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Application of the General Theory of Verbal Humor to Texts in the Onion Application of the General Theory of Verbal Humor to texts in The Onion Christian Jarnæs Saude A thesis submitted to Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages UNIVERSITY OF OSLO 01.06.2018 II Application of the General Theory of Verbal Humor to texts in The Onion Christian Jarnæs Saude A thesis submitted to Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages University of Oslo 01.06.2018 © Christian Jarnæs Saude 2018 Application of the General Theory of Verbal Humor to texts in The Onion Christian Jarnæs Saude http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo III Abstract This thesis is an investigation of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) through the analysis of articles in the satirical news publication The Onion. The GTVH is a semantic/pragmatic joke representation theory, which proposes that all jokes production must draw from 6 interdependent parameters (knowledge resources). The theorists have since stated that the theoretic framework can be applied to longer humorous texts as well. The goal of this thesis is to investigate that claim. This thesis finds that the GTVH cannot be directly applied to other text types than jokes, because the formulation of the knowledge resources are too joke-centric. Certain Knowledge Resources only function as such in jokes, and others do not have any formal basis for identification. IV V Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my eternal gratitude to my supervisor Nicholas Elwyn Allott, whose clear feedback and constant availability was instrumental and much appreciated. He has gone well beyond his station for my sake. Second, I would like to thank the University of Oslo and the nation for granting me the opportunity to do this research. Also thank you to The Onion, not only for providing great entertainment, but also for providing an intuitive website with an open archive for me to paruse and abuse. Finally, I want to thank the scholars responsible for the Semantic Script Theory of Humor, the General Theory of Verbal Humor and the heated arguments regarding them. These authors have provided me with hours worth of simultaneous fascination, laughter and boredom. May they never quit their esoteric squabbles about research the general public would rather be without. Also thank you to the people closest to me: my family, my girlfriend Deyana and my closest friend Jakob. I am grateful for all the people in the world who affect me in big and small ways daily. VI VII Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 2 Theory ................................................................................................................................ 3 2.1 Theories of Humor....................................................................................................... 3 2.2 The Script Semantic Theory of Humor ....................................................................... 4 2.2.1 What is a Script? .................................................................................................. 5 2.2.2 Script Oppositeness .............................................................................................. 6 2.2.3 The joke according to the SSTH (the Doctor joke) .............................................. 6 2.3 The General Theory of Verbal Humor ........................................................................ 8 2.3.1 The Knowledge Resources ................................................................................... 8 2.3.2 The Knowledge Resource Hierarchy ................................................................. 11 2.4 Longer humorous texts .............................................................................................. 12 2.5 Idealization ................................................................................................................ 13 3 Method ............................................................................................................................. 14 4 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 15 4.1 Longer texts ............................................................................................................... 15 4.1.1 The difference between jokes and jokes ............................................................. 15 4.1.2 Articles in The Onion as joke-like texts ............................................................. 16 4.1.3 The Lobster-article ............................................................................................. 17 4.1.4 Punches and Jabs ................................................................................................ 21 4.1.5 Register humor and hyperdetermination ............................................................ 22 4.1.6 Punches or Jabs .................................................................................................. 24 4.1.7 The Grumblethor-article ..................................................................................... 25 4.2 Narrative Strategy ...................................................................................................... 28 4.2.1 The GTVH and narrative .................................................................................... 29 4.2.2 Narrative Strategy and the Onion ....................................................................... 30 4.3 Language ................................................................................................................... 31 4.3.1 The Family article .............................................................................................. 33 4.4 Target ......................................................................................................................... 34 4.4.1 Targets in jokes .................................................................................................. 34 4.4.2 Targets in longer texts ........................................................................................ 35 VIII 4.4.3 The John Kelly article ........................................................................................ 36 4.4.4 The issue with the ideal reader and the Target ................................................... 38 4.5 Situation ..................................................................................................................... 40 4.6 Logical Mechanisms .................................................................................................. 41 4.7 Script Opposition ....................................................................................................... 44 5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 46 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 47 Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 52 IX 1 Introduction We all know that there is no quicker way to empty a joke of its peculiar magic than to try to explain it—to point out, for example, that Lou Costello is mistaking the proper name Who for the interrogative pronoun who, and so on. And we all know the weird antipathy such explanations arouse in us, a feeling of not so much boredom as offense, as if something has been blasphemed. -- David Foster Wallace The Script Semantic Theory of Humor (SSTH) and the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) are two of the most influential linguistic theories of humor. They have been widely accepted as thorough formal accounts of the mechanisms driving jokes, and have served as jumping off points for much contemporary linguistic work done on humor. (Attardo, 2017b) They were first formulated on the basis of jokes, but they have since been utilized in order to understand verbal humor as it appears in all types of texts. This thesis is an investigation of the extended model and some theoretical claims posited by Attardo (2001). First and foremost, the proposals made regarding whether the GTVH is applicable to all humorous text-types or not. My points against the GTVH are not strictly concerning the formal validity of the theory as a theory of jokes. My arguments against the GTVH are about what has been lost in the transition of a theory of jokes to a theory of other humorous texts. The theory‘s ability to serve as a model for analysis of jokes is well established and partially empirically proven (Ruch, Attardo & Raskin, 1993), but its ability to serve as a model for other humorous texts has not truly been established. The proposed expansion to handle longer texts presented in Attardo (2001) is exclusively concerned with long-form narratives such as novels and sitcoms. It is my opinion that the differences between humor in jokes compared to other humorous texts are easier to identify and discuss in more joke-adjacent text types. I claim that certain aspects of humor have been lost in transition, due to the ambitious leap from short, simple texts to the eclectic novels analyzed in Attardo (2001). For this reason, I will utilize texts from The Onion to illustrate my points. The news parody genre has global appeal and takes many forms. Baym and Jones (2013) suggest that the main appeal of news parody is ―deconstructing
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