It is all too often assumed that humour is the very effect of a text. But humour is not a perlocutionary effect in its own right, nor is laughter. The humour of a text may be as general a characteristic as a serious text's seriousness. Like serious texts, humorous texts have many different purposes and effects. They can be subdivided into specific subgenres, with their own perlocutionary effects, their own types of laughter (or even other reactions). Translation scholars need to be able to distinguish between various kinds of humour (or humorous effect) when comparing source and target texts, especially since the notion of "effect" pops up so frequently in the evaluation of humorous texts and their translations. In this special issue of The Translator, an attempt is made to delineate types of humorous effect, through careful linguistic and cultural analyses of specific examples and/or the introduction of new analytical tools. For a translator, who is both a receiver of the source text and sender of the target text, such analyses and tools may prove useful in grasping and pinning down the perlocutionary effect of a source text and devising strategies for producing comparable effects in the target text. For a translation scholar, who is a receiver of both source and target texts, the contributions in this issue will hopefully provide an analytical framework for the comparison of source and target perlocutionary effects.

In attempting to understand and explain various behaviour, events, and phenomena in their field, psychologists have developed and enunciated an enormous number of ‘best guesses’ or theories concerning the phenomenon in question. Such theories involve speculations and statements that range on a potency continuum from ‘strong’ to ‘weak’. The term theory, itself, has been conceived of in various ways in the psychological literature. In the present dictionary, the strategy of lumping together all the various traditional descriptive labels regarding psychologists ‘best guesses’ under the single descriptive term theory has been adopted. The descriptive labels of principle, law, theory, model, paradigm, effect, hypothesis and doctrine are attached to many of the entries, and all such descriptive labels are subsumed under the umbrella term theory. The title of this dictionary emphasizes the term theory (implying both strong and weak best guesses) and is a way of indication, overall, the contents of this comprehensive dictionary in a parsimonious and felicitous fashion. The dictionary will contain approximately 2,000 terms covering the origination, development, and evolution of various psychological concepts, as well as the historical definition, analysis, and criticisms of psychological concepts. Terms and definitions are in English. *Contains over 2,000 terms covering the origination, development and evolution of various psychological concepts *Covers a wide span of theories, from auditory, cognitive tactile and visual to humor and imagery *An essential resource for psychologists needing a single-source quick reference

The Encyclopedia of Humor: A Social History explores the concept of humor in history and modern society in the United States and internationally. This work’s scope encompasses the humor of children, adults, and even nonhuman primates throughout the ages, from crude jokes and simple slapstick to sophisticated word play and ironic parody and satire. As an academic social history, it includes the perspectives of a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, child development, social psychology, life style history, communication, and entertainment media. Readers will develop an understanding of the importance of humor as it has developed globally throughout history and appreciate its effects on child and adult development, especially in the areas of health, creativity, social development, and imagination. This two-volume set is available in both print and electronic formats. Features & Benefits: The General Editor also serves as Editor-in-Chief of HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research for The International Society for Humor Studies. The book’s 335 articles are organized in A-to-Z fashion in two volumes (approximately 1,000 pages). This work is enhanced by an introduction by the General Editor, a Foreword, a list of the articles and contributors, and a Reader’s Guide that groups related entries thematically. A Chronology of Humor, a Resource Guide, and a detailed Index are included. Each entry concludes with References/Further Readings and cross references to related entries. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and cross references between and among related entries combine to provide robust search-and-browse features in the electronic version. This two-volume, A-to-Z set provides a general, non-technical resource for students and researchers in such diverse fields as communication and media studies, sociology and anthropology, social and cognitive psychology, history, literature and linguistics, and popular culture and folklore.

Elliott Oring asks essential questions concerning humorous expression in contemporary society, examining how humor works, why it is employed, and what its messages might be. This provocative book is filled with examples of jokes and riddles that reveal humor to be a meaningful--even significant--form of expression. Oring provides alternate ways of thinking about humorous expressions by examining their contexts--not just their contents. Engaging Humor demonstrates that when analyzed contextually and comparatively, humorous expressions emerge as communications that are startling, intriguing, and profound.

Isn’t That Clever provides a new account of the nature of humor – the cleverness account – according to which humor is intentional conspicuous acts of playful cleverness. By defining humor in this way, answers can be found to longstanding questions about humor ethics (Are there jokes that are wrong to tell? Are there jokes that can only be told by certain people?) and humor aesthetics (What makes for a good joke? Is humor subjective?). In addition to humor in general, Isn’t That Clever asks questions about comedy as an art form such as whether there are limits to what can be said in dealing with a heckler and how do we determine whether one comedian has stolen jokes from another.

Few people associate law books with humor. Yet the legal world--in particular the American legal system--is itself frequently funny. Indeed, jokes about the profession are staples of American comedy. And there is actually humor within the world of law too: both lawyers and judges occasionally strive to be funny to deal with the drudgery of their duties. Just as importantly, though, our legal system is a strong regulator of humor. It encourages some types of humor while muzzling or punishing others. In a sense, law and humor engage a two-way feedback loop: humor provides the raw material for legal regulation and legal regulation inspires humor. In Guilty Pleasures, legal scholar Laura Little provides a multi-faceted account of American law and humor, looking at constraints on humor (and humor's effect on law), humor about law, and humor in law. In addition to interspersing amusing episodes from the legal world throughout the book, the book contains 75 New Yorker cartoons about lawyers and a preface by Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for the New Yorker.

Explores how humor can be explained across the various sub-disciplines of linguistics, in order to aid communication.

This is the first edited volume dedicated specifically to exploring humor in the academic world. It is a rich collection of essays by an international array of scholars representing various theoretical perspectives and practical orientations in the disciplines of Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Studies, and Translation, but all concerned with the interactional aspects of humor. The two main reasons behind the publication of this volume are, first, to continue the journey along the path towards full recognition of humor as a discipline worthy of research and assessment, and, second, to offer a new and integrating perspective on hu¬mor to showcase the wide range of dimensions that it offers. This book is sure to become an important reference and source of inspiration for scholars in the various subfields of Humor Studies: Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Studies, and Translation.

Surprising as it may seem, sometimes humans like being led up the garden path, which is thanks to the pleasurable feeling of surprise entwined with a humorous effect deception tends to afford. The central issue under investigation is the nature of short humorous texts in the form of one-liners and witticisms based on the “garden-path mechanism”. The monograph provides a survey of relevant linguistic research, recapitulating and assessing other authors’ theses in the context of their applicability in the analysis of garden-path humour. Discussions are conducted in the light of not only humour studies but also cognitive and pragmatic literature on human communication in general, with a view to presenting a meticulous description of short garden-path texts. The book should be of interest to anybody who finds humour research appealing, whether or not already familiar with this field. No background knowledge is necessary on the reader’s part, given that all relevant postulates and theories are revisited. Also, the author steers a clear course through many terminological and conceptual obstacles that can be encountered in the study of humour (e.g. verbal/non-verbal humour, ambiguity types, punning, etc.).