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The cognitive mechanisms 1 2 of adversarial humor 3 4 5 TONY VEALE, KURT FEYAERTS, and GEERT BROˆNE 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Abstract 13 In this paper, we provide an in-depth cognitive analysis of a specific humor 14 strategy we coin ‘‘trumping’’, a multi-agent language game that revolves 15 around the subversion of the linguistic forms of exchange. In particular, we 16 illustrate how, in a conversational setting, agents can ‘‘reflect’’ and ‘‘dis- 17 tort’’thelinguistic-conceptualconstrualofeachothers’utterances.Because 18 this reflection or parallelism in the trumping game can be situated on 19 di¤erent levels of linguistic organization, a multi-dimensional semantic- 20 pragmatic account is proposed. Using insights from cognitive linguistics, 21 we show that adversarial agents exploit the conceptual mechanisms under- 22 lying the opponent’s utterances in order to turn the tables in the humor 23 game. In doing so, an agent can trump an adversary by demonstrating a 24 ‘‘hyper-understanding’’ of the lexico-conceptual meaning of an opponent’s 25 utterance.Thissubversionofconstrualoperationslikemetaphor,metonymy 26 and salience leads to a sudden manipulation of the discourse space that has 27 been set up in the previous utterance(s) (Langacker 2001). In general, by 28 providing an analysis in terms of basic principles of semantic construal, we 29 arguethatacognitivelinguistictreatmentofhumorhasanecologicalvalid- 30 ity that is lacking inmost linguistic humor research. 31 32 Keywords: Adversarial humor; cognitive ecology; cognitive linguistics; se- 33 mantic construal; trumping. 34 35 36 1. Introduction 37 38 However one might speculate about the inner workings of humor, it re- 39 mainsaprimarilysocialphenomenon.Whileitmaybemeaningfultotalk Humor19–3(2006),305–338 0933–1719/06/0019–0305 DOI10.1515/HUMOR.2006.aaa 6WalterdeGruyter (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.305) 306 T. Veale etal. of private laughter, humor is at its most potent in a multi-agent setting, 1 andatitsmostpointedwhenproducedbyoneagentattheexpenseofan- 2 other. Adversarial humor is thus an important branch of humor research 3 sinceitallowscognitiviststounderstandandmodelthesocialinteractions 4 of humor in relation to the specific goals and motivations of the agents 5 that produce it. It is the nature of these interactions, in particular how 6 they exploit and subvertlinguistic norms, thatinterests us in this paper. 7 By definition, adversarial agents have competing interests, which can 8 produce conflicting communication goals if this competition is expressed 9 verbally. Furthermore, zero-sum goals, such as an argument concerning 10 the truth or falsity of a given proposition, can be advanced by undermin- 11 ing the competing goals of other agents or by undermining those other 12 agents themselves. To therefore understand the working of adversarial 13 humor, one must understand not only the specific communication goals 14 of the agents involved, but more significantly, one must also understand 15 the personal history that leads to an agent possessing those goals. This 16 makes adversarial humor an issue of encyclopedic proportions, where 17 the boundary between speaker and utterance is blurred to the point that 18 an integrated representation is required. The framework of cognitive lin- 19 guistics, with its dynamic account of meaning in terms of comprehensive 20 conceptualization, provides a number of methodological tools to tackle 21 these complexities. In this paper, one such representation, Langacker’s 22 (2001) model of meaning construction in discourse, is used as a method- 23 ological handle onthetreatment of adversarial humor. 24 To reduce the phenomenon to a more manageable level, it is useful to 25 demarcate a sub-trope that adheres to a well-defined usage pattern while 26 nonetheless exhibiting all the creativity of the phenomenon. To this end 27 we introduce a species of adversarial humor we call trumping, which can 28 be viewed as a form of multi-agent language game that generates its hu- 29 morouse¤ectthroughsubversionofthelinguisticformsoftheexchange.1 30 Furthermore, the particular type of trumping we analyze in this paper 31 exhibits a strong lexical connection between the utterances of di¤erent 32 agents, allowing us to investigate the workings of trumping in a way that 33 sheds light onthe broader phenomenonof adversarial humor. 