BY Lic.

Agustina Sosa
Revol

HUMOR IN THE
CLASSROOM
 Humor in the Classroom

Author: Adjunct Professor, Translator and Licentiate of English and Literary English Speaking People, Agustina Sosa Revol.Former
tenure professor of literature, culture, language, postmodern discourses, argumentation and physics of UTN university, Universidad
Empresarial Siglo XXI, National University of Córdoba, among others. Categorized researcher for UNC. Córdoba, Argentina.

Abstract

In teaching English as a second language through the use of Humor in the classroom develops the base of a discussion of classroom discourse,
additional language learning, and language teaching, a mode in which elements from one’s communicative range are spoken, written, or otherwise
put into use. Moreover, humor may include both instances of language ludic learning and acts of creative language use. Further, by constructing
activities that allow learners to encounter unexpected language and linguistic practices will afford them the opportunity to improvise
communicative solutions, and to learn to make choices. Activities that involve an element of surprise may also raise awareness of the situated,
contingent nature of interaction and eventually humorous interaction. Humor thrives on unpredictability, making it a natural way to insert
unforeseen language into the classroom. Language plays a main function to destabilize a language learner’s system, allowing further development.
In the freedom of language learning activities, unpredictability encourages creativity and pushes learners to construct unknown meanings,
rather than relying on familiar language, which they may do when given complete freedom. Gardner accounts on how teachers working in
a linguistically diverse classroom transformed a scripted phonetic activity into a creative game that supported not only the children’s
language development, but also their identities as competent members of the classroom community. Gardner found that these strategies
were central in making the activity “at once more cognitively challenging with the real communicative need to justify, more enjoyable-
humorous in its appeal to the imagination. (Gardner, 2008, 272).Vigostky’ socio-cultural approach is embedded in social activity where learning
occurs; that is, new skills make their first appearance in social interaction and are constructed through collective action. It is only later that
they become internalized and available for individual use. Vygotsky (1978) explains that learning awakens a variety of internal developmental
processes that are able to operate only when students are interacting with people in their environment and in cooperation with their peers.
He argues further that when social and private speech has largely become internalized, they may reappear as needed when confronting new
problems and in his concept of Romance or play with language stage, laughter -founded in humor- generates identities. Humor’s role in
classroom learning entails a complex array of factors. It has a great effect on identities and power relations, and the romance and precise stages in
learning. Many researchers have, instead, turned their focus to the role of language play. Although some, like Lantolf, have emphasized the idea of
language play as a form of private speech or rehearsal that facilitates internalizing comfort and competence with second language forms. In addition,
the a socio-cognitive theory of language development that is consistent with the sociocultural approach to the learning of a language make the learner
and instructor take into account the rich sociocultural background of those learners from different cultures and geographical loci. Further, I have
explored taking non-serious language seriously in language education. It is, then, up to instructors to embrace the risks and rewards of using humor
in their professional practice and the classroom-space/time. Learning a new language entails communicative approaches, play, romance, precision,
unpredictability, relief, romance-precision, the prompting of social action and change, the construction of bonds, influence on others, negotiation of
meaning, the boosting of cognitive skills, the richness of sociocultural aspects, humor as a social practice, functions, the encountering of linguistic

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challenges, the challenges of interpretation in connection with the learner’s linguistic competence, its nature to raise awareness, and the plural
interpretation.

Based on the philosophy of humor, when humor is used in the classroom it can be considered to be part of

developing a strong foundation on which to base our discussion of classroom discourse, additional language

learning, and language teaching, among others. Further, humor refers to the key or mode in which elements

from one’s communicative range are spoken, written, or otherwise put into use. Moreover, humor may include

both instances of language ludic learning and acts of creative language use. As a topic, humor has long captured

the interest of philosophers and researchers alike. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, numerous theories have

been put forth to explain why it is that we find certain utterances and situations funny. The most comprehensive

of humor theories are those that attempt to explain it in terms of incongruity, relief and superiority. Among these

the relevant one is that the incongruous theory on humor posits that humor derives from the juxtaposition of two

odd, unexpected, or inappropriate elements in a particular context. The incongruity that results from this pairing

must, then be at least partially resolved in order for the contrast to be interpreted as funny. Of all theories,

Attardo and Raskin’s (Attardo,2001. 45), General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) is perhaps the most widely

accepted. Sigmund Freud’s theory on relief of tension is the easiest one to understand since by the contraction

of the body in the act of laughter, tension leads to relief. This statement, however, is arguable as people laugh

for reasons that do not lead to relief of tension. Lastly, the theory of superiority, besides the relief and superiority

theory, refers to the view of the world as inferior from a sense of superiority and flawless comedian.

Among the multiple range of functions of humor in language, I can assert that some rapport, the release of

suppressed tensions, a subtly critique of society, effective learning, better performance, positive motivation,

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attention –gaining effect connected with memory awareness and control, results in better response by students

reflected in hard work, joy of trying language structures in a romance phase, when they play with words and

structures. Humor orientation targets affective and cognitive learning and so students in surveys have

scored higher grades by those instructors who use humor orientation learning. Thus, humor does not

prevent students from being able to transition from the Romance (Vygotsky) stage in the use of the language to

the stage of Precision-in which norms and rules result from the same student who can still play upon words,

literally speaking, in search for the precision of the rules. It is, moreover, of utmost importance the roles that

humor plays in managing our identities and our relationships with others.

In all educational contexts, humor facilitates learning. Yet, a close look at the research literature suggests that

the results are mixed. Given the current confirmation, the most powerful argument for using humor in

education is affective. Humor is found in some studies to promote a sense of immediacy and connection

between teacher and students, to reduce anxiety, and to increase enjoyment of and interest in the class

(Berk & Nanda, 1998; Wanzer & Frymier, 1999), as I have already mentioned. One limitation to this, however,

is that the type of humor used by the instructors is important. Students tend not to appreciate offensive,

aggressive, or disparaging humor, particularly that which is directed at them or their peers (Wanzer,

Frymier, Wojtaszczyk, & Smith, 2006). With respect to academic learning, there is some evidence to

suggest that when humor is used positively, thus reducing anxiety, student achievement will be higher

(Ford, Ford, Boxer, &Armstrong, 2012). A few studies, too, have linked humor to greater memorability,

although this effect may not take place under all conditions (McDaniel, Dornburg, & Guynn, 2005; et.al 2010).

Moreover, the studies that have demonstrated higher classroom achievement through the use of humor

have meticulously constructed their curriculum using humor that is relevant to the topic and to the

students’ experiences, cultures and lives instead of being simply an entertaining tool (Suzuki & Heath,

2014; Ziv, 1988).

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Opponents to these arguments have argued against the effectiveness to connect the use of humor to increased

learning, and refer to arguments about humor and learning as simply perceptions of learning. Although

many scholars have noted the importance of play in development (Erikson, 1963; Piaget, 1962; Sutton-Smith

1975, 1997), the work of Lev Vygotsky has been particularly influential for SLA researchers. Briefly,

Vygotsky’s research and writings focused on young children. One of his major insights was that learning is

what pushes development. In other words, it is not the case that a certain level of development must be

reached before skills can be used. Rather, it is the use of new skills that leads to further development.

Moreover, it is in social activity that learning occurs; that is, new skills make their first appearance in

social interaction and are constructed through collective action. It is only later that they become

internalized and available for individual use. Both of these ideas are addressed in the following quote, in

which Vygotsky (1978) explained that learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes

that are able to operate only when the student is interacting with people in his environment and in

cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, they become part of the student’s

independent developmental achievement. The process of internalization mentioned relies on an understanding

of another important concept introduced by Vygotsky, that of mediation. As Lantolf (2000) succinctly

explains, “humans use symbolic artifacts to establish an indirect, or mediated, relationship between

ourselves and the world”. This means that “humans do not act directly on the physical world but rely,

instead, on tools and labor activity, which allow us to change the world” (Lantolf, 2000, 1). Of these

mediational tools, language is among the most important: The first meta-toy to play with, meta-

language, to understand Vygotsky.

