humor seminar

Comedy in Serie: Knop

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:40:20 +0100

http://books.google.de/books?id=f7bxyVs0S-IC&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=%22bevor+die+ergebnisse+zur+vorkommensh%C3%A4ufigkeit%22%2B%22knop%22&source=bl&ots=6zWX9wtY50&sig=zKrRuRh9BoHdKsc1XQUPRzSTKB8&hl=de&sa=X&ei=jY-8UJjAAY_JsgbysoCwDw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22bevor%20die%20ergebnisse%20zur%20vorkommensh%C3%A4ufigkeit%22%2B%22knop%22&f=false

Was wandelt sich am Komischen: Brock

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:39:30 +0100

Was wandelt sich am Komischen? Comedy-Formate unter Veränderungszwang. In: Block, Friedrich W. (Hrsg.), Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2011 The Mighty Boosh – ein Comedyformat zwischen Muster und Variation, In: Luginbühl, Martin / Perrin, Daniel (Hg.), Muster und Variation. Medienlinguistische Perspektiven auf Textproduktion und Text. Bern: Lang. (= Sprache in Kommunikation und Medien 2). 189-215.

Linguistic Theories of Humor: Attardo

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:38:09 +0100

http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=17&cad=rja&ved=0CHQQFjAGOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.italiansubs.net%2Fforum%2Ftelevisione%2Fdoppiaggio-parliamone-qui%2F%3Faction%3Ddlattach%3Battach%3D212440&ei=RY68UPKyDYLNtAbd7IDYDQ&usg=AFQjCNExtgjQ8USvCuH_1Pf6jivHobzruw&sig2=76Mt-bmUYwqFPnba-mukcw

Sandig: Text als prototypisches Konzept

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:28:00 +0100

Zusammenfassung:

http://www.sunderhaus.de/examen/Barbara%20Sandig-web.pdf

"The Sitcom" by Brett Mills

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:26:15 +0100

The Sitcom by Brett Mills, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p/bk 185 pp. ISBN 978-0-7486-3752-2Laurence RawBakent University, Ankara, Turkey

Sitcom has proved problematic for critics of popular culture. Brett Mills claims that this can be explained by the desire to prove that popular culture has “a political dimension” (6). Sitcom as a genre is treated as trivial and of little social consequence.

The Sitcom endeavors to redefine our perception of the genre. Based on extensive research plus interviews with (mostly British) television practitioners ± writers, directors, producers ± the book examines sitcom in terms of the industry that produces it, the programs which constitute it, and the audiences which consume it. For those working in television, the challenge with every sitcom is to forge a compromise between artistic and commercial concerns. This is especially true in the contemporary world, where most sitcoms are made by independent companies selling their products to the major networks. The notion that sitcoms can be nursed for one or two series,until they acquire a distinctive identity (which often happened in the past when they were made in-house by the networks) is now considered passé: ratings assume paramount significance in determining the future of any new series.Mills spends considerable time explaining why sitcoms have exerted such popular appeal. He approaches the topic in terms of four theories: the Superiority Theory (outlining the relationship between the joke-teller, the audience, and the butt);the Incongruity Theory (looking at the content and structure of jokes); the Relief Theory (suggesting that comedy fulfills a need in the individual and within society);and the Cue Theory (focusing on a program’s textual elements and their relationship to the society that produces them). However the task of trying to understand why audiences like sitcoms proves more problematic; to date little research has been published on the topic. Mills offers the results of a mini-survey conducted among his students in Missouri and Indiana Universities, and concludes that cultural factors shape their responses: “not laughing at jokes which others [British audiences, for example] find funny resulted in a feeling of exclusion” (113). At the same time Mills concludes that sitcom, unlike other television genres, is something which audiences actively seek out in a comedy zone, “desiring to be made to laugh” (122).The book concludes with a look into the tele visual crystal ball to see what sitcoms might look like in the future. Most professionals are convinced that ‘traditional’ long-running sitcoms are dead; but the success of shows like The Simpsons (1989-) suggests that such pronouncements are premature, to say the least.Perhaps sitcoms, as with other genres, will continue to evolve in response to changing viewing patterns; in the future we might be watching them online rather than on the main stream networks.I have only two criticisms of Mills’ work. First, I’d have welcomed more analysis of the ways in which groundbreaking sitcoms such as Father Knows Best and I Love Lucy exerted a profound influence on the ways in which viewers of the 1950s saw themselves, and whether the same can be said of present-day sitcoms (for example, The Office in its British and American incarnations). Secondly, I’d have welcomed more emphasis on American rather than British sitcoms; many of the examples discussed here will mean little to American readers, even if they have been broadcast on cable television. Nonetheless, The Sitcom provides a valuable and comprehensive analysis of the genre, while offering suggestive pointers for future academic research.

