The Application of Relevance Theory in Resolving Ambiguity in English Humorous Discourse: A Cognitive-Pragmatic Perspective

Relevance Theory (RT), proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in their 1986 work Relevance: Communication and Cognition, is a cognitive-pragmatic framework that redefines human communication as an inferential process rather than a mere code-decoding exchange. At its core, RT posits that communication relies on the mutual manifestness of cognitive environments—sets of assumptions that a communicator and audience can mutually recognize as true or probable—and the principle of relevance, which governs how audiences select and process information to derive intended meanings. The principle of relevance is divided into two parts: the Cognitive Principle, which states that human cognition is inherently geared toward maximizing relevance, and the Communicative Principle, which holds that every utterance conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance. Optimal relevance, a key operational concept, refers to a state where the cognitive effects (e.g., new insights, revised assumptions) derived from processing an utterance are sufficient to justify the cognitive effort invested, and the utterance is the most relevant one the communicator could have produced given their abilities and preferences.

For RT, communication unfolds through the communicator’s expression of an informative intention (to make a set of assumptions manifest) and a communicative intention (to make the informative intention mutually manifest). The audience, guided by the presumption of optimal relevance, uses contextual assumptions (from prior knowledge, situational cues, or cultural background) to infer the communicator’s intended meaning—termed the explicature (the explicit content of the utterance, enriched via disambiguation or reference assignment) and implicatures (implicit meanings derived through inferential reasoning). This inferential process is not deterministic; instead, it involves the audience testing multiple possible interpretations against the criterion of optimal relevance, discarding those that require excessive effort without proportional effects and retaining the one that best balances effort and effect.

English humorous discourse ambiguity, a linguistic phenomenon where an utterance or text has two or more distinct, contextually plausible meanings, serves as a foundational mechanism for generating humor. Unlike accidental ambiguity (which hinders communication), intentional ambiguity in humor is a strategic tool that exploits the gap between surface meaning and intended meaning to create cognitive dissonance. In humorous contexts, ambiguity typically manifests in three primary forms: lexical ambiguity (multiple meanings of a single word, e.g., “bank” referring to a financial institution or river edge), syntactic ambiguity (structural ambiguity arising from sentence organization, e.g., “I saw the man with the telescope” where the telescope could belong to the speaker or the man), and pragmatic ambiguity (ambiguity in intended implicatures, e.g., a sarcastic remark like “What a clever idea” that conveys the opposite meaning).

The intersection of RT and humorous ambiguity lies in the disruption and reorientation of the inferential process. When encountering an ambiguous humorous utterance, the audience initially activates a salient, contextually accessible interpretation (often the more conventional or literal one) that seems to satisfy the presumption of optimal relevance. This initial interpretation requires minimal cognitive effort, as it aligns with default contextual assumptions. However, the communicator’s humorous intent depends on this initial interpretation being subsequently invalidated by additional contextual cues (e.g., a punchline, situational irony, or cultural references) that reveal the interpretation to be insufficient in cognitive effects or inconsistent with the communicator’s likely intentions. The audience is then forced to revise their contextual assumptions, reprocess the utterance, and infer a secondary, less salient interpretation that was intentionally masked by the ambiguity.

This reprocessing stage is critical to humor generation: the cognitive effort required to abandon the initial interpretation and construct the secondary one creates a sense of surprise, and the sudden realization of the intended humorous meaning (often a playful subversion of expectations) generates positive cognitive effects (e.g., amusement, insight into the communicator’s wit). For example, in the lexical ambiguity joke “Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts,” the audience first interprets “guts” as “courage” (a conventional meaning, requiring low effort), but the punchline context (skeletons) invalidates this by revealing the secondary meaning “internal organs”—a less salient interpretation that requires revising the contextual assumption (from “psychological trait” to “anatomical feature”). The balance between the initial low-effort interpretation, the unexpected invalidation, and the final high-effect secondary meaning aligns with RT’s optimal relevance principle: the cognitive effort of reprocessing is justified by the humorous effect, making the utterance optimally relevant in a way that a non-ambiguous utterance (e.g., “Skeletons don’t have internal organs”) would not be.

