Presuppositions, “common sense,” and scripts
In proposing Script Theory, a major model seen to support Incongruity theory, Linguist Victor Raskin notes that
[M]any jokes are based on the knowledge of a presupposition shared by the speaker and the hearer(s) (327).
Our understanding of the sentence … [its meaning], depends among others, on the two sources, the lexicon (language) and our knowledge of certain things about the world we live in. (329).
Thus the premise is that the speaker and listeners have presupposed, shared understanding. He compares our knowledge of the “lexicon” to a dictionary, and “our knowledge of certain things” to an encyclopedia, but we store both the meanings of words and “cognitive structures” in our minds. Raskin labels the cognitive structures “common sense,” and later “scripts.”
“The scripts are … the “common sense” cognitive structures stored in the mind of the native speaker” (325)
The scripts are designed to describe certain standard routines, processes, [later, he includes “standard procedures, basic situations, (329)], etc., the way the native speaker views them and thus to provide semantic theory with a restricted and prestructured outlook into the extra-linguistic world. (325)
Overlap
As such, verbal humor
is the result of a partial overlap of two (or more) different and in a sense opposite scripts which are all compatible (fully or partially) with the text carrying this element (325).
Or later:
[M]uch of verbal humor depends on a partial or complete overlap of two or more scripts all of which are compatible with the joke carrying text (332).
The scripts must each make sense when applied to the text of the joke. Through examples he notes that the script shifts due to certain word use. For instance, in the example,
The Junior String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.
The word “played” is an indicator we can shift from the primary script, played music, to a secondary script, played sports against. While the set-up possessed the necessary indicators (i.e. it was “compatible” with both scripts), the punch line brings it home to the audience.
He admits the jokes and scripts are simple, but he’s merely trying to illustrate a point. In practice, both are much more complex, and the more complex the script, “quite often, the better is the joke” (334).
He further notes that the overlap can not be between just any two scripts, “The two overlapping scripts should be opposite in a certain sense” (333).
In his later work, Raskin proposes a set of possible categories:
- Actual/non-actual
- Normal/abnormal
- Possible/impossible
- Good/bad
- Life/death
- Obscene/non-obscene
- Money/no money
- High stature/low stature (1985, 113-114)
Such lists, he argues, are limited and culturally based, and there must be a cultural connection between the two scripts:
[O]ne cannot simply juxtapose two incongruous things and call it a joke, but rather one must find a clever way of making them make pseudo-sense together (Triezenberg, 537).
To be fair, when he says opposite, they don’t have to be diametrically opposed, merely incompatible, operating in different realms or registers. Playing music is a physical act, but the goal is harmony, playing sports is also a physical act, but the goal is often healthy competition.
Underlying Assumptions: Getting it
My problem with Script Theory is that it assumes certain elements of intentionality, which I’ve discussed before as the assumption that the comic’s only goal is to create humor. Here, the assumption is that the comic wants to create humor in specific ways, and that there are a finite number of them. Therefore, it’s the audience’s job to “get the joke.”
“Getting” the scripts
So to take Raskin’s “Brahms” joke:
The Junior String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.
When we get the statement: “The Junior String Quartet played Brahms,” we have to supply the script that “All string quartets play music.” We also apply a script that “Brahms created music that can be played.” However, we also are supposed to get competing scripts that “People make up string quartets,” and “People can play both music and sports,” and “Brahms was also a person, who can also play sports.” This is the application of a simple model of verbal irony, where there is tension between two possible intended meanings, one obvious, one implied. The punch line shifts the meaning from one to the other, and the implied meaning is given priority – it is, for the purposes of the joke, the right one.
Supplemental scripts
One of my major points (that I continue to emphasize in this blog), is that this process can be more complex than a simple “fill-in-the-blank” that follows author intent. Audiences can be active, they can supplement a text and create humor.