http://www.academia.edu/440862/Review_of_THE_SITCOM_by_Brett_Mills_2010_

Text- und Gesprächslinguistik: Heinemann

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:18:42 +0100

http://books.google.de/books?id=8DViIg2oYV4C&pg=PA523&lpg=PA523&dq=%22die+folgenden+darlegungen+gehen+von+einem%22&source=bl&ots=UR8Wf14EIo&sig=_SLj1z23FVhXsFG5gg8t1DcXKZ0&hl=de&sa=X&ei=X4q8UKiODI3CtAbywoC4Dw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22die%20folgenden%20darlegungen%20gehen%20von%20einem%22&f=false

Early conceptions of humor (Keith-Spiegel)

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:18:01 +0100

Keith-Spiegel P (1972). Early conceptions of humor: Varieties and issues. In J. H. Goldstein and P. E. McGhee (Eds.). The psychology of humor: Theoretical perspectives and empirical issues, pp. 4–39. New York: Academic Press.

the definition of humor in western culture was negative in the beginning and gradually turned positive. In the past, Keith-Spiegel (1972) and Herring and Meggert (1994) thought that humor was a multi-layered concept that encompassed satires, jokes, slapstick and sarcasm, among other negative behavior.

http://www.academicjournals.org/ajbm/pdf/pdf2011/18Aug/Ho%20et%20al.pdf

Pattern recognition theory

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:09:00 +0100

Alastair Clarke advances this theory as “an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively, it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognises a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter.” The theory further identifies the importance of pattern recognition in human evolution: “An ability to recognise patterns instantly and unconsciously has proved a fundamental weapon in the cognitive arsenal of human beings. The humorous reward has encouraged the development of such faculties, leading to the unique perceptual and intellectual abilities of our species.”

Mechanism/function of humor: evolutionary theory

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:08:14 +0100

Research identifies the reason humor is common to all human societies, its fundamental role in the evolution of homo sapiens and its continuing importance in the cognitive development of infants

A new publication answers centuries’ old questions regarding the mechanism and function of humour, identifying the reason humour is common to all human societies, its fundamental role in the evolution of homo sapiens and its continuing importance in the cognitive development of infants.

Alastair Clarke explains: “The theory is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter.

“By removing stipulations of content we have been forced to study the structures underlying any instance of humour, and it has become clear that it is not the content of the stimulus but the patterns underlying it that provide the potential for sources of humour. For patterns to exist it is necessary to have some form of content, but once that content exists, it is the level of the pattern at which humour operates and for which it delivers its rewards.”

Previous theories have only ever applied to a small proportion of all instances of humour, many of them stipulating necessary content or social conditions either in the humour itself or around the individual experiencing it. But this doesn’t explain why an individual can laugh at something when no one else around them does, nor why two people can laugh at the same stimulus for different reasons.

The theory further identifies the importance of pattern recognition in human evolution as Clarke explains: “An ability to recognize patterns instantly and unconsciously has proved a fundamental weapon in the cognitive arsenal of human beings. The humorous reward has encouraged the development of such faculties, leading to the unique perceptual and intellectual abilities of our species.”

