Recognized role of humour: in politics, leadership, religion and creativity

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There are many typologies of humour. Wikipedia has an extensive categorization of styles or techniques of humour [text].

Ken Willis provides a critical discussion of the problems of classification of humour (cf Ken Willis. Making Sense of Humour: Some Pragmatic And Political Aspects, 2002 ) with reference to the schema of Sigmund Freud (Jokes And Their Relation To The Unconscious, 1905) regarding the techniques of joking:.

1. Condensation: (a) with formation of composite words (b) with modification
2. Multiple use of the same material: (c) as a whole and in part (d) in different order (e) with slight modification (f) of the same words full or empty
3. Double meaning: (g) meaning as a name and as a thing (h) metaphorical and literal meaning (i) double meaning proper (play upon words) (j) double entendre (k) double meaning with an allusion (pp. 76-7)

Moniek Buijzen and Patti M. Valkenburg (Developing a Typology of Humor in Audiovisual Media. Media Psychology 2004) identified 41 humour techniques. Their analysis gave rise to 7 categories of humour: slapstick, clownish humor, surprise, misunderstanding, irony, satire, and parody. However, according to Joel Goodman (The Humor Project), there are (at least) 57 varieties of humour. 14 are distinguished in another study by Roy Paul Nelson (Fourteen Varieties of Humor Comedy, 1984).

Five varieties of humour have been identified as valuable in stressful emergency situations : (1) tension-relieving nonsense, (2) play on words, (3) sense of the preposterous and incongruous, (4) gallows humor, and (5) foolish jest (cf K van Wormer K and M Boes (Humor in the emergency room: a social work perspective, Health Soc Work. 1997 May, 22(2):87-92). (see also Frank Henry Katz. Screaming Laughing: the functions and varieties of humor in American Holocaust Literature. Diss. Arizona State U, 2000).

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