Page 20 - The Language of Humour

Unit two
‘I say, I say, I say’

The incongruity theory
The context for humour is crucial for determining whether an individual
finds something amusing or not. Even so, it is possible to examine the
features of language that have the potential to make people laugh. The
incongruity theory focuses on the element of surprise. It states that
humour is created out of a conf lict between what is expected and what
actually occurs in the joke. This accounts for the most obvious feature
of much humour: an ambiguity, or double meaning, which deliberately
misleads the audience, followed by a punchline.

‘Do you believe in clubs for young people?’
‘Only when kindness fails.’
(W.C.Fields)

It is reasonable to understand the word ‘clubs’ in the sense of ‘leisure
groups’, but the punchline shows that it was referring to ‘weapons’.
A dictionary definition of incongruous is: ‘inconsistent; not fitting
well together; disjointed; unsuitable’, which all sound like negative
terms. Unintentional humour may well be caused by some lapse in
expression, but deliberate humour is carefully planned, often to the exact
wording and timing. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
(Crystal 1987) David Crystal comments: ‘variations in self-expression
are most noticeable in those areas of language use where great care is
being taken, such as literature and humour.’ The lapse-in the previous
example—happens on the part of the tellee, who has failed to grasp the
intended sense. In this way humour breaks an important rule of
language use: that we should try to communicate as clearly as possible.
(Unit 3 looks at the ways in which the ‘co-operative principle’ can be