Jokes

Presidents enjoy a joke together...

This article is about the form of humour. For
other uses, see Joke (disambiguation) .
"Jest" redirects here. For the horse, see Jest
(horse) .
Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton enjoying a
joke, in spite of their language
differences
A joke is a display of humour in which words
are used within a specific and well-defined
narrative structure to make people laugh and is
not meant to be taken seriously. It takes the
form of a story, usually with dialogue, and ends
in a punch line. It is in the punch line that the
audience becomes aware that the story contains
a second, conflicting meaning. This can be done
using a pun or other word play such as irony , a
logical incompatibility, nonsense, or other
means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the
definition:
It is generally held that jokes benefit from
brevity, containing no more detail than is needed
to set the scene for the punchline at the end. In
the case of riddle jokes or one-liners the setting
is implicitly understood, leaving only the
dialogue and punchline to be verbalised.
However, subverting these and other common
guidelines can also be a source of humor—the
shaggy dog story is in a class of its own as an
anti-joke ; although presenting as a joke, it
contains a long drawn-out narrative of time,
place and character, rambles through many
pointless inclusions and finally fails to deliver a
punchline. Jokes are a form of humour, but not
all humour is a joke. Some humorous forms
which are not verbal jokes are: involuntary
humour, situational humour, practical jokes,
slapstick and anecdotes.
Identified as one of the simple forms of oral
literature by the Dutch linguist André
Jolles ( de ), [2] jokes are passed along
anonymously. They are told in both private and
public settings; a single person tells a joke to
his friend in the natural flow of conversation, or a
set of jokes is told to a group as part of
scripted entertainment. Jokes are also passed
along in written form or, more recently, through
the internet .
Stand-up comics, comedians and slapstick work
with comic timing, precision and rhythm in their
performance, relying as much on actions as on
the verbal punchline to evoke laughter. This
distinction has been formulated in the popular
saying "A comic says funny things; a comedian
says things funny". [note 1]
History of the printed joke
The Westcar Papyrus , dating to c. 1600 BC,
contains an example of one of the earliest
surviving jokes. [3]
Any joke documented from the past has been
saved through happenstance rather than design.
Jokes do not belong to refined culture, but rather
to the entertainment and leisure of all classes.
As such, any printed versions were considered
ephemera , i.e., temporary documents created for
a specific purpose and intended to be thrown
away. Many of these early jokes deal with
scatological and sexual topics, entertaining to all
social classes but not to be valued and saved.
Various kinds of jokes have been identified in
ancient pre- classical texts. [note 2] The oldest
identified joke is an ancient Sumerian proverb
from 1900 BC containing toilet humour:
"Something which has never occurred since time
immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her
husband’s lap." Its records were dated to the Old
Babylonian period and the joke may go as far
back as 2300 BC. The second oldest joke found,
discovered on the Westcar Papyrus and believed
to be about Sneferu , was from Ancient Egypt
circa 1600 BC: "How do you entertain a bored
pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women
dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and
urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish." The tale of
the three ox drivers from Adab completes the
three known oldest jokes in the world. This is a
comic triple dating back to 1200 BC Adab . [3]
The earliest extant joke book is the Philogelos
(Greek for The Laughter-Lover ), a collection of
265 jokes written in crude ancient Greek dating
to the fourth or fifth century AD. [4][5] The author
of the collection is obscure [6] and a number of
different authors are attributed to it, including
"Hierokles and Philagros the grammatikos ", just
"Hierokles", or, in the Suda, "Philistion". [7] British
classicist Mary Beard states that the Philogelos
may have been intended as a jokester's
handbook of quips to say on the fly, rather than
a book meant to be read straight through. [7]
Many of the jokes in this collection are
surprisingly familiar, even though the typical
protagonists are less recognisable to
contemporary readers: the absent-minded
professor , the eunuch, and people with hernias
or bad breath. [4] The Philogelos even contains a
joke similar to Monty Python 's "Dead Parrot
Sketch ". [4]
1597 engraving of Poggio Bracciolini
During the 15th century , [8] the printing revolution
spread across Europe following the development
of the movable type printing press . This was
coupled with the growth of literacy in all social
classes. Printers turned out Jestbooks along
with Bibles to meet both lowbrow and highbrow
interests of the populace. One early anthology of
jokes was the Facetiae by the Italian Poggio
Bracciolini , first published in 1470. The
popularity of this jest book can be measured on
the twenty editions of the book documented
alone for the 15th century. Another popular form
was a collection of jests, jokes and funny
situations attributed to a single character in a
more connected, narrative form of the picaresque
novel. Examples of this are the characters of
Rabelais in France, Till Eulenspiegel in Germany,
Lazarillo de Tormes in Spain and Master Skelton
in England. There is also a jest book ascribed to
William Shakespeare, the contents of which
appear to both inform and borrow from his
plays. All of these early jestbooks corroborate
both the rise in the literacy of the European
populations and the general quest for leisure
activities during the Renaissance in Europe. [8]
The practice of printers to use jokes and
cartoons as page fillers was also widely used in
the broadsides and chapbooks of the 19th
century and earlier. With the increase in literacy
in the general population and the growth of the
printing industry, these publications were the
most common forms of printed material
between the 16th and 19th centuries throughout
Europe and North America. Along with reports of
events, executions, ballads and verse, they also
contained jokes. Only one of many broadsides
archived in the Harvard library is described as
"1706. Grinning made easy; or, Funny Dick's
unrivalled collection of curious, comical, odd,
droll, humorous, witty, whimsical, laughable, and
eccentric jests, jokes, bulls, epigrams, &c. With
many other descriptions of wit and humour." [9]
These cheap publications, ephemera intended for
mass distribution, were read alone, read aloud,
posted and discarded.
There are many types of joke books in print
today; a search on the internet provides a
plethora of titles available for purchase. They
can be read alone for solitary entertainment, or
used to stock up on new jokes to entertain
friends. Some people try to find a deeper
meaning in jokes, as in "Plato and a Platypus
Walk into a Bar... Understanding Philosophy
Through Jokes". [10][note 3] However a deeper
meaning is not necessary to appreciate their
inherent entertainment value. [11] Magazines
frequently use jokes and cartoons as filler for the
printed page. Reader's Digest closes out many
articles with an (unrelated) joke at the bottom of
the article. The New Yorker was first published
in 1925 with the stated goal of being a
"sophisticated humour magazine" and is still
known for its cartoons .
Telling jokes
Telling a joke is a cooperative effort; [12][13] it
requires that the teller and the audience mutually
agree in one form or another to understand the
narrative which follows as a joke. In a study of
conversation analysis , the sociologist Harvey
Sacks describes in detail the sequential
organisation in the telling a single joke. "This
telling is composed, as for stories, of three
serially ordered and adjacently placed types of
sequences … the preface [framing], the telling,
and the response sequences." [14] Folklorists
expand this to include the context of the joking.
Who is telling what jokes to whom? And why is
he telling them when? [15][16] The context of the
joke telling in turn leads into a study of joking
relationships , a term coined by anthropologists
to refer to social groups within a culture who
engage in institutionalised banter and joking.
Framing: "Have you heard the one…"
Framing is done with a (frequently formulaic)
expression which keys the audience in to expect
a joke. "Have you heard the one…", "Reminds me
of a joke I heard…", "So, a lawyer and a
doctor…"; these conversational markers are just a
few examples of linguistic frames used to start a
joke. Regardless of the frame used, it creates a
social space and clear boundaries around the
narrative which follows. [17] Audience response
to this initial frame can be acknowledgement
and anticipation of the joke to follow. It can also
be a dismissal, as in "this is no joking matter"
or "this is no time for jokes".
