According to relevance theory, irony comprehension invariably entails the identification of some opinion or thought and the identification of the speaker’s dissociative attitude. In this paper, it is argued that it is also essential for hearers to identify not only that propositional attitude, but also the affective attitude that the speaker holds towards the source of this echo so that an optimallyrelevant interpretive outcomeis achieved. This notion comprises feelings and emotions of a non-propositional quality which affect the propositional effects obtained (...) in ironical communication. The paper further argues for the need to incorporate non-propositional effects into the traditional propositional object of pragmatic research. (shrink)

A Relevance-Theoretic Classification of Jokes Relevance Theory pictures communication as an inferential activity that adjusts, in parallel, the explicit content of utterances, the implicated premises and conclusions that can be derived, and the right amount of contextual information needed to obtain them. When applied to jokes, a relevance-theoretic classification may be proposed depending on whether the humorist plays with the audience's inferential activity aimed at an explicit interpretation, with the audience's inference devoted to deriving implications or with their access to (...) the right amount and quality of contextual information needed to obtain relevant interpretations. In this paper three types of jokes are proposed which focus on these aspects. A fourth type is also added, but this time referred to broad contextual assumptions on social or cultural values of society that are targeted by humorists. (shrink)

Speakers of jokes are aware of the human cognitively rooted relevance-seeking inferential procedure and predict the interlocutor’s steps leading to a valid interpretation of the utterance in the joke. Specifically, speakers can predict the accessibility to certain information which builds up a proper scenario for understanding the joke, the inferential steps taken to turn the words uttered into contextualized meaningful propositions, and the awareness of cultural stereotypes regarding professions, nationalities, connoted places, sex roles, etc.. This inferred information is exploited to (...) generate humorous effects. In previous research, the Intersecting Circles Model was proposed. It comprises seven types of jokes depending on whether the joke only relies on one of or on combinations of them, which entails analyzing the extent to which play or do not play a role in the generation of humorous effects. In this paper, 1000 jokes are analyzed and fitted into a type or combinations of. Several interesting humor-generating patterns are also isolated inside the seven preliminary joke types covered by the Model. (shrink)