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Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in Stand-Up Comedy

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Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in Stand-Up Comedy Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in Stand-up Comedy Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie der Philosophischen Fakultäten der Universität des Saarlandes vorgelegt von Jeannine Schwarz aus Saarlouis Dekan: Univ.-Prof. Dr. W. Behringer Erstberichterstatter: Herr Univ.-Prof. Dr. Neal R. Norrick Zweitberichterstatter: Herr Univ. Prof. Dr. Erich Steiner Tag der letzten Prüfungsleistung: 25. Januar 2010 A journey of a thousand li starts from where one stands. Lao Tzu, The Way of Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC-531 BC) A Jeanne et Roger Avec toute ma gratitude et un amour profond pour leur soutien sans faille Table of contents page numbers Acknowledgements..........................................1 Abstract (English)........................................3 Abstract (German).........................................5 1 General Introduction....................................8 2 History of Stand-up Comedy.............................17 3 Jerry Seinfeld.........................................24 4 Steven Wright..........................................28 5 Data...................................................32 6 Transcription Conventions..............................36 7 Humor Theories.........................................39 7.1. Incongruity Theories................................41 7.2. Hostility Theories..................................47 7.3. Release Theories....................................51 7.4. The General Theory of Verbal Humor..................56 I 7.4.1. The Semantic Script-based Theory of Humor (SSTH)..56 7.4.2. The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH).........58 8 Genres of Humor........................................63 8.1. The Internal Structure of Jokes.....................65 8.2. Characteristic Forms of Jokes.......................69 9 Stand-up Comedy........................................81 9.1. Differences between Stand-up Monologue and Conversational Dialogue.............................81 9.2. Differences between Joke Telling in Stand-up Comedy and Conversational Joke Telling.....................84 9.3. Joke Performance in Stand-up Comedy.................88 9.4. The Central Role of the Audience...................100 10 Joke Techniques......................................105 10.1. Paralanguage......................................105 10.2. Ridicule..........................................107 10.3. Satire............................................113 10.4. Power, Solidarity and Politeness..................114 11 The Use of Figurative Language in Stand-up Comedy....122 11.1. Wordplay, Puns and Ambiguity......................122 11.2. Implication and Allusion..........................131 11.3. Hyperbole.........................................133 II 12 Linguistic Features of Joke Telling..................138 12.1. Repetition........................................138 12.2. Formulaicity......................................140 12.3. Disfluencies......................................142 12.3.1. Pauses..........................................143 12.3.2. False Starts....................................144 12.4. Discourse Markers.................................145 12.5. Intonation........................................148 13 Analyzing Verbal Humor in Stand-up Comedy............150 13.1. Analyzing Verbal Humor in Jerry Seinfeld's I'm Telling You for the Last Time.....................155 13.1.1. Ridicule........................................156 13.1.2. Intonation and Paralanguage.....................187 13.1.3. Repetition......................................195 13.1.4. Hyperbole.......................................200 13.1.5. Wordplay and Punning............................213 13.1.6. Disfluencies....................................220 13.1.7. Direct Address to the Audience..................224 13.1.8. Transitions.....................................232 13.1.9. Summary.........................................237 13.2. Analyzing Verbal Humor in Steven Wright's I Have a Pony and I Still Have a Pony......................240 13.2.1. Ridicule........................................244 III 13.2.2. Hyperbole.......................................256 13.2.3. Wordplay and Punning............................258 13.2.4. Intonation and Paralanguage.....................263 13.2.5. Repetition......................................266 13.2.6. Disfluencies....................................271 13.2.7. Direct Address to the Audience..................279 13.2.8. Transitions.....................................286 13.2.9. Summary.........................................287 14 Development of Humor in Stand-up Comedy..............291 15 Conclusions..........................................318 16 References...........................................328 17 Appendix.............................................354 17.1. Transcription Conventions.........................354 17.2. Transcript Jerry Seinfeld: I'm Telling You for the Last Time.........................................357 17.3. Transcript Steven Wright: I Have a Pony...........402 17.4. Transcript Steven Wright: I Still Have a Pony.....422 17.5. German Summary....................................442 IV Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support and input of numerous people to whom I am deeply grateful. First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my PhD supervisor Prof. Dr. Neal R. Norrick for his considerable patience and willingness to encourage and reassure me during the times when I came to him with requests and queries, for his unfailing critical advice and guidance in developing ideas, and his excellent support throughout every stage of this work. My gratitude also goes to Prof. Dr. Erich Steiner for his willingness to accept the role of my co-supervisor. I also want to acknowledge how sincerely grateful I am to Prof. Dr. Patricia Oster-Stierle. I will never forget the comfort, strength, and courage I received from her during the final semesters of my studies, in particular the last months and weeks, which were the most difficult in my life. Her encouragement, warmth, and kindness helped me to regain my composure and self-confidence and find the strength to rise to the challenge of beginning and accomplishing this thesis. In addition, I wish to give my sincere thanks to Amanda Rooney, who helped me to fill in the seemingly 1 unintelligible gaps in my data and thus contributed indispensably to the progress of this study. I am also thankful to Joe Doherty, who devoted some of his time to discussing problematic aspects of my work and provided critical and invaluable suggestions. I also would like to express my deep appreciation to Mary Masters for her assistance with the proofreading of the final versions and for her steady encouragement to finish this project. My great respect and heartfelt thanks go to my beloved friends and colleagues who never let me down and were a necessary support throughout the thesis writing. I want to emphasize that it is impossible to list all of them. But you should know that you all deserve recognition, and I greatly appreciate all of you, who were so insightful and generous with your time while listening to me. I feel very indebted to you and will never forget your unreserved support during this project. Last, and most importantly, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my family in Germany and France, to my parents and host parents for their continued and unfailing love and support over years, and their endless faith in my ability to accomplish this work. To them, I dedicate this thesis. 2 Abstract (English) This study attempts to explore the ways in which stand-up comedians organize and perform their material in order to create humor, elicit laughter, and make the audience appreciate their performances. It also examines the audience's central role in comedians' organization and presentation of the material. In order to provide authentic material, performances by comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Steven Wright were transcribed and served as main data for the analytical part of this study. The creation of humor in stand-up comedy is seen as a combination of various linguistic features of joke telling such as wordplay and punning, hyperbole, repetitions, timing, and paralinguistic choices. In addition, the comedians develop a specific stage persona and create their own style of performing. Spontaneity and flexibility are shown to be two of the most important characteristics that a stand-up comedian must possess in order to give a successful performance. However, this contrastive analysis of the comedy created by two performers of very different character affirms the observation that successful humor in stand-up comedy depends neither on any specific type of stage persona nor on a specific performance style. Instead, it is created out of a comedian's use of a chain of various linguistic aspects of joke telling and in most cases out of 3 the incongruity revealed by the punch lines in the stories and jokes. Hence, this study not only represents a linguistic approach to humor, but also contributes to the field of discourse analysis, in particular when dealing with such features as repetitions, discourse markers, disfluencies, intonation, and so on. 4 Abstract (German) Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der linguistischen Analyse von Humor. Dabei wird der Hauptfokus auf die Analyse von stand-up comedy gelegt, einem Genre das im Deutschen dem Stegreifhumor mit Vertretern wie Mario Barth und Otto Walkes entspricht. Innerhalb der Studie
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