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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0   Background to the Study

Natural language contains systematic variations on all levels of its structure, such as phonology, morphology, lexicology and syntax. These variations offer the widest possibilities of language use to fulfill different communicative functions in various contexts. To identify, describe and analyse special and unique linguistic expressive means lies at the core of stylistics. This implies that certain language units bear stylistic markers, as they appear in particular contexts of human linguistic interaction.

Humour represents perhaps one of the most genuine and universal speech acts within human interaction. People often make use of humour in social and cultural interactions through the skillful manipulation of language. This manipulation is at diverse linguistic levels, such as lexis, phonology and syntax. In order to investigate these linguistic levels and other perceived extralinguistic factors at work in humour, stylistics is a useful tool. This is because this social activity uses the expressive means of language. Lawal (Olusegun and Adebayo 2008:66) recognises not just the various categories of language but also their use and usage in social functions. To him, “variety and variability are inevitable features of language which is a unique human attribute employed in widely differing circumstances for performing multiplicity of social functions”.

Humour being one of the social functions, is realized, using the variety and variability of language. These affect different categories of language, including the syntactic. To explain how and why certain structures of language can effectively be seen as marking out in terms of meaning, stylistics must be used as an inevitable basis for analysis. This is because it deals with the description of the technical aspects of language, such as the technicalities used in achieving humour. The question of technicality comes into focus as people do not interact in a one-dimensional way.

Humans interact with one another in divergent ways and these ways include information sharing, emotional exchanges, thoughts and feeling exchanges. People choose diverse means of communicating their thoughts, feelings and emotional concerns to others.

Through the instrumentality of language, humans can pass information by means of humour. Therefore, it is a natural phenomenon for humans to laugh at jokes, exchange humorous stories for entertainment and information, tease one another and trade clever insults for amusement on a daily basis. Raskin (1985:2) opines that: 

Responding to humour is part of human behaviour, ability or competence, other parts of which comprise such important social and psychological manifestations of homo sapiens as language, morality logic, faith e.t.c 

To Raskin, humour is an inextricable part of human nature. This goes further to suggest that no human society exists without humour, since it is a part of human behaviour. This behaviour (humour) is manifested in different forms to different people, settings and situations. This is true because what becomes humorous may be highly restricted to a particular group, culture and possibly experience. Raskin (1985:16) buttresses this point by positing that “it seems to be generally recognized that the scope and degree of mutual understanding in humour varies directly with degree to which the participants share their social background”.

Raskin‟s position shows that humour is, for example, steeped in and shaped by culture. What may be interpreted as humour in one cultural setting may be capable of eliciting anger and violence in another. The sum total of the experiences we commonly share as unified members of a homogeneous culture is the conducive premise for jokes, humorous observations, puns, e.t.c.