Recreating Humorous Split Compound Errors in Swedish by Using Grammaticality

Proceedings of the 16th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA-2007. Editors: Joakim Nivre, Heiki-Jaan Kaalep, Kadri Muischnek and Mare Koit. University of Tartu, Tartu, 2007. ISBN 978-9985-4-0513-0 (online) ISBN 978-9985-4-0514-7 (CD-ROM) pp. 389-393

The Narrative Structure of Ambiguity. A Semiotic Analysis of a Tawriya-Epigram by Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 794/1392)

This paper engages in a semiotic analysis of a tawriya-epigram by Šihāb al-Dīn b. al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 794/1392). Mamluk literature is renowned for its extended usage of figures of speech, above all the tawriya, ‘double entendre’. The goal of this articole is to shed light on the tawriya, taking into account the Arabic classical theory and presenting a new approach based on semiotics. The subject of my analysis is the most flourishing literary genre of the epoch: the epigram. Within the epigram, the tawriya plays a pivotal role. Its potential is not limited to a twofold reading of the text but rather goes further and creates a second text out from the first, both of which cooperate with one another and shed light upon their respective meanings. Therefore, the epigram by Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār is a construction of several texts, each of which is mutually linked and deeply-rooted in the social and physical environment depicted in the poem: the ḥammām

What Do You Meme? The Sociolinguistic Potential of Internet Memes

Users of the Internet have established a unique form of communication tool commonly used on social media platforms; these are referred to as Internet memes. The term meme, however, was conceived many years before its appropriation into an Internet sphere. Where memes are units of cultural information propagated like a virus from brain to brain, Internet memes are dynamic digital artifacts that can easily be created and quickly distributed to a large social group with the intention of communication. Internet memes are not static; rather their format inspires social interactions that allow them to be modified and reworked with an infinite amount of communicative outcomes. This paper offers an exploration of the different features of Internet memes, which are identified as creational/distributional, social, as well as communicative. When combined, these features in relation to each other constitute a sociolinguistic potential

Creativity, idea generation, improvisational humor, and product design

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-116).It is widely recognized that innovation and creativity is the new competitive battleground for product development firms. Engineers and product designers are now expected to be highly creative, prolific idea generators in addition to being analytically competent. Thus, it is of interest to study methods to improve a designer's idea generation capabilities. It is believed that wit, being spontaneous humor production, is strongly related to creativity as both involve making nonobvious connections between seemingly unrelated things. This thesis looks into the realm of humor and improvisational comedy to suggest means of enhancing creative output in blue-sky product design idea generation. We have found that the ability to quickly generate many ideas is strongly correlated (r2=.82) with being able to come up with a single, promising, creative idea. It was also found that, with appropriate training, individuals may learn to become more prolific idea generators. Furthermore, improvisational comedians were more proficient at new product idea generation than professional product designers, and methods for training comedians can be effectively adapted to product design idea generation. In a study where 84 participants (students, professional designers and improvisational comedians) took a cartoon caption humor test and a nominal product brainstorming test, we found that improvisational comedians on average produced 20% more product ideas and 25% more creative product ideas than professional product designers. Furthermore, the few individuals that were highly prolific in both creative product ideation and humorous cartoon caption production had an improvisational comedy background. Many of the games used in improvisational comedy training are intended to promote associative thinking. We designed an improvisational comedy workshop composed of these association-based games. A group of 11 subjects who participated in this workshop increased their idea output on average by 37% in a subsequent product brainstorming session. Our findings suggest that improvisational comedy games are a useful warm-up for idea generation, that prolific generation is not a domain-specific ability and that it is possible to teach creativity. Ultimately, this work can lead to the development of tools and methods that designers can use to improve their idea generation skills.by Barry Matthew Kudrowitz.Ph.D

