Alka-Seltzer. Chicken. Pickle. Can the use of plosives demonstrate an influence on humour in English utterances?

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the phonosemantics of humourous utterances in English, asking whether humour in discourse can be controlled on a phonetic level. An experiment was set up to determine whether plosives affected participants' reactions to a series of jokes/one-liners. While no noticeable difference was ultimately observed, this dissertation lays the foundation for further research into the sound symbolism of humour, suggesting the use of recorded speech for data presentation, investigations into plosive quality, quantity, position and stress alignment, and research into the phonosemantic influence of vowels.