Linguist analyses how jokes raise a laugh

Graeme Ritchie of Edinburgh University's division of informatics is taking a serious look at how jokes work, dismantling and analysing the language they use. He hopes to take existing concepts from theoretical linguistics to construct an account of humorous effects.

The research, supported by a fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, aims to improve understanding of how people communicate with one another.

Dr Ritchie said: "Modern linguistics builds upon centuries of detailed descriptive work, but humour research has very little analysed data on which to base theories. To make progress, research into humour has to take a similar step to linguistics, and we need to produce precise and detailed scientific accounts.

"The outcome will be the creation of a theoretical framework, that is, a set of basic linguistic ideas and methods suitable for spelling out the mechanisms that underlie jokes."