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Mira Krajnc Ivič Understanding Humour from a Cognitive-Pragmatic
University of Maribor, Slovenia Perspective
mira.krajnc@um.si
©2026MiraKrajnc Ivič This presentation offers a cognitive-pragmatic account of humour, focusing on
how meaning is negotiated between interlocutors. The presentation approaches
the understanding of the meaning of verbalized utterances through the pro-
cesses involved in the comprehension of humor. In interaction, humor may
have a range of effects: it can function as a politeness strategy mitigating face-
threatening acts, it can be perceived as offensive – even in cases where such an
interpretation merely appears possible rather than being clearly intended – and
it can also ease tension, establish and maintain interpersonal relationships, and
create alliances (Grice, 1989; Attardo, 2001; Attardo, 2017). Humor can therefore be
positioned anywhere along the benevolent-malevolent continuum, with some
scholars identifying lying as the only form of communication that is exclusively
non-bona fide.
Giventhisvariability,contextplaysacrucialroleinhumorcomprehension,includ-
ing both pre-communicative factors and the addressee’s individual assessment,
which may differ considerably from the speaker’s actual intention. This mismatch
follows from the fact that humor arises as a conscious yet covert violation of the
cooperative principle: the speaker intentionally misleads the addressee until the
utterance containing the humorous turn (i.e. the punch line) is produced. This
humorous turn may be explicitly signalled (e.g. I’m joking, just kidding), but more
often it remains implicit. This raises the question of how frequently, and by which
means, speakers indicate that what is said is ‘just play’ and not meant seriously.
Humorcomprehension is furtherexamined from theperspective ofcognitivelan-
guageprocessing,accordingtowhichunderstandingmeaninginvolvesthesimu-
lation of sensory and motor processes. Although no actual bodily activation takes
place, such simulations enrich interpretation and contribute to the cognitive de-
mands of humorous understanding.
The theoretical framework is illustrated with material from the Krohot corpus,
which consists of audio recordings of spontaneous spoken interaction. The analy-
sis highlights the role of humor markers, which do not alter the literal meaning of
an utterance but guide its interpretation towards a humorous meaning. Within
the corpus, the most frequent humor markers prove to be co-textual markers,
most notably sequences of multiple humorous turns, utterances (Attardo, 2001;
Attardo, 2017; Burgers in van Mulken, 2017).
Attardo, S. (2001). Humorous texts: A semantic and pragmatic analysis. Mouton de
Gruyter.
Attardo, S. (2017). Humor and pragmatics. In S. Attardo (Ed.), The Routledge hand-
book of language and humor (pp. 174–188). Routledge.
Burgers, C.,invan Mulken,M.(2017). Humor markers.In S. Attardo(Ed.), The Rout-
ledge handbook of language and humor (pp. 385–399). Routledge.
Meaning-Making, Multiliteracies
Grice, P. (1989). Logicandconversation: Studies in thewayof words. Harvard Univer-
and Multimodality
Abstracts of the International sity Press.
Symposium Krajnc Ivič, M., & Antloga, Š. (2024). Predlog izdelave korpusa humorja v govoru
Koper, 19–20 March 2026 za slovenščino. In M. Krajnc Ivič (Ed.), Stanje in perspektive uporabe govornih
virov v raziskavah govora (pp. 195–219). Univerza v Mariboru, Univerzitetna
založba.
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-565-8.16 19
