Salvatore Attardo's Abstracts Pages
Script theory revis(it)ed: joke similarity and joke representation model
Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin
HUMOR: 1991, v4-3/4
Abstract
The article proposes a general theory of verbal humor, focusing on verbal
jokes as its most representative subset. The theory is an extension and
revision of RaskinŽs script-based semantic theory of humor and of AttardoŽs
five-level joke representation model. After distinguishing the parameters
of the various degrees of similarity among the joke examples, six knowledge
resources informing the joke, namely script oppositions, logical
mechanisms, situations, targets, narrative strategies, and language, are
put forward. A hierarchical organization for the six knowledge resources is
then discovered on the basis of the asymmetrical binary relations, of the
proposed and modified content / tool dichotomy, and, especially, of the
hypothesized perceptions of the relative degrees of similarity. It is also
argued that the emerging joke representation model is neutral to the
process of joke production. The proposed hierarchy enables the concepts of
joke variants and invariants, introduced previously by Attardo, to be
firmed up, generalized, and augmented into a full-fledged taxonomy indexed
with regard to the shared knowledge resource values (for example, two jokes
may be variants on, that is, sharing, the same script oppositions and
logical mechanisms). The resulting general theory of verbal humor is
discussed in the light of its relations with various academic disciplines
and areas of research as well as with the script-based semantic theory of
humor, special theories of humor, and incongruity-based theories.
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