A Semantic Interpretation of Ambiguity in Punchlines

DOI

10.2991/ssemse-15.2015.414How to use a DOI?

Keywords

punchline; ambiguity; semantic interpretation

Abstract

A punchline is a sentence at the end of a joke which makes the joke, a creative linguistic form ubiquitous in our lives for people’s amusement, sound so funny as to make people laugh. The reason why punchlines effectively drive their humorous effects home to the audience lies in the fact that they are unexceptionally imbued with ambiguity. This paper addresses the ambiguity in punchlines from a semantic perspective with a purpose to reveal how the ambiguity at different levels contributes to humorous effects of jokes. This study not only helps us to better understand English jokes but also improves our capability of using the English language for create humorous effects.

Copyright

© 2015, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Quanzhi Wang
PY  - 2015/11
DA  - 2015/11
TI  - A Semantic Interpretation of Ambiguity in Punchlines
BT  - Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Social Science, Education Management and Sports Education
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1616
EP  - 1618
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/ssemse-15.2015.414
DO  - 10.2991/ssemse-15.2015.414
ID  - Wang2015/11
ER  -