony and sarcasm, yes often they’re humorous, so they used to humourous effect, sometimes yes
sometimes not. So, we have irony and sarcasm, what else? Not necessarily only on the linguistic prospective
but just what is that makes us laugh? What is humour? What kinds of humour are there? Risposta: The em-
barassing situation, playing on stereotypes, that can end up being very humorous, playing on words. All of
these are different kinds of humour, so we have different categories for things that are happening when
something makes us laugh.
And over the past 2 years, different definitions of pragmatics have been provided: it is defined as the study
of the negotiation of meaning in interaction which takes place between speaker and hearer, so we want
to give out a quick definition of pragmatics here, then negotiation of meaning in interaction which takes
plave between speaker and hearer in a givem contexy of utterance.
So, in particular what we’ve been looking at in pragmatics is that mismatch between what is said and what is
meant. Because in most communicative situations what is being said is somewhat less than what is actually
being meant. In general, what makes us laugh? A bit like we were saying what are the kind of humour, we
can think of some things like word play, awkwardness, watching somebody else in an awkward situation,
maybe you laugh when you feel awkward but you don’t necessarily find it funny, so that’s a different psy-
chological phenomenon of laughing when you’re feeling awkward whereas when you watch somebody else
in a very awkward situation, you are finding that funny.
So there’s some theories of humour. And obviously if we’re going to look at your humour from a kind of ac-
cademic standpoint, we need to remember that some of these things might not be very funny while we’re tak-
ing them apart. So, only humour could take humour apart.
There ‘s joke by Jimmy Carr which is a dissecting a joke, is a bit like dissecting a frog, no one was interested
an the frog dies. So, what we’re doing is we’re going to e dissecting jokes, so they might be funny fo the first
second when we see them then once we’ve got to the pragmatic nature of them, we will see why they’re
funny.
But it’s still interesting to see what makes us laugh. So, nobody said interested and the frog dies.
Well, we actually aren’t interested.
So, there are some theories of humour, so one is the philosophical theories on the nature of humour on what
it is, that actually makes us laugh. There’s an excellent article on this stanford website that gives kind of a
summary of various philosophical terms and like there’s a kind of a history of the theories of humour.

