| In Book III of Aristotle's Rhetoric, he advocates using humor to “destroy” an opponent's argument. This use of humor as a rhetorical strategy is well-known even today; that humor is valued by the public, that it can be a bonding (or dividing) force (depending on its use), and that it is often employed without a true sense of how or why it is being employed is intriguing and worthy of study.; There are a range of humor theories, dating back to Plato, yet none of them satisfactorily address all the elements inherent in the usage of humor. Some will address how humor “works” (the Incongruity theory), some address the physiological ramifications of humor and laughter (the Release theory), and some outline the psychological benefits and detriments of humor usage (the Superiority theory). None of these theories address the fact that humor is necessarily a communicative act, and as such, is subject to the interplay of the speaker, listener, the purposes of each, the textual format and the rhetorical context in which the communication takes place. Given this, humor instances are ripe for rhetorical analysis.; In this work, the underlying assumptions of the major humor theories are explored, and, in discussing their implications, their individual impacts on the study of humor can be narrowed. Philosophers such as John R. Searle and sociology tracts such as The Social Construction of Reality by Berger and Luckmann are reviewed to provide what turns out to be the necessary conditions for the cognitive processing of humor as a specialized communicative act. This work then connects a classical yet expanded notion of the enthymeme to these theories, in that the ability to construct and perceive enthymemes is explained in the philosophical and sociological ideas as mentioned above.; Finally, the author explains how each of the prevailing humor theories can be adapted to become part of a larger, unified theory which includes the enthymeme and the cognitive and social ideas of Searle and Berger and Luckmann. In conclusion, the work provides an analysis of how jokes or other humor instances can be explained in rhetorical terms and ultimately offers a methodology by which humor can be examined as a rhetorical strategy. |