In summary, RT provides a systematic framework for explaining how ambiguous humorous discourse operates cognitively: it leverages the audience’s reliance on optimal relevance to guide their initial interpretation, then uses ambiguity to disrupt this process, prompting reprocessing that culminates in the humorous payoff. Without the inferential mechanisms and relevance-driven cognitive processes outlined by RT, the connection between ambiguity and humor would remain a descriptive observation rather than a theoretically grounded explanation of how audiences recognize and appreciate humorous meaning.

Lexical ambiguity in English humorous discourse primarily manifests through two linguistic phenomena: polysemy and homonymy. Polysemous words refer to lexical items with multiple related meanings derived from a shared etymological root, such as the verb “catch,” which can denote both “seizing an object” and “understanding a message.” Homonymous terms, by contrast, are words with identical phonological or orthographic forms but unrelated meanings, exemplified by “flower” (a reproductive plant structure) and “flour” (a powdery food ingredient). In humorous discourse, speakers intentionally exploit these dual meanings to create a temporary semantic conflict, which is resolved only when the hearer constructs a contextually aligned cognitive framework.

Cognitive context, as defined by Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, is not a static set of pre-existing knowledge but a dynamically constructed mental representation that integrates three core components: shared encyclopedic knowledge, situational cues, and previous discourse information. Shared encyclopedic knowledge encompasses culturally or socially normalized facts, such as the association between “doctors” and “stethoscopes” or “firefighters” and “water hoses”; this knowledge forms the baseline for interpreting ambiguous terms. Situational cues refer to physical or environmental elements present in the interaction, such as the setting of a hospital or a bakery, which constrain the possible meanings of ambiguous words. Previous discourse information includes linguistic content uttered prior to the ambiguous term, such as a question about “baking ingredients” that primes the hearer to interpret “flour” instead of “flower.”

The process of resolving lexical ambiguity in humor begins with the hearer’s initial activation of multiple possible meanings of an ambiguous word upon reception. For example, in the joke: “Why did the baker bring a ladder to work? Because he heard the dough was rising,” the term “rising” initially activates two polysemous meanings: “increasing in volume (of dough)” and “moving upward (requiring a ladder).” The hearer’s first interpretation is often guided by the most salient, context-independent meaning—in this case, “increasing in volume”—which aligns with the bakery setting. However, this initial interpretation fails to explain the baker’s ladder, creating a semantic incongruity. To resolve this conflict, the hearer dynamically adjusts their cognitive context by integrating the situational cue of the ladder with shared encyclopedic knowledge that ladders are used for reaching high places. This integration primes the secondary meaning of “rising” as “moving upward,” which aligns the ladder with the dough’s “rising” and triggers the humorous effect.

Another case study involves the homonymous pair “flower” and “flour” in the joke: “I told my friend I was allergic to flowers; she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll bring flour instead.’ I sneezed anyway.” Here, the hearer initially interprets “flour” as “flower” based on the previous discourse about allergies, which is a common trigger for sneezing. However, the punchline reveals the friend’s use of “flour,” creating an incongruity. The hearer resolves this by revisiting the cognitive context: the previous discourse about allergies primes the “flower” interpretation, but the situational cue of the friend’s intent to avoid allergens (and shared encyclopedic knowledge that flour is not a typical allergen trigger) creates a conflict. The resolution of this conflict—recognizing the friend’s homonymous confusion—generates humor, as the hearer realizes the semantic shift.

This mechanism highlights the cognitive efficiency of relevance-driven context construction. Instead of exhaustively processing all possible meanings, the hearer prioritizes the most contextually relevant interpretation by aligning the ambiguous term with the dynamically constructed cognitive framework. The speed of this alignment is crucial: the shorter the time between the initial incongruity and the resolution, the more intense the humorous effect. In both case studies, the hearer’s ability to integrate shared knowledge, situational cues, and previous discourse allows them to quickly discard the irrelevant meaning and adopt the humor-triggering one, demonstrating that cognitive context construction is not only a necessary process for disambiguation but also the core mechanism that generates the comedic payoff in lexical ambiguity-based humor.

In conclusion, lexical ambiguity in English humorous discourse is resolved through the dynamic construction of cognitive context, which integrates shared encyclopedic knowledge, situational cues, and previous discourse information. This process prioritizes the contextually relevant meaning that triggers humor, and its cognitive efficiency is verified through case studies of jokes that exploit polysemy and homonymy. By understanding this mechanism, we gain insight into how Relevance Theory explains the cognitive-pragmatic foundations of humorous discourse.