Within its performance frame, joke-telling is
labelled as a culturally marked form of
communication. Both the performer and
audience understand it to be set apart from the
"real" world. "An elephant walks into a bar…"; a
native English speaker automatically understands
that this is the start of a joke, and the story that
follows is not meant to be taken at face value
(i.e. it is non-bona-fide communication). [18]
The framing itself invokes a play mode; if the
audience is unable or unwilling to move into
play, then nothing will seem funny. [19]
Telling
Following its linguistic framing the joke, in the
form of a story, can be told. It is not required to
be verbatim text like other forms of oral
literature such as riddles and proverbs. The teller
can and does modify the text of the joke,
depending both on memory and the present
audience. The important characteristic is that the
narrative is succinct, containing only those
details which lead directly to an understanding
and decoding of the punchline. This requires that
it support the same (or similar) divergent scripts
which are to be embodied in the punchline. [20]
The narrative always contains a protagonist who
becomes the "butt" or target of the joke. This
labelling serves to develop and solidify
stereotypes within the culture. It also enables
researchers to group and analyse the creation,
persistence and interpretation of joke cycles
around a certain character. Some people are
naturally better performers than others, however
anyone can tell a joke because the comic trigger
is contained in the narrative text and punchline.
A joke poorly told is still funny unless the
punchline gets mangled.
Punchline
The punchline is intended to make the audience
laugh. A linguistic interpretation of this
punchline / response is elucidated by Victor
Raskin in his Script-based Semantic Theory of
Humour . Humour is evoked when a trigger
contained in the punchline causes the audience
to abruptly shift its understanding of the story
from the primary (or more obvious) interpretation
to a secondary, opposing interpretation. "The
punchline is the pivot on which the joke text
turns as it signals the shift between the
[semantic] scripts necessary to interpret [re-
interpret] the joke text." [21] To produce the
humour in the verbal joke, the two interpretations
(i.e. scripts) need to be both compatible with
the joke text AND opposite or incompatible with
each other. [22] Thomas R. Shultz, a
psychologist, independently expands Raskin's
linguistic theory to include "two stages of
incongruity: perception and resolution." He
explains that "… incongruity alone is insufficient
to account for the structure of humour. […] Within
this framework, humour appreciation is
conceptualized as a biphasic sequence involving
first the discovery of incongruity followed by a
resolution of the incongruity." [23] Resolution
generates laughter.
This is the point at which the field of
neurolinguistics offers some insight into the
cognitive processing involved in this abrupt
laughter at the punchline. Studies by the
cognitive science researchers Coulson and Kutas
directly address the theory of script switching
articulated by Raskin in their work. [24] The
article "Getting it: Human event-related brain
response to jokes in good and poor
comprehenders" measures brain activity in
response to reading jokes. [25] Additional studies
by others in the field support more generally the
theory of two-stage processing of humour, as
evidenced in the longer processing time they
require. [26] In the related field of neuroscience,
it has been shown that the expression of laughter
is caused by two partially independent neuronal
pathways: an "involuntary" or "emotionally driven"
system and a "voluntary" system. [27] This study
adds credence to the common experience when
exposed to an off-colour joke; a laugh is
followed in the next breath by a disclaimer: "Oh,
that's bad…" Here the multiple steps in cognition
are clearly evident in the stepped response, the
perception being processed just a breath faster
than the resolution of the moral / ethical content
in the joke.
Responding
Expected response to a joke is laughter. The
joke teller hopes the audience "gets it" and is
entertained. This leads to the premise that a
joke is actually an "understanding test" between
individuals and groups. [28] If the listeners do not
get the joke, they are not understanding the two
scripts which are contained in the narrative as
they were intended. Or they do "get it" and don't
laugh; it might be too obscene, too gross or too
dumb for the current audience. A woman might
respond differently to a joke told by a male
colleague around the water cooler than she
would to the same joke overheard in a women's
lavatory. A joke involving toilet humour may be
funnier told on the playground at elementary
school than on a college campus. The same
joke will elicit different responses in different
settings. The punchline in the joke remains the
same, however it is more or less appropriate
depending on the current context.
Shifting contexts, shifting texts
The context explores the specific social situation
in which joking occurs. [29] The narrator
automatically modifies the text of the joke to be
acceptable to different audiences, while at the
same time supporting the same divergent scripts
in the punchline. The vocabulary used in telling
the same joke at a university fraternity party and
to one's grandmother might well vary. In each
situation it is important to identify both the
narrator and the audience as well as their
relationship with each other. This varies to reflect
the complexities of a matrix of different social
factors: age, sex, race, ethnicity, kinship,
political views, religion, power relationship, etc.
When all the potential combinations of such
factors between the narrator and the audience
are considered, then a single joke can take on
infinite shades of meaning for each unique social
setting.
The context, however, should not be confused
with the function of the joking. "Function is
essentially an abstraction made on the basis of
a number of contexts". [30] In one long-term
observation of men coming off the late shift at a
local café, joking with the waitresses was used
to ascertain sexual availability for the evening.
Different types of jokes, going from general to
topical into explicitly sexual humour signalled
openness on the part of the waitress for a
connection. [31] This study describes how jokes
and joking are used to communicate much more
than just good humour. That is a single example
of the function of joking in a social setting, but
there are others. Sometimes jokes are used
simply to get to know someone better. What
makes them laugh, what do they find funny?
Jokes concerning politics, religion or sexual
topics can be used effectively to gage the
attitude of the audience to any one of these
topics. They can also be used as a marker of
group identity, signalling either inclusion or
exclusion for the group. Among pre-adolescents,
"dirty" jokes allow them to share information
about their changing bodies. [32] And sometimes
joking is just simple entertainment for a group
of friends.
Joking relationships
The context of joking in turn leads into a study
of joking relationships , a term coined by
anthropologists to refer to social groups within a
culture who take part in institutionalised banter
and joking. These relationships can be either
one-way or a mutual back and forth between
partners. "The joking relationship is defined as a
peculiar combination of friendliness and
antagonism. The behaviour is such that in any
other social context it would express and arouse
hostility; but it is not meant seriously and must
not be taken seriously. There is a pretence of
hostility along with a real friendliness. To put it
in another way, the relationship is one of
permitted disrespect." [33] Joking relationships
were first described by anthropologists within
kinship groups in Africa. But they have since
been identified in cultures around the world,
where jokes and joking are used to mark and re-
inforce appropriate boundaries of a
relationship. [34]
Electronic joking
The advent of electronic communications at the
end of the 20th century introduced new traditions
into jokes. A verbal joke or cartoon is emailed to
a friend or posted on a bulletin board ; reactions
include a replied email with a :-) or LOL , or a
forward on to further recipients. Interaction is
limited to the computer screen and for the most
part solitary. While preserving the text of a joke,
both context and variants are lost in internet
joking; for the most part emailed jokes are
passed along verbatim. [35] The framing of the
joke frequently occurs in the subject line: "RE:
laugh for the day" or something similar. The
forward of an email joke can increase the
number of recipients exponentially.
