Relevance in Sitcom Discourse: The Viewer’s Perspective

• Authors: Wieczorek Magdalena

Abstracts

The present paper draws upon Sperber and Wilson’s ([1986] 1995) Relevance Theory to undertake a pragmatic analysis of situation comedy (sitcom) discourse. More specifically, special attention is paid to the cognitive interpretative paths the viewer needs to take in order to find a dialogue or monologue humorous. The analysis is premised upon the participation framework, which accounts for the bi-partite division of communication in fictional discourse: the character’s (fictional) layer and the recipient’s layer, the latter being in the centre of attention.

Keywords

EN

relevance; sitcom; discourse

• Publisher: Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw
• Journal: Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 27/2
• Pages: 127-142

Contributors

author

Wieczorek Magdalena

• Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Humanities

References

• Attardo, Salvatore.1990. “The Violation of Grice’s Maxims in Jokes.” Proceedings of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Ed. Kira Hall, Michael Meacham, and Richard Shapiro. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 355–362.
• Attardo, Salvatore. 1993. “Violation in Conversational Maxims and Cooperation: The Case of Jokes.” Journal of Pragmatics 19.6: 532–558.
• Attardo, Salvatore. 1994. Linguistic Theories of Humor. New York: Mouton.
• Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Brock, Alexander. 2011. “Bumcivillian: Systematic Aspects of Humorous Communication in Comedies.” Telecinematic Discourse: Approaches to the Language of Films and Television Series. Ed. Roberta Piazza, Monika Bednarek, and Fabio Rossi. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 263–280.
• Bubel, Claudia. 2008. “Film Audiences as Overhearers.” Journal of Pragmatics 40.1: 55–71.
• Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Curcó, Carmen. 1995. “Some Observations on the Pragmatics of Humorous Interpretations. A Relevance Theoretic Approach.” UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 7: 27–47.
• Curcó, Carmen. 1996a. “The Implicit Expression of Attitudes, Mutual Manifestness, and Verbal Humour.” UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 8: 89–99.
• Curcó, Carmen. 1996b. “Relevance Theory and Humorous Interpretations.” Automatic Interpretation and Generation of Verbal Humor. Ed. Joris Hulstijn, and Anton Nijholt. Enschede: University of Twente. 53–68.
• Curcó, Carmen. 1997. “The Pragmatics of Humorous Interpretations. A Relevance Theoretic Approach.” Ph.D. diss, UCL Department of Phonetics and Linguistics.
• Dynel, Marta. 2008. “There is Method in the Humorous Speaker’s Madness: Humour and Grice’s Model.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4.1: 159–185.
• Dynel, Marta. 2009. “Beyond a Joke: Types of Conversational Humour.” Language and Linguistics Compass. Semantics and Pragmatics 3: 1284–1299.
• Dynel, Marta. 2011. “I’ll Be There for You: On Participation-based Sitcom Humour.” The Pragmatics of Humour Across Discourse Domains. Ed. Marta Dynel. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 311–333.
• Dynel, Marta. 2013. “Humorous Phenomena in Dramatic Discourse.” The European Journal of Humor Research 1: 22–60.
• Fetzer, Anita. 2006. “Minister, We Will See How the Public Judges You. Media References in Political Interviews.” Journal of Pragmatics 38.2: 180–195.
• Forabosco, Giovannantonio. 1992. “Cognitive Aspects of the Humor Process: The Concept of Incongruity.” Humor 5.1-2: 45–68.
• Forabosco, Giovannantonio. 2008. “Is the Concept of Incongruity Still a Useful Construct for the Advancement of Humor Research?.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4: 45–62.
• Goff man, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Higashimori, Isao. 2011. “Jokes and Metarepresentations: Defi nition Jokes and Metalinguistic Jokes.” The Lacus Forum 36: 139–150.
• Hu, Shuqin. 2012. “An Analysis of Humor in The Big Bang Theory from Pragmatics Perspectives.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 2.6: 1185–1190.
• Jakobson, Roman. 1960. “Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics.” Style in Language. Ed. Thomas Sebeok. London: John Wiley& Sons. 350–377.
• Jodłowiec, Maria. 1991a. “The Role of Relevance in the Interpretation of Verbal Jokes: A Pragmatic Analysis.” Ph.D. diss, Jagiellonian University.
• Jodłowiec, Maria. 1991b. “What Makes Jokes Tick.” UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 3: 241–253.
• Jodłowiec, Maria. 2008. “What’s in the Punchline?” Relevant Worlds: Current Perspectives on Language, Translation and Relevance Theory. Ed. Ewa Wałaszewska, Marta Kisielewska-Krysiuk, Aniela Korzeniowska, and Małgorzata Grzegorzewska. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 67–86.
• Jodłowiec, Maria. 2015. The Challenges of Explicit and Implicit Communication: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
• Keith-Spiegel, Patricia. 1972. “Early Conceptions of Humor: Varieties and Issues.” The Psychology of Humor. Ed. Jeff rey H. Goldstein, and Paul McGhee. New York: Academic Press. 3–39.
• Larkin Galiñanes, Cristina. 2000. “Relevance Theory, Humour, and the Narrative Structure of Humorous Novels.” Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 13: 95–106.
• Larkin Galiñanes, Cristina. 2005. “Funny Fiction; or, Jokes and their Relation to the Humorous Novel.” Poetics Today 26.1: 79–111.
• Ma, Zejun, and Man Jiang. 2013. “Interpretation of Verbal Humor in the Sitcom The Big Bang Theory from the Perspective of Adaptation-Relevance Theory.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 3.12: 2220–2226.
