The Humour of Still Standing Contradictions between Implicature and Presupposition

Abstract

The paper studies humour in selected scenes extracted from the American sitcom of 'Still Standing'. It answers the questions: what kind of conversational implicature is used in the above mentioned episode, what kind of presuppositions is used commonly in this episode, and how does the contradiction between the conversational implicature and presupposition happen in this American episode. This study explores how humour is generated from the contradiction between the conversational implicature of speaker1 and the presuppositional trigger of speaker2. The study combines the theories of humour with the theories of conversational implicature and presupposition. Humour is considered in this study as resulting from two contradictory scripts. The study tries to find out how humour is generated in selected scenes. The findings of the study provide an outline of the functions of humour in the American sitcom of 'Still Standing'.