14 Yus Final Rev

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Humour

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14

Pragmatics of humorous strategies in El club de la comedia

Francisco Yus

1. Introduction

A pragmatics of humorous strategies is interested in the analysis of how

certain linguistic stimuli (e.g. jokes) favour certain inferential patterns in the

audience interpreting them, and how these patterns inevitaly involve the

mental entertainment of certain assumptions, either contradictory, processed

in a specific order, or clashing with accessile ackground assumptionsretrieved as part of the inferential process of interpretation. !ognitive

pragmatics, and specifically relevance theory, will e used in this article to

unfold some of the humorous strategies underlying the stand"up monologues

in El club de la comedia. #he analysis will show how small"scale humorous

strategies ased on the processing of certain stretches of discourse inside the

monologues intertwine with large"scale ones, which are centred upon the

pulic enjoyment (or reorganisation) of cultural assumptions made mutually

manifest y the comedians in the specific conte$t of the comedy venue.

%ndoutedly, El club de la comedia is a popular #& programme in

'pain. ts format was imported from the American counterpart The comedy

club, and it has otained a large audience. t is made up of a series of

monologues narrated y professional actors (who will e referred to as

comedians*). #he greater part of the monologues deals with everyday social

issues such as parenting, adolescence, relationships, and so forth, and the

e$tent to which these are supported or not y the audience.

n the ne$t sections a pragmatic + relevance"theoretic + account of

the humorous strategies used in these monologues of El club de la comedia

will e proposed. #he main source of e$amples will e taken from the

following two editions with compilations of monologues El club de la

comedia (-/, henceforth ECC -/) and El club de la comedia

contraataca (--, henceforth ECC --).

2. Relevance theory, inference and humorous effects

'perer and 0ilson*s (/123, /115) relevance theory (for comments aout

this theory, see 'perer and 0ilson /124 and Yus /112, among others) is a

cognitive theory which relies on two iologically rooted cognitive

mechanisms which human eings apply when producing and interpreting

veral and nonveral ostensive stimuli (that is, stimuli making manifest that

the addresser intends to make certain assumptions manifest or more

53



manifest to the addressee). #he first one refers to the fact that human eings

are iologically geared to select (supposedly) the most relevant

interpretation of a stimulus among a range of possile interpretations of this

stimulus in a specific conte$t.#he second mechanism refers to the human aility to metarepresent

any e$pression"token (e.g. an utterance) as representing another e$pression"

token (e.g. a thought), and they resemle each other in relevant respects,

which often involves the assessment of intentions and attitudes underlying

the production of stimuli, either veral or nonveral. 'ince

metarepresentations are used in all forms of human communication they are

also essential to understand stimuli such as the ones uttered in stand"up

comedy performances.

!omprehension, according to relevance theory, is a mi$ture of

coding and inference, ut greater emphasis is placed on the latter, the former

eing involved asically in the language"module"ased e$traction of thelogical form of the stimulus (e.g. the utterance) which then has to e

enriched pragmatically in order to derive oth the e$plicitly and the

implicitly communicated information.

n short, according to 'perer and 0ilson the comprehension

procedure involves two clauses

a. Follow a path of least effort in computing cognitive effects. n

particular, test interpretive hypotheses (disamiguations, reference

resolutions, implicatures, etc.) in order of accessiility.

. 'top when your e$pectations of relevance are satisfied ('perer and

0ilson -- /2).

!omprehension, as outlined in (a"), is a metapsychological

endeavour in which the addressee makes hypotheses aimed at recognising

the addresser*s informative intention with the aid of a theory of mind*

module. #his typically human mental module is dedicated to the attriution

of mental states on the asis of the addresser*s communicative ehaviour

(cf. 'perer and 0ilson -- 0ilson and 'perer --a, --).

0hen performing clauses (a") aove, the human mind analyses the

communicative stimulus and attempts to select the most relevant

interpretation of that stimulus given the current conte$tual attriutes, and thedefinition of relevance is formulated in two conditions ('perer and 0ilson

/115 -35"-33), one related to highest possile interest (in terms of

cognitive effects) of the assumptions and another related to the least effort

re6uired to process them.

As will e argued in the ne$t sections, the fact that hearers tend to

select the first interpretation which offers an optimal alance of its interest

(i.e. positive cognitive effects) and the mental effort it re6uires, and stop

comprehension at this point, is one of the key aspects of human

comprehension which humorists can predict and manipulate in the creation

of humorous effects. #hroughout this article it will e argued that as a

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general rule, the comedians in El club de la comedia ( ECC ) ase (at least

some of) their humorous strategies on the prediction that certain inferential

paths will e taken and certain assumptions will inevitaly e entertained y

the audience as part of their relevance"seeking inferential procedure.

2.1 Predicting inferences

7umorists design their jokes and larger humorous discourses knowing that

certain inferences are more likely to e made in the processing of the

stimulus, and that a numer of assumptions will necessarily e entertained

y the audience in their search for the most relevant interpretation. 'perer

and 0ilson (-- /8"/5) acknowledge this aility to predict the mental

states and inferential patterns of others as part of the general human

tendency to ma$imise relevance. 'pecifically, speakers can predict

a. which stimulus in an individual 9*s environment is likely to attract

9*s attention (i.e. the most relevant stimulus in that environment)

. which ackground information from 9*s memory is likely to e

retrieved and used in processing this stimulus (i.e. the ackground

information most relevant to processing it) and

c. which inferences 9 is likely to draw (i.e. those inferences which

yield enough cognitive enefits for 9*s attentional resources to

remain on the stimulus rather than eing diverted to alternative

potential inputs competing for those resources).

n short, it can e stated that humorists design their humorous

discourses y resorting to this human aility to predict that certain stimuli

will e more relevant than others and that certain assumptions will

inevitaly e entertained y other people during comprehension. #his is the

main cognitive mechanism underlying the two approaches to the analysis of

humorous discourses within relevance theory which will e sketched in the

ne$t section, efore moving on to the analysis of the specific humorous

strategies used in ECC in section :.

