V O R T R A G
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Oesterreichisches Forschungsinstitut fuer Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) der OSGK
Freyung 6/6/7, A-1010 Wien
Tel: +43-1-5336112-17, Fax: +43-1-5336112-77, Email: sec@ofai.at
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Dr.-Ing. Tristan Miller, BSc Hons, MSc
Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI)
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WHAT’S IN A PUN? ASSESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHONOLOGICAL AND
SEMANTIC DISTANCE AND PERCEIVED FUNNINESS OF PUNNING JOKES
Puns are a form of humorous wordplay based on semantic ambiguity between
two phonologically similar words. By using and extending a large
annotated corpus of punning jokes, we quantify the phonological and
semantic distance between the two words of a pun and assess possible
correlations with funniness ratings of the joke. Statistical analyses
reveal a significant negative correlation between phonological distance
and perceived funniness, which is in line with a longstanding conjecture
in humour studies. Interestingly, none of the semantic distance measures
we applied showed significant correlations with funniness ratings. We
discuss other factors, such as situational context or cultural norms,
which may influence the perception of funniness of punning jokes, with a
view to guiding future research on this topic.
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Biography: Tristan Miller is a research scientist at the Austrian
Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) and an Associate
Faculty Member at the Ontological Semantic Technology Laboratory of
Texas A&M University–Commerce. His research interests lie mainly in
computational semantics, including word sense disambiguation,
computational argumentation, and the construction and manipulation of
lexical-semantic resources. Computational humour has been a particular
research focus of his since 2014.
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Co-author Anna Palmann, BSc, BA, MSc recently graduated from the Middle
European Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Cognitive Science
(MEi:CogSci) at the University of Vienna.
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Time: Wednesday, 20 July 2022 at 18:30 CET
Location: On Zoom
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Meeting ID: 842 8244 2460
Passcode: 678868
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OFAI 2022 Lecture Series: https://www.ofai.at/lectures
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OESTERREICHISCHES FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT
FUER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Univ.-Prof. Ing. Dr. Robert Trappl
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