But seriously: On conversational humour and (un)truthfulness

Abstract

This paper addresses a thorny theoretical problem concerning the workings of conversational humour, which is frequently seen as a special mode/frame of communication but, simultaneously, as a vehicle for communicating meanings outside this frame. The first aim is to tease out the different terms prevalent in humour studies that attempt to capture this distinction (such as playfulness, jocularity, or non-seriousness). Second, a proposal is made in favour of the concept of (un)truthfulness, approached from a neo-Gricean perspective, as a notion that can help elucidate this twofold problem better, giving a full spectrum of humour manifestations without causing any terminological contradictions. Grice's first maxim of Quality is thus invoked to account for the main categories of humour distinguished here: autotelic humour (which resides in opting out of this maxim) and speaker-meaning-telic humour (which communicates truthful or covertly untruthful speaker meaning by means of fulfilment, flouting or violation of this maxim and the other ones as well). Speaker meaning may arise as what is said (as a result of maxim fulfilment) and/or implicature (as a consequence of maxim flouting), and both levels of meaning may recruit maxim violations, which lead to deception. This article contributes to the debate on the position of humour in the Gricean framework.