Ostensive-inferential communication, as the core framework of Relevance Theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson, refers to the dual process by which a speaker produces an ostensive stimulus to manifest their informative intention (conveying a specific meaning) and communicative intention (making the hearer recognize the informative intention), while the hearer infers the speaker’s intended meaning by combining the ostensive stimulus with their cognitive context. In resolving structural ambiguity in English humorous discourse, this process hinges on the speaker’s deliberate design of the ostensive stimulus to guide the hearer through an initial misinterpretation and subsequent reanalysis, thereby triggering the cognitive shift that generates humor. Structural ambiguity in humor primarily manifests as syntactic ambiguity (ambiguity arising from multiple valid syntactic structures of a sentence) and grammatical misanalysis (the hearer’s initial parsing of the sentence violating grammatical rules, often seen in garden path sentences).

Garden path sentences, a typical form of grammatical misanalysis in humor, are constructed to lead the hearer to an initial plausible but incorrect interpretation based on default parsing strategies (e.g., the Minimal Attachment Principle, which prefers simpler syntactic structures). The speaker’s ostensive stimuli—including verbal markers, intonation patterns, and non-verbal cues—serve as "cognitive triggers" that prompt the hearer to abandon the initial misparsing and reanalyze the sentence structure, ultimately accessing the intended humorous meaning. For example, consider the joke: “The old man the boat.” The initial parsing of this sentence follows the Minimal Attachment Principle: the hearer first treats “old” as an adjective modifying “man,” forming the noun phrase “the old man,” and then expects a verb to complete the sentence. However, the absence of a subsequent verb creates a cognitive impasse, indicating that the initial interpretation is invalid. Here, the speaker’s ostensive stimulus lies in the deliberate omission of explicit syntactic markers that would clarify the structure; the brevity of the sentence itself is an ostensive cue that signals the need for reanalysis. The hearer then reinterprets “old” as a noun phrase (referring to elderly people) and “man” as a transitive verb meaning “operate,” leading to the correct structure: “The old [people] man the boat.” This reanalysis resolves the grammatical misanalysis, and the contrast between the initial absurd impasse and the final coherent (yet unexpected) meaning generates humor.

Another example of syntactic ambiguity in humor is the sentence: “I saw the man with the telescope.” This sentence has two valid syntactic structures: one where “with the telescope” modifies “saw” (meaning “I used a telescope to see the man”) and another where it modifies “man” (meaning “I saw the man who was holding a telescope”). In humorous contexts, the speaker uses intonation patterns as ostensive stimuli to guide the inferential shift. Suppose the speaker utters the sentence with a rising intonation on “man” and a pause before “with the telescope.” The rising intonation on “man” initially directs the hearer to interpret “with the telescope” as a modifier of “saw” (the more common structure). However, the pause creates a moment of cognitive delay, prompting the hearer to re-examine the syntactic relationship. The speaker may further reinforce the ostensive stimulus through a playful facial expression (a non-verbal cue) after the pause, signaling that the initial interpretation is not the intended one. The hearer then reanalyzes the structure to interpret “with the telescope” as modifying “man,” and the unexpectedness of this secondary meaning—especially if the context implies the man was using the telescope in a comical situation (e.g., spying on a cat)—triggers humor.

Verbal markers can also function as ostensive stimuli in resolving syntactic ambiguity. Take the joke: “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” The first clause “Time flies like an arrow” is syntactically unambiguous, with “flies” as a verb and “like an arrow” as an adverbial phrase. The second clause “fruit flies like a banana” initially leads the hearer to apply the same syntactic structure: “fruit” as the subject, “flies” as the verb, and “like a banana” as an adverbial phrase. However, the parallel structure of the two clauses is a deliberate ostensive marker—its apparent symmetry signals that the second clause may have an alternative interpretation. The hearer then reanalyzes “fruit flies” as a compound noun (referring to the insect) and “like” as a verb meaning “enjoy,” leading to the humorous meaning: “Fruit flies enjoy a banana.” This reanalysis resolves the syntactic ambiguity, and the contrast between the initial literal interpretation and the playful secondary meaning generates the comedic effect.

In these cases, the speaker’s ostensive stimuli do not directly provide the correct interpretation but rather guide the hearer’s inferential process by creating cognitive dissonance between the initial misinterpretation and the ostensive cues. The hearer’s reanalysis, driven by the search for optimal relevance (the balance between cognitive effort and contextual effect), leads to the resolution of structural ambiguity and the emergence of humor. This process demonstrates that ostensive-inferential communication is not merely a tool for conveying meaning but also a mechanism that leverages structural ambiguity to generate the cognitive shift essential to humorous discourse.

