Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze - Rigeo
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REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL EDUCATION
ISSN: 2146-0353 ● © RIGEO ● 11(4), WINTER, 2021
www.rigeo.org Research Article
Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to
Analyze
Assistant Prof. Anwar Fayez Al Bzour
Faculty of Arts / Zarqa University / Jordan
abzour@zu.edu.jo
Abstract
Humor has been studied in different fields, such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literature. It
attracted the attention of numerous scholars, such as Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Freud…etc However, the
systematic linguistic study of humor approximately started at the end of the previous century. Since that
time, linguists began to study humor from different perspectives such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
discourse analysis, semantics and pragmatics. Although they have presented various studies of humor,
humor is still a significant topic for research because it is involved in every aspect of human life.
The aim of this research is to review the various models and theories that were created to analyze
humorous forms. It handles the philosophical theories, psychological and cognitive studies. It also
instances the language-based models put forth to examine the humorous texts. Finally, the researcher
attempts to demonstrate the different linguistic mechanisms of producing humor and to present a
linguistic analysis of some forms of humor. This study will examine humor from two linguistic perspectives:
the semantic and the pragmatic. To achieve this purpose, the researcher will use two linguistic
frameworks: the cooperative principle (CP) proposed by Grice (1975) and the General Theory of verbal
humor presented by Attardo and Raskin (1991) and its modification by Attardo (2001).
Keywords
Systematic Linguistic Study, Humor, Language-Based, Linguistic, Semantic and Pragmatic
To cite this article: Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International
Geographical Education (RIGEO), 11(4), 1480-1492. doi: 10.48047/rigeo.11.04.139
Submitted: 20-03-2021 ● Revised: 15 04-2021 ● Accepted: 25-05-2021Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International Geographical …
Introduction
Humor is pervasive. It exists in peoples' conversations, in movies, on television, in books, newspapers
and magazines, on the radios, etc. Throughout the centuries, humor has been a topic that
attracted the attention and interest of scholars in various fields, from Aristotle and Kant to Freud.
What humor is and why people laugh are the questions that various theories and models have
been proposed to answer. But these questions are not as simple and easy as they may seem.
Many linguists, philosophers, scholars and rhetoricians have given various theories and models to
account for them.Attempting to define what humor is, from a linguistic point of view, Salvatore
Attardo, a cognitive linguist, has defined humor as "an all-encompassing category covering any
event or object that elicit laughter, amuses, or is felt to be funny" (1994, p.4). On the other hand,
from a rhetorical view, Henri Berger (1995), defines humor as "a thing that makes people laugh
through using different techniques to generate laughter '' (p. 52). It is worth mentioning that
according to these two definitions and many others, humor is often accompanied by laughter;
however, some linguists, such as Attardo and Raskin (1991), Attardo (2001), Ross (1998), and Ermida
(2008), have rejected the use of laughter as a defining criterion for humor because laughter is just
a reaction to humorous texts. Moreover, if an audience is not able to understand the joke in the
humorous texts or if he/she may be unwilling to share the same humorous exchange, no laughter
will be produced although the text is funny. In addition, laughter is not the only reaction to
humorous exchanges since the receiver may just smile or keep silent while others laugh. Since
humorous texts cannot be judged by its reaction, i.e., laughter, linguists have later put forth some
conditions for the text to be considered funny.
The elusive nature of humor has made it an interdisciplinary field. It has been studied by
philosophers, rhetoricians, psychologists, sociologists, and linguists. As a result, numerous theories
and models have been presented to account for this phenomenon. These models and theories
have been classified into three categories: incongruity, release, and superiority theories. However,
these philosophical attempts to account for humor were not helpful to linguists to present a
linguistic interpretation of humor, and they have developed some linguistic theories, such as the
Semantic Script of Humor Theory (SSTH) and the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) to explain
humor from the linguistic perspective. In fact, the previous attempts to explain humor, specifically,
superiority and release theories are more appropriate for psychological or sociological
explanations but they did not present a satisfactory linguistic reading of humor. Therefore, linguists
have started to study humor and they proposed models and theories to account for it.
This study attempts a linguistic analysis of four humorous texts created during the Egyptian
revolution between January 25. During this period, a large number of humorous texts were
produced to reflect the attitude of the Egyptians toward Mubarak's regime. This study is new in its
topic as the researcher has chosen to present a linguistic study of some historically significant
Arabic humorous texts, which are widely circulated at the present time, but about which no
linguistic study has yet been published. Moreover, the researcher has chosen two linguistic tools
to explore the different linguistic aspects of verbal humor in Arabic humorous texts and this will
enrich the linguistic study of humor from a relatively new perspective.
Statement of the problem
Humor has been studied extensively in philosophy, psychology and sociology, but the linguistic
examination of humor is still unsatisfactory to many linguists; for example, Chiaro (1992), Okada
(2001), and Ermida (2008) have acknowledged the rarity of the linguistic handlings of humor
despite the importance of such a field of research, and they called for further research of humor.
