Page 63 - The Language of Humour

50 THE SHOCK OF THE NEW
game shows became less popular. Some original television shows like
Gladiators and Blind Date (ITV) have such a rigidly set format, and
catchphrases delivered with a knowing self-reference, that they could be
seen as parodies of themselves. The presenters, contestants and
audience are all laughing—a sort of ‘conservative mockery’, which
forestalls any further parody, perhaps.
Although it is possible to identify a range of purposes for humour, it
may not be clear what the writer’s intention was, and there is no
guarantee that the audience will receive it that way. So a further issue to
discuss is the effect of humour. The form of irony is particularly
vulnerable to misunderstanding, as it is: ‘an expression of meaning,
often humorous or sarcastic, by the use of language of a different or
opposite tendency’. Examples from literature give clear examples of
this. In A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, his proposition that the
famine in Ireland could be solved by eating babies was taken by some
readers at its face value. Understanding the force of irony involves
awareness of the language used and knowledge about the world.
Attention is brought to the form because there is something incongruous
about its use in that context. The mismatch between the language use
and intended meaning is often subtle, which means that irony may not
be perceived as such. The novels of Jane Austen use irony, both in the
narrators’ comments and in the words spoken by characters. Pride and
Prejudice opens with this statement:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

On the face of it, the sentence has an authoritative ring about it. Why
don’t readers take it at its face value? It sounds grand and philosophical
because of its formal register—complex sentence structure and abstract
terms, for example—but it is full of logical holes. This is partly because
of the overstatement: ‘universally’, ‘must be’ and the apparent paradox
between ‘a good fortune’ and ‘in want of’. To perceive this
contradiction, the reader also needs non-linguistic knowledge about the
society.
This discussion of parody, satire and irony concludes the units
dealing with the incongruity theory of humour. The following two units
examine other aspects which influence the audience’s response: the
target and the topic of humour.