It is through the social use of language as a mediational tool that internal mental processes develop. Vygotsky

(1978) described how children solving problems that are beyond their skills will seek help from others. In the

absence of assistance, or if the child is at a slightly higher, developmental level, egocentric(or private) speech

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will occur, as the child uses speech to control, and eventually to plan, his or her behavior. With time and

repeated exposure to similar problems, external speech becomes internalized. Although Vygotsky focused

on children’s development, it is easy enough to see these processes at work for adults. For instance,

Leny remembers learning to drive a standard transmission car. At first, she could do nothing without

instruction and often needed to appeal to her long-suffering father for guidance. Eventually the skill to

use a stick shift became automatic, for the most part. However, before that time she recalls having to

“talk herself through” some of the steps. Furthermore, even once she felt fairly confident about her

skills, she remembers having to again seek external help from her more experienced passenger in certain

challenging situations, such as getting the car moving from a dead stop up a steep hill. Thus, even when

social and private speech has largely become internalized, they may reappear as needed when

confronting new problems. (Lantolf, 1997, 123)

Like instruction, Vygotsky found that play, too, leads to development and helps in the process of

internalization. In a well-known quote he explained that “in play a child always behaves beyond his average

age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself ” (Vygotsky, 1978,

102). For Vygotsky, a crucial aspect of play was that it freed participants from situational constraints by

creating an imaginary scenarios. A second primary component of play was its rule-based nature. Whether

in organized games or in creating make-believe scenarios, overt or covert rules characterize play. Participation

in play entails voluntarily opting to subordinate oneself to these rules, whether this means not touching a ball

with your hands or agreeing to treat a pillow as an animate creature and engage in conversation with it. In this

view, “the essential attribute of play is a rule that has become a desire” (Vygotsky, 1978, 99). Abiding by the

rules creates contexts for children to try out new roles, new language, and new activities. For Vygotsky, the

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creative imitations that children engage in during play represent an important means by which they can

accomplish tasks that are beyond their capabilities when they are they acting alone (1978, 88). While playing,

they are learning about the future roles and activities in adult life. He wrote,

Though the play-development relationship can be compared to the instruction-development relationship,

play provides a much wider background for changes in needs and consciousness. Action in the

imaginative sphere, in an imaginary situation, the creation of voluntary intentions, and the formation of

real-life plans and volitional motives—all appear in play and make it the highest level of preschool

development. (102)

Although Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach of development remains seminal, Holzman (2010), questioned

whether play may be central to adolescent and adult learning. Moreover, questions about the role of specific

forms of play in specific forms of learning have prompted SL Academic researchers to ask how private speech,

repetition and imitation, re-voicings, re-appropriations of classroom tasks, and linguistic manipulations might

contribute to the learner’s development. Lantolf, then, began speaking about language play in the late 1980s,

paper, “The Function of Language Play in the Acquisition of L2 English.” In this paper, he focused on second

language play as self-directed speech, seeing it as a “non-communicative language activity” (Lantolf, 1997, 3)

that creates opportunities for the learner to “do something” (Lantolf, 1997, 19) with the second language, thus

facilitating acquisition. In this work, key forms of language play that he identified as potentially leading to

learners’ learning were “talking out loud to yourself in English; repeating phrases to yourself silently;

making up sentences or words in English; imitating to yourself sounds in English; having random

snatches of English pop into your head” (Lantolf, 1997, 11).The purpose [of play] in Lantolf’s

(Vygotskian) sense is clearly exercise, or the rehearsal of target forms. Lantolf focuses on language play

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as a type of private speech that has the function of rehearsal for some future public performance because

language play in Lantolf’s sense exists as mental rehearsal of un-mastered language forms. It is a

phenomenon that diminishes when the learner has mastered them and no longer needs to rehearse. (p.

366). Thus, language play is conceived of as a rehearsal for future interaction, rather than as a ludic end

unto itself.

It goes without saying that interaction is crucial to language development, as it is in social interaction that

affordances for language use, and thus for learning, arise. Although the public tends to portray

communication as an orderly, linear process of encoding and decoding utterances, applied linguists know

that the act of making meaning is a dynamic, messy process involving continual mutual change and

adjustment between interlocutors. Communication entails “action, reaction, collaborative interaction,

inter-subjectivity, and mutually assisted performance” (Hulstijn et al., 2014, 40). This cooperative,

adaptive process of aligning oneself with another individual in order to construct meaning and effect.

Thus, social action is how a learner’s development takes place.

Larsen-Freeman (2010) describes how this is a cyclical process, explaining learning as “the constant

adaptation of their [learners’] linguistic resources in the service of meaning-making in response to the

affordances that emerge in the communicative situation, which is, in turn, affected by learners’ “adaptivity” (

author’s coinage. 67). Through this ongoing cycle, new resources become available to the learner, who then

may be able to deploy them at a different time or in a different context—or in a different key, with features first

encountered in a serious context later being used for humor or vice versa. In response to the learner using

increasing linguistic sophistication, interact- ants also adjust the language they use, drawing on more complex

structures and topics. Thus, with increasingly intricate language resources at our disposal we are presented

with, and eventually are able to manage, more complex social actions. Thus, Atkinson (2014) defined

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learning as “the (skills) to adapt to our environment better (than formerly) through progressive

interaction with/experience in and alignment with that environment” (7).

The learner’s development becomes part of the process of increasing their skills to construct meanings

effectively and with growing sophistication and amount across a variety of contexts, (i.e., Atkinson’s, 2014,

45:“adapting better”). But what do terms such as effectively and better mean? Learners and their

interlocutors each come to the task of communication with their own linguistic and cultural biographies; their

distinctive frames of reference that come from their history of prior experiences, their meanings, and values.

In the act of communicating, they engage in mutual interpretation to negotiate their own meanings in

relation to those of others. (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013, 43–44) From this socio-cultural approach,

learning “also involves learners coming to understand how they interpret knowledge through their

positioning in their own language and culture” (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013, 35). This is consistent, too,

with the move to consider communicative competence in terms of an individual’s entire language range.

Far from merely accumulating linguistic items, in learning an additional language, we engage in new

interpretations of ourselves, of those with whom we interact, of our other languages, and of the process of

communication. Thus, “better” and “more effective” involves meaning building at a deeper level, in

which we do not merely interpret words or structures. Kramsch (2002) defined success in language

learning from an ecological perspective as “aligning oneself in the social space,” “using one’s full semiotic

potential,” and “seizing the moment and negotiating paradoxes” (24–25).

Successful learners are, furthermore, those who are able to make choices within their whole linguistic range

in order to appropriately position themselves and their interlocutors within the conversational space, to

negotiate power structures, to express stance and emotion, and to notice and take advantage of variability

and diversity which can be done within the use of humor. These ideas was foreshadowed by Kramsch’s

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(2006) move to see the goal of learning as the development of symbolic competence. A related, and until

recently almost completely neglected issue in language development is the role of emotions and those that

entail the speaker to reach humorous competence in the learning of a second language. Emotions are not

only linked to a learner’s affective state but also play a crucial role in issues such as the learner’s subjectivity,

cognition, and the ability to express oneself and interpret others (Benesch, 2012; Dewaele, 2011; Pavlenko,

2005, 2006; Swain, 2013). Becoming bilingual or multilingual can be a process of gaining a new self, and

many multi-lingual speakers report feeling different in each language they use (Koven, 1998; Pavlenko,

2006) due to the new and rich developments of aspects of one’s personality. The ability to communicate

emotions is crucial to engage with others and effectively represent ourselves; learners tend to use

proportionally fewer emotion words than monolinguals. Attending to the emotional aspects of learners would

seem to be an important part of helping students achieve the first two objectives mentioned here: engaging in

interpretation and social action. Furthermore, Swain (2013) argued that emotions, both positive and negative,

can facilitate students to development inseparable from cognition. She analyzed the metalinguistic talk of two

classroom learners from a sociocultural perspective and concluded that their talk “mediates the co-

construction of a cognitively permeated set of emotional processes” and “an emotionally soaked set of

cognitive processes” (Swain, 2013, 203). Thus, we again see that a socio-cognitive position, taking a holistic

view of the learner, is necessary.

Further, today’s language educators must be accustomed to

• developing learners’ agency,

• raising learners’ awareness of variability,

• preparing learners for unpredictability, and

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• Enhancing learners’ skills to read and manipulate situations.

Language educators, in my view, should acknowledge these foundational perspectives discussed so far to

consider how humor and language play might help us to accomplish some of the conceptual shifts that

are necessary to move language education into the 21st century. The classroom can be a space where

learners have access to structured interaction designed to facilitate the development of their interpretive

and communicative repertoires. Based on how we understand the process of a learner’s language

development, the goals of the language classroom, and what language use entails in today’s world, I list,

further, six broad principles for the use of humor in the structuring of activities to facilitate learning a

second language. These are,

• teaching language as a set of choices,

• raising language awareness,

• constructing iterative activities,

• engaging learners with unpredictability,

• teaching meaning as relational and subjective, and

• engaging with emotions.