2.2 The multiple graded / single covert interface

n Yus (/114 -:) a relevance"theoretic analysis of jokes is suggested in

which the incongruity"resolution pattern of some humorous discourses is re"

interpreted in relevance" theoretic terms (see also ;od≈owiec /11/)./ 0ithin

this framework, incongruities are treated as a mental"effort"demanding

contrast to the currently held inferential hypotheses (i.e. assumptions in the

individual*s short"term"memory store arising from the processing of

previous stretches of discourse) which provokes a pu<<le (i.e. a cognitive

dissonance). ts resolution produces a humorous relief which offsets the

supplementary mental effort re6uired.-

!onse6uently, some humorous discourses (typically short jokes)

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contain two areas leading to contradictory lines of processing. n Yus (-:)

these areas are laelled => and '!. n short, the speaker communicates

an utterance whose first part (laelled the multiple-graded-interpretations

part of the joke, or ? M! part @ in short) has several alternativeinterpretations, which are graded in terms of relevance (different alances of

positive cognitive effects and mental effort) within the current conte$t of

interpretation. #he humorist knows that among the range of possile

interpretations of the => part* of the utterance there is one which is the

most likely to e picked up as the intended one (in relevance"theoretic

terms, the one consistent with the so"called principle of relevance). #he

processing of the second part of the utterance (the single-covert-

interpretation part or ?"C! part @ in short) produces an incongruity. #he

resolution lies in a single covert, more unlikely interpretation, compatile

with the #hole utterance (ut not with the hearer*s chosen interpretation for

the => part* of the joke). 'ince the hearer stops his processing at the first interpretation which offers an optimal alance of cognitive effects and

mental effort, this latent interpretation is not taken into consideration until

the speaker humorously foregrounds it in the '! part* of the joke.

Although the comedians of ECC performances rely on longer

monologues for the creation of humorous effects, this M!/"C! interface

can e found when comedians emed small canned jokes inside their

monologues, as in e$ample (/), where the initial part of the te$t involving

the M!/"C! interface is aout the possiility that the character finally got

off with a girl (lig$ con una chica), ut the second part of this te$t

invalidates this on"line interpretation, providing the covert interpretation

fitting the whole te$t

(/) s terrile volver a intentar ligar, ni

te acuerdas de cBmo se hacCa.

#e vas a una discoteca, te enciendes

un cigarrito, te apoyas en la arra...

Y a esperar a 6ue vengan. Dero no

vienen. [MGI Y a la primera tCa

6ue te hace caso, le preguntas

"Estudias o traajas

Y ella te contesta"studio MGI], [!I

no te

jode... EGuH te pongo !I]

(?&olver a empe<ar@, ECC -/

8:).

t*s terrile to try to pick up a girl

again, you can*t even rememer

how to do it.

You go to a disco, light a cigarette,

lean on the ar... And wait for girls

to come to you. 9ut they never turn

up. [MGI

And when a girl does

pay attention to you, you ask her

"Io you study or do you workAnd she replies

"'tudy MGI], [!I

what the

fuck... 0hat are you having !I]

(?'tarting again@, ECC -/ 8:).

Jvert accessile interpretation of the => part* #he man has managed

to attract a woman*s attention.

!overt interpretation fitting both =>K'! parts* #he man has merely

drawn the waitress*s attention to serve him at the ar.

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2.% Clashing assumptions

!urcB (/115, /113, /114, /112) provides a detailed account of humorous

interpretations from a relevance"theoretic perspective. #here is no space toreview her work in detail, ut no dout one of the main contriutions of her

work is her analysis of how the addressee of humorous discourses is led to

the entertainment of contradictory propositional contents. 9asically, her

approach amounts to the claim that in humour hearers often find that they

have entertained an assumption that they do not hold, or 6uestion, for

instance, y implicitly e$pressing a dissociative attitude to it (!urcB /114

ch.8 0ilson and 'perer /11- Yus -, -/). 9esides, the important

aspect of incongruity is what interpretive steps the hearer is e$pected to go

through when attempting to resolve it. ndeed, the resolution of

incongruities demands e$tra processing effort (mainly from emedding at

least one of the clashing propositions in a certain numer of metarepresentational layers aimed at eliminating the contradiction), which is

supposed to e compensated y would"e additional L humorousL effects in

return.

Jne of her analyses shows how the hearer is led to entertain two

contradictory propositional contents one is a strongly implicated premise

(which !urcB laels &ey assumption) that normally has to e retrieved y

the hearer from ackground knowledge as part of the process of

interpretation. #his proposition clashes with an accessile (though not so far

accessed) assumption in the conte't of interpretation (which !urcB laels

target assumption). ndeed, some parts of the monologues in ECC can also

e analysed using this framework

- Yo no tengo nada contra el

matrimonio, de hecho, cuando nacC

mis padres estaan casados y ni me

enfadH ni les dije nada (?=iedo al

compromiso@, ECC -/ :5).

*ve got nothing against marriage,

in fact, when was orn my parents

were married and didn*t get angry

or tell them anything aout it

(?Fear of commitment@, ECC -/

:5).

#arget assumption A neworn ay has no capacity to discern

(retrieved from the audience*s encyclopedicknowledge).

Mey assumption A neworn ay does have capacity to discern

(strongly implicated from (-)).

: NA mCO, cuando me decCan

"Daco se ha casado de penalti.

$clamaa

"P'erQ gilipollasR P!on la cantidad

de cosas 6ue hay para 6ue no te

pase estoR 'in ir mQs lejos, la

0hen people used to tell NmeO

"Daco got married ecause she got

pregnant.

e$claimed

"0hat a jerkR #here are a lot of

things to avoid pregnancyR For

3



marcha atrQs (?A mi novia no le

viene la regla@, ECC -/ 35).

instance, withdrawal (?=y

girlfriend has missed her period@,

ECC -/ 35).

#arget assumption 0ithdrawal is a ad way of preventing pregnancies

(retrieved from the audience*s encyclopedic

knowledge).

Mey assumption 0ithdrawal is a good way of preventing

pregnancies (strongly implicated from (:)).

!uriously enough, propositional clashes like the ones e$emplified aove

tend to e uttered at the eginning of the monologue. Sormally, the

audience e$pects the remaining ody of the monologue to provide

humorous evidence to support assumptions which clearly clash with deeply

held encyclopedic (target) assumptions (more on this elow).

". El club de la comedia# $eyond the %o&e and into the monologue

ECC is ased mainly on monologues, although their writers do emed

shorter (canned) humorous utterances inside them. #he emphasis on the

monologue involves a different layout for how the humorous strategies are

devised, ut this fact does not imply that monologues in ECC lack the

strategies typically found in (short) jokes, for e$ample the so"called punch"

lines ('alvatore Attardo, pers. comm.). n general, the overall humorous

effects of ECC lie in the contrast etween the comedian*s words and the

audience*s individually held assumptions aout the world we live in (:.-.8

elow), ut other humorous strategies ased on specific stretches of the

monologue pepper it in order to enhance a non"stop feeling of amusement in

the audience while listening to the monologue. n all this large"scale versus

small"scale humorous strategy a asic aspect to address is the fact that the

audience attending the performance of ECC are in a physical environment

where they e$pect to e amused. #his underlying assumption is essential to

understand why certain effort"demanding inferential paths are undertaken

for the sake of humour. #his issue will e discussed in more detail in the

ne$t section.

