Accounting for Language Humour Devices in Terms of Eugeniu Coșeriu’s Theory
Accounting for Language Humour Devices in Terms of Eugeniu Coșeriu’s Theory

Summary/Abstract: While endeavouring to document humour-generating [=HG] devices, we set out on a trek across various theories on language to see which of them – if any – could be made available for tapping in this respect. The idiosyncratic stance Coșeriu took on linguistic norms [=LN], in particular the view he advanced, that they are even apt to cause each other to be breached, greatly assisted us in blazing a trail on the comic effects that could be generated in the process. A synopsis of research on effects orchestrated by infringement of LN and ambiguity combined is presented in the second section of the contribution at hand, after reviewing a selection of theoretical rudiments of both HG devices in Section 1. The third and last section takes linguicomedy a step further, into the shifting sands of translatability, with a major focus on the translator as languacultural communicator. In the concluding remarks to the final subsection thereof we take the liberty to put forward a scale for rating translatability of LN-flouting humour (which just happens to differ – and with good reason, too – from Coșeriu‘s hierarchy of LN-breaching types), as well as the legitimate claim, in our view, of humour translation to a genre per se.

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