The Creation of Humor Modality Through Pragmemic Triggers: Cross-Linguistic Dynamics^†

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents various forms of humor from different cultures, offering a rich discussion. However, the following points should be carefully examined and refined.  

Major Issues

1. Inconsistency between stated objectives and analysis 

On page 2, the paper states the following: 

And the question remains: How does anyone in a given society know when something is funny, and how do people who want to engage in humorous communication move through behavioral and cognitive stages in a process to reach the ultimate goal of humor—to induce autonomic, spontaneous laughter—a convulsive physiological reaction that is universally enjoyed and valued by all humans. To engage with this question, I will be using some of the tools developed in pragmatic communications research—primarily the concepts of modality, psychological framing, ba theory, and the concept of pragmemic triggering. 

However, the discussion throughout the paper does not consistently align with the stated objectives and methodology. In particular, the connection between the four analytical tools—modality, psychological framing, ba theory, and pragmemic triggering—and the discussion of humor across different cultures from section 12 onwards. The concept of primary ba is mentioned briefly, but it is not thought to be used effectively. The author should clarify how these four tools are applied to the analysis of specific humor cases from different cultures and ensure that the selection of examples and their analysis coherently support the argument. 

2. Treatment of "ba theory" 

• Figure 3 on page 8 appears to be an excerpt from Nonaka, Toyama, and Konno (2000). However, it includes "primary ba" and "secondary ba", which were introduced 19 years later by Hanks et al. (2019). Since Nonaka, Toyama, and Konno (2000) do not use these terms, the way Figure 3 is presented is misleading and may cause confusion for readers. Please reconsider the presentation of this figure. 

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• On pages 8–9, the author explains primary ba and secondary ba as proposed by Hanks et al. (2019) and describes how each is necessary for the creation of humor. However, in Figure 4 (page 10) and Figure 5 (page 13), only primary ba is included. How is secondary ba positioned within these figures? A clearer explanation is needed to avoid confusing readers. 

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• The author introduces primary ba and secondary ba from Hanks et al. (2019), Originating Ba, Interacting Ba, Cyber Ba, and Exercising Ba from Nonaka et al. (2000), and the concept of ba from Kajimaru et al. (2021). Given this, is it necessary to specifically focus on primary ba? Would it be more effective to integrate these ideas into a unified and simpler concept of ba? A reconsideration of this issue is recommended. 

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Minor Issues

Please check the following issues for consistency and accuracy.

 

• Page 2, Line 3: A duplicated period after presentation should be removed. 

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• Page 2, Line 4: "Hiroshi" should be changed to "Hiroshi Shimizu" (Hiroshi is the first name, and Shimizu is the last name). 

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• P2, Line 6: In the italicized abstract, "pragmatic triggers" (instead of the keyword pragmemic trigger) is presented in upright text. Please check if this distinction was intentional.
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• Page 2, last paragraph: The numbering of items 1–5 is inconsistent regarding the presence or absence of periods. Please make the formatting consistent.  

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• Page 3, Table 1: The use of parentheses may be unnecessary.  

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• Page 4, Line 4: A space may be required before preformatively.

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• Page 4, Line 18: A period appears to be missing after (Bateson, 1952: 2).

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• Page 4, Line 19: The space between and and others is too large.  

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• Page 5, Figure 1 caption: A comma is needed after after Ekman. 

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• Page 7, Line 1: "Kitaro Nishida (Nishida, 1990) developed Ba theory 場の理論 ba no riron"—As far as the reviewer is aware, Nishida does not discuss ba no riron in An Inquiry into the Good. Please verify this factual claim. 

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• Page 7, Line 2: Masayuka Ohsuka should be corrected to Masayuki Ohtsuka. 

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• Page 7, Line 6: Professor Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues Nonaka—Should this be colleagues Toyama and Konno instead?  

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• Page 7, Figure 2 (Dimensions of Ba): This figure only lists Originating Ba, Interacting Ba, Cyber Ba, and Exercising Ba. It seems that an essential part of the figure might be missing.

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• Page 7, seventh line from the bottom: There appears to be an unnecessary space after their.

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• Page 8, Line 10: Kiamaru should be corrected to Kajimaru. 

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• Page 8, seventh line from the bottom: There appears to be an unnecessary space between "ordinary reality" and the period. 

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• Page 12: In "Second pragmemic trigger--The setup" and "Third pragmemic trigger—The paradox", both "--" (double hyphen) and "—" (em dash) are used inconsistently. Please ensure consistency throughout the paper, including Page 11, where a similar issue is present.  

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• Page 13, Figure 5: "Hey, Did you hear?" should perhaps be written as "Hey, did you hear?".

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• Page 15: "12.1.3 Japanese 駄洒落 (だじゃれ)" and "12.1.4 Chinese 双关语 (shuāng guān yǔ)"—Please provide appropriate English translations.

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• Page 15: "12.3 Jokes—Witze, xiaohua, jōdan, nukta"—Please indicate the language for each term and clarify which example (1)–(4) they correspond to. While jōdan is the Japanese term for "jokes," there is no corresponding example in (1)–(4), which may confuse readers.  