Internet joking forces a re-evaluation of social
spaces and social groups. They are no longer
only defined by physical presence and locality,
they also exist in the connectivity in
cyberspace. [36] "The computer networks appear
to make possible communities that, although
physically dispersed, display attributes of the
direct, unconstrained, unofficial exchanges
folklorists typically concern themselves
with". [37] This is particularly evident in the
spread of topical jokes, "that genre of lore in
which whole crops of jokes spring up seemingly
overnight around some sensational event …
flourish briefly and then disappear, as the mass
media move on to fresh maimings and new
collective tragedies". [38] This correlates with the
new understanding of the internet as an "active
folkloric space" with evolving social and cultural
forces and clearly identifiable performers and
audiences. [39]
A study by the folklorist Bill Ellis documented
how an evolving cycle was circulated over the
internet. [40] By accessing message boards that
specialised in humour immediately following the
9/11 disaster, Ellis was able to observe in real
time both the topical jokes being posted
electronically and responses to the jokes.
"Previous folklore research has been limited to
collecting and documenting successful jokes,
and only after they had emerged and come to
folklorists' attention. Now, an Internet-enhanced
collection creates a time machine, as it were,
where we can observe what happens in the
period before the risible moment, when attempts
at humour are unsuccessful". [41] Access to
archived message boards also enables us to
track the development of a single joke thread in
the context of a more complicated virtual
conversation. [40]
Joke cycles
Main category: Joke cycles
A joke cycle is a collection of jokes about a
single target or situation which displays
consistent narrative structure and type of
humour. Some well-known cycles are elephant
jokes using nonsense humour, dead baby jokes
incorporating black humour and light bulb jokes,
which describe all kinds of operational stupidity.
Joke cycles can centre on ethnic groups,
professions ( viola jokes ), catastrophes, settings
(…walks into a bar) , absurd characters (wind-up
dolls ), or logical mechanisms which generate
the humour ( knock-knock jokes). A joke can be
reused in different joke cycles; an example of
this is the same Head & Shoulders joke refitted
to the tragedies of Vic Morrow, Admiral
Mountbatten and the crew of the Challenger
space shuttle. [note 4][42] These cycles seem to
appear spontaneously, spread rapidly across
countries and borders only to dissipate after
some time. Folklorists and others have studied
individual joke cycles in an attempt to
understand their function and significance within
the culture.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To
get to the other side.
Joke cycles circulated in the recent past include:
Conditional joke
Bar jokes
Bellman jokes
Blonde joke , lawyer joke and Microsoft joke
cycles.
Challenger (Space Shuttle) jokes[43]
Chernobyl jokes[44]
Chicken jokes
Two cow jokes
Dead baby jokes [45]
East Frisian jokes in Germany
Essex girl joke cycle in the United
Kingdom [46]
Helen Keller joke cycle [47]
Irish jokes
Island jokes
Jew and Polack joke cycles[48]
Jewish American Princess and Jewish Mother
joke cycles[49]
Knock-knock jokes [50]
Lightbulb jokes [51]
Little Willie and Quadriplegic joke cycles[52]
Manta jokes
NASA joke cycle [53]
Newfie joke cycle in Canada [54]
Persian Gulf War jokes[55]
Polish jokes
Redneck jokes
Russian jokes
Viola jokes [56]
Wind-up doll joke cycle [57]
Yo Mama jokes
Sardarji jokes
Tragedies and catastrophes
As with the 9/11 disaster discussed above,
cycles attach themselves to celebrities or
national catastrophes such as the death of Diana,
Princess of Wales , the death of Michael
Jackson , and the Space Shuttle Challenger
disaster . These cycles arise regularly as a
response to terrible unexpected events which
command the national news. An in-depth
analysis of the Challenger joke cycle documents
a change in the type of humour circulated
following the disaster, from February to March
1986. "It shows that the jokes appeared in
distinct 'waves', the first responding to the
disaster with clever wordplay and the second
playing with grim and troubling images
associated with the event…The primary social
function of disaster jokes appears to be to
provide closure to an event that provoked
communal grieving, by signaling that it was time
to move on and pay attention to more
immediate concerns". [58]
Ethnic jokes
The sociologist Christie Davies has written
extensively on ethnic jokes told in countries
around the world. [59] In ethnic jokes he finds
that the "stupid" ethnic target in the joke is no
stranger to the culture, but rather a peripheral
social group (geographic, economic, cultural,
linguistic) well known to the joke tellers. [60] So
Americans tell jokes about Polacks and Italians,
Germans tell jokes about Ostfriesens, and the
English tell jokes about the Irish. In a review of
Davies' theories it is said that "For Davies,
[ethnic] jokes are more about how joke tellers
imagine themselves than about how they imagine
those others who serve as their putative targets…
The jokes thus serve to center one in the world
– to remind people of their place and to
reassure them that they are in it." [61]
Absurdities and gallows humour
A third category of joke cycles identifies absurd
characters as the butt: for example the grape,
the dead baby or the elephant. Beginning in the
1960s, social and cultural interpretations of
these joke cycles, spearheaded by the folklorist
Alan Dundes , began to appear in academic
journals. Dead baby jokes are posited to reflect
societal changes and guilt caused by
widespread use of contraception and abortion
beginning in the 1960s. [note 5][62] Elephant
jokes have been interpreted variously as stand-
ins for American blacks during the Civil Rights
Era[63] or as an "image of something large and
wild abroad in the land captur[ing] the sense of
counterculture" of the sixties. [64] These
interpretations strive for a cultural understanding
of the themes of these jokes which go beyond
the simple collection and documentation
undertaken previously by folklorists and
ethnologists.
Classification systems
As folktales and other types of oral literature
became collectibles throughout Europe in the
19th century (Brothers Grimm et al.), folklorists
and anthropologists of the time needed a
system to organise these items. The Aarne–
Thompson classification system was first
published in 1910 by Antti Aarne, and later
expanded by Stith Thompson to become the
most renowned classification system for
European folktales and other types of oral
literature. Its final section addresses anecdotes
and jokes, listing traditional humorous tales
ordered by their protagonist; "This section of the
Index is essentially a classification of the older
European jests, or merry tales – humorous
stories characterized by short, fairly simple
plots. …"[65] Due to its focus on older tale types
and obsolete actors (e.g., numbskull), the
Aarne–Thompson Index does not provide much
help in identifying and classifying the modern
joke.
A more granular classification system used
widely by folklorists and cultural anthropologists
is the Thompson Motif Index , which separates
tales into their individual story elements. This
system enables jokes to be classified according
to individual motifs included in the narrative:
actors, items and incidents. It does not provide
a system to classify the text by more than one
element at a time while at the same time
making it theoretically possible to classify the
same text under multiple motifs. [66]
The Thompson Motif Index has spawned further
specialised motif indices, each of which focuses
on a single aspect of one subset of jokes. A
sampling of just a few of these specialised
indices have been listed under other motif
indices . Here one can select an index for
medieval Spanish folk narratives, [67] another
index for linguistic verbal jokes, [68] and a third
one for sexual humour. [69] To assist the
researcher with this increasingly confusing
situation, there are also multiple bibliographies
of indices [70] as well as a how-to guide on
creating your own index. [71]
Several difficulties have been identified with
these systems of identifying oral narratives
according to either tale types or story
elements. [72] A first major problem is their
hierarchical organisation; one element of the
narrative is selected as the major element, while
all other parts are arrayed subordinate to this. A
second problem with these systems is that the
listed motifs are not qualitatively equal; actors,
items and incidents are all considered side-by-
side. [73] And because incidents will always
have at least one actor and usually have an item,
most narratives can be ordered under multiple
headings. This leads to confusion about both
where to order an item and where to find it. A
third significant problem is that the "excessive
prudery" common in the middle of the 20th
century means that obscene, sexual and
scatological elements were regularly ignored in
many of the indices. [74]
The folklorist Robert Georges has summed up
the concerns with these existing classification
systems:
It has proven difficult to organise all different
elements of a joke into a multi-dimensional
classification system which could be of real
value in the study and evaluation of this
(primarily oral) complex narrative form.