34 35 36 1.1. The ecology of trumping humor 37 Since humor is undoubtedly a cognitive phenomenon, and verbal humor 38 in particular a linguistic phenomenon, it is natural to conclude that a 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.306) Cognitive mechanismsof adversarialhumor 307 cognitive linguistic approach to humor research should yield the deepest 1 and most coherent insights. However, if this position is to transcend the 2 vacuityofaplatitude,orworse,anideology,itisnecessarytoshowmore 3 concrete benefits of acognitive linguistic perspective. 4 In eschewing a strict modular view of cognitive function, cognitive lin- 5 guistics encourages theories to exhibit ecological validity. Humor does 6 notoperateinasocialoracognitivevacuum,soneithercanitbestudied 7 andtheorizedinisolationfromrelatedcognitivephenomenathatmayin- 8 fluence its function or share a common representational basis. In this re- 9 spect, humor occupies one point on a continuum of cognitive behaviors 10 with which it shares a family resemblance to greater or lesser degrees. 11 For instance, the form of adversarial humor we consider in this paper 12 has strong family resemblances to social forms of language such as 13 double-grounded insults (e.g.,referring to a surgeon as a ‘‘blunt scalpel’’) 14 andargumentationbymetaphor(e.g., ‘‘you sayallmenarepigs, but you 15 certainly seem to love bacon’’), and social forms of behavior such as role 16 reversal, competitiveness and one-upmanship. 17 Inparticular, the kind ofadversarialhumorwe considerherehas asits 18 logical coretheideathatone speakermay,linguistically speaking,snatch 19 victoryfrom thejawsofdefeatbyturningthetablesonanopponent. The 20 e¤ect of this reversal is to elicit not just a sense of victory in the agent it- 21 self, but a form of admiration from any observers, while perhaps earning 22 thegrudgingrespectoftheopponent.Soourreasonsforappreciatingthis 23 kind of humor in others more quick-witted than ourselves is related to 24 ourappreciationoftheunexpectedlast-minutetriumphofthosemorehe- 25 roic than ourselves (see also Gruner 1997). In this ecological view, di¤er- 26 entphenomena(humor,competition,etc.)arerelatedbyvirtueofsharing 27 acommonmechanismorsetofmechanisms,andbyvirtueofelicitingre- 28 lated e¤ectsin the participant (cheering, jeering,laughter, etc.). 29 This notion of turning the tables on an opponent is not just a motif of 30 adversarialhumor, but isindicative of a deeper mechanism that has been 31 studied both in humor research, in the guise of figure-ground-reversal in 32 the Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH, Attardo 1994, 33 2001a),andincognitivelinguisticsasthemechanismofconceptualprofil- 34 ing(Langacker1987).IntheGTVH,figure-groundreversalisseenasone 35 ofpossiblymanydi¤erentlogicalstrategiesormechanismsforgenerating 36 ahumorous e¤ect;arepresentative exampleistheclassofjokeswherean 37 easy solution to a problem is eschewed in favor of a ridiculously hard 38 (and thus, extremely stupid) solution, such as rotating an entire room 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.307) 308 T. Veale etal. aroundasockettoscrewinalight-bulb.Cognitivelinguistics,incontrast, 1 seesthefigure-grounddistinctionasmuchmorefundamentaltothework- 2 ings of thought. Thus, in the work of Langacker and others, the profiling 3 ofaconceptualstructuretohighlightcertainelementsmorethanothersis 4 seenascentraltothemechanismthatgiveswordstheirmeanings.Forin- 5 stance, one cannot define the concept of hypotenuse without first assum- 6 ing the existence of a conceptual structure that represents right-angled 7 triangles, and without secondly assuming the ability to foreground one 8 or more of the elements in the structure (e.g., the diagonal) while back- 9 grounding others.Thefact thatprofiledaspectsof astructure will appear 10 more salient than others allows linguistically-creative people to achieve 11 humorous misdirection, causing observers to focus on the profile (or fig- 12 ure)while theessenceof thejokegoesunmarked inthebasestructure (or 13 ground). 