%.1 etting one(s money(s #orth

Attending ECC is a pleasurale ritual in which the audience e$pect to e

amused. As such, ECC re6uires a collective knowledge in the audience

aout the contents of this ritual and how it is supposed to proceed (Tutter

/114). #his macro"social (i.e. collective) ackground knowledge has

conse6uences on how the memers of the audience approach the micro"

social (i.e. personal) processing of the monologues in the comedy venue

(Yus --). 'ome of the issues which can e covered y this macro"social

3/



ackground knowledge include what can e laelled collective

manifestness the fact that people share the same physical space entails an

intersection of the assumptions they can construct and on which they can

rely during the comprehension of ECC performances. n other words, thereis mutual awareness of the assumptions made (mutually) manifest y the

comedian.

#he comedian, for his part, has to predict which information will

cross"cut the audience*s cognitive environments, that is, assess their mutual

cognitive environment , and which information is likely to interact in such a

way with this environment that humorous effects are generated in the

audience (at the same time their cognitive environment will e altered y

the comedian*s words, often with an enlargement of its scope). #he

audience*s personal cognitive environments will never e identical, and

their degree of overlapping will vary from one audience to another.

Another important macrosocial piece of ackground information isthe fact that the audience are normally in the mood to e entertained. #he

analysis of humorous effects entails an analysis of why people find

humorous te$ts amusing despite the additional demands that these often

make to their processing. ;okes are typically ased on amiguities and

incongruities which result in increased mental effort, ut the e$pected

reward L in terms of feelings of amusement L is supposed to offset this

additional effort. #he key, then, lies in the fact that the audience use their

knowledge of what type of performance ECC is aout as part of their

humour"seeking processing of the monologues.

#herefore, if the audience is warned aout the humorous 6uality of

the forthcoming or the just"heard stretch of discourse, they will assume that

certain interpretive paths are going to (or have een) favoured due to the

intention to create humorous effects, without necessarily rejecting the

discourse as irrelevant or nonsensical. 0hat is inevitale is a readjustment

of the addressee*s relevance"seeking e$tensions of conte$t and of his

e$pectations of relevance (mental effort versus cognitive effects) when

humorous strategies are detected (Yus -:).

Finally, a last macrosocial factor to take into consideration is how

memers of the audience are influenced not only y the e$pectation that

what the comedian says is supposed to e amusing, ut also y the way in

which laughter spreads among the audience. 9ut the claim (in Yus --)that laughter in the audience is a signal that the representations made

manifest y the comedian*s monologue are widely shared in the audience

(:.-.8) has to e followed y a note of caution the fact that laughter spreads

across the venue is no guarantee that the comedian*s intended humorous

effects have een achieved, let alone that similar versions of these

representations are held y all the memers of the audience.

%.2 )umorous strategies in ECC

Sow will turn to specific humorous strategies which the comedians of

3-



ECC use in the creation of humorous effects. #he most important strategy is,

in my opinion, the comedian*s assessment of the 6uality and e$tent of the

cultural representations held y the audience (:.-.8), ut other strategies are

also worth mentioning. n the ne$t sections several smaller"scale strategieswill e analysed.

%.2.1 *ayering and relating concepts

Deople store in their minds far more thoughts (i.e. concepts) than words in

the language availale to communicate them. 0ithin a relevance"theoretic

framework, the interpretation of utterances not only involves typically

conte$t"ound mental operations such as reference assignment,

disamiguation or free enrichment, ut also concept narrowing (or

loosening) depending on specific processing demands in the search for

relevance ('perer and 0ilson -- 0ilson and 'perer --a, --

!arston -, --). n a nutshell, it can e claimed that the processing of concepts is conte$t"ound and fle$ile, and what the hearer selects as

candidates to match the intended interpretation of the words encoding the

concepts is not the canonical, default meaning of the words uttered, ut ad

hoc concepts with a numer of attriutes whose activation is guided y the

search for relevance.

Assuming this conte$t"specific interpretations of words, 0ilson and

'perer (--a 3/8ff.) descrie Deter*s interpretation of =ary*s utterance

in (8) not as conveying the encoded concept FUA# (as stailised in

dictionaries, for e$ample) ut the related (ad hoc) concept FUA#V, with a

more restricted encyclopedic entry and a narrower denotation, constructed

specifically for this particular occasion, as paraphrased in (8c)

(8) a. N Peter and Mary are discussing their ne't cycling trip. Peter has +ust

said that he feels rather unfit O.

. =ary ?0e could go to 7olland. 7olland is flat@.

c. 7olland is FUA#V (where FUA#V is the meaning indicated y flat*,

and is such that 7olland*s eing FUA#V is relevant"as"e$pected in the

conte$t).

=ary*s word ?flat@ is taken here to warrant only those effects which make it

worth processing in the specific conte$t (8a). 'ince there is no one"to"onecorrespondence etween the dictionary entry ?flat@ and the ad hoc concept

FUA#V, its relationship is a matter of resemlance, rather than pure

description. FUA#V is an unglossed version of the word flat* which retains

only the attriutes which are relevant for the processing of the utterance, in

this case (5)

(5) A terrain is FUA#V if travelling across it involves little or no climing

(0ilson and 'perer, iid. 3/5).

Jviously, the iologically rooted relevance"seeking mental procedure

3:



should guide the hearer on every occasion to the recovery of the intended

!JS!D# ased on the word encoding it. n this e$ample, FUA#V carries a

range of implications which are intended to satisfy Deter*s e$pectations of

relevance in the conte$t (3a) ut which may e irrelevant in a differentconte$t.

'imilarly, in ECC we find instances in which the audience*s search

for relevant attriutes of encoded concepts is e$ploited in order to generate

humorous effects. A particularly fre6uent source of conceptual e$ploitation

in ECC is the comparison of apparently unrelated concepts. n these cases,

the audience is warned that a certain relationship holds for one or several

attriutes of two ad hoc concepts encoded y two words uttered in

se6uence. As in e$ample (8"5) aove, the audience will tend to select only

those conte$t"ound concepts which are geared to the ma$imisation of

relevance and will e ready to attempt a search for their intersecting

attriutes. 7owever, the audience are not e$pected to reason aout that possile conceptual link, since the comedians themselves foreground it

immediately after uttering the words encoding these apparently unrelated

concepts. #he humour lies, rather than in the enjoyment after finding the

missing link, in the acknowledgement of the comedian*s innovative

intersection of some of the ad hoc attriutes attached to the concepts. 'ome

e$amples would e (3"4), in which we find innovative relationships etween

the concepts encoded y fluKvirginity* and guiltKhair* respectively

3 Ua gripe es como la virginidad,

sBlo se cura en la cama (?#engo la

gripe@, ECC -/ /-8).

