Humor in American Sign Language
Date
2011
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
Through a close-viewing of a comedy sketch by Bill Ennis and an
analysis of other documented sources of signed humor, this paper
compares and contrasts spoken and signed humor by seeing how well
the current linguistic humor theories apply to signed humor. The
leading theories, including the Semantic Script Theory of Humor and
the General Theory of Verbal Humor, make it clear that the basic
underlying linguistic mechanism of humor remains intact in sign
language. Taking a step back from this fundamental mechanism
reveals that some parts of each humor theory are unnecessary and
that there is only one noteworthy difference between humor in signed
and spoken language.