14 One of the basic tenets of the cognitive linguistic tradition then is that 15 the figure-ground distinction is given the status of a cognitive mechanism 16 that is neither ad-hoc nor specific to humor, but which instead applies to 17 each and every lexical-conceptual phenomenon. According to this view, 18 CLdescribesmeaning asadynamicvalueresidinginthetension between 19 alinguisticunit’sprofile(figure)anditsbase(ground).Whereastheprofile 20 (also ‘‘focus of attention’’) defines the entity designated by the linguistic 21 expression, the base represents the profile’s background, in which di¤er- 22 ent kinds of conceptual structures are activated with di¤erent degrees of 23 salience. It is this ability of cognitive linguistic treatments of humor to 24 tap into a powerful cognitive substrate that transcends humor while link- 25 ing it to a spectrum of related phenomena that provide these treatments 26 with an ecological validity that is generally missing in other accounts or 27 investigative frameworks. 28 29 30 1.2. Plan of thepaper 31 32 Our goal inthispaper isto investigate the complex interplay of speakers, 33 utterances and meanings in multi-agent humor by framing a particular 34 form of adversarial language game that we call ‘‘trumping’’. This lan- 35 guage game has the advantage of being su‰ciently circumscribed to per- 36 mitafocusedanalysis,while,inthehandsofcreativespeakers,beingsuf- 37 ficiently open-ended to be non-trivial and thus scalable to other forms of 38 humorous discourse. In e¤ect, trumping represents a ‘‘horizontal’’ rather 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.308) Cognitive mechanismsof adversarialhumor 309 than a ‘‘vertical’’ slice of humorous behavior that cross-cuts through the 1 phenomenon as awhole. 2 As noted under the rubric of cognitive ecology above, trumping shares 3 many features with other cognitive processes, whether humorous or oth- 4 erwise,thoughitisbestexploredinthecontextofadversarialinteraction. 5 Inthenextsectionthen,wepresentadiscussionofthemostrelevantpast 6 research onthe topic of adversarialhumor, before we consider, ina third 7 section, the various ways in which the core trumping pattern can be 8 instantiated.Wethenorganize theseinstancestocreateatypology ofdif- 9 ferent trumping strategies. This typology will reveal the most fruitful 10 trumping strategy on which to focus our analysis e¤orts, yielding a spe- 11 cific sweet-spot in the space of adversarial humor for us to investigate in 12 this and future papers. Our analysis will draw upon some powerful con- 13 cepts from the field of cognitive linguistics, to explain how connections 14 are drawn between the utterances of di¤erent agents, and how inferences 15 canbemadebetweenwhatanagentsaysandwhatanagentintends.Ina 16 fourth section, we present an inventory of these construal mechanisms, 17 before, in section on ‘‘complex construal’’, we show how these mecha- 18 nisms interact in complex ways to produce the humorous e¤ect in di¤er- 19 ent instances of trumping. Throughout, we emphasize the fact that none 20 ofthesemechanismsarehumor-specific,butareinsteadpartofthecogni- 21 tive ecology that humor occupies as one phenomenon among many. In 22 this vein, we conclude with some remarks on the overlap of these ideas 23 with the General Theoryof Verbal Humor (GTVH). 24 25 26 2. Relatedwork on adversarialhumor 27 28 The cognitive strategy of humorous trumping, and the concept of adver- 29 sarial humor in general, is in keeping with a number of insights from 30 previous humor research. Although exploring the common ground with 31 existing research would hopelessly go beyond the scope of the present 32 paper, some key notions need to be introduced that can be used as a 33 stepping-stone.2 34 Themultitudeofhumortheoriesdevelopedinmorethantwomillennia 35 of philosophical considerations on laughter and humor can generally be 36 dividedintothreemajorfamilies:thecognitivetheoriesthatgiveacentral 37 role to incongruity and its resolution (e.g. Kant, Schopenhauer, Koes- 38 tler, Suls); social theories that highlight the importance of aggression, 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.309) 310 T. Veale etal. disparagementandtheconfirmationofsuperiorityinhumor(e.g.,Hobbes, 1 Bergson, Gruner); and the psychoanalytical tension-release models in- 2 spired by their most well-known proponent, Freud.3 Although the influ- 3 ential linguistic humor theories developed byRaskin(the Semantic Script 4 Theory of Humor, or SSTH 1985) and Attardo (the General Theory of 5 Verbal Humor, or GTVH 1994, 1997, 2001a) do not fully belong to any 6 one of the three families, they do demonstrate a very clear a‰nity with 7 the family of incongruity-resolution theories. In essence, both the SSTH 8 and the GTVH are wedded to the central notion of semantic opposition, 9 as expressed by an overlap and subsequent shift from one semanticscript 10 to another, which presupposes an incongruity from the perspective of the 11 joke recipient. 