I also examine evidence for the ways that humor and language play can help in carrying out each of these.

Learners should see language as a set of choices or a set of options that the speaker can choose among for

different effects such as lexical items, grammatical structures, and phonological patterns understanding

that they do not have fixed meaning but, rather, become instilled with meaning in situated interaction.

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This is made abundantly clear, for example, in pedagogical approaches derived from concept-based instruction,

in which the conceptual bases of various linguistic features (e.g., verb morphology) are made transparent to

learners (Lantolf, 2008; Negueruela &Lantolf, 2006). Because of the different meanings that each option

constructs, language cannot be taught as a fixed set of forms, but must be presented as a set of options

with varying and sometimes unpredictable consequences that learners must be prepared to negotiate. An

understanding of language as choices also raises awareness of systematic sociolinguistic-humorous

variations, as well as the idiosyncratic and unsystematic variability that can occur within and across

speakers. Furthermore, instilling in learners that they have meaningful alternatives for how they construct their

utterances also respects and develops learners’ agency and autonomy.

To teach language as an open, flexible system of options for communicating various stances and shades

of meaning requires first that the classroom activities provide space for experimentation, and second that

the instructor be able and willing to provide thoughtful feedback on possible consequences of various

linguistic choices. Language play that suspends the normal rules of interaction and encourages learners

to construct scenarios that allow them to use language in ways not normally associated with the language

classroom—for example, by expressing humor in strong emotions (grief, anger, love) or by using voices

that take them out of their usual student role (teacher, taxi driver, ambassador)—is one way of fulfilling

the need for linguistic experimentation. Feedback can then address the pertinence in different situations

of the language used, the meanings of any pertinent lexical items used and their usual domains of use,

and the ways that different aspects of the register used tend to be perceived in different contexts. Casual

conversation can also fulfill these needs.

Humorous practices themselves, moreover, offer an opportunity to present language as choices. Davies

(2004) described a German preference for joking as largely as a private act in contrast to Americans, who

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tend to joke in public, as well. She noted that teaching about these differences can help American learners

of German make choices about whether and when to joke in German and to be aware that joking might

make Germans perceive them as frivolous. J. Kim (2014, 163) found that Korean learners of English had

difficulties understanding sarcasm because they were drawing on their native language schema to interpret

potentially sarcastic utterances. Indeed, a tenet closely related to teaching language as a set of choices involves

raising language awareness, a necessity for learners to be able to make choices in their language use. This may

occur through activities structured in such a way as to draw learners’ attention to particular patterns, or it may

be done through explicit instruction. The former include activities such as Schema for Orienting Basis of Action

used in pedagogies based on construction-based instruction. Raising language awareness among learners can

involve such things as drawing students’ attention to specific forms and form-meaning relationships and

sensitizing them to the pragmatic force of different linguistic choices. Students should work with bizarre

sentences to begin the process of humor in language or humor in the odd language and how to re-construct

sentences to make them humorous for a native speaker as part of playing with the plasticity of the second

language.

Having fallen out of favor in language education for some time now, repetition is making a comeback as an

important facilitator of learners’ development. In a review of the role that repetition can play in the second

language development, Larsen-Freeman (2012, 78) rote learning enhances working memory, develops

automaticity in processing, and frees space for processing new structures, allowing for improved performance.

Each of these findings points to the potential benefit of activities involving memorization and (public or private)

rehearsal in the classroom. Larsen-Freeman emphasizes that repetition is never exact and that in fact,

iteration, in which learners engage in a number of activities that are similar but that also require some

adjustment to their use of their linguistic resources, can be an important facilitator of the second language

development. Such a sequence of activities not only requires the learner to adapt when a slight change
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introduces a new challenge to a familiar landscape but, in doing so, also introduces variation, potentially

making new resources available and maintaining dynamism in the system, thus allowing it to continue to

develop.

Iteration is also a fundamental feature of much language play, thus elevating its importance for learning

as well. Repetition, in its various and creative forms unlike the old rote-learning, is valued as a way of pushing

forward language development through automatization and creative experimentation. The often iterative

nature of humor and ludic language play may be one factor that is particularly influential in this regard.

Bongartz and Schneider (2003, 122) observed successful vocabulary learning by two young brothers

learning German during play that involved repetition and modeling. Iteration may also be particularly

important for vocabulary acquisition, because we have to encounter a word repeatedly in numerous

contexts in order to learn it. Also, having a critical range of vocabulary seems to be one of the most

important indicators of being able to communicate successfully (Iwashita, Brown, McNamara, & O’Hagan,

2008, 34). This seems to be true for being able to use and understand creative and humorous language,

as well. A well-developed skill to recognize and use formulaic sequences is also likely to provide a learner

with more opportunities for humor, as formulaic language is an important resource for joking (Bell,

2012a; Shardakova, 2010,47).

Although linguistic and sociolinguistic patterns in language are identifiable, individuals use their language

resources flexibly and idiosyncratically, as well. Furthermore, language changes through time and across

different social and geographical spaces; thus, learners must be aware of linguistic diversity and prepared for

the unexpected in addition to more conventional, routine uses of language. Constructing activities that allow

learners to encounter unexpected language and linguistic practices will afford them the opportunity to

improvise communicative solutions, and to learn to make choices. Activities that involve an element of

surprise may also raise awareness of the situated, contingent nature of interaction and eventually

humorous interaction.
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Humor thrives on unpredictability, making it a natural way to insert unexpected language into the

classroom. Furthermore, as Tarone (2006) suggested, language play may function to destabilize a language

learner’s system, allowing further development. In the freedom of language learning activities, unpredictability

encourages creativity and pushes learners to construct unknown meanings, rather than relying on

familiar language, which they may do when given complete freedom. These types of adjustments to language

play activities have been demonstrated to result in different types of language use. For example, found that role-

plays allows the learner they observed to rely on familiar, formulaic sequences and contained a larger proportion

of preferred responses being able to romance with humor as part of the plasticity of the development of the new

language. However, the language used in rule-based games that constrained learner contributions, on the other

hand, used more novel language but a higher proportion of disliked responses, resulting in overall greater

complexity to those interactions. Humor and language play can also introduce unpredictability into

otherwise mundane, predictable classroom interactions and prescribed curricula. Gardner (2008) offered

a detailed account of how one primary school teacher working in a linguistically diverse classroom

transformed a scripted phonetic activity into a creative game that supported not only the children’s

language development, but also their identities as competent members of the classroom community. In

this case, the teacher used a variety of strategies to help children justify their answers to the “silly

questions” (i.e., Do hens dig?) posed in the instructional script rather than accepting simple yes/no

responses. Gardner found that these strategies were central in making the activity “at once more

cognitively challenging with the real communicative need to justify, more enjoyable-humorous in its

appeal to the imagination. (Gardner, 2008, 272)

Learner-initiated humor can also be used to disrupt mundane activities and add an element of

unpredictability to instructor-fronted classroom activities (Waring, 2011. 68). In particular, Waring’s work

showed how the typical triadic IRF (initiation–response–feedback) sequence could be disrupted by

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learners’ humorous initiations. Such learner-initiated classroom talk can be an opportunity for rich,

unpredictable, and highly engaging interaction. (Yoshida, 2007).

Later studies by Waring (2011, 2013,59) demonstrated that play in the ESL classroom seems to arise mainly

from play with identities at various levels: situational, relational, and personal. She demonstrated how, as

learners playfully created alternate universes in which they were instructors or music lovers, rather than students,

they were given the opportunity to “do conversation” and thus engage in contingent talk that included

unexpected elements (see Chapter 4).

Laughter conveys information; the laughing person signals that he or she finds a scene funny. However, this

information is sometimes not the crucial point, because its content may have been tacitly presupposed anyway.