Flu is like virginity, you can only

get over it in ed (?*m down with

flu@, ECC -/ /-8).

4 l sentimiento de culpa es como

los pelos del soaco naces sin ellos

pero te van saliendo con el tiempo

(?!uQndo nos sentimos culpales@,

ECC -- 8/).

#he feeling of guilt is like the hairs

in your armpits you*re orn

without them ut they start growing

as time goes y (?0hen we feel

guilty@, ECC -- 8/).

Severtheless, the fact that the comedian provides the key to the

humorous relationship etween the two concepts does not prevent the

audience from engaging in some bac&#ards inference, which is normallynecessary in order to grasp the full e$tent of the intersecting features of

these ad hoc concepts and eventually process optimally the e$plicitly

communicated content of the utterance and its intended effects.

#his is indeed a strategy typically found in ECC , and which differs

from other ways of foregrounding conceptual similarities. For instance,

cases (3"4) should not e e6uated to a similar humorous strategy, this time

ased on le'ical ambiguity resolution, in which various meanings encoded

y a single word are surprisingly activated in the same conte$t and then

linked humorously. !onsider the 'panish word efervescencia

(effervescence), which in the latest edition of the ITA ( ,iccionario de la

38



eal cademia Espaola) appears with two main (default) senses, one

literal and one figurative

a. mission of fi<<y ules through a li6uid. . F> Agitation, ardour, heatedness of an individual*s mood.

#he fact that these meanings are associated with the same word is

sufficient for them to e e$ploited as a humorous connection in the

monologue

2 Yo le disculpo Na mi hijo

adolescenteO, por6ue estQ como las

aspirinas, en plena efervescencia

(?#engo un hijo adolescente@, ECC

-/ 22).

forgive him Nmy teenage sonO,

ecause he*s like an aspirin, in full

effervescence (?*ve got a teenage

son@, ECC -/ 22).

Finally, a typical feature of the monologues in ECC is the

comedians* foregrounding of inconsistencies in the way people handle their

shared language. #his strategy is typical of stand"up comedy performances

(Yus --). n these cases, the audience are given evidence of how ine$act

the language that they use in their everyday interactions is, the main source

of humour eing the comedian*s skill in tracing these inconsistencies and

reshaping the audience*s attitude towards the words supporting these

inconsistencies. #he e$ample from ECC 6uoted in (1) is illustrative

1 EDor 6uH se llama Predictor el

Predictor P'i no predice nadaR

!uando sale el circulito ella ya estQ

emara<adaR 'i fuese Predictor

tendrCa 6ue haerme avisado antes.

Yo creo 6ue en ve< de Predictor se

deerCa llamar #erminator (?A mi

novia no le viene la regla@, ECC

-/ 32).

0hy is the Predictor called

Predictor t doesn*t predict

anythingR 0hen the little ring

appears she is already pregnantR f

it was a Predictor it should have

warned me efore. think that

instead of Predictor it should e

called #erminator (?=y girlfriend

has missed her period@, ECC -/

32).

%.2.2 !mplicatures and audience(s responsibility

0hen people communicate, much of the intended information is missing in

the meaning decoded from the utterance and has to e supplied conte$tually

y the hearer. n other words, utterances always underdetermine the

thought(s) that the speaker intends to communicate.

n many humorous strategies at ECC , the hearer is often e$pected to

provide implicated premises which are necessary to derive implicated

conclusions. #he former ?must e supplied y the hearer, who must either

retrieve them from memory or construct them y developing assumption

schemas retrieved from memory@ ('perer and 0ilson /123 /15). #he

35



latter can e deduced from the e$plicatures of the utterance and the conte$t.

n e$ample (/a) (from Yus /111) the implicated premise would e (/),

whereas the implicated conclusion would e (/c). n oth cases, the hearer

is responsile for the recovery of these implicatures, and A*s inaility tosupply (/) as part of the process of comprehension leads to a

misunderstanding

(/) a. A. Sice catR s it male or female

9. t*s three"coloured.

A. 'o what

9. Sever mind. t*s female, actually.

. All three"coloured cats are female.

c. #he cat is female.

!urcB*s analysis, to which referred earlier, involves the clash etween, on the one hand, an implicated premise provided y the hearer

when searching for an optimally relevant interpretation, and on the other

hand a salient assumption which is recoverale from the current conte$t of

interpretation. 9ut even without the e$istence of clashes etween

assumptions, the hearer*s responsiility in the e$traction of implicatures

may e, in itself, a possile source of humorous effects. For instance, in (//)

the full grasp of the intended interpretation re6uires the audience*s recovery

of (/-), which has to e derived for a full understanding of the utterance.

#he audience, then, have to acktrack in their processing, supply (/-) as

ackwards inference associated with the concepts introduced in the first part

of the joke, and then reach the full understanding of the second part of the

utterance. #he overall effect is ound to e pleasurale.

// !uando me preguntaan de

pe6ueWito

"EY tX 6uH 6uieres ser de mayor

Yo siempre contestaa

"=Hdico, aogado, policCa,

periodista...

&amos, 6ue lo 6ue yo 6uerCa era

salir en una serie de televisiBn(?Drofesores@, ECC -- -:).

0hen was a child and was asked

"And you 0hat do you want to

ecome when you grow up

always answered

"Ioctor, lawyer, policeman,

journalist...

#hat is, what wanted to do is to

appear on a #& series (?#eachers@, ECC -- -:).

(/-) !urrently, there are many #& series with characters playing doctors,

lawyers, policemen, etc. on 'panish #&.

#he comedian*s aility to predict this type of inferential recovery of

assumptions in the audience is a typical feature of human cognition. As

'perer and 0ilson (-- /3) correctly state, ?an individual A may act on

the mental states of another individual 9 y producing a stimulus which is

likely (a) to attract 9*s attention () to prompt the retrieval of certain

33



ackground information from 9*s memory (c) when jointly processed with

the ackground information whose retrieval it has prompted, to lead 9 to

draw certain inferences intended y A@.

%.2.% ssumptions from processing previous discourse

A typical attriute of stand"up comedy performances, ECC included, is the

strategy to generate humorous effects y playing with the audience*s short"

term memory store of assumptions arising from their processing of the

comedian*s already communicated utterances. As a general rule, a human

tendency when processing utterances is to use assumptions which have

already een processed as ?a gradually changing ackground against which

new information is processed@ ('perer and 0ilson /123 //2).