Ross Perot
For instance, John C. Meyer, when giving examples for his Four Functions of Humor, talks about when failed 1992 independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, who was caricatured in political cartoons as having huge ears, quipped in a debate, “If there are some good plans out there, I’m all ears.” Meyer argued that audience members familiar with the cartoons and Perot, could laugh with him at those caricatures, thus identifying with him. However, Meyer also mentions that Perot denied knowing or noticing that what he said was funny.
So in this case, the primary script, that “‘I’m all ears’ means ‘I’m ready to listen'” was the only intended script. The text was also compatible with a known secondary script, “Ross Perot has big ears,” but this script wasn’t intended, only inferred. The audience therefore, I argue, didn’t need to laugh with Perot at the caricature, they could laugh at Perot himself as embodying the caricature, and all the harder for him not seeing why that was funny.
Gabriel Iglesias
In a more recent and popular example, Gabriel Iglesias, in his 2007 special Hot and Fluffy, tells a joke where he was drunk at a bar on St. Patrick’s day, and he starts to do an accent (it’s more Scottish than Irish, but whatever), and fools other patrons, who ask him questions.
People go, “Are you here by yourself.” I go, “No, I’m not here by myself. Donkey!”
Now, if you’re not laughing, you need to get out more often, because that’s a funny joke. That’s hysterical, ask a ten-year-old, they’ll tell you [in a child’s voice] “That’s funny!”
Then he talks about the joke,
I did that joke one night in Memphis, Tennessee, and some guy thought he knew why it was funny, and he was waaay off, but he confronted me outside, all drunk
[In a drunk, nasally voice with a southern twang] “Hey you! Fluffy.”
I’m like, “What?”
“‘mere.” [A callback to a previous joke]
“No, you ‘mere.”
And he walks over and he’s like, “I have to tell you, your show was hysterical. I damn near wet myself when you said ‘Donkey!’ My friend, Roy, didn’t laugh, so I had to explain it to him. And he thinks I’m wrong, but I know I’m right. Could you set the record straight?”
“Sure, what’d you tell your friend?”
“Ok, look here. I told him the reason why it was funnier than hell that you said ‘Donkey!’ was ’cause you’re Mexican. And you people ride ‘Donkeys!'”
What this situation reveals, is that even though Iglesias has a script in mind (for those not in the loop, it was a reference to the film Shrek) and it’s clearly indicated (e.g. he’s a large man, doing a poor Scottish accent, etc.) the audience member found a competing script that worked for him, applied it and thus found it funny. This script, however, wasn’t “shared by the speaker” or even necessarily, the other hearers.
Iglesias doesn’t correct the guy, and he has his reasons, but perhaps additionally there’s this: the guy laughed – hard! He enjoyed the show. He was a fan.
And most importantly, who’s to say he was “wrong” about why it was funny to him? Yes, it’s mildly racist in that it’s an inaccurate and not widely held stereotype (i.e. it wasn’t “common sense”), but not funny?
The guy thought he was laughing with Iglesias, at the stereotype, just as Meyer thought people were laughing with Perot about the caricature. So he’s at least “that much” right.
Summary
Raskin’s Script Theory argues that jokes, especially complex jokes, create gaps that can be filled by competing scripts. And Raskin knows there can be multiple scripts (more than two) that can get it done.
What these two examples show is that the speaker doesn’t control the script. They can set it up as well as possible, but the audience still has to do the leg work, and as with the enthymeme, which the audience can make persuasive or not, the script they supply can make the joke funny or not.
Further, we might never be able to pin down which part – if any – of those scripts the author intended the audience “got.” Their laughter gives us no clue, as it seems uniform, and thus comics and critics assume everybody “got” the same thing. But they might not have.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
Aristotle, The Rhetoric
Meyer, John C. “Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication.” Communication Theory 10.3 (2000): 310-331.
Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Boston: D. Reidel (1985).
Triezenberg, Katrina E. “Humor in Literature.” In Primer of Humor Research, ed. Victor Raskin. New York: Mouton de Gruyte (2008).
Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.