Even without laughter I might have surmised that my partner finds the film funny, because I saw her smile about

the gag in the Woody Allen film from the corner of my eyes; I might have been quite sure because she likes all

Jacques Tati or Will Ferrell comedies; and, I might have even been fully certain that she loves What’s Up, Doc?,

because I know it is one of her favorite films. What seems at least equally important is that

laughter transforms the situation between those laughing out loud. When two or more people laugh it establishes

a common vantage point, a public space between them, an entre nous. It raises an awareness of something that

the viewers are now, to a certain extent, aware of together. Laughter thus not only has a communicative function

(‘we share the information that we find this scene funny’) but also a collective-awareness function (‘we are now

aware that in this public space we find this funny together’). What may have been knowledge of you and me

separately and individually is now in the open and among us. It is something for us and for us together. Taylor

writes:

I want to claim that what we recognize as full communication always has this feature of our coming

together in that something is made an object for us, where this is something stronger than its being just

an object severally for me and for you, and my knowing that you know, and your knowing that I know,

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 and my knowing that you know that I know, etc., up to any level that we can cope with. For in this type

of case, no matter how refined by looped knowledge about the other’s knowledge about my knowledge,

we have something quite different from communication.[6]

Taylor does not argue that this implies we have to ponder the matter. To argue that grasping what is entre

nous involves a fully ‘reflective’ stance could be misleading; ‘reflection’ in a strong sense of the word is not

required in most of our communications. He writes:

to be capable of human communication requires that we be sensitive to not just the things communicated

about, but the way in which they are present or evident to us, and particularly to the subject(s) to whom

they are present. This sensitivity has a reflexive dimension, therefore, we are not just aware of some

matter, but also responding to how we are aware and who is aware. There is a second-order component

which is irreducibly present, however little we reflect on it, in the sense of taking it for our focus ….(7)

Laughing together raises our mutual awareness that we find this or that funny, even if we don’t

fully reflect on it in the sense of, ‘Wow, isn’t it amazing that we all find this funny!’ In the cinema there

are good reasons why non-linguistic communication like laughter predominates over speech. It has at

least two advantages when compared to linguistic communication. First, it does not make highly

demanding calls on one’s consciousness; making a verbal comment on the film in its nature or grosso

modo means more distraction. Laughter, instead, allows the viewer to follow the ongoing narrative more

smoothly. Laughing is therefore an effective way of communicating and simultaneously pursuing other

interests such as watching a film. Second, language can become a barrier in the act of communal

communication. Laughter here offers a nice solution as it helps to integrate anonymous others more

easily. As sociologist Jack Katz tells us “just because words are so effective in conveying finely

differentiated import, if too many people speak at the same time, no one knows what anyone is saying.

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 With laughter, any number can play and all can be assured from moment to moment that they are

nevertheless in the same game”. [8]

When six or 60 or even 600 persons scream a sentence this creates cacophonic noise, but it raises little mutual

awareness. In contrast, when in the darkness of the cinema everybody looks directly at the screen, laughing out

loud is a highly efficient way to establish something entre nous. This is, of course, not to deny that there are

varieties of amused laughter that come in different shades of intensity, duration, and even prosody. While one

viewer might find a scene intensely funny and thus displays his or her passionate involvement, another viewer

may consider it only mildly funny and therefore laughs somewhat distantly. Hence we can expect ‘differences

in sameness’ even amongst a group of people who are amused and share their emotional judgment by and large.

By establishing a public space in the theater the laughing viewers partly and momentarily withdraw from their

immersive film experience. [9]Instead they become (to a somewhat higher degree than before) aware of

the theatrical experience they share with others. Even if laughter does not draw one’s attention away from the

film completely (its cognitive effort is, as I said, comparatively small), it still does so to a certain degree. In fact,

we may expect that the funnier a scene is the more withdrawn from the film the viewers may be. This is true for

two reasons.

First, laughter provoked by a comedy is an eruptive, outward-moving bodily response. Since laughter puts the

body in motion the more eruptive the laughter the more difficult to sustain immersion in the filmic world. As

viewers we may even rock our torso, slap our knees, hold our stomach, and stomp our feet (the movement that

comes with laughter is a point I will return to with regard to Benjamin). Second, the funnier the scene and the

more communal the laughter the louder and the more conspicuous it will be. When 60 or even 600 people laugh

we become all the more aware of the co-presence of others. This is a point also underscored by Steve Neale and

Frank Krutnik: ‘with comedy laughter “disrupts” the “passively consumed” dramatic illusionism and one is

17
pulled away from the world represented on the screen and is united with other spectators as part of an

audience’. This is why for theorists like Walter Benjamin or Julia Kristeva laughter has an important anti-

ideological function; it prevents a powerful illusionary effect of the film and grounds the viewer in the here and

now of the movie theater with co-present others. [9]

With the example of laughter in mind I would like to refine Taylor’s points in two respects. First, I believe that

this mutual awareness raised through laughter is not a question of either-or – it is a matter of degrees. When I

am sitting in the cinema and share laughter with others this might be considered a weak form of mutual

awareness; when we look at each other and exchange glances while laughing this might be a medium form of

mutual awareness; and when we point to the screen, show two thumbs up, or even let our laughter be followed

by a quick exchange of verbal comments, then we might talk of a strong form of mutual awareness. Hence there

are gradations on a continuum in terms of our mutual awareness through laughter. [10] Second, one may broadly

claim that the degree of mutual awareness is inversely proportional to the range of people included.

However, the degree of mutual awareness is not as strong between me and all the others out there in the orbit of

the cinema auditorium as it is between me and the students sitting next to me. All this is not to deny that the

situation in the cinema is often more complicated than Taylor’s situation on the bus. As we have seen, Taylor

gives us the example of the two strangers to underline that communication is not necessarily a matter

of information, because the facts seem obvious. [11] However, in the cinema, due to the darkness, the

unidirectional viewing position, and the back of the seats, I often do not presuppose that the others find the scene

funny. The examples I have given above of viewers who surmise the responses of others or are even fully certain

about them despite the fact that the reactions were not expressed acoustically referred to immediate peers. In

the movie theater I usually do not know the majority of other viewers sitting in the dark. Neither can I properly

see their facial expression responding to the film (for instance, their display of an amused smile); nor would I

18
expect them to share my humor when it comes to this particular film (for instance, because I am a German

watching a German comedy in Moscow). [12]

In situations like this laughter certainly does inform me about something less-than-obvious. First, it can

convey deictic information by referring to and acoustically pointing at an event or content: ‘Look, this is funny!’

This happens to me regularly when abroad. The nuances of a particular humor slip my attention and I gratefully

accept the notification that this is funny so that I have something to laugh at myself. Second, since we do not

laugh continuously and about everything, we can single something out by responding with laughter to just this

scene: ‘Look, this – and precisely this – is funny!’ Third, laughter has a personal communicative function over

and above the deictic one as it corresponds to something about the person laughing: ‘Look, this – and precisely

this – is funny for me!’ Admitting that laughter is communicating important information does not do harm to

the argument that it also establishes a collective awareness.

Due to the structural features of the movie theater the situation is more complicated than in Taylor’s example

for a second reason. Taylor points out that in order to establish collective awareness, and thus to create a public

space, someone must take a first step. If the man on the bus had not exclaimed, ‘Whew, it’s hot!’ the mutual

awareness between him and the other passenger would have remained implicit at best. It would not have been

raised to a higher level and brought out into the open between the two men. Likewise, in the cinema someone

has to laugh in order to establish something entre nous. However, in the cinema it is not enough that a single

person laughs out loud. Solitary laughter can create a peculiar imbalance or asymmetry. A second person in the

auditorium, who finds the scene equally funny but remains silent, may now be aware that both he and the

laughing person have something in common and share a feeling. Yet the laughing person herself may not know

that the other viewers find the scene funny – and may therefore feel uncomfortably left alone. While on the bus

the exclamation ‘Whew, it’s hot!’ does not need approval because the facts are obvious, in the cinema the

solitary laughter needs confirmation in order to raise a balanced, symmetrical kind of collective awareness. One

19
reason is the uncertainty based on the aforementioned structural features of the movie theater. Therefore laughter

also expresses a wish: ‘Look, this – and precisely this – is funny for me, but hopefully also for you and hence

for us!’ Helmuth Plessner once noted that the laughing person becomes truly joyous only when he or she knows

that the laughter rings out and is heard: the occasion of laughter … has an effect which is all the more

pronounced, the more ‘objective’ it seems. And it seems more objective to the degree that others are also struck

by it. To that extent it requires endorsement by others and gains strength in community.[13]

We subjectively need confirmation by others that something is objectively funny in order to create the common

vantage point of the entre nous. Laughter can therefore also be equivalent to an invitation: ‘Look, this – and

precisely this – is funny for me, but definitely also for you!’ Sometimes one might even feel the need to issue

a license to laugh. Think of a case when you feel the need to show others that it is allowed and appropriate to

laugh. Watching a German comedy in the Netherlands, one can conclude that the Dutch viewers either do not

understand the German humor (which does exist!) or that they do not find it funny enough to give it credit.

