An exploration in the language of humor in English

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate why certain discourse textual maneuverings are perceived as humorous. The main focus is on the written forms of humor, precisely English jokes or word play which were analyzed in order to see how much humorous effect is created on the recipients through the violation of how many and what combinations of Gricean Maxims in these jokes. Being descriptive in nature, this research speculated on whether there are differences in the degree of humor among the three selected combinations of Gricean maxims. Through the analysis of selected data and checking their degree of humor on a few M.A students some results were obtained which show the similarities and differences in the degree of humor concerning the mentioned three different combinations. In conclusion, we found that these three various combinations of Gricean maxims have little humorous effect on the concerned-recipients.