The General Theory of Verbal Humour or GTVH,
developed by the linguists Victor Raskin and
Salvatore Attardo, attempts to do exactly this.
This classification system was developed
specifically for jokes and later expanded to
include longer types of humorous narratives. [76]
Six different aspects of the narrative, labelled
Knowledge Resources or KRs, can be evaluated
largely independently of each other, and then
combined into a concatenated classification
label. These six KRs of the joke structure
include:
1. Script Opposition (SO) references the script
opposition included in Raskin's SSTH. This
includes, among others, themes such as real
(unreal), actual (non-actual), normal (abnormal),
possible (impossible).
2. Logical Mechanism (LM) refers to the
mechanism which connects the different scripts
in the joke. These can range from a simple
verbal technique like a pun to more complex
LMs such as faulty logic or false analogies.
3. Situation (SI) can include objects, activities,
instruments, props needed to tell the story.
4. Target (TA) identifies the actor(s) who
become the "butt" of the joke. This labelling
serves to develop and solidify stereotypes of
ethnic groups, professions, etc.
5. Narrative strategy (NS) addresses the
narrative format of the joke, as either a simple
narrative, a dialogue, or a riddle. It attempts to
classify the different genres and subgenres of
verbal humour. In a subsequent study Attardo
expands the NS to include oral and printed
humorous narratives of any length, not just
jokes. [76]
6. Language (LA) "…contains all the information
necessary for the verbalization of a text. It is
responsible for the exact wording …and for the
placement of the functional elements." [77]
As development of the GTVH progressed, a
hierarchy of the KRs was established to partially
restrict the options for lower level KRs
depending on the KRs defined above them. For
example, a lightbulb joke (SI) will always be in
the form of a riddle (NS). Outside of these
restrictions, the KRs can create a multitude of
combinations, enabling a researcher to select
jokes for analysis which contain only one or two
defined KRs. It also allows for an evaluation of
the similarity or dissimilarity of jokes depending
on the similarity of their labels. "The GTVH
presents itself as a mechanism … of generating
[or describing] an infinite number of jokes by
combining the various values that each
parameter can take. … Descriptively, to analyze a
joke in the GTVH consists of listing the values
of the 6 KRs (with the caveat that TA and LM
may be empty)." [78] This classification system
provides a functional multi-dimensional label for
any joke, and indeed any verbal humour.
Joke and humour research
Many academic disciplines lay claim to the
study of jokes (and other forms of humour) as
within their purview. Fortunately there are enough
jokes, good, bad and worse, to go around.
Unfortunately the studies of jokes from each of
the interested disciplines brings to mind the tale
of the blind men and an elephant where the
observations, although accurate reflections of
their own competent methodological inquiry,
frequently fail to grasp the beast in its entirety.
This attests to the joke as a traditional narrative
form which is indeed complex, concise and
complete in and of itself. [79] It requires a
"multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross-
disciplinary field of inquiry"[80] to truly
appreciate these nuggets of cultural
insight. [note 6][81]
Psychology
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was one of the first modern
scholars to recognise jokes as an important
object of investigation. [82] In his 1905 study
Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious [83]
Freud describes the social nature of humour and
illustrates his text with many examples of
contemporary Viennese jokes. [84] His work is
particularly noteworthy in this context because
Freud distinguishes in his writings between
jokes, humour and the comic. [85] These are
distinctions which become easily blurred in many
subsequent studies where everything funny tends
to be gathered under the umbrella term of
"humour", making for a much more diffuse
discussion.
Since the publication of Freud's study,
psychologists have continued to explore humour
and jokes in their quest to explain, predict and
control an individual's "sense of humour". Why
do people laugh? Why do people find something
funny? Can jokes predict character, or vice versa,
can character predict the jokes an individual
laughs at? What is a "sense of humour"? A
current review of the popular magazine
Psychology Today lists over 200 articles
discussing various aspects of humour; in
psychospeak[ neologism?] the subject area has
become both an emotion to measure and a tool
to use in diagnostics and treatment. A new
psychological assessment tool, the Values in
Action Inventory developed by the American
psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin
Seligman includes humour (and playfulness) as
one of the core character strengths of an
individual. As such, it could be a good predictor
of life satisfaction. [86] For psychologists, it
would be useful to measure both how much of
this strength an individual has and how it can be
measurably increased.
A 2007 survey of existing tools to measure
humour identified more than 60 psychological
measurement instruments. [87] These
measurement tools use many different
approaches to quantify humour along with its
related states and traits. There are tools to
measure an individual's physical response by
their smile ; the Facial Action Coding System
(FACS) is one of several tools used to identify
any one of multiple types of smiles. [88] Or the
laugh can be measured to calculate the
funniness response of an individual; multiple
types of laughter have been identified. It must be
stressed here that both smiles and laughter are
not always a response to something funny. In
trying to develop a measurement tool, most
systems use "jokes and cartoons" as their test
materials. However, because no two tools use
the same jokes, and across languages this
would not be feasible, how does one determine
that the assessment objects are comparable?
Moving on, whom does one ask to rate the
sense of humour of an individual? Does one ask
the person themselves, an impartial observer, or
their family, friends and colleagues?
Furthermore, has the current mood of the test
subjects been considered; someone with a
recent death in the family might not be much
prone to laughter. Given the plethora of variants
revealed by even a superficial glance at the
problem, [89] it becomes evident that these
paths of scientific inquiry are mined with
problematic pitfalls and questionable solutions.
The psychologist Willibald Ruch ( de ) has been
very active in the research of humour. He has
collaborated with the linguists Raskin and
Attardo on their General Theory of Verbal
Humour (GTVH) classification system. Their
goal is to empirically test both the six
autonomous classification types (KRs) and the
hierarchical ordering of these KRs. Advancement
in this direction would be a win-win for both
fields of study; linguistics would have empirical
verification of this multi-dimensional
classification system for jokes, and psychology
would have a standardised joke classification
with which they could develop verifiably
comparable measurement tools.
Linguistics
"The linguistics of humor has made gigantic
strides forward in the last decade and a half and
replaced the psychology of humor as the most
advanced theoretical approach to the study of
this important and universal human faculty." [90]
This recent statement by one noted linguist and
humour researcher describes, from his
perspective, contemporary linguistic humour
research. Linguists study words, how words are
strung together to build sentences, how
sentences create meaning which can be
communicated from one individual to another,
how our interaction with each other using words
creates discourse. Jokes have been defined
above as oral narrative in which words and
sentences are engineered to build toward a
punchline. The linguist's question is: what
exactly makes the punchline funny? This
question focuses on how the words used in the
punchline create humour, in contrast to the
psychologist's concern (see above) with the
audience response to the punchline. The
assessment of humour by psychologists "is
made from the individual's perspective; e.g. the
phenomenon associated with responding to or
creating humor and not a description of humor
itself." [91] Linguistics, on the other hand,
endeavours to provide a precise description of
what makes a text funny. [92]
Two major new linguistic theories have been
developed and tested within the last decades.
