Identifying humor in stand-up comedy: A preliminary study
Abstract
This paper describes a preliminary study examining how the audience of stand-up comedy approach humor analysis. By expanding the scope of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (Attardo 2001), it was possible to use the framework to aid and systematize the interpretation process, resulting in shifting the theory’s focus from humor production to humor perception.
The first part of the paper introduces the main premise of stand-up comedy. The second part is devoted to the theoretical aspects, namely the theory of humor. The third part discusses the methodology of the preliminary study: a two-step interpretation task done by four audience members. The fourth and the fifth sections present the results of the study and discuss the implications. The outcome of the analysis gives an understanding as to what the audience may focus on during the interpretation process, which allows for identification of differences in humor perception.
Keywords:
humor, stand-up comedy, General Theory of Verbal HumorReferences
Attardo, S. 2001. Humorous texts: A semantic and pragmatic analysis. De Gruyter Mouton. (Crossref)
Attardo, S. 2017. The general theory of verbal humor. In S. Attardo (ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and Humor, 126–142. Routledge. (Crossref)
Attardo, S., and V. Raskin. 1991. Script theory revis(it)ed: Joke similarity and joke representation model. Humor – International Journal of Humor Research 4(3–4): 293–347 (Crossref)
Bingham, S. C., and A. A. Hernandez. 2009. “Laughing matters”: The comedian as social observer, teacher, and conduit of the sociological perspective. Teaching Sociology 37(4): 335–352. (Crossref)
Brodie, I. 2014. A vulgar art: A new approach to stand-up comedy. University Press of Mississippi. (Crossref)
Gilbert, J. R. 2004. Performing marginality: Humor, gender, and cultural critique. Wayne State University Press.
Korolkovaite, I. 2017. 52 Of the funniest two-line jokes ever. In BoredPanda. Retrieved December 3, 2019 from https://www.boredpanda.com/funniest-two-line-jokes/
Koziski, S. 1984. The standup comedian as anthropologist: Intentional culture critic. The Journal of Popular Culture 18(2): 57–76. (Crossref)
Larkin-Galiñanes, C. 2017. An overview of humor theory. In S. Attardo (ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and humor, 4–16. Routledge. (Crossref)
Melton, S. 2016. A complete history of stand-up comedy in America. Retrieved November 8, 2019 from http://acomediansnotebook.com/2016/11/complete-history-stand-up-comedy-america-funny/
Minhaj, H. (Creator). 2017. Homecoming King. [Video file] Retrieved from: http://netflix.com
Mintz, L. E. 1998. Stand-up comedy as social and cultural mediation. In N. A. Walker (ed.), What’s so funny?: Humor in American culture, 193–204. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Noah, T. (Producer). 2017. Trevor Noah: Afraid of the dark. [Video file] Retrieved from: http://netflix.com
Raskin, V. 1979. Semantic mechanisms of humor. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 5: 325–335. (Crossref)
Rahman, J. 2004. It’s a serious business: The linguistic construction of middle-class white characters by African American narrative comedians. Ph.D diss., Stanford University.
Shlesinger, I. (Producer). 2018. Iliza: Elder Millennial. [Video file] Retrieved from: http://netflix.com
TEDx Talks. 2012. It’s only a story: Daniel Sloss at TEDxEaling. [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a-UUhW7-HU
Tsakona, V. 2013. Okras and the metapragmatic stereotypes of humour: Towards an expansion of the GTVH. In M. Dynel (Ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory, 28–48. John Benjamins Publishing Company. (Crossref)
Whitehall, J. (Writer). 2017. Jack Whitehall: At large. [Video file] Retrieved from: http://netflix.com
Zoglin, R. 2017. Stand-up comedy. In Brittannica. Retrieved November 8, 2019 from https://www.britannica.com/art/stand-up-comedy.
University of Białystok https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7359-0617