Clarke’s new theory of humour could also provide the basis for an increased understanding of human cognitive functions: “The development of pattern recognition as displayed in humour could also form the basis of humankind’s instinctive linguistic ability. Syntax and grammar function in fundamental patterns for which a child has an innate facility. All that differs from one individual to the next is the content of those patterns in terms of vocabulary.”

Pattern Recognition Theory also identifies a correlation between the development of humour and the development of cognitive ability in infants. “Amusing childish games such as peek-a-boo, clap hands and tower block demolition all exhibit the precise mechanism of humour as it appears in any adult form, but whether these instances of infantile humour actively contribute to the cognitive development of the child or are simply a record of the evolution of the species played out in the individual, is as yet unclear.

“Peek-a-boo can elicit a humorous response in infants as young as four months, and is, effectively, a simple process of surprise repetition, forming a clear, basic pattern. As the infant develops, the patterns in childish humour become more complex and compounded and attain spatial as well as temporal elements until, finally, the child begins to grapple with the patterns involved in linguistic humour.”

Alastair Clarke identifies the implications of pattern recognition theory beyond anthropology. “Understanding the basic function and mechanism of humour as it begins in infants will benefit the ongoing research into the presence of humour in primates and other mammals.” He goes on to propose possible technological developments: “Now that we understand the mechanism of humour the possibility of creating an artificial intelligence being that could develop its own sense of humour becomes very real. This would, for the first time, create an AI capable of exhibiting one of the defining characteristics that make us human, making it seem significantly less robotic as a result.”

Alastair Clarke offers two brief illustrations of the theory in instances of humour: “The application of the theory is unique in every instance and for every individual but the following two examples illustrate its basic structure. A common form of humour is the juxtaposition of two pictures, normally of people, in whom we recognize a similarity. What we are witnessing here is spatial repetition, a simple two-term pattern featuring the outline or the features of the first repeated in those of the second. If the pattern is sufficiently convincing (as in the degree to which we perceive repetition), and we are surprised by recognizing it, we will find the stimulus amusing.

“As a second example, related to the first but in a different medium, stand-up comedy regularly features what we might call the It’s so true form of humour. As with the first example, the brain recognizes a two-term pattern of repetition between the comedian’s depiction and its retained mental image, and if the recognition is surprising, it will be found amusing. The individual may be surprised to hear such things being talked about in public, perhaps because they are taboo, or because the individual has never heard them being articulated before. The only difference between the two examples is that in the first the pattern is recognized between one photograph and the next, and in the second it occurs between the comedian’s depiction and the mental image retained by the individual of the matter being portrayed.

“Both of these examples use simple patterns of exact repetition, even if the fidelity of that repetition is poor (for example if the photographs are only vaguely similar). But pattern types can be surprisingly varied, including reflection, reversal, minification and magnification and so on. Sarcasm, for example, functions around a basic pattern of reversal, otherwise known as repetition in opposites. Patterns can also contain many stages, whereas the ones depicted here feature only two terms.”

Clarke concludes: “Pattern Recognition answers how and why we find things funny, but it can not say categorically what is funny since no content can be inherently more or less funny than any other. The individual is of paramount importance in determining what they find amusing, bringing memories, associations, meta-meaning, disposition, their tendency to recognize patterns and their comprehension of similarity to the equation. But the theory does offer a vital answer as to why humour exists in every human society.”

###

Notes to editors

The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humour is published by Pyrrhic House. This edition of the book presents the fundamentals of the theory for those who work in or comment on related fields. The full-length book, Humour, which expands the explanation of the theory, including over 100 pages of analysis of examples of humour from Chaucer to Monty Python, will be published in October 2008.

Alastair Clarke is a science writer and theorist living in the United Kingdom.