Either way I found it necessary for both my own or their enjoyment to stimulate and invite them, to indicate that

this is indeed ‘worth’ laughing about. I laughed forcefully and insistently, since I felt the need to ‘break through’

their ‘wall of silence’ – but this insistence can itself be risky. When the other viewers remain stubbornly silent

the laughing person may begin to wonder whether the others consider his or her humor strange – a situation

evoking embarrassment. It can also elicit anger about the others who do not laugh and thus refuse to participate

in what, for the laughing person, seems to be an evident reason to respond expressively.

Laughter in the funny video can fulfill a plethora of functions, and certainly not all of them have been mentioned

here. For instance, one may object to my account by asking if laughter about something comical or funny is first

and foremost a bodily response – an eruptive response to a crisis situation that seems contradictory and

unanswerable and in which the body takes over from the person, as Plessner would put it. It would be

shortsighted to overlook this bodily component.[14] However, the bodily response of laughter is much more

20
prominent in public. Robert Provine claims that people are 30 times more likely to laugh in the presence of

others than when they are alone. Even if some people do laugh wholeheartedly alone, say in front of a television

screen, this would not be a refutation to my argument, because in the movie theater laughter simply takes over

both a communicative role and a collective awareness function as well.

One could also complain that my argument overlooks that establishing something entre nous does not

necessarily imply everyone has to agree: there are persons who laugh along because of peer pressure (a point I

will return to). There may always be persons who do not consider themselves part of this ‘for us’. When a person

on a bus suffering from influenza experiences a moment of rigor or chill he or she does certainly not feel

included in the public space established by the exclamation ‘Whew, it’s hot!’ Likewise, in the cinema someone

who does not find the film funny at all may feel excluded and thus does not consider him or herself part of the

laughing community. Laughter therefore sometimes has an exclusionary function: ‘Look, this – and precisely

this – is funny for us, but not for others!’ The inclusion and exclusion function of laughter is a commonplace in

sociological theories of laughter;[17] even in biology this has been known for a long time. Some 50 years ago

the biologist Konrad Lorenz pointed out that laughter ‘produces simultaneously a strong fellow-feeling among

participants and joint aggressiveness against outsiders’. Again, this is not a fatal objection, because those

who are included may still be collectively aware of their common laughter.

In turn, the experience of feeling excluded from a laughing community can itself be highly relevant and

revelatory in moments of inadequate laughter. When viewers laugh about racist violence or a misogynist joke

those who do not laugh may become aware of the social distance that separates them; they realize the gap

between what they find inacceptable and what others consider as worthy of laughter. In this case laughter may

create a public awareness of another kind. The public place of the movie theater thus allows for beneficial

monitoring, which is not possible if the laughter is merely private. Interestingly, elements of this ‘control

function’ of cinematic laughter can already be found in Benjamin’s famous artwork essay – one of the few

21
places in canonical film theory where the ‘simultaneous collective experience’ of the movie theater assumes a

significant role. As should become clear in the following discussion, precisely because the viewer’s film

experience is a collective one in the movie theater it enables public reactions whose very public-ness can turn

out to be significant in an ethical sense.

The control function of laughter

Opposing the idea that laughter is liberating, the German philosopher, essayist and translator, Walter Benjamin

writes on a laughter that imposes identity. This imposition of identity, for Benjamin, is associated with “the

strick joke”. The joke imposes identities but for that reason it also has the potential to show that these identities

are nothing beyond the effects of the jokes. At its most intense moment, the laughter of the cruel joke, which

asserts identity, turns back on itself and undoes itself. This kind of identity crisis also connects comedy to the

well-studied topic of mourning terminology, a connection made by Benjamin. Laughter always has a controlling

dimension and never simply frees us, but it also – because it is a moment in which we are constructed- has the

potential to reveal how we are put together as subjects. Laughter plays a vital social and cultural roles in forming

our identities, our relations with others and our sense of who we are. Even in cases when large amounts of

beholders look at paintings in galleries and museums, they do not do so simultaneously and collectively.

Benjamin points out that, unlike a short video, galleries and salons do not give time to the masses

to organize and control themselves in their response. Thus, there is a lack of synchronization of responses and

as a result the beholders cannot mutually control their reactions.

Moreover, it is important to note that the reactions of the individuals can, in groups, create a massive audience

reaction. Of course this cannot be true for each and every response. It is hard to measure how collective feelings

of beauty or boredom end in a massive reaction, but the argument certainly accounts for expressive responses

like screaming or laughter, as we shall see. Consciously or subconsciously, the viewer attend the showing of a

funny video that others will presumably respond in a similarly expressive way. Knowing that their reactions

22
will add up to a mass response the audience attune for this expected outcome. By watching the videos alone (as

under today’s solitary viewing conditions), they would not anticipate a collective response and hence refrain

from attuning their response to an ‘immediate concentration and agglomeration’ of their peers. In this passage

Benjamin seems to be shrewdly aware of what is known as the audience effect: the effect existing prove others

can have the present effect on our viewing experience. As part of a group of people individuals often register

things differently than when they are alone, while they may perhaps also respond in a different way when they

are amongst other viewers.

Further, by becoming public the individual reactions control one another. Does he refer to a control of affects

in the sense of a suppression of the emotional reaction? Hence we could infer that Benjamin may have claimed

that if (and only if) viewers’ responses become public in the classroom, others can control them and judge them

as foolish or even ethically challenging; the viewer reveals and makes publically available what they find funny

and deems worthy of laughter.[1]

The reactions of the others, once they are out there, are in turn themselves subject to scrutiny. We could

even argue that there may be instances when people become critical of their own response precisely

because of its collective character. For instance, the viewer can despise the fact that he or she has laughed

about something with the other viewers that he or she should not have laughed about – be it for reasons

of peer pressure or due to involuntary emotional contagion. This is a point shared by philosopher Simon

Critchley, who writes that perhaps one laughs at jokes one would rather not laugh at. Humour can

provide information about oneself that one would rather not have.[2]

The word ‘control’ today often used in conjunction with the ‘disciplinary societies’ (Foucault) or the ‘societies

of control’ (Deleuze), to me has a much more positive ring in Benjamin’s text.[3] Again, Critchley is pertinent

as follows,

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 The reactionary quality of much humor, in particular ethnic humor, must be analyzed … in its ‘untruth’,

as it were, reactionary humor tells us important truths about who we are. Jokes can therefore be read as

symptoms of societal repression and their study might be said to amount to a return of the repressed. In

other words, humor can reveal us to be persons that, frankly, we would rather not be.[4]

the artwork essay’s valorization of distraction (as opposed to the contemplative reception of traditional works

of art) presupposes a type of cinema experience still patterned on the variety format, that is, the programming

of shorter films (interspersed with or framed by live performances) on the principle of maximum stylistic or

thematic diversity.[5]

Broadly speaking, we have to distinguish two functions that can be deduced from Benjamin’s writings on

laughter – call them the therapeutic function and the control function. Miriam Hansen has discussed in splendid

detail Benjamin’s arguments about the mass-psychological release effects of collective laughter.[6] In this draft

Benjamin argues that it belongs to the prime social functions of funny videos to strike a balance between the

human being and technology, a balance knocked out of kilter precisely by modern technology. Via the

technology of a video laughing about a cartoon may therefore acquire a healthy effect: The collective laughter

suggests a premature and therapeutic eruption of such mass neuroses, as stated by Benjamin.[7]

Ultimately, this therapeutic function has to remain highly speculative – and it is not for no reason that it received

severe criticism from Adorno: ‘The laughter of the cinema audience is … anything but good and revolutionary;

instead, it is full of the worst bourgeois sadism’.[8] Less speculative is the control function of laughter. As we

have seen, for Benjamin laughing about – and thus responding in a vocal and motor fashion to – a slapstick film

or a contemporaneous Chaplin comedy like City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) implies a progressive

reaction. Sitting in the classroom makes possible for the STUDENTS to find a way to not only synchronize their

reception but also to monitor one another. The public space created through laughter allows for a positive kind

of control, because inappropriate or even ethically-questionable laughter becomes publically available – and

24
thus a matter of knowledge about what kind of opinions and judgments exist out there. Benjamin’s arguments

could be summarized in two sayings: ‘tell me what you laugh about and I’ll tell you who you are’ and ‘tell

me who you laugh with and I’ll tell you who you are’. Laughter defines and re-defines identities in the context

of moving contexts or funny videos in the classroom’s sessions, under the monitoring process of the students’

instructors.