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF STAND-UP COMEDY PERFORMANCES BY THREE FAMOUS AMERICAN COMICS

This research aimed at finding the rhetorical of narrative section based on Labov’s model and the stand-up comedy techniques which dominantly used by Jim Jefferies, Ricky Gervais, and Bill Burr on their performances. The observation checklist was used in this research. Fifteen different topics performance from each stand-up comedian were analyzed by using descriptive method, using quantitative as well as qualitative data. From the result it was found that three stand-up comedians used narrative section suggested by Labov. The narrative section is abstract, orientation, complicating actions, resolution, and coda. Also, the most frequent techniques used by three stand-up comedians are rule of three and one liner technique. Those techniques are the most effective technique that can trigger audience laughter. The last finding of this research, there are two common patterns created by three stand-up comedians based on Labov’s model of narrative sections

Linguistic-based Patterns for Figurative Language Processing: The Case of Humor Recognition and Irony Detection

El lenguaje figurado representa una de las tareas más difíciles del procesamiento del lenguaje natural. A diferencia del lenguaje literal, el lenguaje figurado hace uso de recursos lingüísticos tales como la ironía, el humor, el sarcasmo, la metáfora, la analogía, entre otros, para comunicar significados indirectos que la mayoría de las veces no son interpretables sólo en términos de información sintáctica o semántica. Por el contrario, el lenguaje figurado refleja patrones del pensamiento que adquieren significado pleno en contextos comunicativos y sociales, lo cual hace que tanto su representación lingüística, así como su procesamiento computacional, se vuelvan tareas por demás complejas. En este contexto, en esta tesis de doctorado se aborda una problemática relacionada con el procesamiento del lenguaje figurado a partir de patrones lingüísticos. En particular, nuestros esfuerzos se centran en la creación de un sistema capaz de detectar automáticamente instancias de humor e ironía en textos extraídos de medios sociales. Nuestra hipótesis principal se basa en la premisa de que el lenguaje refleja patrones de conceptualización; es decir, al estudiar el lenguaje, estudiamos tales patrones. Por tanto, al analizar estos dos dominios del lenguaje figurado, pretendemos dar argumentos respecto a cómo la gente los concibe, y sobre todo, a cómo esa concepción hace que tanto humor como ironía sean verbalizados de una forma particular en diversos medios sociales. En este contexto, uno de nuestros mayores intereses es demostrar cómo el conocimiento que proviene del análisis de diferentes niveles de estudio lingüístico puede representar un conjunto de patrones relevantes para identificar automáticamente usos figurados del lenguaje. Cabe destacar que contrario a la mayoría de aproximaciones que se han enfocado en el estudio del lenguaje figurado, en nuestra investigación no buscamos dar argumentos basados únicamente en ejemplos prototípicos, sino en textos cuyas característicasReyes Pérez, A. (2012). Linguistic-based Patterns for Figurative Language Processing: The Case of Humor Recognition and Irony Detection [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/16692Palanci