In fact, their demand for more research is motivated by the significance of the linguistic treatment
of humor, which lies in the fact that the linguistic study of humor will further our understanding of
the semantic phenomenon and cognitive processes that interpret meaning and will help
understand an effective tool in human communication.
Moreover, studying Arabic humor through the lens of modern linguistics is to some extent a
neglected area of research despite the numerous materials of Arabic humorous data, i.e., such
as films, plays, jokes, comic shows, stand-up comedy…etc. Generally speaking, there are a few
linguistic studies of Arabic humor such as Shehata (1984), Kananaa (1995) and El-shazly (2003). But
these studies have just dealt with one form of humor, e.g., jokes and satire. For instance, Shehata
and Kananaa’s studies were simple linguistic descriptions of jokes, and they did not use a certain
1481© RIGEO ● Review of International Geographical Education 11(4), WINTER, 2021
theory or model to explain their humorous data nor they presented a linguistic analysis of the
mechanisms used to produce humor in Arabic; but they just discussed the context of the jokes
and the butts of the jokes in certain context. In short, the rarity of the linguistic study of humor and
the negligence of investigating Arabic humor from the perspective of modern linguistic theories
of humor as well as the understanding of the semantic and the pragmatic aspects of the
humorous phenomenon are the main purposes of this research. They represent the gap that this
work will modestly attempt to fill.
Research Questions
Egyptians are well known for their sense of humor. They usually resort to use it at anything. Anything
can be a target for this weapon. This study will examine some forms of humorous texts. The
researcher will use two linguistic frameworks to account for these humorous texts. These two
linguistic tools are the Gricean Cooperative Principle and the GTVH theory proposed by Attardo
and Raskin (1991) and its revision later by Attardo (2001). Thus, the focus of this research can be
formulated in the following three questions:
1. Can humor in Arabic be created in through the non-observance of Gricean maxims of
communication?
2. Can the General Theory of Humor (GTVH) account for humor in Arabic?
Review Of Literature
Research in humor started with Aristotle and Plato. These two great philosophers attempted to
explain why people laugh. Aristotle, for instance, gave a sound explanation of humor. He
differentiated between two sources of humor: words and events (or verbal and referential humor).
Verbal humor is related to choose of words and their displacement in a given text whereas
referential humor is related the nature of the episode or anecdote narrated (Attardo, 1994). Plato,
on the other hand, explained humor as "a mixed feeling of the soul"(Plato, ed. 1961, as cited in
Attardo, 1994, p. 18). It is a mixture of pleasure and pain since we ridicule the criticized qualities of
our friends (Attardo, 1994).
These two simple explanations presented by Aristotle and Plato were not satisfactory to numerous
scholars and philosophers such as Hobbs, Bergson, Horace and others. These philosophers had
explained humor from different viewpoints. Their interpretations, along with many other writers
such as Freud, Schopenhauer, had revolved around three main views that Victor Raskin (1985)
has summed them up into three categories: incongruity theories, superiority theories and release
theories. There are many synonyms for these classifications, as the following table (1) indicates
Cognitive Social Psychoanalytical
Incongruity Hostility Release
Contrast Aggression Sublimation
Superiority Liberation
Triumph Economy
Derision
Disparagement
Table 1. Theories of Humor (Raskin, 1985, p. 35)
Incongruity theories
According to Ross (1998), these theories are related to the ideas of Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer
and Holcomb. Kant, for instance, indicates that humor results from a sudden transformation of our
expectations into nothing. Schopenhauer, influenced by Kant's views, argues that humor is based
on the contradiction between our expectations and the world we experience in the joke.
Holcomb (1993), on the other hand, describes humor in new terms, but the essence of his
explanation is similar to that of Schopenhauer and Kant. He argues that humor production is
directly dependent on the presence of what he calls nodal points. He defines the nodal point as
a location in the "narrative where humor is perceptibly more concentrated than in the
1482Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International Geographical …
immediately surrounding texts" (Holcomb, 1993). This nodal point is what is called later by linguists
the punch line since its presence contradicts the evoked expectations within the readers of
humorous texts.
Superiority THEORIES
According to these theories, laughter arises from a sense of superiority to others. Thomas Hobbs
and Henry Bergson were the main proponents of this opinion. Hobbs argues that humor emerges
from a sudden conception of superiority in ourselves by comparison with infirmity of others. On the
other hand, using humor to criticize the flaws of others, Bergson points out that humor has a
corrective function, for it is used by the society to correct deviant behavior. (Attardo, 1994)
Release theories
Release theories maintain that humor releases tensions, psychic energy, or that humor releases
one from inhibitions, conventions and laws. It provides a relief to various tensions and allows
repressed desires to be satisfied. According to this theory, "When we laugh, we temporarily
liberate ourselves from the fetters and limitations that oppress us and we express emotions that
would otherwise be forbidden'' (Ermida, 2008, p. 67). The major proponent of this theory is Sigmund
Freud. He considers humor as liberation or a sublimation of suppressed feelings, emotions and
impulses: It performs a vital psychological role in providing an environment in which subjects that
are taboos, for instance, sex, politics, etc., may be freely explored through humorous texts.