25
A Philosophy of Humor

26
As an English invention and core of its spirit, the first use of Humor took place in 1682 in tandem with the
emergence of democracy, 1776-8. Humor enforces a social bond but is of paramount importance to underline
its power for change in all contexts where the humorous event takes place. What is interesting about humor it
is its geographic specificity to the concept. The geography of humor is key to understand universal writers such
as Jonathan Swift, Johnson and the context of body, religion, protestant and post-reformation in England. Italian
Catholics, on the other hand, had to set for buffoonish laughter, as the saying goes. In the 18th C, even the
French recognized that humor belongs to the English people.

Traditionally philosophers have not paid much attention to humor despite its core nature of dealing and raising
the big questions. What causes the feeling of humor? There are basically, three theories of humor: The
superiority theory, the Relief theory and the Incongruity theory.

The Superiority Theory humor involves comparing yourself to another person or being, judging that you are
superior. Hobbes states that humor is a “sudden glory arising in some conception of some eminency in ourselves,
by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. “ Comedy often involves flawed
characters or characters who find themselves in bad situations. We laugh at the stupid, the cowardly, the socially
inept.

Many jokes ridicule particular groups: blonde jokes, fat jokes, jokes that play on stereotypes about nationalities.
Some problems in seeing yourself as superior to another person often lead to pity, not humor. Defenders of the
superiority theory would add that humor involves perceiving yourself to be superior, where the other person is
not so badly off that you feel sympathy instead. We often find humor where there is no judgment of superiority.
Consider simple jokes using wordplay and puns:

“A plateau is the highest form of flattery” – “I still remember what my granddad said before he kicked the
bucket: “How far do you consider I can kick this bucket?”

Even in cases where we laugh at another person’s misfortune, does this involve judging ourselves to be superior?
Many people watch TV shows vivaciously- they project themselves into the positions of characters. The
superiority theory does not seem to be compatible with the self- deprecating humor, where we poke fun at
ourselves. Indeed, some have suggested an “inferiority theory” of humor that involves judging yourself to be
flawed, to be less than ideal.

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The superiority theory embraces hierarchy, plays on misfortune, differences in social status. Does humor have
something intrinsic to it, is there something fundamental about humor that exposes power relationships? The
moral implication, on the superiority theory, suggest the possibility that humor can be morally wrong –humor
always involves 2 putting others down , and perhaps undermines cooperation and tolerance. Humor always
involves judgments of superiority. In Plato’s Republic, humor was seen as corruptible as in many other
memorable works such as Aristotle’s and Hobbes.

The core assumption of the superiority theory is that we laugh about the misfortunes of others; it reflects our
own superiority. This theory can be found in the work of Plato, Aristotle, and Hobbes. Plato suggests that humor
is some kind of malice towards people that are being considered relatively powerless. Hobbes further explains
that humans are in a constant competition with each other, looking for the shortcomings of other persons. He
considers laughter as an expression of a sudden realization that we are better than others, an expression of
‘sudden glory’.

Although this theory seems old-fashioned in the 21st century, Charles Gruner reformulated this theory as the
Superiority Theory of Humor. His theory contains a three-part thesis:

· Every humorous situation has a winner and a loser.

· Incongruity is always present in a humorous situation.

· Humor requires an element of surprise.

The first part of this thesis contains the idea of Superiority. The assumption that all humor has a winner and a
loser is based on human nature. Through history humans have used humor to “compete” with other persons,
making them the target of their humorous comment. The “winner “is the one that successfully makes fun of the
“loser”.

The relief theory involves a release of mental tension. Hence, the connection between humor and laughter:
laughter is a bodily expression, difficult to control. It is a release of positive emotion. Sigmund Freud
championed this theory. The Relief Theory has a clear physiological or psycho-physiological nature. The theory
reached its zenith when Freud proposed his theory how laughter can release tension and “psychic energy”. This
energy continuously builds up within the human body, has no further use and, therefore, has to be released. This
release is spontaneous and expresses itself in laughter. This theory is popular among those who believe that
laughter is beneficial for one’s health. A more conventional version of the Relief Theory is that we experience
a pleasant sensation when humor replaces negative feelings like pain or sadness. However, this statement may

28
be refutable since pain and sadness coexist in works of literature within the postmodern metafiction,
historiographic metafiction, magic realism and carnivalesque literary works.

29
The theory does not really give an explanation as to why we find humor funny and can in fact be seen a theory
of laughter. Different forms of humor release different tensions created by the mind’s attempt to inhibit
particular impulses. As we get older, we are expected to behave rationally and regulate emotions, thus inhibiting
a tendency to nonsense and childishness. This inhibition creates a mental tension, which needs to be released
by particular kinds of humor. Relief theory explains why so much humor deals with taboo topics- sex, violence,
political incorrectness- these are all inhibited in polite contexts. The problems with this theory is that we enjoy
engaging with taboo topics in general even in non –humorous contexts. But why doesn’t this also “release
tension”, and so provoke humor in all contexts?

The primary objection to relief theory is it assumes an implausible psychological theory. We do not literally
build up pressure; we don’t literally release anything. Even if we are humorous is the release supposed to work?
Why would telling a sexual joke release sexual tension, as opposed to just increasing such tension? Relief
Theory makes incorrect predictions: if it’s true that humor releases tension, then after a few jokes on the same
theme, there should be nothing left to release. Yet, we can laugh at a topic over and over for no reason but just
contagious laughter.

If the tension to be released is created by inhibitions, then people who are more inhibited should find more
things funny. Again, this seems to be false. The connection between humor and laughter is very controversial.
Laughter is prompted by many things that are not humorous: being tickled, contagious laughter, cannabis,
surprise, nervousness. Many times we laugh because others do. And we often find things funny without
laughing. Much of the humorous things in the world just give us an “intellectual tickle”.

The Incongruity Theory is the most significant approach to the study of humor and laughter. Kant, in the
eighteenth century, is credited to have made the first full conceptualization of incongruity. A good description
of the incongruity theory is found in the following words uttered by Schopenhauer:

“The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and
the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and the laugh itself is just an expression
of this incongruity.”

When jokes are examined in the light of the incongruity theory, two objects in the joke are presented through a
single concept, or ‘frame’. The concept becomes applied to both objects and the objects become similar. As the
joke progresses, it becomes apparent that this concept only applies to one of the two objects and thus the
difference between the objects or their concepts becomes apparent. This is what is called incongruity. Many
agree on the point that it is not the incongruity but the congruous resolution of the apparent incongruity that

30
makes a certain situation funny. That is why we speak of the incongruity resolution theory. The incongruity-
resolution theory is a linguistic theory that explains how jokes are structured and does not pay attention to the
influence of the surrounding factors. Moreover, it cannot explain why we can hear a joke more than one time
and still find it funny and why not all incongruities are the source of laughter. Whether relief of tension, a sense
of superiority to see the absurd in the inferior realities or the incongruous spaces, the three theories on humor
fall into Michael Foucault’s space of the incongruous where all forms meet since none of them exist in the purest
form, relief may be invaded by a sense of superiority and a vision of life as just a heap of the incongruous. We
are all familiar with the disconcerting effect of the proximity of extremes, 4 or, quite simply, with the sudden
vicinity of things that have no relation to each other; the mere act of enumeration that heaps them all together
has a power of enchantment all its own in their power to coexist.