The first was advanced by Victor Raskin in
"Semantic Mechanisms of Humor", published
1985. [93] While being a variant on the more
general concepts of the incongruity theory of
humour, it is the first theory to identify its
approach as exclusively linguistic. The Script-
based Semantic Theory of Humour (SSTH)
begins by identifying two linguistic conditions
which make a text funny. It then goes on to
identify the mechanisms involved in creating the
punchline. This theory established the semantic/
pragmatic foundation of humour as well as the
humour competence of speakers. [note 7][94]
Several years later the SSTH was incorporated
into a more expansive theory of jokes put forth
by Raskin and his colleague Salvatore Attardo. In
the General Theory of Verbal Humour , the SSTH
was relabelled as a Logical Mechanism (LM)
(referring to the mechanism which connects the
different linguistic scripts in the joke) and added
to five other independent Knowledge Resources
(KR). Together these six KRs could now function
as a multi-dimensional descriptive label for any
piece of humorous text.
Linguistics has developed further methodological
tools which can be applied to jokes: discourse
analysis and conversation analysis of joking.
Both of these subspecialties within the field
focus on "naturally occurring" language use, i.e.
the analysis of real (usually recorded)
conversations. One of these studies has already
been discussed above, where Harvey Sacks
describes in detail the sequential organisation in
the telling a single joke. [95] Discourse analysis
emphasises the entire context of social joking,
the social interaction which cradles the words.
Folklore and anthropology
Folklore and cultural anthropology have perhaps
the strongest claims on jokes as belonging to
their bailiwick. Jokes remain one of the few
remaining forms of traditional folk literature
transmitted orally in western cultures. Identified
as one of the "simple forms" of oral literature by
André Jolles ( de ) in 1930, [2] they have been
collected and studied since there were folklorists
and anthropologists abroad in the lands. As a
genre they were important enough at the
beginning of the 20th century to be included
under their own heading in the Aarne–Thompson
index first published in 1910: Anecdotes and
jokes .
Beginning in the 1960s, cultural researchers
began to expand their role from collectors and
archivists of "folk ideas" [81] to a more active
role of interpreters of cultural artefacts. One of
the foremost scholars active during this
transitional time was the folklorist Alan Dundes.
He started asking questions of tradition and
transmission with the key observation that "No
piece of folklore continues to be transmitted
unless it means something, even if neither the
speaker nor the audience can articulate what that
meaning might be." [96] In the context of jokes,
this then becomes the basis for further research.
Why is the joke told right now? Only in this
expanded perspective is an understanding of its
meaning to the participants possible.
This questioning resulted in a blossoming of
monographs to explore the significance of many
joke cycles. What is so funny about absurd
nonsense elephant jokes? Why make light of
dead babies? In an article on contemporary
German jokes about Auschwitz and the
Holocaust, Dundes justifies this research:
"Whether one finds Auschwitz jokes funny or not
is not an issue. This material exists and should
be recorded. Jokes are always an important
barometer of the attitudes of a group. The jokes
exist and they obviously must fill some psychic
need for those individuals who tell them and
those who listen to them." [97] A stimulating
generation of new humour theories flourishes like
mushrooms in the undergrowth: Elliott Oring's
theoretical discussions on "appropriate
ambiguity" and Amy Carrell's hypothesis of an
"audience-based theory of verbal humor (1993)"
to name just a few.
In his book Humor and Laughter: An
Anthropological Approach , [34] the anthropologist
Mahadev Apte presents a solid case for his own
academic perspective. [ citation needed ] "Two
axioms underlie my discussion, namely, that
humor is by and large culture based and that
humor can be a major conceptual and
methodological tool for gaining insights into
cultural systems." [98] Apte goes on to call for
legitimising the field of humour research as
"humorology"; this would be a field of study
incorporating an interdisciplinary character of
humour studies. [99]
While the label "humorology" has yet to become
a household word, great strides are being made
in the international recognition of this
interdisciplinary field of research. The
International Society for Humor Studies was
founded in 1989 with the stated purpose to
"promote, stimulate and encourage the
interdisciplinary study of humour; to support and
cooperate with local, national, and international
organizations having similar purposes; to
organize and arrange meetings; and to issue and
encourage publications concerning the purpose
of the society." It also publishes Humor:
International Journal of Humor Research and
holds yearly conferences to promote and inform
its speciality.
Computational humour
Computational humour is a new field of study
which uses computers to model humour; [100] it
bridges the disciplines of computational
linguistics and artificial intelligence . A primary
ambition of this field is to develop computer
programs which can both generate a joke and
recognise a text snippet as a joke. Early
programming attempts have dealt almost
exclusively with punning because this lends itself
to simple straightforward rules. These primitive
programs display no intelligence; instead they
work off a template with a finite set of pre-
defined punning options upon which to build.
More sophisticated computer joke programs
have yet to be developed. Based on our
understanding of the SSTH / GTVH humour
theories, it is easy to see why. The linguistic
scripts (a.k.a. frames) referenced in these
theories include, for any given word, a "large
chunk of semantic information surrounding the
word and evoked by it [...] a cognitive structure
internalized by the native speaker". [101] These
scripts extend much further than the lexical
definition of a word; they contain the speaker's
complete knowledge of the concept as it exists
in his world. As insentient machines, computers
lack the encyclopaedic scripts which humans
gain through life experience. They also lack the
ability to gather the experiences needed to build
wide-ranging semantic scripts and understand
language in a broader context, a context that any
child picks up in daily interaction with his
environment.
Further development in this field must wait until
computational linguists have succeeded in
programming a computer with an ontological
semantic natural language processing system. It
is only "the most complex linguistic structures
[which] can serve any formal and/or
computational treatment of humor well". [102]
Toy systems (i.e. dummy punning programs) are
completely inadequate to the task. Despite the
fact that the field of computational humour is
small and underdeveloped, it is encouraging to
note the many interdisciplinary efforts which are
currently underway. [103] As this field grows in
both understanding and methodology, it provides
an ideal testbed for humour theories; the rules
must firstly be cleanly defined in order to write a
computer program around a theory.
Physiology of laughter
Charles Darwin in his later
years.
In 1872, Charles Darwin published one of the
first "comprehensive and in many ways
remarkably accurate description of laughter in
terms of respiration, vocalization, facial action
and gesture and posture" (Laughter). [104] In this
early study Darwin raises further questions about
who laughs and why they laugh; the myriad
responses since then illustrates the complexities
of this behaviour. To understand laughter in
humans and other primates, the science of
gelotology (from the Greek gelos , meaning
laughter) has been established; it is the study of
laughter and its effects on the body from both a
psychological and physiological perspective.
While jokes can provoke laughter, laughter
cannot be used as a one-to-one marker of jokes
because there are multiple stimuli to laugher,
humour being just one of them. The other six
causes of laughter listed are: social context,
ignorance, anxiety, derision, acting apology, and
tickling. [105] As such, the study of laughter is a
secondary albeit entertaining perspective in an
understanding of jokes.
See also
Comedy portal
Folklore portal
List of humour research publications
Notes
1. ^ Generally attributed to Ed Wynn
2. ^ In 2008, British TV channel Dave
commissioned a team of academics, led by
humour expert Paul McDonald from the
University of Wolverhampton , to research the
world’s oldest examples of recorded humour.
Because humour may difficult to define their
condition was "a clear set-up and punch line
structure". In review, McDonald stated: "... jokes
have varied over the years, with some taking the
question and answer format while others are
witty proverbs or riddles. What they all share
however, is a willingness to deal with taboos
and a degree of rebellion. Modern puns, Essex
girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced
back to the very earliest jokes identified in this
research."