So, the first one is this classical concept of superiority, so, I fell better when I see somebody else in a situa-
tion lower, so the idea of watching someone fall, watching someone fall is hilarious, because you haven’t
fallen, it’s terrible when you think about it on a psychological level, we’re awful but you do see someone fall
and you laugh and you laugh because you fell superior, you haven’t fallen, so that’s one general theory and
that’s been proposed by Plato, Hobbes and Descartes.
And then the other is relief theory, we’re building up tension in our lives, we have thi kind of constant ten-
sion and humour gives us a release. So, I see someone falls and I have a moment in which I can laugh and
feel relieved and that is a kind of release or a releaf, so there’s theory of what’s happening when we feel
elated, when we laugh etc...
And there’s also a theory of incongruity, so we expect something to happen, so I expect to see someone
walking and to continue walking and when they fall, it’s not what I expected to see happen, it’s incongruent
with my expectation and that creates humour, like Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard.
Just to sum them up very briefly, it’s very interesting, I would recommend you reading this article just in
general to get a philosophical perspective on what’s happening when we’re laughing.
But these aren’t necessarily linguistic perspectives on humour.
So,one linguistic perspective on humour is the “Semantic script theory of humour” which is quite similar
to the idea of incongruity and so it later developed into the “General theory of verbal humour” and so
there are anchored in semantic,cognitive and pragmatic theories and so it’s obviously humour research needs
to be rather multidisciplinary cause is more going on than;so if you are talking about wordplay,may you are
talking about semantics; if you are talking about flouting and maxim of relation,you are talking about prag-
matics and it’s also all happening on cognitive level,so psychologically,cognitive in what’s happening when
we laugh. So the “Semantic script theory of humour” is a script that we expect to several complete itself in
an unexpected function,so it is quite similar to the incongruity concept. So there are the scripts that we
have,the expect ideas and when an expectively it takes the turn we find the humours. So we have what is
known overlapping and opposing scripts,so we see the shift from one script to another,so often joke
studes(26:16)(actually the telling of a joke) and with beginning what function and in the end will be not ex-
actly what you are expecting,okay? So for example,this is an example of overlapping and opposing scripts:
«Is the doctor at home?»,the patient asked in his bronchial whisper. «No»,the doctor’s young and pretty wife
whispered in reply, «come right in…»; so the ending isn’t what we were expecting because “is the doctor at
home?”in a bronchial whisper,I imagine the humanitarian aid,then I reveal actually he is cheating on the doc-
tor with his wife,so he is sleeping with the doctor’s wife.Okay so this is not what we expected at the begin-
ning of “is the doctor at home?”,that’s not what the script goes generally in my mind;so it’s kinda like the in-
congruity thing: I find it funny because I was not expecting it ,i don’t know what to do with that,why laugh.
So we have a first example:we have to watch this video in order to comprehend what maxim is being flouted
and what does it make funny:so the people in the video are at home,they are playing poker for a few days
and the girls are losing and the guys are winning.
1. CHANDLER: «Rach, Rach, we gotta settle»
2. RACHEL: «Settle what?»
3. CHANDLER: «The…Jamestown colony of Virginia.You see,King George is giving us the
land,so…».
So what’s happening here?How do we can define it as a kind of humour?What kind of humour is going on?
Chandler has been sarcastic,definitely.What else is happening?
reply from a colleague:The maxim of relation is
violated.
Yes,the maxim of relation,why you said the maxim of relation?
reply from a colleague: because he answers with something that is implied with what he was saying and she
doesn’t understand and then there’s the humour.
So the answer here in class is that he answers with something that has nothing to do with what actually be-
ing thought about.There is a lot happening here,it’s a very short few words,it’s a very short example,but
there’s a lot happening pragmatically and semantically; so,semantically:what’s happening with the word
“settle”? There’s a wordplay here because,semantically,”settle” has more than one meaning.So,definition
one: “we gotta settle”,what is he saying? It’s actually “paying up”,”we gotta settle”,settle the bill. So,”we
gotta settle” in Chandler’s phrase is “we have to pay,you guys need to give a few money,we won and it was
fun and now you need to give a few money”;so,what Rachel do? “Settle what?”What is she doing pragmati-
cally? You could say possibly she’s imprinting,she doesn’t understand.Do you think she maybe did under-
stand?She is tryna by sometime(so that’s the case);then what is she doing? She is pretending to do some-
thing.What is she pretending to do? She’s pretending to not understand,okay,so in a way you could say that
she is quietly and unostentatiously violating the maxims of quality and she doesn’t know what it means “set-
tle” and she’s pretending she doesn’t know what she’s meant “settle”,okay?So it is pretty sure what she is
saying,what she is actually doing a lot.So there’s Chandler responds: this is where the real humour comes
from.So,he says,he flouts the maxim of relation; so,it is not quite and unostentatiously anymore,he is flouting
the maxim of relation,so he uses another meaning of “settle”,that of colonising an area:so he completely
“obscript” and quit here the semantic scripts,he is flouting the maxim of relation,he says “Jamestown colony
of Virginia” and rightly,you know,just flouts the maxim of relation,he is also flouting the maxim of quali-
ty.He has been sarcastic,which is obviously Chandler’s personality:if you have seen Friends,you know that
Chandler is always sarcastic essentially ,he is constantly flouting the maxim of quality and being ironic and
sarcastic.So he is flouting the maxim of relation and he takes the different meaning for “settle”and obscript
and talks about something that has nothing to do with what has been done and he does that to create what is
implicature,so what’s the implicature is he trying to make?He knows she is lying,she knows what has been
said.Actually,Chandler’s responds is that Rachel knows what’s going on,she is not unawares and he is mak-
ing a point of that;so him by saying something,by talking and related,he’s basically saying “ you know what
i’m talking about”and clearly not talking about the Jamestown colony of Virginia,it is about the implicature
that is been made and he has been sarcastic in order to achieve that ,he is flouting the maxim of quality and
flouting the maxim of relation and then Chandler continues and we consider it as well flouting the maxim of
manner,he keeps going and it’s being a bit convoluted and complicated in what he says. “You see, King
George is giving us the land,so…” in this way he gives us too much information;so in those short lines we
see may every maxim being floated and imprinted adequately in unostentatiously violated,okay?So just for
sure this is a great example of what happens in sitcom humour,what happens in those dialogues.