The humor of Christopher Moore

Diese Diplomarbeit analysiert den Humor des zeitgenössischen amerikanischen Schriftstellers Christopher Moore anhand seiner Romane "Coyote Blue", "Island of the Sequined Love Nun", "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal", "Fluke Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings" und "A Dirty Job". Der Autor wird in einem Anfangskapitel vorgestellt. Der folgende Abschnitt behandelt das Konzept von und die Geschichte des Ausdrucks "Humor", verschiedene Methoden dieses Phänomen zu kategorisieren und einen Überblick der Humortheorie der Griechen, der Lateiner, der Renaissance und der Neuzeit. Abschließend werden besondere Arten von Humor dargestellt. Die Besprechung der Primärliteratur beinhaltet eine allgemeine Analyse, einen generellen Vergleich der Protagonisten, Argumente, diese als "pikareske Heilige" ('picaresque saints') einzuordnen und eine Betrachtung der Funktion ihres Humors. In dem folgenden Abschnitt wird der Figurenhumor (character humor) anhand der Kategorien "der (fügsame) lüsternde Mann" ('the (pliable) lustful male'), "die (sexuell) überlegene Frau" ('the (sexually) superior female'), "der unglückseelige 'Beta-Mann'" ('the hapless 'Beta Male''), "der Besserwisser" ('the smart aleck'), "der Schwindler" ('the trickster') und "das exzentrische Gemüt" ('the eccentric mind') besprochen. Anschließend wird die Verwendung von Figuren als Repräsentationen weitverbreiteter nationaler, ethnischer, subkultur-spezifischer oder sexistischer Stereotypen untersucht. Der abschließende Abschnitt beschäftigt sich mit den in der Primärliteratur häufig angesprochenen Themen (Absurdität, das Makabre, vulgäre Sprache und Sex, Religion, Hoch- und Populärkultur). Die Arbeit endet mit der Betonung der wichtigen Rolle, die Moores komische Figuren, die Verwendung von Stereotypen, Sarkasmus, Situationsironie und Witze über Tabuthemen wie auch das Vorhandensein von Absurdität für die Erzeugung seines narrativen Humors spielen.In this diploma thesis, the humor of the American writer Christopher Moore is studied by the analysis of his novels 'Coyote Blue', 'Island of the Sequined Love Nun', 'Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal', 'Fluke Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings' and 'A Dirty Job'. In an initial section the author is introduced. The following chapter includes discussions of the concept and the history of the term 'humor', various methods of categorizing it and an outline of humor theory as laid out by the Greeks, the Latins, the Renaissance and modern times. This section concludes with the discussion of special types of humor. The examination of the primary literature includes a general analysis, a comparison of the protagonists, arguments for labeling them as 'picaresque saints' and a consideration of the function of their humor. In the successive section, the writer's character humor is analyzed by categorizing his figures as examples of 'the (pliable) lustful male', 'the (sexually) superior female', 'the hapless 'Beta Male'', 'the smart aleck', 'the trickster' or 'the eccentric mind'. Subsequently, the use of characters as representations of common national, ethnic, sub-culture or sexist stereotypes is examined. The final section focuses on prevalent topics (absurdity, the macabre, crude language and sex, religion, high and popular culture) found in the novels. The thesis concludes by stressing the importance of Moore's flawed comic characters, the use of stereotypes, sarcasm, irony, jokes about taboo topics and absurdity for the creation of his narrative humor

Linguistic Expressions of Pidgin in Nigerian Stand-up Comedy

This dissertation is a study of the comics’ lexical choices and how they achieve their goals with words. The comics’ choice of words is far from being incidental, superficial, or supplementary. Performers’ choices of words show how their ideas are embodied in language. That is to say, the effect of how a comedian uses words and humor strategies is vital for understanding the contextual meaning of jokes and how they appeal to logic and reason. The objectives are to identify and categorize lexical choices and interpret their denotative, connotative, and affective meanings. Based on the Incongruity Theory (Attardo, 1994) Data were obtained from videos on YouTube channels of two comedy shows, “AY Live” and “Night of a Thousand Laughs.” These comedy shows are the most widely viewed in the country and are held every year on national holidays in different cities in Nigeria and abroad. Five hours 23 minutes, and nine seconds of video were examined from 2017 to 2020 with 20 stand-up comedians performing in front of a live audience. The data from these shows will be listened to, transcribed using conversation analysis formalisms, translated to English (because NSCs use NPE for their performances), and subjected to the qualitative research method of analysis using Reis’ (2018) Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Analysis (PSA). The findings reveal the pattern NSCs used to form their jokes and that they used words in the basilectal register in the punchlines to create a surprise in the situations of static incongruity and the sequence of events for dynamic incongruity jokes. The results from this dissertation on NSCs\u27 word choice pointed to pedagogical implications for the instruction of stand-up comedy to help learners become professionals in the craft of stand-up comedy and entertainment to become more effective communicators and entertainers