Abstract
A sense of humor is one of human’s unique traits and is usually expressed by verbal language, such as jokes. However, some jokes are amusing but some are not. What makes a joke funny? This is the issue addressed in the thesis. Drawing on the linguistic (particularly semantic) and psychological theories of humor research, the present study attempts to explore the factors underlining successful jokes. Humor involves bi-directional communication between joke tellers and receivers. The study adopts a linguistic approach to examine the semantic structure of the joke constructed by the teller, as well as a psycholinguistic approach to investigate the cognitive effect of the joke perceived by the receiver. Adopting a qualitative research method, the study selects ten funny jokes and ten lame jokes and compares them to uncover the features that distinguish them so that we can unveil the indispensable properties of funny jokes. The results of the analysis show that these two kinds of jocular texts are similar in “script overlapping” and “interpretation shift.” On the other hand, there are great differences between them in the following aspects: “text pattern,” “type of script oppositeness,” “cognitive mechanism,” and “cognitive effects.” Based on the results, some conclusions can be drawn. First, coherence grants readability, which is why both funny and unfunny texts display script overlapping. Second, appropriate text length makes jokes more readily accessible. Third, jocular texts connected to topics essential to human life are more likely to be perceived funny. Fourth, jokes whose incongruity could be solved in a logical way render the joy of discovery and expand the audience’s knowledge, and thus, they are favored.