12 Onecancertainlyarguewhetherthisperceivedoppositionisacauseor 13 merely an e¤ect in generating the humorous e¤ect. In either case how- 14 ever, when it comes to adversarial humor, social factors also seem to 15 play a central motivating role in the generation of the humorous e¤ect. 16 In a multi-agent setting with opponents competing in a game of verbal 17 thrusts and parries, wittiness becomes the symbol of intellectual and so- 18 cial superiority. Within this competitive view of wit as verbal fencing or 19 jousting, Gruner (1997) develops a game-theoretic account of humor in 20 which participants can be winners (those who laugh) or losers (those 21 who are laughed at). It is argued that even wordplay and punning, often 22 treated as ‘‘non-tendentious’’ (Freud 1905) or neutral cases of humor, fit 23 naturally into the formula of ‘‘laughing is winning’’. Despite the interest- 24 ingbasichypothesis,Grunerdoesnotprovideananalyticaltool,letalone 25 alinguistic one, for afine-grained description. 26 The literature on linguistic humor o¤ers slim pickings to those seeking 27 analytical approaches to the interactional, game-like aspects of humor 28 production(acriticismleveledbyKottho¤1998andNorrick1993among 29 others), not to mention the specific case of agents in a creative verbal 30 competition.Butdespitetheseriouslackoffoundationstobuildon,there 31 are some interesting concepts that crosscut the phenomena we are focus- 32 ing on. Davies (1984: 362) in her analysis of conversational joking styles, 33 refers to the thematic principle of contradiction, which is central in cases 34 of competitive humor types (e.g., ritual insulting). In one cited example, 35 participants jointly improvise and attack each other within the same joke 36 frame. Typical of this adversarial game is the expression of contradiction 37 through ‘‘parallelism across turns’’ (1984: 362), a feature that is essential 38 to the trumping strategy that will be discussed in the present paper. 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.310) Cognitive mechanismsof adversarialhumor 311 Basically,humorousinsultsconstituteakindofteasing,which,according 1 to Drew (1987: 233) can be discriminated from other interactional strat- 2 egies by three criteria: ‘‘(i) the teases are not topic-initial utterances, (ii) 3 they are all in some way a second, or a next, or a response to a prior 4 turn, almost always the adjacent prior turn, and (iii) that prior turn is 5 spoken by the person who is subsequently teased, in multiparty as well 6 as two-party talk’’. Most important in the context of the present paper is 7 the stipulation that teases are always a response to a prior utterance in a 8 given context, which squarely places teasing in the family of adversarial 9 humor types.4 Although Drew mentions the possibility of ‘‘going along 10 with the tease’’, meaning that a second speaker, the victim of the tease, 11 can continue on a line introduced by the teaser, his data do not permit a 12 rigorous analysis of this type of reaction. Rather, in the majority of his 13 examples, the recipient of the tease responds in a serious manner. In 14 contrast, the trumping language game requires the active humorous en- 15 gagement of the recipient, remaining within the same linguistic space of 16 the instigator and assiduously avoiding what Drew terms ‘‘po-faced re- 17 ceipts’’. By elaborating upon the same discourse space, the respondent 18 not only parries but fully repudiates the original thrust, showing that 19 even if one were to fully accept the instigator’s premises, his conclusions 20 arewithout merit. 