Humor and Language
Two Things that Make Us Human
Martha C. Pennington [+–]
SOAS and Birkbeck College, University of London
Professor Martha C. Pennington is Professorial Research Associate in Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and Research Fellow in Applied Linguistics and Communication at Birkbeck College, both University of London. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania and is the editor-in-chief of the journal, Writing & Pedagogy and of two book series: Frameworks for Writing (Equinox) and Innovation and Leadership in Language Teaching (Brill). She has published in Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching Research, Journal of Second Language Writing, System, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, and other journals on the teaching of writing, English teacher education, bilingualism, and second language phonology. Among her books are Welcome to My World: A Writing Course (Equinox, 2014, co-authored with Theresa M. Welford) and Introduction to Bilingualism and Multilingualism: People and Languages in Contact (Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
Humor and Language: Two Things That Make Us Human offers a reader-friendly yet comprehensive view of humor by considering it in relation to language and how both humor and language pervade our lives and embody our human nature and experience. The book, first developed as a general education elective for university undergraduates, examines humor and language in relation to human history and evolution, play and related phenomena in other species, child development, gender, politics, workplace and professions, ethnicity and culture, cognitive processing and physical response, psychological effects and benefits, and medical applications. A wide range of contexts and types of humor are considered, ranging from humorous poetry and fiction to internet humor, comedy on television and in film, regional humor, sarcasm and satire, and off-color jokes. The wisdom of humorists and the advice of comedians are distilled, with exercises provided for writing and performing humor. Ample illustrations in the way of jokes, cartoons, and funny stories, in addition to thought questions and other kinds of activities, make the material suitable for use as a textbook, for self-study, or simply for personal enjoyment.