(Attardo, 1994)
Linguistic Theories of Humor
Compared to philosophical and other explanations of humor, the linguistic account of humor
started quite recently. It started in the eighties, when Victor Raskin (1985) proposed the first
linguistic theory of humor. After reviewing the previous explanations of humor, Raskin's theory
advocated a new approach of humor. This new approach consists in putting forward his theory
that was called as the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH). This theory of humor is based on
two main conditions: in order for a text to be funny, it should be consistent with two scripts, and
these two scripts are opposing each other’s. Raskin (1985) explains this theory as follows:
A text can be characterized as a single joke- carrying text if both of the following conditions
are satisfied:
a- A text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different scripts.
b- The two scripts with which the text is compatible are opposite. The two scripts with which
the text is compatible are said to overlap fully or in part in this text. (p. 99).
This theory is based on the concept of scripts. Raskin uses this term to represent the vast complexes
of information associated with lexical items, and these scripts are instrumental in the process of
interpreting any text. Scripts are also known as frames, scenarios and schemata (Raskin, 1985). In
addition to these two conditions of the theory, there are two main elements that are influential in
this theory: the lexical items that evoke the different scripts and the combinatorial rules. The
function of these combinatorial rules is to combine all the possible meanings of the scripts and
discard those combinations that do not yield coherent readings. As a result, the receiver of the
humorous texts should be aware of the various scripts that the lexical items of the text trigger, and
he/she should be able to find out the appropriate combinatorial rules which result in a compatible
reading of theses texts. These potential combinations of meanings in a sentence are equal to the
number of the scripts/meanings of each lexical item in the sentence. During the process of
combining scripts, the semantic theory will occasionally encounter stretches of texts that are
compatible with more than one reading, i.e., would fit more than one script, but the reader of the
text should combine these different scripts in order to have a meaningful interpretation of the text.
The following example had been proposed by Raskin to show how his theory works:
"Is the doctor at home?" the patient asked in his bronchial whisper." No" the doctor's young and
pretty wife whispered in reply." Come in". (1985, p. 120)
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One notices that this joke is about someone who is ill and goes to the doctor's residence to inquire
about his presence. His question "is the doctor at home?" is compatible with the script of the
relationship between a patient and a doctor. However, the answer of the doctor's wife is
incompatible with this script, and there are two things that contradict the newly established script:
her request" to come in" and her description in the text as young and pretty. Raskin (1985) points
out that the patient's inquiry and the reply of the doctor's wife are incongruous with the script of a
doctor whereas they are compatible with totally different script, i.e., that of lovers. The
contradictions between scripts and the nonsense of using the previously established script, namely
of doctor/patient script, to interpret the whole text result in the final humorous reaction on the part
of the reader who finds himself/herself forced to re-read the text again in view of what he
discovered. Applying this theory to seventy jokes and humorous texts, Raskin finds that the scripts’
oppositions fall into three classes: actual vs. non-actual, normal vs. abnormal, and possible vs.
impossible.
However, the limitations of the SSTH were immediately pointed out by Raskin himself. After the
theory was applied to various data from different languages, some linguists began to describe
some of the weaknesses of the theory. Abdlian (2005), for instance, presented three main
problems with the SSTH. Firstly, the idea of script was not explained clearly by Raskin but remained
broad and over-general. Secondly, Raskin's analysis of jokes meant that a joke had only two scripts
whereas there were some texts that evoked more than two scripts. Thirdly, the theory did not
account for all kinds of jokes, such as nonsensical or absurd jokes; hence it was limited in its scope
since it provided only a semantic analysis of just one type of humor, i.e., jokes.
In response to these limitations, Raskin and Attardo (1991) revised the SSTH and presented the
General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). The GTVH broadens the scope of the SSTH: it includes five
knowledge resources (KRs) that must be tapped into when generating or interpreting a joke, in
addition to the script opposition from the SSTH. These KRs are: script opposition (SO), logical
mechanism (LM), the target (TA), the narrative strategy (NS), the language (LA), and the situation
(SI). Attardo and Raskin have defined each knowledge resource:
Script Opposition (SO):
the script opposition of the SSTH
Logical Mechanism (LM):
It is the mechanism whereby the incongruity of the SO is playfully and/or partially explained. It can
range from straightforward juxtaposition to more complex errors in reasoning, such as false
analogies, garden path phenomena, figure- ground reversal, false analogies, and chiastic
arrangements.
Situation (SI):
The situation of the joke can be thought of as the "prop" of the joke: the objects, participants,
instruments, activities, etc.
