On Laughter and Insults: A Logical-Linguistic and Ethical Study on the Relationship Between Humor and Pejoratives Applied to Society
Keywords:
Humor, Joke, Insult, Slur, PragmaticsAbstract
Humor, especially in jokes, involves breaking rules of reason and social norms, such as moral, cultural, and religious standards. This transgression can produce pejoratives that insult or slander individuals or groups by exposing aspects of human life usually hidden to maintain social harmony. When the joke teller is unaffected, they and their audience share the pleasure of laughter and ridicule directed at the joke’s targets. Thus, jokes can express a form of superiority over others based on physical, cultural, or behavioral traits. This study aims to connect the main philosophical theory of humor with the pragmatic theory of pejoratives, showing that the speech acts of joking and insulting overlap in certain pragmatic contexts, as it is not the words themselves that offend, but the agents who use them.
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