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 usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story,often with dialogue,and ends in a punch line,whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed;this can be done using a pun or other type of word play,irony or sarcasm,logical incompatibility,hyperbole,or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:
A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates in the final sentence,called the punchline…In fact,the main condition is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end. No continuation relieving the tension should be added. As for its being "oral," it is true that jokes may appear printed,but when further transferred,there is no obligation to reproduce the text verbatim,as in the case of poetry.
Humour or humor is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks,which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body,known as humours,controlled human health and emotion.
Blonde jokes are a joke cycle based on a stereotype of a dumb blonde woman.
Antoine Gerard Theodore "Toon" Hermans was a noted Dutch comedian,singer and writer.
A punch line concludes a joke;it is intended to make people laugh. It is the third and final part of the typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and the narrative which sets up for the punch line.
Sociology of language is the study of the relations between language and society. It is closely related to the field of sociolinguistics,which focuses on the effect of society on language. One of its longest and most prolific practitioners was Joshua Fishman,who was founding editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, in addition to other major contributions. The sociology of language studies society in relation to language,whereas sociolinguistics studies language in relation to society. For the former,society is the object of study,whereas,for the latter,language is the object of study. In other words,sociolinguistics studies language and how it varies based on the user's sociological background,such as gender,ethnicity,and socioeconomic class. On the other hand,sociology of language studies society and how it is impacted by language. As Trent University professor of global politics Andreas Pickel states,"religion and other symbolic systems strongly shaping social practices and shaping political orientations are examples of the social significance such languages can have." The basic idea is that language reflects,among several other things,attitudes that speakers want to exchange or that just get reflected through language use. These attitudes of the speakers are the sociologist's information.
In aesthetics,the concept of taste has been the interest of philosophers such as Plato,Hume,and Kant. It is defined by the ability to make valid judgments about an object's aesthetic value. However,these judgments are deficient in objectivity,creating the 'paradox of taste'. The term 'taste' is used because these judgments are similarly made when one physically tastes food.
Dirk Geeraerts is a Belgian linguist. He is professor emeritus of theoretical linguistics at the University of Leuven,Belgium. He is the founder of the research unit Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics (QLVL). His main research interests involve the overlapping fields of lexical semantics,lexicology,and lexicography,with a theoretical focus on cognitive semantics. His involvement with cognitive linguistics dates from the 1980s,when in his PhD thesis he was one of the first in Europe to explore the possibilities of a prototype-theoretical model of categorization. As the founder of the journal Cognitive Linguistics and as the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics,he played an instrumental role in the international expansion of cognitive linguistics. Geeraerts is one of the outspoken advocates of the implementation of empirical methodologies,such as corpus linguistics in cognitive linguistic research. He also argues for the involvement of more pragmatic elements such as contextual factors,lectal variation,and language history that influence the construal of word meanings and the choice of lexical items for concepts.
In sociology,distinction is a social force whereby people use various strategies—consciously or not—to differentiate and distance themselves from others in society,and to assign themselves greater value in the process. In Distinction:A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,Pierre Bourdieu described how those in power define aesthetic concepts like "good taste",with the consequence that the social class of a person tends to predict and in fact determine his or her cultural interests,likes,and dislikes.
Joshua Fishman was an American linguist who specialized in the sociology of language,language planning,bilingual education,and language and ethnicity.
Salvatore Attardo is a full professor at Texas A&M University–Commerce and was the editor-in-chief of Humor,the journal for the International Society for Humor Studies from 2002 to 2011. He studied at Purdue University under Victor Raskin and extended Raskin's script-based semantic theory of humor (SSTH) into the general theory of verbal humor (GTVH). He publishes in the field of humor in literature and is considered to be one of the top authorities in the area. He is also the author of Humor 2.0:How the Internet Changed Humor published by Anthem Press in 2023.
Although humor is a phenomenon experienced by most humans,its exact cause is a topic of heavy debate. There are many theories of humor which attempt to explain what it is,what social functions it serves,and what would be considered humorous. Although various classical theories of humor and laughter may be found,in contemporary academic literature,three theories of humor appear repeatedly:relief theory,superiority theory,and incongruity theory. These theories are used as building blocks for the rest of the theories. Among current humor researchers,there has yet to be a consensus about which of these three theories of humor is most viable. Some proponents of each theory originally claimed that theirs,and theirs alone,explained all cases of humor. However,they now acknowledge that although each theory generally covers its area of focus,many instances of humor can be explained by more than one theory. Similarly,one view holds that theories have a combinative effect;Jeroen Vandaele claims that incongruity and superiority theories describe complementary mechanisms that together create humor.
Humor:International Journal of Humor Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Walter de Gruyter on behalf of the International Society for Humor Studies. As of 2021,its editor-in-chief is Christian F. Hempelmann.
KU Leuven is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven,Belgium. Founded in 1425,it is the oldest university in Belgium and the oldest university in the Low Countries.
Humor styles are a subject of research in the field of personality psychology that focuses on the ways in which individuals differ in their use of humor. People of all ages and cultures respond to humor,but their use of it can vary greatly. There are multiple factors,such as culture,age,and political orientation,that play a role in determining what people find humorous. Although humor styles can be somewhat variable depending on social context,they tend to be a relatively stable personality characteristic among individuals. Humor can play an instrumental role in the formation of social bonds,enabling people to relate to peers or to attract a mate,and can help to release tension during periods of stress. There is a lack of current,reliable research that explores the impact of humor usages on others because it is difficult to distinguish a healthy humor usage from one that is unhealthy. Justifications for harmful versus benign humor styles are subjective and lead to varying definitions of either usage.
The September 11 attacks were a series of terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday,September 11,2001,in which nearly 3,000 people were killed. Jokes based on the events have been made in print and other media since soon after the attacks took place.
Monica Heller is a Canadian linguistic anthropologist and Professor at the University of Toronto. She was the president of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) from 2013 to 2015.
The history of humor on the Internet begins together with the Internet itself. Initially,the internet and its precursors,LANs and WANs,were used merely as another medium to disseminate jokes and other kinds of humor,in addition to the traditional ones. In lockstep with the progress of electronic communication technologies,jokers took advantage of the ARPANET,e-mail,Usenet newsgroups,bulletin board systems,etc,and finally the Whole World Wide Web. Gradually,new forms of humor evolved,based on the new possibilities delivered by electronic means of communication. A popular form of internet humour is found in the form of 'internet memes'. Reaction videos,where amusement is expressed through a person's response to something,are another prevalent form of humor unique to the internet.
Luc Sels is a Belgian sociologist.