Target (TA):
The target of any humorous text is the butt of the joke. It may be a certain individual or group.
However, some jokes, which are not aggressive, have an empty value for this parameter.
Narrative Strategy (NS):
By narrative strategy, they mean the genre of the joke, in other words, whether the text of the joke
is set up as expository, as a riddle, as a question-and answer sequence, and so on.
Language (LA):
This KR contains all the information necessary for the verbalization of a text. It is responsible for the
exact wording of the text and for the placement of the functional elements that constitute it. Any
sentence can be cast in different wordings (that is, using synonyms, other syntactic constructions,
1484Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International Geographical …
etc., and any joke can be worded in a number of ways without changes in its semantic content
(Attardo&Raskin, 1991, pp. 297-308). Whereas the SSTH presents a semantic theory, the GTVH
presents a general theory of humor. Attempting to propose as a general theory of humor, Attardo
revised the GTVH in 2001 and broadened its scope to account for humorous texts that are longer
than jokes, such as short stories, or even novels and conversation. In addition, he introduced a
number of new concepts to the theory, such as jab lines, stacks and strands. Jab lines are
semantically equivalent to the punch lines, but there are two main distinctions between them:
whereas the punch lines occur at the end of the text, the jab lines occur at the beginning or in
the middle of the text. Moreover, punch lines force the reader to re-read the text and solve the
opposition between scripts whereas jab lines do not force the reader to look for another
explanation nor they disrupt the narrative of the text as punch lines did. The following examples
highlight the difference between them:
1- At the end of a picture gallery stood the princess Sophia of Carlsruhe, a heavy-TARTAR-
looking lady, with TINY-BLACK EYES, AND WONDERFUL EMERALDS- TALKING blood French at the
top of her voice.
2- Do you believe in clubs for young men?
Only when kindness fails. (Attardo, 1994, p. 132). The final punchline in the second example
forces the reader to look for another meaning for the word "club" instead of interpreting it as a
social organization. Thus, this punchline disrupts the narrative of the joke. On the contrary, the first
example presents just a description which is far from flattering and the different humorous lexical
items, tiny- black eyed and heavy- tarter-looking lady, which represent the jab lines in the text, do
not disrupt the narrative or oblige the reader to look for a new interpretation.
According to the GTVH, all the lines of the texts are catalogued along the six parameters of the
theory. This cataloguing presents two main advantages of the revised version proposed by
Attardo (2001): a) the identification of connections among the lines, and, b) the identification of
patterns of occurrences of the lines, in relation to one another and globally in the texts. The
connections among lines lead to the identification of thematic or formal connections among lines.
For example, if all the lines are targeting a given individual then they are obviously related, and
these related lines are called strands. These strands may be based on the contents of any the KRs.
A chain of strands is called stacks, which are common in large copra, e.g., episodes of sitcoms.
These two theories, i.e., the SSTH and the GTVH are the most important linguistic attempts to
account for humor. In fact, these two theories are not the only linguistic attempts proposed to
investigate humor because there are other models such as the Isotopy-Disjunction Model (IDM),
which is based on the idea that the text of a joke is seen as developing one isotopy( script) and
then switching to a second isotopyAttardo(1994), Frame –shifting theories, which are based on
the idea of semantic and cognitive schemata , and the Register Theory that deals with humorous
texts wherein humor is derived from using inappropriate registers. However, the significance of the
SSTH and the GTVH consist in the fact that they have been proposed to account for the humor
competence of humans. They have been used to account for humorous data in various
languages such as English, Russian, polish, and French; whereas other models are very limited in
scope.
It is worth- mentioning that humorous data has attracted the attention of many linguists since its
beginning. They have been studied in conversation, in sitcoms, in political speech, in stand - up
comedies, and in newspapers and magazines. Attempting to know what make people laugh,
Berger (1995) studied humor from rhetorical perspective. His study came out with forty-five
techniques that people, humorous writers and comic actors used to create humor. More similar
to Berger's study is Kate Elwood's (2000): She examined several types of humor that is used in the
American magazines and advertisements. She found out that the writer of the American
magazines and advertisements used certain humorous techniques which helped persuade the
people to buy the advertised items. These techniques included allusions to idioms and quotations,
polysemy, homophones and homonyms, literalization of idioms, and lexical and grammatical puns
and irony.
Anne tarry (2005) studied humor in political comic strips in Hong Kong newspapers. She used the
GTVH to illustrate the specific features of political comic strips. What is significant in this study is that
the researcher demonstrates that script opposition is not the only contribution to the humorous
effect although it is the core element of the GTVH but that background knowledge and role of
the viewer play an important role in the realization of the occurring humor.
Laura Kalliomaki (2005) studied humorous texts from different perspectives. Using the sitcom of
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Blackadder as her data, she focused on the rhetorical and pragmatic aspects of humor
production. She found out that the characters in the sitcom used many rhetorical techniques such
as allusion, analogy, comparison, parody, and reversals to produce humor. Moreover, the
researcher deduces from her data that the maxims of conversational communication have been
violated to create humor, especially the maxims of quality and manner.
