Abstract

The main purpose of this dissertation is to add to our knowledge of how the dialogic humor of dramatic comedy functions. The Incongruity Theory---that laughter arises from the "painless unexpected"---is widely considered to be the most plausible theory of how humor works, but on its own it is far too general to give much more than a superficial view of humor mechanics. Over the past twenty-five years there has been interest among humor theorists, literary critics and philosophers in the applicability of two highly influential theories from the philosophy of language to linguistic humor that occurs in everyday and/or represented discourse: J. L. Austin's Speech Act theory, which was later revised by John Searle; and H. P. Grice's theory of conversational cooperation. A fusion of these two theories forms a fairly comprehensive theory of how utterances function in the context of conversation, and offers an extensive, highly detailed framework of ways in which Incongruity Theory's "painless unexpected" may occur out of the give and take of a conversational exchange. The dissertation makes such a synthesis, which it refers to as the "Tacit Governance Theory of Conversation" . Then, taking one main theoretical component at a time, it demonstrates the applicability of this combined framework to humor that arises in the represented conversational exchanges of comedy, drawing from a broad range of critically acclaimed comedies from antiquity to the present. Through this demonstration, we find that TGT is of value to the study of comedy in several respects. First, it sheds light on the ways in which the dialogic humor functions, which, as stated, is the primary objective of the dissertation. Second, as TGT illuminates the mechanics of the humor, it provides a means of systematizing utterances and strings of utterances that occur in the genre. Finally, it enables us to make reasonable hypotheses about the playwright's intent to joke, which not only may add to our enjoyment of the work, but may give us insight into the playwright's aesthetics