THE MECHANISM OF HUMOUR UNDER RELEVANCE-THEORETIC PERSPECTIVE

In this paper, I present a model to explain the mechanism of humour, combining the concept of bisociation as proposed by Koestler (1964) with the cognitive and the communicative principles of relevance as proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995). I suggest that the development of humour occurs by recourse to bisociation, which, in turn, is reflected by the junction of an enthymeme and a paradox. In order to interpret the result of the fusion of these logical procedures in some jokes, I develop an analysis based on the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure. I finally propose the concept of paradoxical implicated conclusion, a phenomenon that only occurs in humorous genre.