#he monologues from ECC analysed for this article provide

evidence that this is indeed the case. n this section, will mention two of

the possile strategies which the comedian can use to uild up humorousstrategies. #he first one concerns the comedian*s manipulation of the

assumptions arising from the audience*s processing of the e$plicitly

communicated information of some (previous) portion of the monologue,

which is then invalidated humorously. #he difference etween this strategy

and the =>K'! strategy outlined in -.- lies in the fact that the

assumptions made manifest y this second part do not provide an overall

congruent interpretation for the whole te$t (like the '! part of the jokes

e$emplified in -.-), ut simply surprise the audience with a contrast, after a

coherent interpretation of the first part has een achieved and is still present

in their short"term memory. $ample (/:) is illustrative

/: %na mujer puede estar toda una

tarde de compras saiendo de

antemano 6ue no va a comprar

nada. ntra en la outi6ue y dice

"Guiero proarme ese vestido, Hse

y Hse. N...O

Ua dependienta se percata de 6ue

va de farol, y pone cara de odio.

Dero a ella le da igual, y se pruea

media tienda. A la hora y media,sale dejQndoles todo como si

huiesen entrado los omeros, y

nada mQs pisar la calle comenta

"Sunca compro en este sitio por lo

ordes 6ue son las dependientas...

(?r de compras@, ECC -/ :-).

A woman can spend the whole

afternoon shopping knowing

eforehand that she is not going to

uy anything. 'he enters a outi6ue

and says

" want to try on that dress, and that

one and that one. N...O

#he saleswoman realises she is just

luffing, and grimaces. 9ut she

doesn*t mind, and tries on half theclothes in the shop. After an hour

and a half, she leaves the shop,

leaving everything as if the firemen

had een in, and as soon as she sets

foot on the street she says

" never uy anything in this shop

ecause the saleswomen are so

rude... (?>oing shopping@, ECC

-/ :-).

34



#he second strategy is called re-incorporation, defined y Tutter

(/114 --3) as ?the reappearance of one element of a joke (usually not a

punchline) later on in a stand"up performer*s set. #hat is, a comedian will

introduce a topic at some point during hisKher performance and then drop itonly to return to it later in the act@. Again, the comedian plays with the fact

that certain assumptions from the part of the monologue just processed are

still present in the audience*s short"term memory, and repeats some portion

of discourse in different areas of the same monologue, achieving different

effects. Jne of them is the audience*s acknowledgement that the comedian

has total control over what to repeat and where this repetition has to appear.

#he repeated portion of te$t can have different si<es. n (/8), for

instance, the phrase ?nine and a half weeks@ is repeated. #he first time, the

audience is encouraged to provide the interte$tual link to the film with the

same name, process the phrase as a unit, and derive a numer of se$ual

implications. #hese effects are then invalidated (or at least re"considered)when the phrase is repeated and now the audience have to process it through

its parts, take it literally, and infer the character*s negative attitude towards

the phrase uttered

/8 !uando hay pasiBn te encanta 6ue

ella te haga un pase de ropa

interior

"7Q<melo como en 0ueve

semanas y media.

E 0ueve semanas y media

!uando no hay pasiBn le gritas

"P7ace nueve semanas y media

6ue estQn tus ragas en el idHR

(?GuH pasa cuando acaa la

pasiBn@, ECC -/ 8).

0hen there is passion you like her

to model underwear for you.

"Io it like in 0ine and a half

#ee&s.

0ine and a half #ee&s 0hen there

is no passion you shout at her

"t*s nine and a half weeks since

your knickers have een in the

idetR (?0hat happens when

passion dies away@, ECC -/

8).

%.2. Playing #ith collective cultural representations

Apart from strategies like the ones addressed in the previous sections, there

is an interesting line of research on stand"up comedy which is also

applicale to ECC . n a nutshell, it can e stated that much of the enjoyment

in the audience comes from the collective realisation that certainassumptions made manifest y the comedian are in fact mutually manifest to

the audience, cultural* in a road sense, which adds to an overall

improvement of the audience*s encyclopedic knowledge of how their social

environment is organised and on the rules concerning social ehaviour.

#herefore, many monologues in ECC focus on ordinary, everyday aspects of

lifestyle within a certain social environment, without needing specific

discursive strategies to generate humorous effects.

n general, human cognition is geared to the ma$imisation of

relevance, and the search for relevance is intended to improve the person*s

overall representation of the world (via non"demonstrative inferences made

32



on newly ac6uired assumptions). n this sense, the human storage of

ackground social information is constantly eing updated y in"coming

assumptions which either strengthen the person*s privately held

assumptions, or contradict them and lead to their erasure, or comine withthem to produce new, improved representations ('perer and 0ilson /123

45ff.). 0hatever the case, people constantly access their encyclopedic

knowledge and update it with relevant information. n order to minimise the

effort re6uired for this on"going access, much of the information stored in

the person*s encyclopedic knowledge ac6uires a schematic and stale

6uality it is easy to access y default and used in the asence of other

effort"demanding processing.

scandell"&idal (this volume) makes an interesting proposal of how

cognitive and social issues (in terms of principles and norms respectively)

can e comined in pragmatic research. #he former relies on the inferential

faculty of the human mind, specifically designed to react to ostensivelycommunicated stimuli and weigh their relevance against conte$tual

information.

#he latter has a long"term and a short"term task. #he short"term one

analyses and categorises in"coming information, and the long"term task

uilds up and updates socially accepted ehaviour. #his is precisely what

occurs during the ECC performances. #he audience constantly monitor (via

short"term tasks) the comedian*s words against their personal ackground

knowledge generating alterations (via long"term tasks) in the 6uality and

6uantity of stale and default ackground representations. Iespite the

heterogeneous 6uality of people*s encyclopedic storage, we can predict that

some of these representations will remain relatively stale in the minds of

all of the people living in a certain social environment, and hence also in the

smaller"si<e conte$t of the comedy venue. #his is coherent with the view

that the social categorisation system is a cognitive su"system devoted to

e$tracting tacit generalisations from practice (scandell"&idal, iid.). #hese

stale representations are cultural representations which are a typical oject

of assessment y comedians in stand"up performances, and also y the ones

at ECC ('perer /113 -5, ::).