Jeannine Schwarz (2010) examined the linguistic aspects of verbal humor in stand-up comedies.
The researcher attempted to explore the ways in which the stand-up comedians organize and
perform their materials in order to create humor, elicit laughter and make their audiences
appreciate their performances. She figured out that the creation of humor in stand-up comedy
consisted in using a combination of various linguistic features of joke telling such as wordplay and
punning, hyperbole, repetitions, timing and paralinguistic choices. In addition, the stand-up
comedians resorted to develop a specific stage persona and create their own style of performing
their humorous texts.
It is worth mentioning that studying Arabic humor has not attracted the attention of many linguists
although the Arabs are well known for their sense of humor, and the Egyptians specifically are
known as " awlad-nokta (sons of jokes)" as Shehata (1984) points out. The number of the linguistic
studies of humor is very few compared with the endless production of humorous texts in the
Egyptian context. For example, there are some studies that focus on just one aspect of humor
such as Shehata (1992) and kanaana (1995). Shehata, for example, analyzed seventy political
jokes produced in 1989. The jokes he analyzed were mainly about the former three Egyptians
presidents, i.e., Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar El Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. According to the
researcher, Egyptian political jokes reflected the popular feelings and opinions of the Egyptian
people and through an analysis of the jokes; he could derive some understanding of the Egyptian
views. He finally found out that Egyptians, under Nasser, criticized the absence of freedom of
expression, police methods, the Egyptian army's performance in 1967 war and the failure of
socialism in Egypt. During Sadat presidency, the Egyptians criticized his harsh relationship with the
Coptic Church and Pope Shenouda III, and the corruption of his regime. Finally, the criticism of
Mubarak was quite personal and they usually ridiculed his intelligence, competence and
worthiness as a leader.
Sharif kanaana (1995) presents a similar study of jokes which spread throughout the Arab world
during the Gulf war. His study emphasizes that during this war all the produced jokes were satirizing
the presidents of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Another study which examines satire in
Egyptian Arabic journalese is El-Shazly (2003). She examines four elements of satire proposed by
Test (1991). These four elements are play, laughter, aggression, and judgment, known as PLAJ, in
a series of six episodes of satiric narrative written by Ahmed Bahgat in Al-Ahram paper under the
title of “An infuriated citizen's notes.” Although her study was mainly about satiric texts, she
discussed laughter through the handling of the third element of satire proposed by Test. She
concludes that the readers of these satiric texts become more negative about the criticized issues
in the episodes and come closer to the satirist.
Methodology
This study presents a linguistic study of humor in the Egyptian Revolution of January 25. To achieve
this purpose, the analysis in this study consists of two main components: semantic and pragmatic
perspectives. The semantic component is based on the analysis of the texts in consideration
according to the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) by Raskin and Attardo (1991); and, the
pragmatic account will focus on just the conversational maxims proposed by Grice (1975). In
addition to presenting a linguistic analysis of humor, these two theoretical frameworks will help
identify the different linguistic resources of producing humorous texts.
Theoretical Frameworks:
The General Theory of Verbal Humor
This theory has been discussed in details in the review of literature section. This theory has been
presented to account for any humorous text, whether short or long humorous text, e.g., jokes or
humorous short stories, novels, stand-up comedy or comic shows. It has been used by Anny tarry
(2005) to analyze the political comic strips, and by Sala (2000) to explain some humorous
exchanges in two episodes of Friends sitcom. I will use this theory to account for the different forms
1486Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International Geographical …
of humor that were created during the Egyptian revolution. This theory will explain why such forms
that were produced during this time of political unrest were humorous. Attardo and Raskin (1991)
have pointed out that analyzing any humorous text according to the General Theory of Verbal
Humor consists of recording the information related to its six knowledge resources (KRs). These
knowledge resources consist of six paradigms: language, narrative strategy, target, situation, script
opposition, and logical mechanism The following Table (2) presents these six knowledge resources
(KRs) of the theory in brief.
Parameters Definition Instance
Verbal humor (punning
Verbalization of the text: word
based on semantic
Language (LA) choice, placement of
incongruity – position of
functional element, etc.
punch lines)
- narratives
-Q &A dialogues
Narrative structure of the
Narrative strategy (NS) - riddles (e.g., how many x
humorous text(genre)
does it take to…)
- ethnic humor
humor often aims at(social) Social class humor
Target (T A)
stereotypes as butts' Feature humor (e.g., stupidity,
ugliness, etc.-
Example 1: the setting
The situational embedding of contributes to the salient first
Situation the joke: characters, interpretation of a joke
activities, objects, selfing, etc. (which is refuted at the punch
line)
Central requirement for the
Example 1: opposition
generation of a humorous
Script opposition between the doctor and lover
effect: opposition between
(adultery) script
script
-juxtaposition
Cognitive operation needed -false analogy (a wife is like
Logical mechanism to achieve a (partial) an umbrella sooner or later
resolution of the incongruity. one takes a cab')
- etc.
