The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor presents the first ever comprehensive, in-depth treatment of all the sub-fields of the linguistics of humor, broadly conceived as the intersection of the study of language and humor. The reader will find a thorough historical, terminological, and theoretical introduction to the field, as well as detailed treatments of the various approaches to language and humor. Deliberately comprehensive and wide-ranging, the handbook includes chapter-long treatments on the traditional topics covered by language and humor (e.g., teasing, laughter, irony, psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, the major linguistic theories of humor, translation) but also cutting-edge treatments of internet humor, cognitive linguistics, relevance theoretic, and corpus-assisted models of language and humor. Some chapters, such as the variationist sociolinguistcs, stylistics, and politeness are the first-ever syntheses of that particular subfield. Clusters of related chapters, such as conversation analysis, discourse analysis and corpus-assisted analysis allow multiple perspectives on complex trans-disciplinary phenomena. This handbook is an indispensable reference work for all researchers interested in the interplay of language and humor, within linguistics, broadly conceived, but also in neighboring disciplines such as literary studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. The authors are among the most distinguished scholars in their fields.

About the Author

Salvatore Attardo is Dean of the College of Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts at Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA. His publications include two monographs on humor, two collections of essays on the linguistics of humor, and the Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. He was Editor-in-Chief of HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research for 10 years.

Reviews

"The present Handbook testifies to Salvatore Attardo's lifetime involvement in the linguistic mechanisms of humor and its societal effects. The collection of articles he has gathered here represents at the same time a milestone, a compendium, and a beacon: as a milestone, it marks the advances obtained in humor studies up to and including our times; as a state-of-the-art compendium, it both reveals the 'state' of the 'art', and details its cutting edges; and as a beacon, it identifies skerries and dangerous currents, while at the same time shining light on the path ahead across the uncharted waters of future study. I highly recommend the work to anybody involved in humor studies: from the interested bystander to the advanced student to the accomplished researcher and teacher - and beyond."
Jacob L. Mey, The University of Southern Denmark

"This book will undoubtedly become the go-to book for scholars wanting updated summaries of linguistic concepts, tools and approaches to humour. Leading scholars review their fields in succinct and accessible chapters, introduced by Attardo. Topics range from key terms and theories of humour to neurolinguistics and the translation of humour, from corpus-assisted studies and humour markers to failed humour and humour of the internet. This is a truly invaluable collection."
Jessica Milner Davis, University of Sydney

Book Information
ISBN 9781032402239
Author Salvatore Attardo
Format Paperback
Page Count 556
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 980g