• Marc, David. 2005. “Origins of the Genre: In Search of the Radio Sitcom.” The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Ed. Mary M. Dalton, and Laura R. Linder. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. 15–24.
• Martínez Sierra, Juan José. 2009. “The Relevance of Humour in Audio Description.” Intralinea 11.
• Mills, Brett. 2005. Television Sitcom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Mills, Brett. 2009. The Sitcom. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Morreall, John. 1983. Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany: State University of New York.
• Morreall, John. 2009. Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Neale, Steve, and Frank Krutnik. 1990. Popular Film and Television Comedy. London and New York: Routledge.
• Partington, Alan. 2006. The Linguistics of Laughter. A Corpus-assisted Study of Laughter-talk. Oxon: Routledge Studies in Linguistics.
• Perks, Lisa Glebatis. 2012. “The Ancient Roots of Humor Theory”. Humor 25.2: 119–132.
• Piskorska, Agnieszka. 2016. Po co rozmawiamy? O funkcjach komunikacji w ujęciu Teorii Relewancji. Kraków: Tertium.
• Raskin, Victor. 1985. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
• Roscoe, Jane, and Craig Hight. 2001. Faking It: Mock-documentary and the Subversion of Faculty. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Savorelli, Antonio. 2010. Beyond Sitcom: New Directions in American Television Comedy. Jeff erson, North Carolina and London: McFarland & Company.
• Shannon, Claude E., and Warren Weaver. 1949. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois.
• Solska, Agnieszka. 2012. “Relevance-Theoretic Comprehension Procedure and Processing Multiple Meanings in Paradigmatic Puns.” Relevance Theory. More than Understanding. Ed. Ewa Walaszewska, and Agnieszka Piskorska. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 167–182. Relevance in Sitcom Discourse: Th e Viewer’s Perspective 141
• Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. [1986] 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 2002. “Pragmatics, Modularity and MindReading.” Mind and Language 17: 3–23.
• Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 2008. “A Defl ationary Account of Metaphors.” The Cambridge Handb ook of Metaphor and Thought. Ed. Raymond Gibbs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 84–105.
• Suls, Jerry. 1972. “A Two-Stage Model for the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons: An Information Processing Analysis”. The Psychology of Humor. Ed. Jeff rey H. Goldstein, and Paul E. McGhee. New York and London: Academic Press. 81–100.
• Suls, Jerry. 1983. “Cognitive Processes in Humor Appreciation.” Handbook of Humor Research, Vol. 1. Ed. Paul E. McGhee, and Jeff rey H. Goldstein . New York: Springer-Verlag. 39–57.
• Turner, Graeme. 2001. “Genre, Hybridity and Mutations.” The Television Genre Book. Ed. Glen Creeber. London: British Film Institute. 6.
• Wieczorek, Magdalena. 2015. “Creative Ways to Achieve Humorous Eff ects in a Sitcom Discourse”. Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature. From Word to Discourse. Ed. Katarzyna Kozak, and Agnieszka Rzep kowska. Siedlce: Instytut Kultury Regionalnej i Badań Literackich im. Franciszka Karpińskiego. Stowarzyszenie, Instytut Neofi lologii i Badań Interdyscyplinarnych. Uniwersytet Przyrodniczo-Humanistyczny w Siedlcach. 133–146.
• Wilson, Deirdre, and Robyn Carston. 2007. “A Unitary Approach to Lexical Pragmatics: Relevance, Inference and Ad Hoc Concepts.” Pragmatics. Ed. Noel Burton-Roberts. London: Palgrave. 230–259.
• Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 2004. “Relevance Theory.” UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 14: 249–287
• Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 2012. Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Yus, Francisco. 1998. “Relevance Theory and Media Discourse: A Verbal-Visual Model of Communication.” Poetics 25: 293–309.
• Yus, Francisco. 2003. “Humour and the Search for Relevance.” Journal of Pragmatics 35.9: 1295–1331.
• Yus, Francisco. 2004. “Pragmatics of Humorous Strategies in El club de la Comedia.” Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. Ed. Rosina Márquez-Reiter, and Maria Elena Placencia. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 320–344.
• Yus, Francisco. 2005. “Dave Allen’s Stand-up Monologues: An Epidemiological Approach.” Thistles. A Homage to Brian Hughes. Volume 2: Essays in Memoriam. Ed. José Mateo, and Francisco Yus. Alicante: University of Alicante, Department of English Studies. 317–344
• Yus, Francisco. 2008. “A Relevance-Theoretic Classifi cation of Jokes.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4.1: 131–157.
• Yus, Francisco. 2012a. “Relevance, Humour and Translation.” Relevance Theory: More than Understanding. Ed. Ewa Walaszewska, and Agnieszka Piskorska. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 117–145.
• Yus, Francisco. 2012 . “Strategies and Eff ects in Humorous Discourse. The Case of Jokes.” Studies in Linguistics and Cognition. Ed. Barbara Eizaga-Rebollar. Berlin: Peter Lang. 271–296.
• Yus, Francisco. 2013a. “An Inference-Centered Analysis of Jokes: The Intersecting Circles Model of Humorous Communication.” Irony and Humor: From Pragmatics to Discourse. Ed. Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo, and Belen Alvarado-Ortego. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 59–82.
• Yus, Francisco. 2013b. “Analyzing Jokes with the Intersecting Circles Model of Humorous Communication.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 9.1: 3–24.
• Yus, Francisco. 2016. Humour and Relevance. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.