Alice Haines is a researcher in literary linguistics. She has worked at the University of Derby, De Montfort University and the University of Nottingham, UK and previously in healthcare, film production and the advertising industry. She has published on cognitive linguistics and the stylistics of humour, and her popular, regular column, ‘Kill the Joke’, appears in Babel: The Language Magazine.
This book presents a new way of understanding verbal humour. Drawing on contemporary theories of language and mind, it explores and explains how the language of humour works both in a text and in a reader. Through investigation of carefully considered examples from a wide range of literary texts, the book proposes a new model that situates the cognitive phenomenon of humour within its social context and in relation to the affective response it produces.
This book presents a new way of understanding verbal humour. Drawing on contemporary theories of language and mind, it explores and explains how the language of humour works both in a text and in a reader. Through investigation of carefully considered examples from a wide range of literary texts, the book proposes a new model that situates the cognitive phenomenon of humour within its social context and in relation to the affective response it produces.