From understanding to the production of incongruities by a young child

humor data

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the process of understanding and production of incongruities that produces a humorous effect on the speech of a child (S.), from 3;2 to 4;1 years of age. This incongruity can be understood as a rupture, something strange and unexpected, which causes a break in the discourse chain (KINTSCH; VAN DIJK, 1978; ATTARDO, 1994; 2008), and, with it, humorous situations that are shared by the interlocutors are initiated. From a dialogical-discursive approach (DEL RÉ et al., 2014 a and b), considering the otherness, the connivance among the interlocutors, the dialog, the culture (micro and macro), the discursive contexts, etc., it was possible to notice that, through the dialogue with the other and the interactions undertaken, S. was able to understand, little by little, the function and the functioning of this phenomenon (rupture) as an integral part of humor, incorporating it in her statements in different discursive situations. S.’s data belong to the database of NALingua group (CNPq) and they were recorded in a familiar environment, in everyday situations (meals, games, etc.), during moments of interaction among the child and her relatives. The examples brought up and the analyzes performed reveal that the incongruity found in the humorous statements of the situations in which S. participates has some specificities and performs an important role in the process of the child’s entry into humorous language. That humor in general is present since very early in the language, contributing to the observation, from another point of view – the infantile one – of how this important cultural manifestation is constructed, as a locus of criticism and divergence, through the comic.