Text Structures of TV Comedies: WS 20112012

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:04:00 +0100

https://ekvv.uni-bielefeld.de/kvv_publ/publ/vd?id=27729685

Over the last 10 years, British TV comedies have developed many interesting formats, from retro-parodies (“Look around You”, “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace”) to documentary-type comedies (“The Office”, “Marion and Geoff”) and weird sitcoms (“The Mighty Boosh”, “Green Wing”). In this seminar, we use a text-linguistic approach as well as central humour theories to describe the defining properties of specific formats. We watch several examples of comedies and work both deductively and inductively to produce adequate descriptions of text patterns in TV comedies.”

http://pdfcast.org/pdf/brock-humor-textsorten-varianten

Concerning the TV series “Community”.

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:07:10 +0100

Concerning the TV series “Community”.

Bill Bailey, post-modern vegetarian

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:02:31 +0100

Dara Ó Briain: Year Of The Rat routine The Irish don’t do...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:27:00 +0100

Dara Ó Briain: Year Of The Rat routine

The Irish don’t do authority, we don’t do laws but we kind of stuck in the bible a bit. ([…] I’m not a religious man!) But, when I say religious: I reckon… very religious in one way; aware, anyway. Very ignorant of the world, the religions in the world. Ridiculously bad when it comes to all the world’s… - we do [have] no real clue, right?

I used to do a routine years ago about the millennium book and how different religions in the world have different calendars. Like, in the Muslim faith, it’s about the year 1470s/1480s at this stage. And in the Jewish faith it’s about the year 5700…

Any Jewish people here tonight? Can you tell me what year it is? Can you? – No! OK! – You went through quite a little journey there, didn’t ya? Hooray. No. Sit down. Oh, you’re not up for a rabbi just yet. But, glad you’re taking part, anyway.

It’s about the year 5700.

That’s not the weirdest answer.

I was in Cork in the south of our…

– Uh, hey. Glad to here, lads. I wouldn’t cheer; you don’t come out of this one well.

Alright, so: Cork. Fantastic part of the world, but this one woman misrepresented you hideously, lads, on that night.

I said: “Anyone Jewish here?”

And a woman was: “I’m Jewish!”

I said: “Are you Jewish?”

She goes: “I am.”

I said: “And what year is it in the Jewish calendar?”

And she goes: “Ah, I wasn’t expecting questions to be honest.”

And she turned to here presumably gentile friend and had a bit of a natter and then came back with the single finest answer I have ever heard from the member of an audience. We were there… And, without any shame at all, she just went:

“Yeah, it’s the Jewish year of the rat.”

An incredible peace of ignorance: to take these two great worlds cultures and slam them together! Oh, those crazy kung-fu Jews with their rice and their noodles. And the fireworks, oy vey!

Audio excerpt

Dara Ó Briain Year Of The Rat routine by humormaja

Bill Bailey: Reincarnation Routine […] I love the belief...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:22:00 +0100

Bill Bailey: Reincarnation Routine

[…] I love the belief in reincarnation that Hinduism has. It’s quite a positive view of the post-death experience, you know? You die, you work up your way through animal form back up to human form. But how long does this process take? Is it very long?

Do you die, you come back as a gaboon viper, then as a Russell’s viper, then a Pitt’s viper and you think: “I’m just working my way through the viper family here. It’s going to be 400 years before I get any legs!”

Or is it quite quick? = Snail, earwig, human.

You might even get your old job back. Walk into the office: “Where have you been?” - “Don’t ask…”

Audio excerpt

Bill Bailey Reincarnation Routine by humormaja

Stabilizsation (establishing dramatic elements)

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:40:00 +0100

familiarity > formula comedy
prototype of family (couch in front of camera, stereot. characters, etc)
prototypical couple, … , …

Sandig Text: Prototypes

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:39:00 +0100

Even with simple categories - different people categorize things differently.

The Mills Text: Conclusion

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:58:59 +0100

pattern convergence on humor theory

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:18:40 +0100

Example:

Comedy + sitcom + slightly docu-like
= MARION AND GEOFF

Parody "is a parasite"

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:07:00 +0100

e.g.: (LOOK AROUND YOU)

Embedding patterns

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:05:35 +0100

Out of STAR WARS: “I am your father”.