#he cultural representations assessed y the short"term and long"

term tasks may ecome humorous when foregrounded, challenged,

reinforced, manipulated, etc. y comedians on stage. 'everal aspects of thecomedians* e$ploitation of social issues in their performances can e

isolated. 'ome of these are outlined and e$emplified elow

A. "trengthening the collective uality of cultural representations. 0hen the

comedians of ECC communicate their monologues, they make mutually

manifest a numer of assumptions related to cultural representations. #he

effect that these assumptions have on the memers of the audience depends

on the e$tent to which these memers acknowledge their cultural status (as

opposed to what will call personal representations, see su"section 9

elow). #he crucial feature is that ECC provides an e$cellent environment

31



for the generation and entertainment of similar representations across the

audience, that is, representations a version of which is similar in the minds

of every memer of the audience (cf. 'perer /118 /113).

Although people*s ackground knowledge is constantly eingupdated, mainly through relevance"driven inferential processes on

ostensively communicated assumptions, a portion of these representations is

indeed rather stale (many of them e$hiiting a schematic 6uality), and is

not normally altered y in"coming representations through communication.

0hat many monologues in ECC do is to remind the audience that they

indeed possess a similar version of the representations made manifest y the

comedian, that the comedian*s words unfold (or reinforce) a typically

cultural item of their society, which is a good source of humour and also a

source of social updating through the audience*s long"term categorisation

task. 9ut the audience will also use the short"term task of the social

component to lael and readjust the comedian*s pulic representationsaccording to such conte$tual attriutes as the physical setting (they are in a

stand"up comedy venue), relationship with the comedian (they pay to e

amused), and ackground knowledge on the purpose of the monologues

(whose social connotation is often repeated and stressed y the comedians

during the performance). #his multi"faceted processing of information

surrounding the performance of the monologues allows the audience to

frame this collective entertainment of cultural representations as humorous

and different from other possile ways in which the entertainment of

representations might e relevant to the audience.

f we have a look at the monologues, we will discover many

instances in which a plain description of aspects relevant to the audience*s

ackground knowledge on their social environment is provided, with no

overt humorous discursive strategies (apart from the comedian*s skills at

uttering the monologue and hisKher aility to deal with nonveral ehaviour

effectively), ut which in any case arouse laughter in the audience. n order

to achieve this mutuality of representations, the comedian will normally

address cultural issues that are ound to e recognised as such y the

audience.

Jne e$ample of a cultural item which is easily recognisale y the

audience is the connotations of the term adolescence*, and it proves to e

successfully addressed y the ECC comedian on stage

/5 Ua vida tiene etapas difCciles, y yo

estoy atravesando una de las

peores la adolescencia. PUa de mi

hijoR =i pe6ueWCn, ese 6ue antes,

cuando venCa del colegio, me

volvCa loca contQndome cosas de

sus compaWeros, de los

profesores... PAhora no despega los

laiosR 7a dejado de halar, pero

Deople go through hard times in

life, and am going through one of

the worst ones adolescence. =y

son*sR =y little oy, the same oy

who used to drive me cra<y y

telling me everything aout his

class mates, his teachers... Sow his

lips are sealedR 7e stopped talking,

ut just like you stop smoking

4



como se deja el taaco, de un dCa

para otro. !uando llega a casa se

mete en su haitaciBn y no se sae

lo 6ue hace ahC dentro (?#engo unhijo adolescente@, ECC -/ 24).

overnight. 0hen he gets home he

locks himself in his room and >od

knows what he*s doing in there

(?*ve got a teenage son@, ECC -/ 24).

Another typical strategy in stand"up comedy, and also in ECC , is to

directly ask the audience, e$plicitly searching for confirmation and

agreement on the collective 6uality of the comedian*s words, that is, on

whether the audience regard these representations as elonging to their

collective ackground of cultural knowledge. #his is an important strategy

in ECC , since the comedian ?must estalish for the audience that the group

is homogeneous@ (=int< /125 42). At the same time, this kind of direct

6uestioning* will warn some of the memers of the audience that these

representations are supposed to e widely shared y the community and notheld individually.

n (/3) we can find this strategy of direct addressing referred to

children*s phone calls

/3 A partir de cierta edad, los hijos,

cuando estQn en casa se agarran al

telHfono como luchadores de sumo.

Y 6ue no lo sueltan, EPehR

" !uelga ya, 6ue llevas media hora.

" Dero si me han llamado a mC...

EA ustedes les pasa lo mismo Ea

6uH los hijos no llaman nunca

'iempre les llaman a ellos, Epero

6uH se creen, 6ue somos, sordos o

gilipollas EJ sordos y gilipollas

(?!onsejos prQcticos para 6ue tus

hijos se vayan de casa@, ECC -/

13).

From a certain age, children, when

they are at home, gra the

telephone as if they were sumo

wrestlers. And they never let go of

it, do they

"7ang up, you*ve een talking for

half an hour.

"9ut they called me...

Ioes it also happen to you Io

your children never make

phonecalls t*s always others who

call, ut what do they think, that we

are deaf or daft Jr deaf and daft

(?Dractical advice to get children to

leave home@, ECC -/ 13).

Finally, another source of humour in this strengthening of collectiverepresentations is the comedian*s e$posure of the inconsistencies underlying

social ehaviour, a highly relevant issue for human cognition, always geared

to the ma$imisation of cognitive efficiency related to the surrounding world.

7ere, typical human actions regarded as collective are 6uestioned and their

inconsistencies revealed, and while the audience are laughing they are also

readjusting their encyclopedic knowledge y incorporating a new and fresh

point of view to these cultural representations. An e$ample would e (/4)

/4 #X estQs por la noche en la cama y

oyes un ruido e$traWo, Ey 6uH

You are in ed at night and hear a

strange noise, and what do you do

4/



haces P#e tapas con la sQanaR

P=uy ienR EGuH pasa, 6ue la

sQana es antialas EGue si viene

un malo con un cuchillo no va a poder atravesarla, se le va a dolar

la hoja P7omre, por favorR

N...O

EY 6uH pasa si vas por la calle y de

pronto ves a alguien y piensas 6ue

te va a atracar Dues te camias de

acera. 'eguro 6ue si es un

atracador, pensarQ ?=ierda, otro

6ue se me ha cru<ado de acera, 6uH

nochecita llevo@ (?Teacciones

estXpidas ante el miedo@, ECC -/ /1/, /1:).

You cover yourself with the sheet.

DerfectR You think the sheet is

ulletproof Io you really think if

a ad guy turns up carrying a knifethe lade won*t go through it #hat

the lade will end !ome onR

N...O

And what do you do if you are

walking along the street and

suddenly you see someone and you

think he*s going to mug you You

cross to the other side. 'urely if

he*s a mugger, he*ll think ?'hitR

Another one crossingR 0hat a

nightR@ (?'tupid reactions to fear@, ECC -/ /1/, /1:).

