William O.
Beeman
BROWN UNIVERSITY
Humor
H
umor is a performative pragmatic accomplishment involving a wide
range of communication skills including, but not exclusively involv-
ing, language, gesture, the presentation of visual imagery, and
situation management. Humor aims at creating a concrete feeling of enjoy-
ment for an audience, most commonly manifested in a physical display
consisting of displays of pleasure, including smiles and laughter.
The basis for most humor is the setting up of a surprise or series of
surprises for an audience. The most common kind of surprise has since the
eighteenth century been described under the general rubric of "incongruity."
Basic incongruity theory as an explanation of humor can be described in
linguistic terms as follows: A communicative actor presents a message or
other content material and contextualizes it within a cognitive "frame." The
actor constructs the frame through narration, visual representation, or en-
actment. He or she then suddenly pulls this frame aside, revealing one or
more additional cognitive frames which audience members are shown as
possible contextualizations or reframings of the original content material.
The tension between the original framing and the sudden refraining results
in an emotional release recognizable as the enjoyment response we see as
smiles, amusement, and laughter. This tension is the driving force that un-
derlies humor, and the release of that tension—as Freud pointed out—is a
fundamental human behavioral reflex.
Humor, of all forms of communicative acts, is one of the most heavily
dependent on equal cooperative participation of actor and audience. The
audience, in order to enjoy humor, must "get" the joke. This means they
must be capable of analyzing the cognitive frames presented by the actor
and following the process of the creation of the humor.
Typically, humor involves four stages, the setup, the paradox, the denoue-
ment, and the release. The setup involves the presentation of the original
content material and the first interpretive frame. The paradox involves the
creation of the additional frame or frames. The denouement is the point at
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(1-2): 103-106. Copyright © 2000, American Anthropological
Association.
103
104 Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
which the initial and subsequent frames are shown to coexist creating ten-
sion. The release is the enjoyment registered by the audience in the process
of realization and the release resulting therefrom.
The communicative actor has a great deal to consider in creating humor.
He or she must assess the audience carefully, particularly regarding their
pre-existing knowledge. A large portion of the comic effect of humor in-
volves the audience's taking a set interpretive frame for granted and then
being surprised when the actor shows their assumptions to be unwarranted
at the point of denouement. Thus the actor creating humor must be aware
of and use the audience's taken-for-granted knowledge effectively. Some of
the simplest examples of such effective use involve playing on assumptions
about the conventional meanings of words or conversational routines. Co-
median Henny Youngman's classic one-liner "Take my wife . . . please!" is
an excellent example. In just four words and a pause, Youngman double-
frames the word take, showing two of its discourse usages: as an introduc-
tion to an example, and as a direct command/request The double framing
is completed by the word please. The pause is crucial. It allows the audience
to set up an expectation that Youngman will be providing them with an
example, which is then frustrated with his denouement. In this way the
work of comedians and the work of professional magicians is similar.
Humans structure the presentation of humor through numerous forms
of culture-specific communicative events. All cultures have some form of
the joke, a humorous narrative with the denouement embodied in a punch-
line. Some of the best joke-tellers make their jokes seem to be instances of
normal conversational narrative. Only after the punchline does the audience
realize that the narrator has co-opted them into hearing a joke. In other
instances, the joke is identified as such prior to its narration through a con-
versational introduction, and the audience expects and waits for the punch-
line. The joke is a kind of master form of humorous communication. Most
other forms of humor can be seen as a variation of this form, even non-ver-
bal humor.
Sigmund Freud theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression
and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is ful-
filled through the hostile joke, the second through the dirty joke. Humor
theorists have debated Freud's claims extensively. The mechanisms used to
create humor can be considered separately from the purposes of humor,
but, as will be seen below, the purposes are important to the success of
humorous communication.
Just as speech acts must be felicitous, in the Austinian sense, in order to
function, jokes must fulfill a number of performative criteria in order to
achieve a humorous effect and bring the audience to a release. These per-
formative criteria center on the successful execution of the stages of humor
creation.
The setup must be adequate. The actor must either be skilled in presenting
the content of the humor or be astute in judging what the audience will
assume from their own cultural knowledge, or from the setting in which
the humor is created. The successful creation of the paradox requires that
the alternative interpretive frame or frames be presented adequately and be
Humor 105
plausible and comprehensible to the audience. The denouement must suc-
cessfully present the juxtaposition of interpretive frames. If the actor does
not present the frames in a manner that allows them to be seen together,
the humor fails.
If the above three communicational acts are carried out successfully, ten-
sion release in laughter should proceed. The release may be genuine or
feigned. Jokes are such well-known communicational structures in most so-
cieties that audience members will smile, laugh, or express appreciation as
a communicational reflex even when they have not found the joke to be
humorous. The realization that people laugh when presentations with hu-
morous intent are not seen as humorous leads to further question of why
humor fails even if its formal properties are well structured.
One reason that humor may fail when all of its formal performative prop-
erties are adequately executed is—homage Freud—that the purpose of the
humor may be overreach its bounds. It may be so overly aggressive toward
someone present in the audience or to individuals or groups they revere;
or so excessively ribald that it is seen by the audience as offensive. Humor
and offensiveness are not mutually exclusive, however. An audience may
be affected by the paradox as revealed in the dnouement of the humor
despite their ethical or moral objections and laugh in spite of themselves
(perhaps with some feelings of shame). Likewise, what one audience finds
offensive, another audience may find humorous.
Another reason humor may fail is that the paradox is not sufficiently
surprising or unexpected to generate the tension necessary for release in
laughter. Children's humor frequently has this property for adults. Similarly,
the paradox may be so obscure or difficult to perceive that the audience
may be confused. They know that humor was intended in the communi-
cation because they understand the structure of humorous discourse, but
they cannot understand what it is in the discourse that is humorous. This
is a frequent difficulty in humor presented cross-culturally, or between
groups with specialized occupations or information who do not share the
same basic knowledge.
In the end, those who wish to create humor can never be quite certain
in advance that their efforts will be successful. For this reason professional
comedians must try out their jokes on numerous audiences and practice
their delivery and timing. Comedic actors, public speakers, and amateur
raconteurs must do the same. The delay of the smallest fraction in time, or
the slightest premature telegraphing in delivering the denouement of a hu-
morous presentation, can cause it to fail. Lack of clarity in the setup and in
constructing the paradox can likewise kill humor. This essay has not dealt
with written humor, but many of the same considerations of structure and
pacing apply to humor in print as to humor communicated face-to-face.
(See also control, genres, gesture, improvisation, metaphor, performativity,
poetry, theater, truth)
106 Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
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Department of Anthropology
Brown University
Providence, RI02912
william_beeman@[Link]