A Novel Model On Verbal Humor Perception Based On Incongruity Theories

The study of humor has a long history. Sociology, psychoanalysis and cognitive science are the three major approaches. In the resent five decades, cognitive linguistics approach has become the focus of study and has already yielded various fundamental and influential humor theories. The most important ones are: Incongruity-Resolution (IR) theory, Setup-Incongruity-Resolution (SIR) model and Conceptual Integration (CI) theory. These scientifically adequate theories are able to clarify how verbal jokes are structured, generated and perceived.In virtue of analyses and comparisons among the three theories, a developed model of IR theory is put forward, which is the integration of them. The developed model has the properties of having a clearer process, being more logically adequate and more intuitionistic, which are the advantages of the IR theory, SIR model and CI theory respectively. The developed model obviously has much more explanatory power in verbal joke analysis than the original IR theory.The developed model has its inherent defects as a theory in pure cognitive linguistics. In the aim of eliminating the defects, a parameter in psychology named Commitment Level to a SMP is integrated with the developed model, thus a novel model is yielded. The novel model is the integration of cognitive linguistic and psychology. It is the extension of the original IR model in its explanatory scope, power and in its scientific nature. The novel model is an attempt to construct an overall multidisciplinary model on verbal joke perception.Verbal jokes can be used to conduct psychological tests. In the thesis, sexist jokes are used as questionnaire and 344 postgraduate students are asked to complete the questionnaire. The result reveals that the perceived funniness of female disparaging jokes is in positive relation to their hostile views towards women. In this way, the pragmatic value of verbal jokes is ratified and the novel model is given empirical support.The originality is three-fold. First, we proposed a developed model of IR theory based on major incongruity theories. Second, a novel model of IR theory is generated by integrating a parameter from psychology to the developed model. Third, the pragmatic use of verbal jokes is explored. The empirical study proves the foundation of the novel model and lays the foundation for sociological studies on gender difference of university students in humor perception as well as attitudes towards women.