3. ^ NPR Interview with the authors Cathcart and
Klein can be found at https://www.npr.org/
templates/story/story.php?storyId=10158510
4. ^ How do we know that ___ had dandruff?
They found his/her head and shoulders on the
___.
5. ^ Contraceptive pills were first approved for
use in the United States in 1960.
6. ^ Our focus here is with the contemporary
state of joke research. A more extensive survey
of the history of various humour theories can be
found under the topic theories of humor .
7. ^ i.e. The necessary and sufficient conditions
for a text to be funny
References
Footnotes
1. ^ Hetzron 1991, pp. 65–66.
2. ^ a b Jolles 1930 .
3. ^ a b Joseph 2008 .
4. ^ a b c Adams 2008 .
5. ^ Beard 2014 , p. 185.
6. ^ Beard 2014 , pp. 186-188.
7. ^ a b Beard 2014 , p. 188.
8. ^ a b Ward & Waller 2000 .
9. ^ Lane 1905 .
10. ^ Cathcart & Klein 2007 .
11. ^ Berry 2013 .
12. ^ Raskin 1985 , p. 103.
13. ^ Attardo & Chabanne 1992 .
14. ^ Sacks 1974 , pp. 337–353.
15. ^ Dundes 1980, pp. 20–32.
16. ^ Bauman 1975 .
17. ^ Sims & Stephens 2005 , p. 141.
18. ^ Raskin 1992 .
19. ^ Ellis 2002 , p. 3; Marcus 2001 .
20. ^ Toelken 1996 , p. 55.
21. ^ Carrell 2008 , p. 308.
22. ^ Raskin 1985 , p. 99.
23. ^ Shultz 1976 , pp. 12–13; Carrell 2008,
p. 312.
24. ^ Coulson & Kutas 1998.
25. ^ Coulson & Kutas 2001, pp. 71–74.
26. ^ Attardo 2008 , pp. 125–126.
27. ^ Wild et al. 2003 .
28. ^ Sacks 1974 , p. 350.
29. ^ Dundes 1980, p. 23.
30. ^ Dundes 1980, pp. 23–24.
31. ^ Walle 1976; Oring 2008 , p. 201.
32. ^ Sims & Stephens 2005 , p. 39.
33. ^ Radcliffe-Brown 1940, p. 196.
34. ^ a b Apte 1985 .
35. ^ Frank 2009, pp. 99–100.
36. ^ Mason 1998 .
37. ^ Dorst 1990 , pp. 180–181.
38. ^ Dorst 1990 .
39. ^ Dorst 1990 , p. 183.
40. ^ a b Ellis 2002.
41. ^ Ellis 2002 , p. 2.
42. ^ Gruner 1997, pp. 142–143.
43. ^ Smyth 1986 ; Oring 1987 .
44. ^ Laszlo 1988.
45. ^ Dundes 1979.
46. ^ Davies 1998.
47. ^ Hirsch & Barrick 1980 .
48. ^ Dundes 1971.
49. ^ Dundes 1985.
50. ^ https://www.npr.org/blogs/npr-history-
dept/2015/03/03/389865887/the-secret-history-
of-knock-knock-jokes
51. ^ Dundes 1981; Kerman 1980.
52. ^ Davies 1999.
53. ^ Simons 1986; Smyth 1986 ; Oring 1987 .
54. ^ Davies 2002.
55. ^ Kitchener 1991; Dundes & Pagter 1991.
56. ^ Rahkonen 2000 .
57. ^ Hirsch 1964.
58. ^ Ellis 1991 .
59. ^ Davies 1990.
60. ^ Davies 2008, pp. 163–165.
61. ^ Oring 2000 .
62. ^ Dundes 1987, pp. 3–14.
63. ^ Dundes 1987, pp. 41–54.
64. ^ Oring 2008 , p. 194.
65. ^ Brunvand 1968 , p. 238; Dundes 1997 .
66. ^ Dundes 1997.
67. ^ Goldberg 1998 .
68. ^ Lew 1996 .
69. ^ Legman 1968 .
70. ^ Azzolina 1987.
71. ^ Jason 2000 .
72. ^ Apo 1997 .
73. ^ Dundes 1962.
74. ^ Dundes 1997, p. 198.
75. ^ Georges 1997, p. 111.
76. ^ a b Attardo 2001 .
77. ^ Attardo 1994 , p. 223.
78. ^ Attardo 2001 , p. 27.
79. ^ Attardo & Chabanne 1992 , p. 172.
80. ^ Apte 1988, p. 7.
81. ^ a b Dundes 1972 .
82. ^ Carrell 2008 , p. 304.
83. ^ Freud 1905.
84. ^ Oring 1984 .
85. ^ Morreall 2008 , p. 224.
86. ^ Ruch 2008 , p. 47.
87. ^ Ruch 2008 , p. 58.
88. ^ Furnham 2014 .
89. ^ Ruch 2008 , pp. 40–45.
90. ^ Raskin 1992 , p. 91.
91. ^ Ruch 2008 , p. 19.
92. ^ Ruch 2008 , p. 25.
93. ^ Raskin 1985 .
94. ^ Attardo 2001 , p. 114.
95. ^ Sacks 1974 .
96. ^ Dundes & Pagter 1987 , p. vii.
97. ^ Dundes & Hauschild 1983, p. 250.
98. ^ Apte 2002.
99. ^ Apte 1988.
100. ^ Mulder & Nijholt 2002.
101. ^ Raskin 1985 , p. 46.
102. ^ Raskin 2008 , p. 17/349.
103. ^ Hempelmann & Samson 2008 , p. 354.
104. ^ Ruch 2008 , p. 24.
105. ^ Giles & Oxford 1970; Attardo 2008 ,
pp. 116–117.
Bibliography
Adams, Stephen (2008). "Dead parrot sketch
is 1600 years old: It's long been held that the
old jokes are the best jokes - and Monty
Python's Dead Parrot sketch is no different" .
The Telegraph .
Apo, Satu (1997). "Motif". In Green, Thomas.
Folklore An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs,
Tales, Music, and Art. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-
CLIO. pp. 563–564.
Apte, Mahadev L. (1985). Humor and
Laughter: An Anthropological Approach . Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Apte, Mahadev (1988). "Disciplinary
boundaries in humorology: An anthropologist's
ruminations". Humor: International Journal of
Humor Research . 1 (1): 5–25. doi : 10.1515/
humr.1988.1.1.5 .
Apte, Mahadev (1988). "Disciplinary
boundaries in humorology: An anthropologist's
ruminations". Humor: International Journal of
Humor Research . 1 (1): 5–25. doi : 10.1515/
humr.1988.1.1.5 .
Apte, Mahadev L. (2002). "Author Review of
Humor and Laughter: an Anthropological
Approach" . Retrieved 10 August 2015.
Attardo, Salvatore (1994). Linguistic Theories
of Humor. Berlin, New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Attardo, Salvatore (2001). Humorous Texts: A
Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis . Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter.
Attardo, Salvatore (2008). "A primer for the
Linguistics of Humor". In Raskin, Victor.
Primer of Humor Research: Humor Research 8 .
Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
pp. 101–156.
Attardo, Salvatore; Chabanne, Jean-Charles
(1992). "Jokes as a text type". Humor:
International Journal of Humor Research:
Humor research east of the Atlantic. 5 (1/2):
165–176. doi : 10.1515/
humr.1992.5.1-2.165 .
