The Cross-Cultural Pragmatics of Humor

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Hamburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: This paper deals with humor in cross-cultural contexts by drawing on Wierzbickas concept of "cultural scripts". It explains why humor, more than other speech acts, is culture-dependent and describes the conditions in which humorous talk is initiated and upheld. Studies on possible reactions to humor and the difficulties of joking in an intercultural setting are discussed as well.