The Joke-Coop: Pragmatic Issues of Jokes and Joking

Abstract This paper investigates the question whether jokes and joking demand cooperative communication; where jokes refer to fictional narratives and joking refers to the performative situation in which these are told. The investigation first offers an evaluation of the distinct properties inherent to the narrative joke’s form and its performance. This includes an analysis of Austin’s conception of the performative utterance. While Austin deliberately excludes joking from his theory, I show that a significant characteristic of joking is the convergence of the illocutionary and perlocutionary act. The investigation assesses further prerequisites for successful joke performances and proceeds with the examination whether Grice’s cooperative principle applies to joking, or whether these maxims are being violated within joking; and critically engages with Attardo’s and Raskin’s responses to this question, who claim the latter. I provide an important corrective to Attardo’s and Raskin’s positions by proposing an account that stresses pragmatic distinctions between jokes and joking and argues for the possibility of cooperative humorous communication.