Azzolina, David (1987). Tale type- and motif-
indices: An annotated bibliography . New York:
Garland.
Beard, Mary (2014), Laughter in Ancient Rome:
On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up ,
Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University
of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-95820-3
Bauman, Richard (1975). "Verbal Art as
Performance". American Anthropologist. New
Series. Wiley. 77 (2): 290–311. doi : 10.1525/
aa.1975.77.2.02a00030 . JSTOR 674535 .
Berry, William (2013). "The Joke's On
Who?" . Psychology Today (Feb 2013).
Bronner, Simon J., ed. (2007). The Meaning
of folklore: the Analytical Essays of Alan
Dundes. Logan, UT: Utah State University
Press.
Brunvand, Jan Harald (1968). The Study of
American Folklore. New York, London: W.W.
Norton.
Carrell, Amy (2008). "Historical Views of
Humor". In Raskin, Victor. Primer of Humor
Research: Humor Research 8 (PDF). Berlin,
New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 303–332.
Cathcart, Thomas; Klein, Daniel (2007). Plato
and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...
Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes . New
York: Penguin Books.
Coulson, Seana; Kutas, Marta (1998). "Frame-
shifting and sentential integration". USCD
Cognitive Science Technical Report. San Diego,
CA: Technical Report CogSci.UCSD-98.03. 4
(3–4).
Coulson, Seana; Kutas, Marta (2001). "Getting
it: Human event-related brain response to
jokes in good and poor comprehenders".
Neuroscience Letters . 316 . doi: 10.1016/
s0304-3940(01)02387-4 .
Davies, Christie (1990). Ethnic Humor Around
the World: A comparative Analysis .
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Davies, Christie (1998). Jokes and Their
Relation to Society. Walter de Gruyter.
pp. 186&ndash, 189. ISBN 3-11-016104-4 .
Davies, Christie (1999). "Jokes on the Death
of Diana". In Walter, Julian Anthony; Walter,
Tony. The Mourning for Diana . Berg
Publishers. p. 255. ISBN 1-85973-238-0 .
Davies, Christie (2002). "Jokes about Newfies
and Jokes told by Newfoundlanders". Mirth of
Nations. Transaction Publishers.
ISBN 0-7658-0096-9 .
Davies, Christie (2008). "Undertaking the
Comparative Study of Humor". In Raskin,
Victor. Primer of Humor Research: Humor
Research 8 . Berlin, New York: Mouton de
Gruyter. pp. 157–182.
Dorst, John (1990). "Tags and Burners, Cycles
and Networks: Folklore in the Telectronic
Age". Journal of Folklore Research .
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press. 27 (3): 61–108.
Douglas, Mary (1975). "Jokes". In Mukerji,
Chandra; Schudson, Michael. Rethinking
Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in
Cultural Studies. Berkeley, CA: University of
California.
Dundes, Alan (1962). "From Etic to Emic Units
in the Structural Study of Folktales". Journal of
American Folklore. 75 (296): 95–105.
doi: 10.2307/538171 . JSTOR 538171 .
Dundes, Alan (1971). "A Study of Ethnic Slurs:
The Jew and the Polack in the United States".
Journal of American Folklore. 84 (332):
186&ndash, 203. doi: 10.2307/538989 .
JSTOR 538989 .
Dundes, Alan (1972). "Folk ideas as units of
World View". In Bauman, Richard; Paredes,
Americo. Toward New Perspectives in
Folklore. Bloomington, IN: Trickster Press.
pp. 120–134.
Dundes, Alan (July 1979). "The Dead Baby
Joke Cycle". Western Folklore . 38 (3):
145&ndash, 157. doi: 10.2307/1499238 .
JSTOR 1499238 .
Dundes, Alan (1980). "Texture, text and
context". Interpreting Folklore. Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
pp. 20–32.
Dundes, Alan (1981). "Many Hands Make
Light Work or Caught in the Act of Screwing in
Light Bulbs". Western Folklore. 40 (3): 261–
266. doi: 10.2307/1499697 .
JSTOR 1499697 .
Dundes, Alan (October–December 1985). "The
J. A. P. and the J. A. M. in American
Jokelore". The Journal of American Folklore.
98 (390): 456&ndash, 475.
doi: 10.2307/540367 . JSTOR 540367 .
Dundes, Alan (1987). Cracking jokes: Studies
of Sick Humor Cycles & Stereotypes. Berkley:
Ten Speed Press.
Dundes, Alan, ed. (1991). "Folk Humor".
Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel: Readings
in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore.
University Press of Mississippi. p. 612.
ISBN 0-87805-478-2 .
Dundes, Alan (1997). "The Motif-Index and
the Tale Type Index: A Critique". Journal of
Folklore Research . Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 34 (3):
195–202. JSTOR 3814885 .
Dundes, Alan; Hauschild, Thomas (October
1983). "Auschwitz Jokes". Western Folklore.
42 (4). JSTOR 1499500 .
Dundes, Alan; Pagter, Carl R. (1987). When
You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators: More Urban
Folklore from the Paperwork Empire . Detroit:
Wayne State University Press.
Dundes, Alan; Pagter, Carl R. (1991). "The
mobile SCUD Missile Launcher and other
Persian Gulf Warlore: An American Folk Image
of Saddam Hussein's Iraq". Western Folklore.
50: 303–322. doi: 10.2307/1499881 .
Ellis, Bill (1991). "The Last Thing ... Said: The
Challenger Disaster Jokes and Closure" .
International Folklore Review. London (8):
110–124.
Ellis, Bill (2002). "Making a Big Apple
Crumble" . New Directions in Folklore (6).
Frank, Russel (2009). "The Forward as
Folklore: Studying E-Mailed Humor". In Blank,
Trevor J. Folklore and the Internet . Logan, UT:
Utah State University Press. pp. 98–122.
Freedman, Matt; Hoffman, Paul (1980). How
Many Zen Buddhists Does It Take to Screw In
a Light Bulb? . New York.
Freud, Sigmund (1905). Der Witz und seine
Beziehung zum Unbewußten . Leipzig, Vienna.
Furnham, Adrian (Oct 30, 2014). "The
Surprising Psychology of Smiling: Natural or
fake, each smile tells you something
important about its wearer" .
Georges, Robert A. (1997). "The Centrality in
Folkloristics of Motif and Tale Type". Journal
of Folklore Research . Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 34 (3).
JSTOR 3814885 .
Georges, Robert A.; Jones, Michael Owen
(1995). Folkloristics : an Introduction .
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
Giles, H.; Oxford, G.S. (1970). "Towards a
multidimensional theory of laughter causation
and its social implications". Bulletin of British
Psychology Society. 23: 97–105.
Goldberg, Harriet (1998). "Motif-Index of
Medieval Spanish Folk Narratives". Medieval &
Renaissance Texts & Studies . Tempe, AZ.
Gruner, Charles R. (1997). The Game of
Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We
Laugh . Piscataway, NJ: Transaction
Publishers. ISBN 0-7658-0659-2 .
Hempelmann, Christian; Samson, Andrea C.
(2008). "Cartoons: Drawn jokes?". In Raskin,
Victor. Primer of Humor Research: Humor
Research 8 . Berlin, New York: Mouton de
Gruyter. pp. 609–640.
Hetzron, Robert (1991). "On the structure of
punchlines". Humor: International Journal of
Humor Research . 4 (1): 61–108. doi: 10.1515/
humr.1991.4.1.61 .
