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the theory of humor in English
Jul. 12th, 2020 08:08 pmЯ как-то уже излагал эту теорию в https://sab123.dreamwidth.org/523052.html , вот более длинная версия и по-английски:
I have built a comprehensive theory of humor! :-) What is the difference between dumb and funny? I’ve got the answer!
The way I see it, dumb simply doesn’t match the reality, while funny creates some alternative vision of the world that is self-consistent. In humor, the storyteller builds some alternative but self-consistent vision of the world, usually resulting from a tiny assumption. And the logical consequences from that little assumption turn out to be unexpected and incredible, but still fully logical within that viewpoint! It’s a little discovery of a slightly different reality, or of a view of reality. When this happens, we see it as funny.
But for humor to work, it’s absolutely necessary for the listener to re-create and rebuild that alternative viewpoint and chain of logic based on the clues told by the storyteller, from the limited information about the little assumption and incredible consequences. When we “don’t get” a joke a first and then “get” it later and it becomes funny, what happens is that we can’t build this alternative wold view at first but our brain keeps churning at it and finally manages to connect the dots, the wold view pops to life, and the joke becomes funny.
The other part that is absolutely necessary is for this viewpoint and logic to be self-consistent.
For these reasons the humor of professionals in some area cannot be understood and looks dumb to the non-professionals: they don’t have enough knowledge to rebuild that viewpoint and logic from the limited clues.
The other reason why some humor looks dumb is that the listener has more knowledge of the subject area than the storyteller. So what looks self-consistent for the storyteller is completely full of holes and falsehoods for the listener, and thus the listener sees it as inconsistent. But there still are some cases of jokes being funny in this situation, such as if a professional listener is also aware of a layperson’s stereotypical view of his professional field. Then the professional listener can still rebuild the logic of the joke with the layperson’s knowledge. That’s the case when we say “this is funny, but you know, this is not how things really work in reality”.
There is of course also a mix of the two situations, when the listener doesn’t have the knowledge to understand the logic of the joke but thinks that he does, and thus sees the valid logic of the storyteller as being not self-consistent.
The simplest case of humor is when someone shows bare buttocks or says “vagina” from the scene (you know, there is a whole musical built on this premise). The logic goes that this is not something normally done and indecent, but if it’s done then it’s an incredible thing happening, and it’s time to laugh. Unless of course you see nothing special in the word “vagina”.
The next easiest to follow humor is probably the physical comedy. It’s not the character’s misfortune that is funny, it’s the character making a tiny mistake (or a tiny attempt at optimization) that snowballs into the huge unintended and unexpected consequences. Since the whole logic is laid out visually, it’s easy to follow and recognize. Even the small children can understand it. It gets more complicated when the logic involves the character’s emotions and thinking, that the actor has to convey and the viewer to recognize (and that’s where a set of “standard conventions” helps).
Despite what they say in the Anglosphere, the puns are far from the simplest kind of humor. They need a strong command of the language to recognize the alternative meanings and to select, which one of them is the funniest. The beginner learners of a language generally can’t understand the puns at all, unless explained.
And there are lots of other kinds of humor. But for every kind I can think of, I find the same principle at work.
I have built a comprehensive theory of humor! :-) What is the difference between dumb and funny? I’ve got the answer!
The way I see it, dumb simply doesn’t match the reality, while funny creates some alternative vision of the world that is self-consistent. In humor, the storyteller builds some alternative but self-consistent vision of the world, usually resulting from a tiny assumption. And the logical consequences from that little assumption turn out to be unexpected and incredible, but still fully logical within that viewpoint! It’s a little discovery of a slightly different reality, or of a view of reality. When this happens, we see it as funny.
But for humor to work, it’s absolutely necessary for the listener to re-create and rebuild that alternative viewpoint and chain of logic based on the clues told by the storyteller, from the limited information about the little assumption and incredible consequences. When we “don’t get” a joke a first and then “get” it later and it becomes funny, what happens is that we can’t build this alternative wold view at first but our brain keeps churning at it and finally manages to connect the dots, the wold view pops to life, and the joke becomes funny.
The other part that is absolutely necessary is for this viewpoint and logic to be self-consistent.
For these reasons the humor of professionals in some area cannot be understood and looks dumb to the non-professionals: they don’t have enough knowledge to rebuild that viewpoint and logic from the limited clues.
The other reason why some humor looks dumb is that the listener has more knowledge of the subject area than the storyteller. So what looks self-consistent for the storyteller is completely full of holes and falsehoods for the listener, and thus the listener sees it as inconsistent. But there still are some cases of jokes being funny in this situation, such as if a professional listener is also aware of a layperson’s stereotypical view of his professional field. Then the professional listener can still rebuild the logic of the joke with the layperson’s knowledge. That’s the case when we say “this is funny, but you know, this is not how things really work in reality”.
There is of course also a mix of the two situations, when the listener doesn’t have the knowledge to understand the logic of the joke but thinks that he does, and thus sees the valid logic of the storyteller as being not self-consistent.
The simplest case of humor is when someone shows bare buttocks or says “vagina” from the scene (you know, there is a whole musical built on this premise). The logic goes that this is not something normally done and indecent, but if it’s done then it’s an incredible thing happening, and it’s time to laugh. Unless of course you see nothing special in the word “vagina”.
The next easiest to follow humor is probably the physical comedy. It’s not the character’s misfortune that is funny, it’s the character making a tiny mistake (or a tiny attempt at optimization) that snowballs into the huge unintended and unexpected consequences. Since the whole logic is laid out visually, it’s easy to follow and recognize. Even the small children can understand it. It gets more complicated when the logic involves the character’s emotions and thinking, that the actor has to convey and the viewer to recognize (and that’s where a set of “standard conventions” helps).
Despite what they say in the Anglosphere, the puns are far from the simplest kind of humor. They need a strong command of the language to recognize the alternative meanings and to select, which one of them is the funniest. The beginner learners of a language generally can’t understand the puns at all, unless explained.
And there are lots of other kinds of humor. But for every kind I can think of, I find the same principle at work.