9. Turning personal beliefs into cultural representations. n Yus

(--) a distinction is made etween types of representations which can

e$plain why the interaction etween certain monologues in stand"up

comedy (pulic representations) and the representations stored in the

audience*s minds (mental representations) may turn out to e entertained as

humorous. 'ome e$amples from ECC will illustrate the convenience of this

distinction.

#he audience, as human eings, can hold representations as eliefs

and possess a metarepresentational aility to infer their own and others*

attitudes concerning the content of the representations they process. #hey

also hold representations with different degrees of strength depending on the

validating source supporting them. n 'perer (/114) a distinction is made

etween intuitive and reflective representations, specifically beliefs. #he

former are ac6uired spontaneously y the individual L especially via

perception or unconscious inference L and tend to e simple, stale and

cross"culturally valid. #he latter are ac6uired mainly through

communication (and conscious inference) and their strength is often

validated y the (metarepresentational) authority underlying the source.

#ypical validating sources of reflective representations are parents,education, and L very often nowadays L the arrage of information from

mass media discourses.

'ince authority is essential for the formation of reflective eliefs, it

comes as no surprise that comedians value their authority over the audience

as one of the keys to a successful performance

f an audience feels superior to you, then you*re in troule... f you

can pretend they are superior. #here*s a difference there. f an

audience feels superior to you, they can e rude. N...O N#Ohe audience

must trust you and you have to e ale to lead them y the hand.

4-



Jnce you can lead them y the hand, you can take them through any

avenue of comedy. You can take them on a very serious suject and

they will go with you. (;oey 9ishop, 6uoted in 0ilde - /: and

//:).

Another important feature of human cognition is the aility to hold

differing representations for the same referent, as long as their method of

mental storage differs. For instance, one can simultaneously hold personal

representations (e.g. intuitive andKor reflective eliefs) of the form elieve

that p* (factual assumptions) and metarepresented cultural representations

of the form in this culture it is elieved that p* (on the role of

metarepresentations in humour see !urcB /115, /113, and /114).: #he

relationship etween these types of representations may range from a high

degree of overlapping to a totally distinct 6uality, which means that, at one

end of the continuum, an individual can e aware of what is elieved in aculture (e.g. cultural stereotypes) without supporting these eliefs and, at the

other end of the continuum, notice how his own eliefs are strengthened and

reinforced y cultural similarity.

A good e$ample of the first of these limiting cases (differing

personal and metarepresented cultural representations) can e found in

Dilkington (- //-ff.)

(/2) a. Tichard is a gorilla.

. >orillas are fierce, nasty, prone to violence.

c. >orillas are shy, sensitive creatures, given to outs of

sentimentality.

#he metaphor in (/2a) relies on stereotypical 6ualities regarding the

gorilla*s ehaviour (/2) which are, then, mapped interpretively onto

Tichard*s own attriutes. 7owever, an ethologist may well have reached a

different conclusion intuitively, for instance (/2c), after his analysis (e.g.

perception) of their ehaviour. ven so, and crucially, the ethologist will still

e ale to understand (/2) when hearing (/2a).

n the specific conte$t of stand"up comedy performances, the

memers of the audience arrive at the ECC venue with a very personal

storage of personal* and metarepresented cultural* representations. %ponhearing the comedian*s monologue which typically deals with cultural

stereotypes (e.g. se$ roles, relationships, parenting), they will test the

comedian*s assumptions made mutually manifest to the audience against

their own personal ackground of representations, sometimes strengthening

their personal and metarepresented cultural eliefs, on other occasions, their

metarepresented cultural eliefs but not their personal eliefs, etc. n any

case, since people who elieve that p( can also identify the cultural

stereotypes y means of a metarepresentational in this culture it is elieved

that p*, cultural stereotypes spread and ecome mutually manifest regardless

of the strength y which they are supported y the memers of the audience.

4:



#he joy of manifestness*, as propose to call this collective awareness of

cultural stereotypes, may no dout e a pleasurale source of humour, often

enhanced y the spread of communal laughter in the venue. Mo<iski (/128

54) holds a similar position ?many stand"up comedians jar their audience*ssensiilities y making individuals e$perience a shock of recognition. #his

occurs as deeply"held popular eliefs aout themselves L even the hidden

underpinnings of their culture L are rought to an audience*s level of

conscious awareness@.

n particular, the fact that some representations which some

memers of the audience thought that were individually held turn out to

ac6uire a collective (i.e. cultural) status during the comedian*s performance

is, in itself, a highly relevant piece of information, and no dout another

source of humour in the specific conte$t of the comedy venue.8 'ometimes,

the comedian reminds the audience that many of the actions that a person

regards special to himKher, are in fact performed y everyody, they arecollective actions performed y all the community, and not personal

/1 !uando estQs enamorado no sBlo te

comportas como un idiota... es 6ue

ademQs piensas 6ue eres especial,

6ue las cosas 6ue haces no las hace

nadie mQs en el mundo. Aun6ue en

realidad lo 6ue haces es repetir las

mismas tonterCas de todos los

enamorados. N...O

N"i vas de ligueO !uando llegas al

coche N...O hay 6ue poner musi6uita

romQntica. %na cinta 6ue te has

graado especialmente para esa

noche y 6ue en un alarde de

originalidad le has puesto el tCtulo

de ?Uentas@ (?#onterCas 6ue

hacemos cuando nos enamoramos@,

ECC -/ /4K/2).

0hen you are in love not only do

you ehave like an idiot... ut you

also think that you*re special, that

noody else in the world does the

things you do. 9ut in fact what you

do is to repeat the same silly things

all the people in love do.

N...O

N !f you(re trying to pic& up a girl O

0hen you get into the car N...O

you*ve got to put on romantic

music. #hat tape you recorded

especially for that occasion and that

you, showing off your originality,

laelled ?'low music@ (?'illy

things we do when we*re in love@,

ECC -/ /4K/2).

=oreover, comedians in ECC can stir the audience y remindingthem of feelings and emotions which they had not previously rought to a

conscious level of reasoning, let alone provided an assessment of their

collective 6uality. n this case, the audience is amused at the comedian*s

aility to dig* deep into personal feelings and at the collective conscious*

reasoning of the fact that other memers of the audience have e$perienced

similar feelings. #his type of alteration in the audience*s cognitive

environments may result from the manifestness of sutle impressions arising

from the processing of the comedian*s propositional input, which is a typical

feature of human communication, since what the communicator intends to

make manifest is partly precise and partly vague ('perer and 0ilson /123

48



51) and in this case we would e dealing with mutual manifestness of

impressions rather than mutuality of propositions.