21 Venturingbeyondtherealmofteasing,Curco´ (1998)o¤ersarelevance- 22 theoretic account that extends the view of humor as a response mecha- 23 nism, proposing that all types of intentional humor be seen as indirect 24 echoes. Curco´ (1998: 305f) argues that ‘‘a great amount of intentional 25 humor, if not all, consists to a large extent in implicitly making a specific 26 type of dissociative comment about a certain aspect of the world, or an 27 attributable thought. [...] [S]peakers lead hearers to entertain mental 28 representations that are attributable to someone other than the speaker 29 at the time of the current utterance, while simultaneously expressing to- 30 wards such representations an attitude of dissociation’’. In other words, 31 if a speaker is confronted with two radically contradicting assumptions 32 at a time (incongruity), the search for relevance leads one to inferentially 33 attribute one of the assumptions to another agent, and therefore disso- 34 ciate oneself from this assumption. In e¤ect, one can say that Curco´ con- 35 siders all humor to be adversarial, since opposing assumptions are attrib- 36 utedto di¤erentagentsin away thatcausesone tobecomethe subject of 37 criticism. For Curco´, incongruity is not a defining feature of humor, but 38 simply a means of invoking the additional processing e¤ort one needs to 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.311) 312 T. Veale etal. look beyond the purely propositional content of an utterance. Presum- 1 ably,anagentthatisattunedtothehumorouspotentialofwordsandcir- 2 cumstances does not need such prompting, making such agents the most 3 skilled usersof trumping. 4 Thisnecessarilyconciseandhighlyselectivesketchofpreviousworkon 5 the linguistics of adversarial humor serves as a point of departure from 6 which to study the specifics of the trumping game. We argue, however, 7 thattheinsightsderivedfromouranalyseshaveimplicationsforthestudy 8 of other types of adversarial (and even more generally, interpersonal) 9 humor as well. 10 11 12 3. Atypology of trumpingstrategies 13 14 Themetaphorofverbalfencing,commonenoughinadversarialcontexts, 15 goes some way towards capturing the productivity of trumping as a hu- 16 morous strategy. In essence, trumping occurs when an initial utterance 17 U by an agent S (the instigating speaker) evokes a counter-utterance U0 18 from a second agent H (the responding hearer), where U0 undermines U 19 (and thus S) not by mere contradiction or non-acceptance, but by reveal- 20 ing U to be fundamentally unsuited to the communication intent of S. 21 The following isa schematicview of thestrategy: 22 23 S OpenswithanutteranceUcontaining aspecific ideaXwhere Userves 24 a communicative goal G 25 (e.g., G¼self-praise, insult,persuasion,consolation, etc.) 26 H Respondswithan utterance U’containinganideaX’thatisparallel 27 to X so that U’ serves a competing or contrary communication goal 28 sG 29 U’subverts Uand H trumps S to the extent that X’is apropos to X 30 U0 must significantly parallel the speaker’s utterance U in some key as- 31 pect,whetherphonetic,lexical,structuralorconceptual,toachievetheef- 32 fect of neutralizing U using S’s own language choices. We shall consider 33 whatitmeansforoneutterancetoparallelanotherinmorepreciseterms, 34 but for now the key point is that without a substantial parallelism be- 35 tween U0 and U, H’s response does not subvert U but is at best a mere 36 refutation of U. Trumping is a form of impromptu wit whose humor 37 arises,atleastinpart,fromourappreciationofanagent’sverbalmastery 38 insubverting the languageof an adversary. 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.312) Cognitive mechanismsof adversarialhumor 313 Parallelism is the signature character of trumping as a humor strategy. 1 Adversarial exchanges are not always humorous, nor are they always in- 2 stances of trumping, even if they are humorous or linguistically creative. 3 For instance, the following is not an instance of trumping: 4 5 (1) S: (consoling) Every cloud has asilver lining. 6 H: (angry) What do you know,you idiot!?! 7 8 H is here clearly adversarial to S, yet (1) is not an instance of trumping 9 because H merely rebu¤s S without using the form or content of U 10 againstS.Merecontradictionordisagreementdoesnotconstitutetrump- 11 ing. In contrast, parallelism can support trumping even when the initial 12 utterance U is neither adversarial nor overtly provocative. Consider the 13 following exchange, usually attributed toMr.and Mrs. Winston Church- 14 illafter an election defeat in1945: 15 (2) S: (consoling tone) Perhaps it isa blessing in disguise, dear. 16 H: (angrytone) Well, it must be a bloody good disguisethen. 