Salvatore Attardo's Abstracts Pages
Violation of conversational maxims and cooperation: The
case of jokes
Salvatore Attardo
Journal of Pragmatics 19 (1993)
Abstract
The article deals with the paradox of the communicative nature of jokes, which are defined
as a type of text that violates the principle of cooperation. The consequences of violating
the cooperative principle (breakdown of communication) are examined. The paper argues
against the application of the mention theory to the violation of conversational maxims in
jokes, in an attempt to explain away the paradox. While the non-bona-fide mode of
communication accounts for the survival of the communicative exchange, the article will
then show that non-cooperative texts such as jokes convey information through their
presuppositional basis, rather than their illocutionary values, through metamessages and
suppressions of the violation. Finally it will show how speakers exploit the non-
cooperative nature of humor for other communicative purposes.
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