This book provides a first thorough analysis of internet humour from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective, covering a wide range of discourses that are pervasive online and focusing especially on messaging interactions, social networking sites and memes. Its chapters describe the inferential strategies implemented to turn online coded discourses into meaningful interpretations, which in turn can be devised and manipulated for the sake of humour. Furthermore, and apart from the typical object of pragmatic research (humorous discourses), the book emphasises the importance of the interfaces’ design and of the qualities of the users engaged in humorous interactions (called contextual constraints), additionally highlighting the parallel significance of the various effects, shaped as feelings and emotions, that stem from humorous communication on the internet. In sum, the book delivers a rich and detailed account of humorous internet discourses through dissecting their affordances as a medium, tracking the users’ intentions, and predicting the audiences’ interpretive strategies, with the goal of helping the reader obtain a better understanding of internet humour and its role in today’s online interactions.
Author(s): Francisco Yus
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 356
City: London
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
1 Overview of the Chapters
References
Chapter 2: Relevance Theory, Humour and Internet Communication
1 Introduction
2 Relevance Theory and Humour
2.1 Intention, Inference and Search for Relevance
2.2 Context and Mutuality of Information (Manifestness)
2.3 Inferring from What Is Coded
2.4 Explicatures and Implicatures
3 Incongruity-Resolution. A Relevance Theory Account
3.1 A Classification of Incongruity-Resolution Patterns
4 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 3: Internet Humour
1 Introduction
2 What Constitutes Internet Humour?
3 Humour across Online/Offline Environments
4 The Discourse of Internet Humour. General Issues
5 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 4: Contextual Constraints on Internet Humour
1 Introduction
2 Interface-Related Contextual Constraints on Internet Humour
2.1 Interface-Related Contextual Constraints on Messaging Apps
2.2 Interface-Related Contextual Constraints on Social Networking Sites
3 User-Related Contextual Constraints on Internet Humour
3.1 User-Related Contextual Constraints on Interface Use and Management
3.2 “Inherited” User Attributes as Constraints on Humorous Internet Communication
3.2.1 User-Related Constraints on Internet Humour: The Case of Sex Roles
4 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 5: Humour in Messaging Interactions
1 Introduction
2 Humorous Face-to-Face Interactions and Relevance
2.1 Humorous Conversations and Relevance Theory
2.2 Five Elements in the Analysis of Humorous Interactions
2.3 Laughter in Humorous Interactions
3 The Genre of Messaging Interactions: Interface- and User-Related Constraints
4 Humorous Discourse on Messaging Interactions
4.1 Conveying Humorous Nonverbal Cues during Messaging Interactions
4.1.1 Laughter
4.1.2 Emojis
5 Turn-Taking Patterns during Humorous Messaging Interactions (WhatsApp)
5.1 Corpus and Methodology
5.2 Analysis of Turn-Taking Patterns during Messaging Interactions
5.2.1 Pattern 1: First Turn as Humorous Text
5.2.2 Pattern 2: First Turn as Humorous Text plus Emoji(S)
5.2.3 Pattern 3: First Turn as Non-humorous Text
5.2.4 Pattern 4: First Turn as Non-humorous Text plus Emoji
5.2.5 Pattern 5: First Turn as Single Image
5.2.6 Pattern 6: First Turn as a Single Image plus Humorous Text
5.2.7 Pattern 7: First Turn as Video
5.3 The Prototypical Pattern of Humorous Interactions on WhatsApp
6 East Versus West: Messaging across Cultures
7 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 6: Humour on Social Networking Sites
1 Introduction: Social Networking Sites as “Humour Repositories”
2 Humorous Discourses on SNSs
3 SNS Humour: Single User
4 SNS Humour: Compiled
5 SNS Humour: Collective
6 SNS Humour: From Commented Posts and in-Comment Interactions
7 SNS Humour: Corporate
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Humorous Corporate Strategy
7.3 Humorous Corporate Discourse
7.4 Responses and Reactions to Humorous Corporate Posts
7.5 An Example: Burger King
8 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 7: Meme-Mediated Humorous Communication
1 Introduction: Meme Discourse
2 Text and Image in Memes
3 Exploiting Meme Interpretation for the Sake of Humour
4 Incongruity-Resolution Humorous Strategy in Memes
5 Ad hoc Visual Referent Adjustment in Memes
6 The Specificity of Covid-19 Memes
6.1 Covid-19 Memes and the Incongruity-Resolution Pattern
6.2 Covid-19 Memes and “The Joy of Sharing”
7 Concluding Remarks
References
Chapter 8: Beyond Humour: Relevant Affective Effects
1 Introduction: Affective Attitude and Affective Effects
2 Relevance Theory and Non-Propositional Information
3 Relevant Non-Propositional Effects from Internet Humour
3.1 Positive Non-Propositional Effects at a Personal Level
3.2 Positive Non-Propositional Effects at an Interactive Level
3.3 Positive Non-Propositional Effects at a Medium-Sized Group Level
3.4 Positive Non-Propositional Effects at Large-Sized Group Level
4 Concluding Remarks
References
Index