Table 2. KRs in the GTVH (Attardo, 1994, p.320)
The Maxims of Communication
The philosopher H.P. Grice (1975) developed a Cooperative Principle which underlay any
successful communication. He devised a set of presumptions on the part of the listener in
conversation as to what sort of conversational rules he/she could expect the speaker to follow.
These rules, or maxims, allow the occurrence of what is known as bona-fide speech, where both
the listener and the hearer expect these maxims to be followed. These maxims are:
Maxim of quantity:
1- Make your contribution as informative as s required (for the current purposes of the
exchange)
2- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Maxim of quality:
Try to make your contribution one that is true
1- Do not say what you believe to be false
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2- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Maxim Of Relevance:
Be relevant
Maxim Of Manner:
Be perspicuous
1- Avoid obscurity of expression
2- Avoid ambiguity
3- Be brief
4- Be orderly (Grice, 1975, p. 30)
However, there are numerous cases of non-observance of the maxims. Grice later described four
different instances of communication which represent the non-observance of maxims. These
forms are:
1- The speaker may quietly and ostentatiously violate a maxim; if so, in some cases, he will be
liable to mislead.
2- He may opt out from the operation both of the maxim and of the CP; he may say, indicate
or allow it to become plain that he is unwilling to co-operate in the way the maxim requires. He
may say, for example, be able to say more; my lips are sealed.
3- He may be faced with a clash: he may be unable. For example, to fulfill the first maxim of
quantity (be as informative as is required) without violating the second maxim of quality.
4- He may flout a maxim: this occurs when a speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim with
the deliberate intention of generating an implicature. This may happen, for example, by giving
either more or less information than is required in the situation, saying something that is blatantly
untrue or by making responses or observations which are obviously irrelevant. (Grice, 1975, p. 35)
Once any of these maxims is flouted or violated, this will mean that the speaker of the text is
implying something that the hearer should look for in order to understand the uncooperative
communication of the speaker of the text. Concerning humorous texts, the implicature that is
emerged by failing to observe the conversational rules of communication is a significant source
of humor in various humorous texts. For instance, Ermida (2008) highlights the importance of
implicature to understanding humor: She argues that'' the secret to understanding humor, either
in the joke or in comic narrative, largely resides in the concept of implicature'' (p. 161). Attempting
to find out the relationship between joking and the Gricean maxims of communication, Attardo
(1994) investigates jokes and humorous texts in the light of Grice's Cooperative Principle. He argues
that numerous jokes present a violation of one of the four maxims composing the cooperative
principle proposed by Grice. Attardo (1994) presents the following jokes as an example of jokes
that violate Grice's maxims:
1- Quantity: 'excuse me, do you know what time is it? - ' yes'
2- Relation: how many surrealists does it take to screw a light bulb?' ' fish'
3- Manner: do you believe in club for young people? ---only when kindness fails'
4- Quality: why did the vice president fly to Panama?'-because the fighting is over'. (p. 27)
The first example violates the maxim of quantity by providing insufficient information. The speaker
is asking about the time but the hearer's reply doesn’t give the required amount of information
which the speaker is seeking. The second example is an ' absurd' joke, which is suitable for the
bizarre associations of the surrealists. The third example violates the manner maxim because the
speaker does not avoid ambiguity. The last example is a deliberate infraction of the maxim of
quality that is used to insinuate that the vice-president was a coward. In these examples, Attardo
claims that the above-mentioned jokes do not flout or opt out of a maxim, but that they
specifically violate the maxims of communication; they fail to conform to their recommendations.
Influenced by the words of Grice, Attardo (2005) argues that by ' violating the maxim the speaker'
will be liable to mislead'(p. 23) because the understanding of a joke can be seen as a discovery
of a second sense or meaning.
There are numerous studies that apply Grice's CP to humor research such as Leech (1983), Attardo
(1994; 2001; 2005; 2008), Ross (1998), Ermida (2008), and Kalliomaki (2005). All these studies have
1488Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International Geographical …
observed that numerous jokes involve violations of one or more of Grice's maxims. During the
revolution a large number of slogans and caption carried by the demonstrators violated the
Gricean maxims.
Data Collection
Humor is an inseparable part of the Egyptian personality, as Shehata (1984) argued. They usually
use these humorous texts as a shelter against the problems they daily face in their life. Placing high
value on the effectiveness of humor and being well-known for its generation, the Egyptians used
various humorous texts to protest against poverty, unemployment, and a corrupt government.
These humorous texts will constitute the data for this study which will investigate the different
linguistic aspects of the humor. The data for this study were collected from the social media
networks, especially internet websites: Face book, Twitter, and YouTube.