Optimal relevance assessment, as a core operational mechanism of Relevance Theory, refers to the hearer’s cognitive process of balancing minimal cognitive effort with maximal contextual effects to identify the speaker’s intended interpretation that resolves pragmatic ambiguity in humorous discourse. Proposed by Sperber and Wilson, optimal relevance posits that every ostensive stimulus (e.g., a humorous utterance) conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance: the first interpretation that yields sufficient contextual effects for the hearer’s processing effort is the speaker’s intended meaning. For pragmatic ambiguity—where an utterance’s literal meaning conflicts with its implied humorous intent (e.g., irony, sarcasm, humorous indirect requests)—this assessment becomes the cognitive bridge between surface ambiguity and intended implicature, as it requires the hearer to abandon literal processing and activate context-specific assumptions to unpack humor.

The core principle of optimal relevance assessment for pragmatic ambiguity lies in the dynamic interaction between cognitive effort and contextual effects. Cognitive effort refers to the mental resources invested in accessing background knowledge, activating contextual assumptions, and inferring implicatures; contextual effects include the strengthening, weakening, or elimination of existing assumptions, or the derivation of new assumptions that enrich the discourse’s meaning. In humorous contexts, the speaker deliberately designs pragmatic ambiguity to lead the hearer to first process a literal interpretation (which often lacks humor or even makes logical sense) before triggering a reevaluation that requires minimal additional effort to access a contextually relevant, humorous implicature. This reevaluation hinges on the hearer’s ability to recognize that the literal interpretation fails to meet optimal relevance—either because it yields insufficient contextual effects (e.g., a literal indirect request lacks the intended humor) or because it requires unnecessary effort to reconcile with shared context—thus prompting a shift to the intended humorous meaning.

To unpack the operational pathway of this assessment, take the case of sarcastic humor in a workplace context: a colleague arrives 30 minutes late to a meeting, and another says, “Wow, you’re so punctual—we were just about to start without you.” Literally, the utterance praises punctuality, but the pragmatic ambiguity arises from the conflict between this literal praise and the shared context (the colleague’s lateness). The hearer first processes the literal interpretation, but quickly recognizes that it contradicts the observable context (the colleague’s tardiness), so this literal meaning yields no valid contextual effects (it does not strengthen the assumption that the colleague is punctual, nor does it derive a meaningful implicature). The hearer then invests minimal additional effort to activate the shared assumption that punctuality requires arriving on time, and infers the sarcastic implicature: “You are extremely late, and your tardiness is noticeable.” This implicature strengthens the existing assumption about the colleague’s lateness, weakens the literal praise, and generates a humorous effect by highlighting the contrast between the utterance’s surface form and intended meaning—thus meeting optimal relevance.

Another case involves humorous indirect requests. Suppose two friends are watching a boring movie, and one says, “I wonder if the popcorn stand is still open.” Literally, this is a question about the stand’s status, but the pragmatic ambiguity lies in whether it is a genuine inquiry or a humorous indirect request to leave the movie. The hearer first considers the literal interpretation: if the shared context includes the friend’s previous complaints about the movie’s boredom, the literal question yields insufficient contextual effects (it does not address the friend’s dissatisfaction). The hearer then accesses the background assumption that leaving the movie to get popcorn is a common excuse to escape boredom, and infers the humorous implicature: “Let’s leave this boring movie by pretending to get popcorn.” This implicature eliminates the assumption that the friend cares about the popcorn stand’s status, derives the new assumption of a desire to escape, and generates humor by framing the request as a playful, non-confrontational question—all with minimal additional effort beyond the initial literal processing, thus satisfying optimal relevance.

These case studies illustrate the cognitive-pragmatic nature of resolving pragmatic ambiguity via optimal relevance assessment: it is not a passive decoding of meaning, but an active, context-dependent inference process where the hearer’s mental activation of shared assumptions and evaluation of relevance criteria determine the success of unpacking humor. Without this assessment, the pragmatic ambiguity in irony, sarcasm, or humorous indirect requests would remain unresolved, and the intended humor would be lost. Thus, optimal relevance assessment is the foundational cognitive mechanism that transforms surface pragmatic ambiguity into coherent, humorous meaning in English discourse.