Now, we have another one…Example 2: what maxim has been violated? how is it
violated,imprinted,flouted? What is the implicature? There’s a lot happening here.
1. BARNEY: «Please.Vacation romances have an expiration date. Gael's got a 'best if banged by'
sticker on him. Once your romance starts to stink, you'll dump his ass down the drain like sour milk,
and go back to being "unevolved Robin", the one we actually like. Back me up here, Ted.»
2. TED: «I'm just happy Robin's happy.»
3. BARNEY: «I'm telling you,within three days... »
4. LILY: «Oh,here he comes! Switch to big words»
 5. BARNEY: «Within a triad of solar periods, you'll recognize your dearth of compatibility with
your paramour and conclude your association.»
6. ROBIN: «My journey was transformative, and I reassert my commitment to both the aforemen-
tioned paramour, and the philosophies he espouses.»
7. GAEL: «What are we talking of? Baseball?»
8. BARNEY: «This is all going to return to masticate you in the gluteals. Support my hypothesis,
Ted.»
9. TED: «I'm just jubilant my former paramour is jubilant.»
So what’s happening? What is the main violation,the maxim violation that we have here? We have a suspen-
sion of the maxim,which maxim has been suspended? There is a suspension of the maxim of manner,it is ac-
tually signaled.Who’s settled let suspend the maxim of manner? Lily says “Here he comes! Switch to big
words”,what she means by that? We are all going to suspend the maxim of manner in order to exclude dia-
logue;so, use a certain english,speaks english as a second language.So Gael question,which is on the next
slide, is “what are we talking of?Baseball?” He is infringing,what maxim is he infringing? He is infringing
the maxim of relation when he asks “what are we talking of?Baseball?”,okay? Because he doesn’t under-
stand the conversation,he is trying to participate and he unwittingly talks about something completely off
topic.
So,there’s a clear signal here,so Lyly is actually the questing that the maxim of manner be suspended in or-
der to continue the conversation excluding Gael from the conversation and then they say basically the same
things they said before,just with big words;so they say it in the most complicated way possible,so their friend
who doesn’t speak english as first language,will be excluded and not understand what the topic of conversa-
tion is,because there’re talking about him.So they are talking about him and his relationship,so they are ex-
cluding him from that conversation and obviously this creates just the level of flouting words,suspension of
the maxim of manner creates humour;so the idea of talking about something that was so crusty and crudely
talked about only two seconds ago will such,you know,high register and aulic words,it makes it funny,we
find the humours.So,we know what is he talking about and we think it’s funny.So,especially hearing I think
one of the very funny thing,is hearing some detach phrases said in high register.So, “Back me up here, Ted.”
such a classic Barney’s line-“support my hypothesis,Ted.”,okay,so that can switch to a completely different
register and completely flouting and suspending the maxim of manner makes the whole exchanging hu-
mours.

So,in general,when we talk about the pragmatics of sitcoms:what’s happening on a linguistic level? To re-
ceive an example obviously the creation of humour through the violation of maxims.We had an example of
flouting,we had an example of suspension and obviously that creates humour.But what happening in a sitcom
pragmatically speaking?What kind of interaction or context it is? So,pragmatics allows us to analyse hu-
mour, specifically it provides a set of tools to analyse the linguistics and cultural phenomenon of sitcom hu-
mour.Okay?So,what’s happening in sitcom humour is happening on a linguistic level and happening on a
cultural level.We have any quiet got into more cultural aspects of things or i just included it twice basically.
Sitcoms,we could consider them as prevalent artefacts of popular culture.So,that is how it is defined by
Marta Dynel. In some way they are representative of a hearer,of art culture,of pop culture which is necessar-
ily anybody actual culture;they’re not even specifically representing american culture,they’re representing
popular culture which is obviously a projection of cultural ideas,etc. However,the type of discourse is prob-
lematic: we’re talking about speakers,we’re talking about how they interact,but the whole thing is a bit more
complicated…so,who’s actually speaking and who’s actually hearing?So,when Barney speaks to Ted,is it
Barney that is speaking to Ted?Or is it Barney speaking to us?Or is it the script writer speaking to us?Or is it
both the script writer speaking to us and Barney speaking to Ted? Okay,so that above all happening on the
level of participation.Who are the participants in this communicative context?So we can notice it as isolated
dialogues and just talk about participants within the sitcom and that’s on one level of understanding what’s
happening:we just look at the participants within the actual sitcom.But there’s more happening.So if we con-
sider it as the prevalent artefacts of popular culture,they’re also communicative instances,they are moments
of communication on another level in which Hollywood,the script writers,the production team,all the people
that are employed:the actors,etc,all communicating with us,due in public.So,who are the speakers?Who are
the hearers? There is a little,just a short clip(in italian)and it gives us an idea of the mental discourse that’s
happening when talking about who’s speaking in a sitcom.
So it's an Italian sitcom about the making of telenovela. So we have here the script writer so they mention
them where everybody is always basito, and they cut to the screen and we see them writing the script, so
they made a shortcut.
So it helps us reflect the notion of what actually happens because we don't think there is a writers room be-
hind the sitcom, it's a complex architecture because more people are involved than we imagine. Obviously
most screenwriters are professional than the 3 we've just seen (la prof ha mostrato dei video su youtube) in
the production of TV and film discourse. A film can be more register; perhaps there is 1 writer that wrote the
script and sometimes might be the one who direct the film.
With television We don't have 1 person who writes the scripts and 1 person who directs, often we have 5 to 6
directors, often we have different teams of writers so 1 to 6 episodes might be written by team A and 7 to 12
might be written by team B, obviously they need to communicate with each other so the storyline is going. A
group of people have a job to create a storyline and the other ones create jokes.
We forget that there is all these people involved and so there is a more complex architecture than we realise.
There are various levels within the communicative acts in a sitcom. We have a whole production company
who is creating a script, then the actors and ourselves receiving the message. Obviously you can't deny that