Sample Analysis
In this section I will present a sample analysis of the semantic and pragmatic aspects of the
humorous texts that was spontaneously produced during the revolution of January 25 by the
Egyptian protests. I choose two slogans that two of the protesters carried in Tahrir Square during
the last days of the revolution. In fact, The Egyptians have created various forms of humorous texts
such puns, irony, allusions, satire, and jokes. I will provide a simple linguistic analysis of only two of
these forms using the two theoretical frameworks that the study is going to use to account for
humor. The first example is a simple satirical question which one the protesters wrote and lifted in
the Tahrir Square:
ما نوع الغراء الذي تستخدمه؟:رابطة نجارى مصر يسالون األسطى مبارك --1
(The Egyptian Carpenters' Association is asking the chief carpenter Mubarak, what kind of glue
do you use?)
In order to understand these humorous texts, it is important to bear in mind the context in which
these texts were produced. Starting on January 25, The Egyptian demonstrations against the
former president lasted for eighteen days. During this period, the protesters had one main
demand, i.e., the stepping down of the president, who disregarded the request of the public
opinion and refused to leave or step down. Therefore, the Egyptian protesters created numerous
humorous jokes and slogans satirizing the president and his regime. In the first example, the
demonstrators were satirizing the refusal of the president to step down although there were millions
of the Egyptian taking to streets and public places calling for his departure.
The humor in this example results from various elements: the incompatible scripts, the target of the
text, the situation and the flouting of the conversational maxims. The first element is the opposition
that exists between the two presented scripts that the text evokes. This text triggers two scripts: the
script of the president and that of the carpenter. The addressees are actually aware of the script
of the president: he was a son of a middle-class family, graduated from The College of Aviation,
and become a professor at the college. He participated in October war in1973 against Israel and
was appointed vice-president during Sadat's rule and later the president of the country after the
assassination of Sadat in 1981. The second script is that of a carpenter. It includes a good training
under a clever carpenter or to be a graduate of technical education, carpenter's department.
These two scripts are totally incompatible. In other words, the president cannot be a carpenter
nor a carpenter is efficient enough to be a president. The resultant opposing scripts prepare the
state for the satirical question' what type of glue do you use?' which contributes to the funniness
of the text.
Moreover, the target in this text who is President Mubarak is represented in a humorous way. He is
portrayed as a carpenter who has glued himself to the presidency chair and no one is able
overthrow him. This act is a clever one because he asserts his experience in his profession as a
carpenter and thus the carpenters are calling him the chief carpenter and asking him about the
type of glue he is using.
In addition, the situation presented in this text is so funny. The situation is actually a satirical
comment upon the refusal of the president to step down when the revolution started. The
protesters' main request during the revolution was the departure of the president. The writer of this
comment, attempting to present a suitable explanation for the attitude of the president towards
1489© RIGEO ● Review of International Geographical Education 11(4), WINTER, 2021
the demands of the Egyptian people and his refusal to leave office, claimed that the president is
unable to leave office because he was cleverly glued to the seat of presidency. And, it is due to
this sustainable type of glue that makes him inseparable from the presidency even if all the
Egyptian people are demanding for him to step down. This satirical comment is highlighted by the
question of the carpenters' inquiry about the type of glue that the president uses and by their
addressing him as the chief carpenter. These two things represented the jab lines in the text which
results in the humor of the text. The jabs that are used are many such as chief carpenter, Egyptian
carpenter's association, and the glue that the president uses. And, the humor in this example
depends mainly upon these jab lines.
Finally, the flouting of the conversational maxims contributes to humor in this text. The maxim of
quality, which requires the speaker to say what he believes to be true, is flouted in this text from
two perspectives. Firstly, the president of the country is presented as a chief carpenter in terms of
the script of a carpenter, which is untrue, and he is presented as using glue to stick to the seat of
the presidency. The writer of this humorous text blatantly fails to observe the maxim of quality with
deliberate intention of generating an implicature. This implicature is a satirical comment upon the
old means that the president and his regime use to maintain power, and it represents also a
sarcastic remark upon the refusal of Mubarak to step down. Secondly, the maxim of quality has
also been violated because the question is asked by the Egyptian carpenter's association. The
writer of this text speaks of something which he does not have an evidence for, i.e., The Egyptian
Carpenters' Association: There is no association by this name, thus the text presents false
information only to mislead the reader to think of this association that is an imaginary association.
The humor in the previous example consists in the overlapping of these various elements. This text
can be represented according to the six knowledge resources of the GTVH as follows:
So: real/ unreal
Lm: false analogy
Si: the president as a chief carpenter
Ta: the president Hosni Mubarak
La: irrelevant (since the humor in the text depends only upon semantic and pragmatic elements).