Hirsch, K.; Barrick, M.E. (1980). "The Helen
Keller Joke Cycle". Journal of American
Folklore. 93 (370): 441&ndash, 448.
doi: 10.2307/539874 . JSTOR 539874 .
Hirsch, Robin (1964). "Wind-Up Dolls".
Western Folklore. 23 (2): 107&ndash, 110.
doi: 10.2307/1498259 . JSTOR 1498259 .
Jason, Heda (2000). "Motif, type, and genre:
a manual for compilation of indices & a
bibliography of indices and indexing". FF
Communications. Helsinki: Suomalainen
Tiedeakatemia. 273.
Jolles, André (1930). Einfache Formen.
Legende, Sage, Mythe, Rätsel, Spruch, Kasus,
Memorabile, Märchen, Witz . Halle (Saale):
Forschungsinstitut für Neuere Philologie
Leipzig: Neugermanistische Abteilung; 2.
Joseph, John (July 31, 2008). "World's oldest
joke traced back to 1900 BC" . Reuters.
Retrieved May 21, 2017.
Kerman, Judith B. (1980). "The Light-Bulb
Jokes: Americans Look at Social Action
Processes". Journal of American Folklore. 93:
454–458. doi : 10.2307/539876 .
Kitchener, Amy (1991). Explosive Jokes: A
collection of Persian Gulf War Humor.
Unpublished Manuscript.
Lane, William Coolidge, ed. (1905). Catalogue
of English and American chapbooks and
broadside ballads in Harvard University
Library . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
Laszlo, Kurti (July–September 1988). "The
Politics of Joking: Popular Response to
Chernobyl". The Journal of American Folklore.
101 (401): 324&ndash, 334.
doi: 10.2307/540473 . JSTOR 540473 .
Legman, Gershon (1968). Rationale of the
Dirty Joke: an Analysis of Sexual Humor. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
Lew, Robert (1996). An Ambiguity-based
theory of the linguistic verbal joke in English
(PDF). Poznań, Poland: unpublished thesis,
Adam Mickiewicz University.
Marcus, Adam (2001). "Laughter Shelved in
Medicine Cabinet: America's sense of humor
blunted by week of shock". Healingwell.com
(Sept. 19).
Mason, Bruce Lionel (1998). "E-Texts: The
Orality and Literacy Issue Revisited". Oral
Traditions . 13. Columbia, MO: Center for
Studies in Oral Tradition.
Mintz, Lawrence E. (2008). "Humor and
Popular Culture". In Raskin, Victor. Primer of
Humor Research: Humor Research 8 . Berlin,
New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 281–302.
Morreall, John (2008). "Philosophy and
Religion". In Raskin, Victor. Primer of Humor
Research: Humor Research 8 . Berlin, New
York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 211–242.
Mulder, M.P.; Nijholt, A. (September 2002).
"Humour Research: State of the Art" (PDF).
University of Twente, Netherlands: Center of
Telematics and Information Technology.
Retrieved 10 August 2015.
Nilsen, Alleen; Nilsen, Don C. (2008).
"Literature and Humor". In Raskin, Victor.
Primer of Humor Research: Humor Research 8 .
Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
pp. ???-???.
Oring, Elliott (1984). The Jokes of Sigmund
Freud: a Study in Humor and Jewish Identity .
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Oring, Elliott (July–September 1987). "Jokes
and the Discourse on Disaster". The Journal of
American Folklore. 100 (397): 276&ndash,
286. doi: 10.2307/540324 .
JSTOR 540324 .
Oring, Elliott (Spring 2000). "Review of Jokes
and Their Relation to Society by Christie
Davies". The Journal of American Folklore . 113
(448): 220. doi: 10.2307/541299 .
Oring, Elliott (2008). "Humor in Anthropology
and Folklore". In Raskin, Victor. Primer of
Humor Research: Humor Research 8 . Berlin,
New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 183–210.
Preston, Cathy Lynn (1997). "Joke". In Green,
Thomas. Folklore An Encyclopedia of Beliefs,
Customs, Tales, Music, and Art. Santa Barbara,
CA: ABC-CLIO.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1940). "On Joking
Relationships". Journal of the International
African Institute . Cambridge University Press,
International African Institute. 13 (332):
195&ndash, 210. JSTOR 1156093 .
Rahkonen, Carl (2000). "No Laughing Matter:
The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians' Folklore".
Western Folklore. 59 (1): 49&ndash, 63.
doi: 10.2307/1500468 . JSTOR 1500468 .
Raskin, Victor (1985). Semantic Mechanisms
of Humor. Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster: D.
Reidel.
Raskin, Victor (1992). "Humor as a Non-Bona-
Fide Mode of Communication" .
Raskin, Victor, ed. (2008). Primer of Humor
Research: Humor Research 8 . Berlin, New
York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Raskin, Victor; Attardo, Salvatore (1991).
"Script theory revis(it)ed: joke similarity and
joke representation model". Humor:
International Journal of Humor Research .
Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 4 (3–4):
293–348.
Ruch, Willibald (2008). "Psychology of
humor". In Raskin, Victor. Primer of Humor
Research: Humor Research 8 . Berlin, New
York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 17–100.
Sacks, Harvey (1974). "An Analysis of the
Course of a Joke's telling in Conversation". In
Bauman, Richard; Sherzer, Joel. Explorations in
the Ethnography of Speaking. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press. pp. 337–353.
Shultz, Thomas R. (1976). "A cognitive-
developmental analysis of humour". Humour
and Laughter: Theory, Research and
Applications. London: John Wiley: 11–36.
Simons, Elizabeth Radin (1986). "The NASA
Joke Cycle: The Astronauts and the Teacher".
Western Folklore. 45 (4): 261&ndash, 277.
doi: 10.2307/1499821 . JSTOR 1499821 .
Sims, Martha; Stephens, Martine (2005). Living
Folklore: Introduction to the Study of People
and their Traditions . Logan, UT: Utah State
University Press.
Smyth, Willie (October 1986). "Challenger
Jokes and the Humor of Disaster". Western
Folklore. 45 (4): 243&ndash, 260.
doi: 10.2307/1499820 . JSTOR 1499820 .
Sykes, A.J.M. (1966). "Joking Relationships
in an Industrial Setting". American
Anthropologist. New Series. Wiley, American
Anthropological Association. 68 (1):
188&ndash, 193. doi: 10.1525/
aa.1966.68.1.02a00250 . JSTOR 668081 .
Toelken, Barre (1996). The Dynamics of
Folklore. Logan, UT: Utah State University
Press.
Walle, Alf H. (1976). "Getting Picked up
without Being Put down: Jokes and the Bar
Rush". Journal of the Folklore Institute . Indiana
University Press. 13 (332): 201&ndash, 217.
JSTOR 3813856 .
Ward, A.W.; Waller, A.R., eds. (2000). "V. The
Progress of Social Literature in Tudor Times.
§ 9. Jest-books". The Cambridge History of
English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(1907–21). Volume III. Renascence and
Reformation . New York: BARTLEBY.COM.
Wild, Barbara; Rodden, Frank A.; Grodd,
Wolfgang; Ruch, Willibald (2003). "Neural
correlates of laughter and humour". Brain.
126: 2121–2138. doi: 10.1093/brain/
awg226 . PMID 12902310 .
External links
The dictionary definition of joke at
Wiktionary
Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0
unless otherwise noted.
Terms of Use • Privacy • Desktop
Joke