there are characters that are talking to each other, so on a primary level the characters are interacting and in
the background there is a very complex participating work.
Dynel in 2011 talks about the participation framework, so she talks about how to find participants, so the in-
teractants talk to each other, they know they are talking to the other person, the ratified the person as a hearer
and themselves as a speaker.
Some have a speaker, a ratified hearers/ listeners, then the addressee and the third party.
Then we have unratified participants who are unratified hearers/ overhearers as bystanders and eavesdrop-
pers. Example: when we are at a bar with our friends and somebody at the table next to us is hearing my con-
versation, I haven't ratified that person as a participant of my conversation. They haven't been included in the
conversation so they haven't been understanding the conversation by only eavesdropping.
But that's not exactly what's happening when we're watching a sitcom, it's not that we are just overhearing
that conversation. That whole conversation has been made for us to overhear it, so if this kind of in-between
level we can't participate because we're overhearing and we're not physically there, but the whole thing has
been constructed.

So we are ratified as hearers and the intended target of that communication, so the conversation created is in-
tended for me as a viewer.

On one level, the fictional level, there is the interaction between multiple characters, acting as speakers and
hearers and talking turns.
On a meta-level we have writers, actors and film crew work together as the collective sender and the audi-
ence is the recipient of their communicated meaning, so they're not a voyeur or an overhearer, obviously in
film studies we talk about a voyeur and it is an interesting category for film studies, but on a linguistic level
we can't just say that we are overlooking or overhearing, the whole thing has been made for me because I'm
the intended consumer of this product, so on a communicate level we can't talk about a viewer as a voyeur.
So we are ratified hearer / intended participant.
It's a multi-level thing, we have a character level and the recipient level, there is a first level of writing,
screenwriter or team that write the script that is given to the cast so the all intricacy level is happening.
We consider the sitcom as a finished product. The other 2 levels are the intercharacter level and the recipient
level.
Some instances of humor may be appreciated by the hearers within the fictional text-world, so sometimes
the characters find what's happening funny or are making jokes to the other talking to, but sometimes we are
the only ones who find it funny, so may be solely for the benefits of the recipient.
On one level it's happening between them, on another level it's happening for us to appreciate as humor.
What is funny in this scene? How is the humorous content created by capitalising on the interactional frame-
work of film discourse?
So we know what the character, Chandler, is thinking, so there is a voice over that is used in film level to let
us know the inner monologue.
The inner monologue of this scene is for our benefit.
There is something complex happening on the interaction level, so are the 2 characters talking to each other?
No. He is overhearing so he is a bystander and we are overhearing, we are ratified hearers of his monologue.
Is he a ratified hearer of Jill's conversation? No. So he's overhearing and he's reacting to what she's saying.

So Jill is speaking to her mother and Chandler is a bystander, but Jill's dialogue with her mother is affecting
Chandler's inner monologue.
The viewer can hear what Jill's saying to her mother and Chandler's inner monologue, so we can interact
with Chandler's unspoken words and how they're affected by Jill's spoken words to her mother.
The whole production of Jill's self-presentation to her mom ( she says: hi mom! It's Jill) it's made up for our
benefit. Also Chandler's indisciness of what to call Jill and where they are create a kind of humor.
The humor that we are intended to appreciate as ratified viewers/hearers emerge from Chandler unintended
non-verbal communication.
He almost thinks he's having a conversation with her but Jill doesn't understand why he's kind of acting
crazy, walking around like that with no reason, but for us viewers it makes perfectly sense why he's acting
like this.