Abstract

In the present research we analyze some of the main mechanisms involved in the construction of micro-dialogical humor (memes): homophony, homography, paronymy, synonymy, antonymy, holonymy and meronymy, hyperonymy and hyponymy, polysemy, semantic fields, decontextualization, contextual shock, invention of terms through morphological inflection or wordplay made from phraseological units. From an ad hoc corpus –extracted from humorous collective profiles from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram– we present a lexical-semantic and pragmatic study on the generation and interpretation of micro-dialogical humor, whose objective is the identification and distinction of the mechanisms used for its construction and the explicitness of the implicit contents involved in its comprehension. The study uses as differential indicators the ''extensionality'', the ''paradigm'', and the ''mental space'' of the trigger words and analyzes the functioning of the associative flows that take place in the ostensive-inferential processes responsible for the humor in micro-dialogues. As a conclusion, we detect 1) structural patterns linked to unpredictability and surprise in relation to the exposure of stupidity and incomprehension and 2) micro-dialogues in which creativity and lateral thinking create humor through inferable contents.

Keywords micro-dialogue; humor; lexical-semantic relationships; meme; inference