Humor comes in many flavors, any of which may appeal to one person but not to another, and which may be
enjoyed in alternation or in combination. Here are names and descriptions of the varieties of comic
expression:

1. Anecdotal: Named after the word anecdote (which stems from the Greek term meaning “unpublished”);
refers to comic personal stories that may be true or partly true but embellished.
2. Blue: Also called off-color, or risqué (from the French word for “to risk”); relies on impropriety or
indecency for comic effect. (The name probably derives from the eighteenth-century use of the word blue to
refer to morally strict standards — hence the phrase “blue laws” to refer to ordinances restricting certain
behavior on the Sabbath).
A related type is broad humor, which refers to unrestrained, unsubtle humor often marked by coarse jokes and
sexual situations.
3. Burlesque: Ridicules by imitating with caricature, or exaggerated characterization. The association with
striptease is that in a bygone era, mocking skits and ecdysiast displays were often on the same playbills in
certain venues.
4. Dark/Gallows/Morbid: Grim or depressing humor dealing with misfortune and/or death and with a
pessimistic outlook.
5. Deadpan/Dry: Delivered with an impassive, expressionless, matter-of-fact presentation.
6. Droll: From the Dutch word meaning “imp”; utilizes capricious or eccentric humor.
7. Epigrammatic: Humor consisting of a witty saying such as “Too many people run out of ideas long before
they run out of words.” (Not all epigrams are humorous, however.) Two masters of epigrammatic humor are
Benjamin Franklin (as the author of Poor Richard’s Almanackand Oscar Wilde.
8. Farcical: Comedy based on improbable coincidences and with satirical elements, punctuated at times with
overwrought, frantic action. (It, like screwball comedy — see below — shares many elements with a comedy
of errors.) Movies and plays featuring the Marx Brothers are epitomes of farce. The adjective also refers to
incidents or proceedings that seem too ridiculous to be true.
9. High/highbrow: Humor pertaining to cultured, sophisticated themes.
10. Hyperbolic: Comic presentation marked by extravagant exaggeration and outsized characterization.
11. Ironic: Humor involving incongruity and discordance with norms, in which the intended meaning is
opposite, or nearly opposite, to the literal meaning. (Not all irony is humorous, however.)

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12. Juvenile/sophomoric: Humor involving childish themes such as pranks, name-calling, and other
immature behavior.
13. Mordant: Caustic or biting humor (the word stems from a Latin word meaning “to bite”). Not to be
confused with morbid humor (see above).
14. Parodic: Comic imitation often intended to ridicule an author, an artistic endeavor, or a genre.
15. Satirical: Humor that mocks human weaknesses or aspects of society.
16. Screwball: Akin to farce in that it deals with unlikely situations and responses to those situations;
distinguished, like farcical humor, by exaggerated characterizations and episodes of fast-paced action.
17. Self-deprecating: Humor in which performers target themselves and their foibles or misfortunes for
comic effect. Stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield was a practitioner of self-deprecating humor.
18. Situational: Humor arising out of quotidian situations; it is the basis of sitcoms, or situation comedies.
Situational comedies employ elements of farce, screwball, slapstick, and other types of humor.
19. Slapstick: Comedy in which mock violence and simulated bodily harm are staged for comic effect; also
called physical comedy. The name derives from a prop consisting of a stick with an attached piece of wood
that slapped loudly against it when one comedian struck another with it, enhancing the effect. The Three
Stooges were renowned for their slapstick comedy.
20. Stand-up: A form of comedy delivery in which a comic entertains an audience with jokes and humorous
stories. A stand-up comedian may employ one or more of the types of humor described here.
21. Physical Comedy: people falling down, pranks, the dramatic telling of jokes, humor involving physicality,
clowns, mimes, funny facial expressions
Exaggerated Humor: Clownish persona, impersonating someone, telling about their day in an exaggerated
way, etc. Careful about: tall tales and lying in the exaggeration.

22.Droll Humor – “imp” or goblin – used to mean “buffoonish”, a jester, amusingly odd, whimsically
humorous, zany behavior and speech, capricious or eccentric. Can provoke deadpan responses! :-) Often the
type of humor of the “comic relief” characters in cartoon movies and even also in live-action movies.

23. Witty Humor: one-liners (pithy, concise, meaningful), punch lines, intellectual humor, epigrams, charm
& whit.

24. Highbrow Humor – cultured/sophisticated themes. Lowbrow is something anyone would understand
(e.g. knock-knock jokes) and Highbrow Humor is something a regular person might not get – high-level
chemistry or math jokes for example.

25. Wit/Wordplay – play on words, twist language with humorous results, clever manipulation of language
(puns are included in this category).

26. Hyperbole – phrases that contain an obvious exaggeration to make a point (e.g. “he is older than the
hills”).

27. Deadpan / Dry – impassive, expressionless, matter-of-fact humor said with a straight face.

28. Ironic Humor – incongruity and discordance with norms, opposite or nearly opposite. The game “Apples
to Apples” can be used as ironic humor when pairing unlikely examples with a category. There are at least
three types of ironic humor: verbal (says one thing, but implies another, more of “go figure” type of phrasing
vs. sarcasm), situational (what happens is completely different from what is expected), and dramatic (in a

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film, TV show, play, skit, or sketch, the characters think something is one way, but its really another and the
audience knows the truth).

29. Parody – a literary composition imitating/mimicking in a funny way an author, genre, particular book,
song, or another artistic endeavor. E.g. parodies of songs that take the tune and add different words, a
mockumentary (fake documentary) can be a parody but can also be satire.

30. Spoof – a funny version of a work or genre just to make people laugh. E.g. a movie imitating a serious TV
show in a purely humorous way. Unfortunately, hoaxes are in this category but do not define the category.

31.Satire – imitates or mocks something to make a point or comment on a societal phenomenon. E.g. Animal
Farm is a statement against Stalinism. Fake news stories can also be in this category.

32.Heritage comedy – highlighting humorous traits or characteristics from a culture or heritage (e.g. video
shorts about life in the southern United States, a movie about a family from a particular country and
highlighting the funny quirks about that culture, etc).

33.Surreal Humor – trippy, bizarre, creepy but hilarious, crazy experiences, nonsensical and nonsequiturs,
bizarre juxtapositions, absurd situations, nonsensical themes, nonsense logic.

34.Topical Humor – humor about current events/trends, humorous spin on the news, elections, pop culture,
headlining late night talk shows, skits about current events, fake news stories, political cartoons, etc.

35.Situational Comedy – humor arising out of quotidian (everyday, ordinary) situations, scripted dialogue
creates a thematic situation. It is the basis of sitcoms (situation comedies), farce, screwball, and slapstick
comedies.

36.Observational Comedy – poking fun at everyday life, humor in everyday life, inflating the importance of
trivial things, or observing the silliness that society accepts as normal.

37.Farcical Humor – improbable coincidences with satirical elements, punctuated by overwrought, frantic
action (e.g. focus of a lot of old black-and-white tv shows, shorts, and movies).

38.Antidotal – comic personal stories.

39.Sketch (skits about situations) – shorter than sitcoms, usually live.

40.Character comedy – stereotypes, a persona invented by the performer.

41.Musical Comedy – music with or without lyrics that is intended to be funny.

42.Improv Comedy – where the dialogue or behavior is not planned beforehand.

43.Cuteness Humor(my self-invented category!) – so cute it just makes you laugh.

33
Types of humor that may be problematic (depends):

Mocking Humor: making fun of someone or something. Different from sophomoric humor. There are
examples in the Bible! The example is I Kings 18:26-19 ESV version. Note “relieving himself” means what
we call using the bathroom today!

Dark/Morbid Humor – “humor out of the deepest, darkest, situations in life.” However, the Bible does have at
least one example of dark humor that I can see: Judges 5:28-30 (I like the NIV version)

Anti-humor – intentionally not funny, lacking in intrinsic meaning, joke set-up, what’s funny is that it’s not
funny, parodies of jokes.

*Humorously dim-witted logic.

Self-depreciating for comic effects – foibles or misfortunes, memes, make self the butt of jokes.

Sarcasm – can be subtle, often reflects a dark/pessimistic view of life.

“Cringe Comedy” – the comedy of embarrassment.

Shock Value Humor

Bodily Humor – toilet jokes, farts, toilet humor, bodily functions.

Types of humor that does or may conflict with Ephesians 5:4:

*Juvenile / Sophomoric humor – name-calling, jokes at other person’s expense, pranks, mimicking in a
mocking way.

*Insult comedy

*Mordant humor – (to bite or sting)- grim with sharp sarcasm, caustic or biting humor (e.g. “my parents
spanked me as a child, as a result, I now suffer from a psychological condition known as ‘respect for others’”.
“Nice perfume must you marinate in it?” (Sarcasm in acerbic fashion) mocking something or someone (we
laugh but think twice). I think telling people truth even if you are painfully blunt at times can be valuable in
certain contexts, it is just that mordant humor can be biting and mean.

*Raunchy Humor (or Blue Humor, Off-Color) – vulgar, sex, cringe but crack up, the true raw human
condition, impropriety, and indignity.

Hoaxes (a form of anti-humor and spoof)

—————

Possible sources of a clean laugh:

34
Cartoons: You can look some up online or buy on Amazon books full of strips from your favorite cartoon
artists for cheap (or look at thrift stores). Note – sarcastic cynical cartoons might be unhealthy in the long run
even if they are not/seem not to be unhealthy in the short run. Buying several books that only contain your
favorite cynical sarcastic cartoon might slant your thinking to be more cynical so that is something to
consider.