17 Whereas (1) can most generously be described as petulant rebuttal, (2) 18 rises to the level of humor precisely because H manages to use S’s figure 19 of speech—a stock metaphor often used as a hollow platitude—as a 20 weapon against the well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful S. Indeed, it is 21 possible to view H’s reply as a highly compressed reduction ad absurdum 22 for S’s argument: H begins by accepting S’s proposition (signaled by 23 ‘‘Well’’),whichleadshimtoexpresshiscontraryopinion(thatthereexists 24 no positive perspective on the situation) in terms of S’s metaphor (any 25 suchpositiveperspectiveissowellhiddenastobevirtuallynon-existent), 26 thereby reducing S’s utterance to absurdity. It is this ability of H to sub- 27 vert the particular metaphor employed by S, that makes H’s response so 28 witty.Thehumorof(2)arisesoutofacombinationofthisratherpointed 29 cleverness and the social dynamic of one agentdefeating another. 30 The seemingly innocuous use of the word ‘‘well’’ in (2) is actually of 31 some significance when considering the mechanics of humorous trump- 32 ing. One of the most socially cohesive aspects of trumping is that it pre- 33 supposes acceptance on the part of the hearer (H) of the premises on 34 which S bases the instigating attack. Tacit in this acceptance is the idea 35 that the hearer can defeat the speaker even using the linguistic weapons 36 (logical premises) the speaker himself has chosen. The e¤ect is to not 37 only counter the speaker’s conversational gambit, but to additionally 38 show that the speaker must surely be confused and inept, or at least 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.313) 314 T. Veale etal. under-informed, to work from such premises. Indeed, the hearer’s accep- 1 tanceneednotbesotacit,butmaybesoboldastohighlightthespeaker’s 2 own prejudices. For instance, consider (3): 3 4 (3) Sheri¤of Nottingham (S): You speak treason! 5 RobinHood (H): Fluently! 6 The riposte in (3) demonstrates not only an acceptance of the speaker’s 7 accusation,butaprouda‰rmationofit.Thee¤ectistwofold:first,pride 8 o¤ers an ‘‘o¤ensive defense’’ that blunts the speaker’s insult, since insults 9 are most often targeted at characteristics that one should find shameful; 10 second, the speaker’s implicit belief that treason is wrong (as would be 11 conveyed by a shocked tone of voice) is seriously questioned, which sug- 12 gests that the situation is more complex or subtle than the speaker can 13 comprehend. In this case, the suggestion is that when faced with corrupt 14 governance, patriotism and treason must be one and the same thing. 15 Parallelism is the key to the humorous e¤ect in these examples. Note 16 how in (2) the speaker utterance U and the hearer utterance U0 are con- 17 nected via the use of the word ‘‘disguise’’, while in (3) a connection is 18 forged via the adverbial ellipsis of ‘‘fluently’’ to ‘‘speak’’. Parallelism is 19 notasubstituteforincongruityintrumping,butrathertheframingdevice 20 through which incongruity can be focused and appreciated. In particular, 21 itisby aligningthecontentofdi¤erentutterances thattrumping achieves 22 its subversive goal, allowing the hearer to expropriate the speaker’s own 23 words and ideas and mould them to a contrary communicative goal. 24 However, parallelism is not an inherently structural operation, and is not 25 limited to the repetition of key words or the aping of syntactic form. The 26 diversity of forms that utterance parallelism can take provides the most 27 useful basis for organizing a typology of trumpingstrategies. 28 Weconsiderfirstthesimplestclassoftrumping,thosethatexploitaho- 29 mophonous parallelism between utterances. This general strategy relies on 30 the hearer being able to assign a di¤erent lexical interpretation to one or 31 more of the phonological chunks in the speaker’s initial utterance. In 32 other words, homophonous trumping relies on the speaker being able to 33 make a pun using the phonological material contributed by the speaker. 34 The strategy isillustrated by the following example: 35 (4) Chamberlain (S): I believe that Herr Hitler genuinely wants 36 peace. 37 Churchill (H): Yes, a piece of Poland, a piece of France, a 38 piece of... 39 (AutoPDFV77/6/0608:20) WDG(148(cid:1)225mm)TimesM J-1537Humor,19:3 PMU:H(A1)24/05/2006 pp.305–338 1537_19-3_05 (p.314)

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The cognitive mechanisms of adversarial humor TONY VEALE, KURT FEYAERTS, and GEERT BROˆNE Abstract In this paper, we provide an in-depth cognitive analysis of a
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