The language of humour
Humour is one of the most interesting and puzzling aspects of human behaviour. Despite the attention it has received from fields such as philosophy, linguistics, and psychology, there have been only few attempts to create computational models for humour recognition and analysis. In this thesis, I u...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2010
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| _version_ | 1826288497114218496 |
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| author | Mihalcea, R |
| author2 | Pulman, S |
| author_facet | Pulman, S Mihalcea, R |
| author_sort | Mihalcea, R |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Humour is one of the most interesting and puzzling aspects of human behaviour. Despite the attention it has received from fields such as philosophy, linguistics, and psychology, there have been only few attempts to create computational models for humour recognition and analysis. In this thesis, I use corpus-based approaches to formulate and test hypotheses concerned with the processing of verbal humour. The thesis makes two important contributions. First, it brings empirical evidence that computational approaches can be successfully applied to the task of humour recognition. Through experiments performed on very large data sets, I show that automatic classification techniques can be effectively used to distinguish between humorous and non-humorous texts, using content-based features or models of incongruity. Moreover, using a method for measuring feature saliency, I identify and validate several dominant word classes that can be used to characterize humorous text. Second, the thesis provides corpus-based support toward the validity of previously formulated linguistic theories, indicating that humour is primarily due to incongruity and humour-specific language. Experiments performed on collections of verbal humour show that both incongruity and content-based features can be successfully used to model humour, and that these features are even more effective when used in tandem. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T02:14:36Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:a1cc3d1e-cc83-44dd-a2dd-6910fde3d252 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T02:14:36Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:a1cc3d1e-cc83-44dd-a2dd-6910fde3d2522022-03-27T02:15:41ZThe language of humourThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:a1cc3d1e-cc83-44dd-a2dd-6910fde3d252LinguisticsHumour ResearchComputational LinguisticsNatural Language ProcessingEnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2010Mihalcea, RPulman, SHumour is one of the most interesting and puzzling aspects of human behaviour. Despite the attention it has received from fields such as philosophy, linguistics, and psychology, there have been only few attempts to create computational models for humour recognition and analysis. In this thesis, I use corpus-based approaches to formulate and test hypotheses concerned with the processing of verbal humour. The thesis makes two important contributions. First, it brings empirical evidence that computational approaches can be successfully applied to the task of humour recognition. Through experiments performed on very large data sets, I show that automatic classification techniques can be effectively used to distinguish between humorous and non-humorous texts, using content-based features or models of incongruity. Moreover, using a method for measuring feature saliency, I identify and validate several dominant word classes that can be used to characterize humorous text. Second, the thesis provides corpus-based support toward the validity of previously formulated linguistic theories, indicating that humour is primarily due to incongruity and humour-specific language. Experiments performed on collections of verbal humour show that both incongruity and content-based features can be successfully used to model humour, and that these features are even more effective when used in tandem. |
| spellingShingle | Linguistics Humour Research Computational Linguistics Natural Language Processing Mihalcea, R The language of humour |
| title | The language of humour |
| title_full | The language of humour |
| title_fullStr | The language of humour |
| title_full_unstemmed | The language of humour |
| title_short | The language of humour |
| title_sort | language of humour |
| topic | Linguistics Humour Research Computational Linguistics Natural Language Processing |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT mihalcear thelanguageofhumour AT mihalcear languageofhumour |