!. "tereotype-3in4consistent cultural representations. 'tand"up

comedians in general, and the ones in ECC in particular, e$hiit a dual andopposite tendency in their performances either to reinforce or to challenge

cultural stereotypes. #heir performances make manifest a numer of

assumptions aout deeply held cultural eliefs in the audience. 'ince human

eings are unwilling to erase information from their storage of encyclopedic

information, assumptions challenging this knowledge are assessed y the

audience*s cognitive systems and sometimes end up rejected if their strength

does not lead to the erasure of the ackground assumption challenged

('perer and 0ilson /123 43). 7owever, as already pointed out, the fact

that people can hold parallel personal and metarepresented cultural eliefs

on the same issues allows for cultural stereotypes to e entertained even if

some memers of the audience do not support them personally. !riticisalecultural representations are often challenged y comedians, in an attempt to

fight against archetypal cultural representations which linger on despite the

development of modern societies. 9ut the mutual manifestness of these

challenged representations is not enough. ven if personal representations

may well e affected (and re"considered) y the new, in"coming

representations from the comedian, the very fact that the comedian

underlines the criticisale representations somehow reminds the audience of

their metarepresented cultural representations which they indirectly store in

their minds, making the spread of cultural stereotypes multifaceted and

inevitale.

>iven the strength of cultural stereotypes, often the comedians at

ECC only aim at suverting them just as one more source of humorous

effects. A typical strategy is to start the monologue with a cultural"

stereotype"inconsistent piece of discourse. As such, stereotype"inconsistent

representations are very likely to attract the audience*s attention, producing

an immediate cognitive assessment of the audience*s (personally andKor

culturally metarepresented) stereotype"consistent ackground storage. 9ut

the remaining part of the monologue is simply an asurd e$planation of why

the stereotype"inconsistent representations should e supported, thus leaving

the audience*s ackground cultural stereotypes mainly unaffected. An

e$ample of this strategy can e found in (-)

- 7oy todo el mundo usca tener un

cuerpo perfecto. Y yo, como

pueden ver, lo he conseguido.

Alguno dirQ ?PDero si estQ gordoR@.

Dues sC, claro. s 6ue para mi eso

es un cuerpo perfecto. Ua gente estQ

tan osesionada con perder kilos

6ue no se da cuenta de 6ue estar

gordo tiene muchas ventajas

Sowadays everyody aims at a

perfect ody. And as you can see,

*ve succeeded. 'omeone may say

?9ut he*s fatR@. 0ell, yes of course.

9ut for me this is a perfect ody.

Deople are so osessed with losing

weight that they don*t realise that

eing fat has a lot of advantages

(?Advantages of eing fat@, ECC

45



(?&entajas de ser gordo@, ECC

-- 55).

-- 55).

#he remaining part of the monologue is a succession of asurde$planations supporting the comedian*s stereotype"inconsistent claim made

in (-), for instance (-/)

-/ Uos delgados tienen 6ue comer

unas cosas as6uerosas para

mantener su figura, mientras 6ue

las cosas 6ue tenemos 6ue comer

los gordos para mantener la nuestra

estQn todas uenCsimas (?&entajas

de ser gordo@, ECC -- 54).

'lim people have to eat revolting

things in order to keep their figure,

while the things that us fat people

have to eat to keep ours are all

delicious (?Advantages of eing

fat@, ECC -- 54).

#he reader will notice that although (-"-/) do not affect the

audience*s ackground knowledge on (dis)advantages of eing fatKslim, (-/)

is coherent within the fictional frame initiated y the comedian in (-/). #he

e$planation lies in the human aility to engage metarepresentationally in

pretence. n (-"-/) the comedian plays with two different layers of

communication in one layer there is the collective and shared cultural

eliefs on eing slimKfat, and in another layer there is a pretended scenario

which works in the specific ECC conte$t ecause it echoes the first layer

(on layering, see !lark /113).

4. !oncluding remar&s

n this article a pragmatic analysis has een carried out devoted to the

humorous strategies used y the comedians at the stand"up performance

(and #& programme) El club de la comedia. Among the possile strategies,

in this article have focussed mainly on two types. Jn the one hand, there

are humorous strategies in ECC which focus on specific stretches of

discourse and whose intended humorous effects lie in how they are

processed. Jn the other hand, the comedians in ECC also play with the

audience*s ackground knowledge on cultural representations and theeffects that might e derived when contrasting this knowledge to the

assumptions made mutually manifest during the performance. For instance,

some memers of the audience may e amused to discover that some

assumptions made manifest y the comedian are collective, rather than

purely personal, what in this article has een laelled the joy of

manifestness*.

All in all, the study of these varieties of humorous strategies

supports a general claim made within pragmatic research that humour is not

an inherent property of te$ts ut, rather, is derived from the mental

processes that the hearers have to go through in their search for an optimal

43



interpretation of the utterances.

'otes

/. ;od≈owiec*s (/11/) view is similar to the one presented here, ut in her analysis the only interpretation consistent with the so"called principle of

relevance would e the one in the '! part of the joke, which, esides, is not

supposed to cover (i.e. provide a coherent interpretation of) both => and

'! parts. For her, humour lies asically in the reorganisation of conte$ts

which takes place when shifting from => to '! interpretations. n my

opinion, the hearer*s realisation that an alternative Lut previously

unnoticedL interpretation of the => part turns out to e the correct one,

also plays an important part in the eventual humorous effect. n other words,

=> and '! interpretations are not competing ones, ut graded and

manipulated in the humorist*s search for an appropriate effect.

-. Seedless to say, the addressee has to e willing to engage in the joking

game, otherwise incongruities may well produce an undesirale effect in

himKher. n section :./ elow, it will e argued that the audience of ECC

have to e in such a mood that whatever the actors say will e considered

(intended"to"e) humorous regardless of the discursive 6ualities of the

discourse uttered.

:. #he distinction etween personal and metarpresented cultural is not

rigorous, since metarepresented cultural representations are also reflective

(like personal reflective eliefs), re6uiring a validating conte$t (viametarepresentation) for their mental storage, ut for methodological

purposes think this distinction can e useful to determine what really goes

on in the audience*s minds when confronted with the comedian*s culturally

(in)consistent assumptions made manifest through the monologues.

8. As a direct effect, the cultural 6uality of these representations spreads

across the conte$t of the comedy venue. Uack of space prevents me from

pursuing this issue, which outlined in Yus (--). 'ince the comedian*s

cultural representations made mutually manifest to the audience interact

with their individually arranged set of private and metarepresented cultural

representations, it is inevitale that the comedian*s representations will ealtered, however slightly, in the process of transmission.

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Documents

14 Yus Final Rev