Jokes: you can buy clean joke books on Amazon or look up lists of jokes online. What type of categories of
jokes do you like?

Clean comedy routines, also known as PG Comedy: For examples of clean comedian clips check out the free
Pandora station “PG Comedy”.

Funny TV Shows that were actually on TV at one point: Episodes of these may be available on Youtube or
you may need a subscription to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc to view them. Might help to identify what
type of humor you like in picking shows. You can look up reviews online to see if they are raunchy.
Categories include those include: shows entirely focused on humor (e.g. I really enjoy Candid Camera, others
include America’s Funniest Home Videos which is not my favorite but some people really like if they like
physical humor or cuteness humor). Also are funny sitcoms based on 1) witty banter, 2) funny life situations
exemplified, 3) awkward humor, 4) deadpan humor, 5) “inside jokes” (e.g. nerd-specific references, office
humor), or sarcastic humor (sarcastic humor has questionable healthiness). Again unfortunately many of them
include raunchy humor so looking up reviews online on “family friendliness” can be important. Also, consider
old black and white films, you can watch clips on Youtube to see if you like them.

Fake News Humor (caution!)

Full-Length Films (Comedies): You can watch their trailers on Youtube to see if it is the humor style you find
funny. You can look up descriptions in “Plugged In” on the Focus on the Family website to see what type of
humor it is and whether it is raunchy or vulgar.

Short Funny Videos on YouTube and Facebook.

Skits and Classic Plays: Especially if you enjoy wit, farce, ironic humor, satire, and situational humor.

Analyzing Types of Humor:

Analyzing forms of media for what types of humor they contain can be fun!

Here is an example from the movie “The Emperor’s New Groove” which is my own personal analysis (not
copied from anyone else):

“The Emperor’s New Groove” movie includes 1) A caricature of the classic self-centered teenager, the classic
dim-witted muscular side-kick (which actually ends up being deeper and surprisingly likable), and other
memorable characters. It has dark elements (finding something funny in tragic situations), over-dramatic
illustrations of scenes that are humorous, a little bit of deadpan (Kuzco’s lines to Yzma etc), exaggerated
expressions, settings, and sound effects, witty humor, and satire in the form of witty commentary on a selfish
and petty mindset . Kuzco is extremely sarcastic but you can tell by the delivery it is done in satire so we are
35
not supposed to imitate it. There is also humor when they say something in a serious way but it’s funny
because they really believe it (Kronk).

So….what kinds of humor do you appreciate? That might help you find something to laugh about and help
you appreciate other people’s uniqueness.

Conclusion

Fabricating activities that allow learners to encounter unexpected language and linguistic practices will

afford them the opportunity to improvise communicative solutions, and to learn to make choices. Activities

that involve an element of surprise may also raise awareness of the situated, contingent nature of

interaction and eventually humorous interaction. Humor thrives on unpredictability, making it a natural

way to insert unforeseen language into the classroom. Language plays a main function to destabilize a

language learner’s system, allowing further development. In the freedom of language learning activities,

unpredictability encourages creativity and pushes learners to construct unknown meanings, rather than

relying on familiar language, which they may do when given complete freedom. Humor and language

play can also introduce unpredictability into otherwise routine, predictable classroom interactions and

prescribed curricula. Gardner accounts on how teachers working in a linguistically diverse classroom

transformed a scripted phonetic activity into a creative game that supported not only the children’s

language development, but also their identities as competent members of the classroom community. In

this case, the teacher used a variety of strategies to help children justify their answers to the “silly

questions” posed in the instructional script rather than accepting simple yes/no responses. Gardner found

that these strategies were central in making the activity “at once more cognitively challenging with the

real communicative need to justify, more enjoyable-humorous in its appeal to the imagination. (Gardner,

2008, 272)

36
Vigostky’ socio-cultural approach is embedded in social activity where learning occurs; that is, new skills

make their first appearance in social interaction and are constructed through collective action. It is only

later that they become internalized and available for individual use. Both of these ideas are addressed in

the following quote, in which Vygotsky (1978) explained that learning awakens a variety of internal

developmental processes that are able to operate only when the student is interacting with people in his

environment and in cooperation with his peers. He argues further by stating that when social and private

speech has largely become internalized, they may reappear as needed when confronting new problems and

in his concept of Romance or play with language stage, laughter -founded in humor- generates identities.

Humor’s role in classroom learning entails a complex array of factors. It has a great effect on identities and

power relations, and the romance and precise stages in learning. Many researchers have, instead, turned their

focus to the role of language play. Although some, like Lantolf, have emphasized the idea of language play as

a form of private speech or rehearsal that facilitates internalizing comfort and competence with second language

forms. In addition, the a socio-cognitive theory of language development that is consistent with the sociocultural

approach to the learning of a language make the learner and instructor take into account the rich sociocultural

background of those learners from different cultures and geographical loci. Moreover, we discussed six

principles for language education that are not only grounded in this view of development but could also be

realized through purposeful engagement with humor and language play. Further, I have explored taking non-

serious language seriously in language education. It is, then, up to instructors to embrace the risks and rewards

of using humor in their professional practice and the classroom-space/time. Learning a new language entails

communicative approaches, play, romance, precision, unpredictability, relief, romance-precision, the prompting

of social action and change, the construction of bonds, influence on others, negotiation of meaning, the boosting

of cognitive skills, the richness of sociocultural aspects, humor as a social practice, functions, the encountering

of linguistic challenges, the challenges of interpretation in connection with the learner’s linguistic competence,

its nature to raise awareness, and the plural interpretation. Within the intersection of all these categories, the

37
effectiveness of humor in the development of language learning poses collegiate and unprecedented challenges,

in the threshold of the 21st century.

Lic. Agustina Sosa Revol

2015

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Endnotes

[1-1] For slightly different interpretations of section XII in Benjamin’s artwork essay see Hansen 2012, p. 100 and McBride

1998, p. 469.

[2-2] Critchley 2002, p. 74.

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[3-3] See Foucault 1995; Deleuze 1992.

[4-4] Why this should be the case ‘nowhere more than in the cinema’ – and not also, for instance, in stage comedies –

remains open in Benjamin’s text.

[5-5] Critchley 2002, p. 12. He continues: ‘[j]okes can be read in terms of what or simply who a particular society is

subordinating, scapegoating or denigrating. Grasping the nature of societal repression can itself be liberating, but only

negatively.’ Critchley 2002, pp. 75-76.

[6-6] Hansen 2012, p. 86.

[7-7] Ibid.

[8] Benjamin 2008, p. 337 (translated by R. Livingstone). In German: ‘Chaplin hat sich in seinen Filmen an den zugleich

internationalsten und revolutionärsten Affekt der Massen gewandt, das Gelächter. “Allerdings”, sagt Soupault, “Chaplin

bringt nur zum Lachen. Aber abgesehen davon, daß das das Schwerste ist, was es gibt, ist es auch im sozialen Sinne das

Wichtigste.”’

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[9] Curiously, Hansen does not discuss these allusions. The fact that she overlooks Benjamin’s references to comedies is

symptomatic of the general problem that the genre poses for the neat divide between early cinema and classical cinema.

Since 1895 comedies transcend the boundaries between film historical periods. Moreover, even if the mode of address

of the comedy may have changed throughout the decades its laughing audiences are hardly the absorbed, voyeuristic

spectators often deemed typical for the classical paradigm.

[10] Benjamin 1969, p. 250 (translated by H. Zohn).

[11] In the German original Benjamin notes: ‘Ehe der Film zur Geltung kam, suchten die Dadaisten durch ihre

Veranstaltungen eine Bewegung ins Publikum zu bringen, die ein Chaplin dann auf natürlichere Weise hervorrief.’

Benjamin 1977 (‘Kunstwerk’), p. 37 (emphasis added).

[12] In the late 1920s the film theorist and critic Rudolf Arnheim once turned around in the movie theater in order to

follow the audience rather than the film. His comments anticipate what Benjamin would say a couple of years later: ‘Die

Körper liegen als dunkle Klumpen schwer und unbeweglich in bequemen Stühlen … Manchmal geht ein Gelächter durch

das Dunkel, dann wiegen sich alle die Körper eine Weile hin und her, so als wenn der Wind durch die Bäume geht.’

Quoted from: Paech & Paech 2000, p. 133.

[13] Benjamin 1999, p. 792

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