The application of Relevance Theory in resolving ambiguity in English humorous discourse, as explored from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective, reveals a dynamic interplay between the cognitive mechanisms of the speaker and the hearer, rooted in the pursuit of optimal relevance. Relevance Theory, as proposed by Sperber and Wilson, posits that human communication is an inferential process where the speaker intends to convey a set of assumptions, and the hearer, guided by the principle of relevance, infers the speaker’s intended meaning by processing the linguistic input in the most contextually efficient manner. Optimal relevance, the core of this theory, is defined as the balance between the cognitive effects achieved (i.e., the new information or contextual implications derived) and the processing effort expended: an utterance is optimally relevant if it yields sufficient cognitive effects for the hearer to warrant the effort required to process it, and if it is the most relevant utterance the speaker could have produced given their abilities and preferences.

In the context of English humorous discourse, ambiguity—whether lexical, syntactic, or pragmatic—serves as a primary trigger for humor, as it creates a discrepancy between the hearer’s initial, literal interpretation and the speaker’s intended, often unexpected, meaning. Relevance Theory illuminates this process by framing humor as a two-stage inferential journey. Initially, the hearer processes the ambiguous utterance based on the most accessible context, which aligns with the principle of minimal processing effort, leading to a plausible but non-optimal interpretation. For example, in the joke “Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything,” the phrase “make up everything” first evokes the literal meaning of atoms composing all matter—a contextually accessible interpretation that requires minimal effort. However, this initial interpretation does not yield the cognitive effects expected of a humorous utterance, prompting the hearer to re-examine the context and seek a more relevant, second interpretation. Here, the hearer recognizes the idiomatic meaning of “make up everything” (to fabricate or lie about everything), which, when paired with the premise of scientists’ reliance on empirical truth, creates a humorous contrast. This shift from the initial, less relevant interpretation to the optimal, humorous one is driven by the hearer’s innate pursuit of optimal relevance: the second interpretation, though requiring slightly more processing effort, generates a significant cognitive effect (the resolution of ambiguity into a witty twist) that justifies the effort.

The operational pathway of resolving ambiguity through Relevance Theory unfolds in three interconnected steps, though not in a rigid sequence. First, the speaker strategically employs ambiguity to design an utterance that initially directs the hearer toward a suboptimal, literal interpretation, leveraging the hearer’s tendency to prioritize accessible contexts. Second, the hearer, upon recognizing the insufficiency of the initial interpretation (e.g., the lack of humor or contextual fit), activates additional contextual assumptions—such as cultural knowledge, shared experiences, or idiomatic conventions—that were not immediately accessible. Third, the hearer integrates these new contexts with the utterance to infer the speaker’s intended meaning, achieving optimal relevance when the cognitive effects (the humorous insight) outweigh the processing effort. This pathway is not linear; the hearer may iterate between activating contexts and reinterpreting the utterance until the optimal balance is struck, a process shaped by individual cognitive abilities, background knowledge, and the specific contextual cues embedded in the discourse.

The practical importance of this application extends beyond theoretical linguistics to real-world communication and pedagogy. In cross-cultural interactions, for instance, English humorous discourse often relies on culturally specific ambiguities (e.g., idioms, slang, or cultural references) that may be lost on non-native speakers. By applying Relevance Theory, language learners can be guided to identify the contextual triggers of ambiguity, recognize the gap between literal and intended meanings, and develop the inferential skills needed to resolve such ambiguities, thereby enhancing their comprehension of humor and, by extension, their overall communicative competence. For language educators, this framework provides a structured approach to teaching humor as a cognitive-pragmatic phenomenon, rather than a mere linguistic oddity, helping learners appreciate the role of context and inference in effective communication.

In conclusion, the integration of Relevance Theory into the analysis of ambiguity in English humorous discourse offers a systematic, cognitively grounded explanation for how humor is generated and understood. By centering the principle of optimal relevance, this approach demystifies the seemingly arbitrary nature of humorous ambiguity, revealing it as a purposeful cognitive strategy that relies on the hearer’s ability to navigate contextual layers and infer the speaker’s intended meaning. As such, this research not only enriches our theoretical understanding of cognitive pragmatics but also provides practical tools for enhancing cross-cultural communication and language education, underscoring the value of bridging theoretical linguistics with real-world applications.