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The Study of pre-school children’s Explanation of pictorial humor Appreciation on the basis of Incongruity Theory

    Authors

    1 Ph.D. Candidate of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,

    2 The Associate Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

    3 The Associate Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,

    4 The Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,

,

Document Type : Research original ,Regular Article

Abstract

Abstract
The objective of the present study is to investigate the appreciation of humor in pre-school children on the basis of Incongruity Theory, by presenting them the picture and analyzing their oral Explanations. In the present study which is methodologically descriptive, through semi-structured interviews of the participants, including 50 four to six year-old pre-school children , they were asked to observe two special visual stimuli, and say that weather they were funny or not and if yes, explain the reason of funniness. In this investigation in addition to incongruity theory, representing McGee’s stages of humor development and Brown's categories of pictorial humor, we were seeking the answer for this fundamental question that: How is the pre-school children’s explanation of humorous picture appreciation on the basis of Incongruity Theory? Findings revealed that 4-6 year-old children in this study were able to recognize humorous contents in the pictures. They appreciate incongruity in the humorous picture, laugh at it, and explain their reason for their laughter. They were also able to distinguish the major and minor incongruities of a picture through the comparison of the picture with their own mental patterns. This shows that children's cognitive ability to identify conceptual incongruities is corresponded to the third stage of the McGee’s stages of humor development that notice violations of perceptual appearances of things.

Keywords

References
 
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Language Studies
Volume 9, Issue 18
January 2019
Pages 15-38
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