دى حاجه صعبة: أنا عايز كوبري بين القاهرة وأسوان العفريت قاله:واحد لقي الفانوس السحري ودعكه طلع له العفريت وقال له شبيك لبيك الراجل قاله
أنت عايز الكوبري رايح جاى وال رايح بس؟: العفريت قاله. خلى حسنى مبارك يسي ب الحكم:الراجل قاله.نقى حاجه تانية
(A man finds a magic lantern and rubs it. The jinni, who is thought to be its servant, appears and
says to the man," I am at your command". The man says," I want you to construct a bridge from
Cairo to Aswan. '' ''It’s a very difficult demand, choose anything else'' says the jinni. The man says,
"Then, Make Mubarak step down". The jinni replies," You want a one- way or a two-way bridge?'').
In the Arabic culture, the jinni is well-known for its superpower, and the example of the magic
lantern is a familiar one to the Arab audience. In this joke, the humor results mainly from the partial
opposition between two scripts: that of building a long bridge from Cairo to Aswan, and the script
of persuading the president, Mubarak, to leave authorities. Here, the opposition is between what
is possible and what is impossible. Concerning the script of the building of a bridge, it entails the
existence of architects, workers, concrete materials, and instruments. Although it is a very
challenging task it is portrayed as a very simple task compared with the second script, which is
presenting as a very challenging one. On the other hand, the second scrip is related to persuading
the President Mubarak to leave office, which is supposed to be an easy task for a jinni. However,
the final punch-line, '' you want a one-way or a two-way bridge'', disrupts the narrative by claiming
that the idea of building such a long bridge is much easier than persuading the president to leave
because he is unwilling to step down.
Moreover, this joke ridicules President Mubarak's attitude due to his constant refusal to leave
power to satisfy the demands of the angry Egyptians during the revolution. The humor is triggered
by the fact that this joke asserts that neither humans nor supernatural forces are able to convince
Mubarak to step down. During this revolution, millions of the Egyptians had demanded the
downfall of Mubarak regime, but the statements of the president during his three speeches were
emphasizing the fact that he would not leave.
The situation presented in the joke is also effective because it prepares the stage for the final
punchline. This example offers two opposed scenes: constructing a 700km long bridge and
persuading the president to step down. The juxtaposition of these two scripts is very effective and
instrumental in creating the humor in the text. This humor is produced because the text makes use
of both of the jab line and punch line. The jab line is manifested in the jinni's response to the first
order, namely, it is a very difficult task, choose anything else. This jab line does not disrupt the
narrative of the joke but it triggers laughter because the audience's world knowledge about the
1490Al Bzour, A, S.; (2021) Arabic Humorous Texts: An Attempt to Analyze. Review of International Geographical …
jinni and his unimaginable power is incompatible with this statement by the jinni. On the contrary,
the punch line at the end of the joke represents a surprise to the receiver because he finds himself
forced to arrive at a different sense which is unpredictable by him, i.e., it is not only the Egyptians
who are unable to make Mubarak leave but the jinni's supernatural powers are useless when he
is asked to force Mubarak to leave.
In addition, the humor in the text results from transgressing the conversational maxims. In this joke,
the speaker flouted the maxim of quality by saying what he believes to be false, i.e., if the jinni is
asked to choose to achieve one request out of two, one of them is building a long bridge from
Aswan to Cairo and the other is related to persuading the President Mubarak to leave office, the
jinni chooses the first order since the second option is impossible and he will not be able to execute
it. By flouting the maxim of quality, the writer implies that Mubarak will not leave office because
neither the Egyptian nor jinnis are able to make him step down. The humorous nature of this joke
consists also in the language of the text. The language is alluding to the common and popular
story of AlaaAddin and his magic lantern. The use of expressions usually employed in these stories
such as ' at your command'' prepares the audience for the final punchline. According to the
GTVH, this joke is represented along the six parameters as follows:
SO: Real\ Unreal
LM: Juxtaposition
SI: leaving authorities
TA: Mubarak
NS: Narrative and dialogue
LA: Allusion to the magic lantern.
Conclusion
Humor has been extensively used by the Egyptians. After reviewing various linguistic models and
theories to analyze humor, this study presents two linguistic models to analyze the texts in questions.
Besides being linguistic-based models, these two models could be effectively used to examine
the various aspects of different forms of Arabic humor. They uncover the meticulous nature of this
linguistic phenomenon and show their hierarchical nature. They also show the various aspects of
these texts in demonstrating the involved oppositions, and tolerance of the logical mechanism,
which usually depends upon the reader of these texts and to allows some linguistics and logic
deviations to be rewarded with the prized humorous sense.
The study uses two linguistic theories to account for the humor that was spontaneously produced
during the protest. These two linguistic theories are the General Theory of Verbal Humor by Raskin
and Attardo and its revision in Attardo (2001), and the Cooperative Principle proposed by Grice
in (1975). These two linguistic tools have been used to present a sample analysis of humor and to
check the feasibility of these two linguistic tools to account for humor in Arabic texts.
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