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• Page 15, second line from the bottom: Although Arabic is written from right to left, would it be clearer to place the section number first in this context? Additionally, should this be 12.1.5 instead of 12.2? Please verify. Also, an English translation for تاملكلا ةبعل is required.  

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• Page 26: Abe, Y—Is the inclusion of the kanji name (阿部泰郎) necessary?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Please see the attached author's response to your comments. Thank you for your contribution to this process.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author is trying to argue for the universality of humor construction and usefulness of ba theory and his own concepts of “pragmemic triggers” (also called “pragmatic triggers” in the text) and “ludic modality” for the explanation of humor production. The arguments, however, are presented in a way that is difficult to follow and accept, the text is rather meandering, and the first (theoretical) half of the text is not well connected to the (more practically oriented but not exactly analytical or data-driven) second half. Overall, I did not find the text in its current form convincing.

The text does not convincingly argue for the need to work with the concept of ba when discussing humor. The author himself uses the well-established notions, such as “cultural knowledge” and “framing” in the text. We even see uses, such as “‘primary ba’ cultural knowledge” (p. 12). It is not clear how the addition of ba aids our understanding of the processes involved (as opposed to the other concepts that have been applied in humor studies rather effectively over the years). The text lists four types of ba on p. 7, but they are not explained in any way or linked to the topic of humor at all. There may, however, be potential for that.

The author mentions in the abstract that the article uses ba theory “as articulated in the philosophy of Kitaro Nishida and Hiroshi.” The author left out the surname (I presume “Shimizu”) of the second author: “Hiroshi” is a given name. Moreover, the author does not actually work with texts by these two authors, but rather cites other authors that develop their theory further. Shimizu, in fact, only occurs in the text once in a bracket as one of the listed references. Because of that the claim in the abstract appears somewhat inaccurate.

The author wishes to include “ludic modality” alongside other kinds of modality. The only study on “modality” that he refers to in the text, however, is an old study by Lyons (1970). The relevance of the table (p. 3) and the ensuing list of some linguistic structures that can carry modal meanings in English to the discussion on “ludic modality” is not clear. It would be more useful if the author focused on ludic modality and explained the concept using examples from what he refers to as “humorous communication” (ideally not just in English, as he wishes to approach the topic of humor cross culturally and cross linguistically).

The author tries to incorporate his concept of “pragmemic triggers” with the stages of the process of humor production, which are, in fact, mirroring the sequential organization of joke-telling as described already by Sacks (1974), but the author does not acknowledge that in any way. The author uses some English phrases that may be employed in the initiation of a joke telling sequence (which the author seems to view as representative of any “humorous communication”) as examples, but the descriptions of pragmemic triggers linked to the other stages are general and abstract and seem to overlap with the descriptions of the stages of humor production (which, as pointed out above, are rather stages of canned joke production or humorous story-telling) as such. The utility of the concept of pragmemic triggers for the study of humor is, therefore, not shown, even though there may be potential for its application.

The major mistake that the author makes is treating all forms of humor as following the same pattern, which, as a great number of studies on various forms of humor document, is not accurate at all. Claiming that all forms of humor (which would mean as diverse forms of humor as, for example, canned jokes, visual parody, slapstick comedy, and verbal teasing) are produced in the same way, following the stages of humor production that the author describes, is simply wrong. The author, consequently, repeatedly claims that certain highly generalized things apply to humor universally, while, in fact, what those apply to are typically just specific forms of verbal humor, such as canned jokes and some forms of funny/humorous story telling. The author likewise assumes that compulsive laughter of the “receiver” is the goal of all humor, but that, too, is not accurate.

While there are many studies of forms of humor in various languages/cultures, including those that the author wishes to address, the author does not engage with them in the text. There are some sources listed in some parts of the text, but there is generally no critical engagement with them, they are there just as references. Joke telling sequence, for example, has been studied and rigorously described in Conversation Analysis. In fact, the author even refers in one of the brackets to Sacks’s (1974) seminal paper. The author thus seems to be aware of the conversation analytic approach to the sequence of joke telling, but does not work with the findings of this strand of research at all when discussing it.

The author states that he adopts “a comparative approach to humor traditions in four different cultural traditions” (p. 4) and that his article provides “comparative descriptions of humor production from four different linguistic communities” (p. 2): German, Japanese, Chinese, and Middle Eastern/Arabic. However, the study is extremely shallow in its treatment of humor forms as well as their cultural manifestations and lacking in analytical detail and scientific rigor.

The author lists examples of puns in English, German, Japanese, Chinese, and English with Arabic letters (so not in Arabic) to show the importance of “primary ba,” by which he seems to mean mainly the co-participants’ common knowledge of the language. The presentation of linguistic material is not done clearly (the glossing is rather inconsistent and at times confusing) and the examples are not analyzed or discussed in light of the theoretical concepts introduced in the article. The examples also seem to be of the kind that are listed in online databases of puns rather than used by speakers in their everyday interactions (the sources of the examples are not provided). As such, these are not normally embedded in interaction and their framing is different from that which seems to be described by the author elsewhere in the text.

Similarly, the author provides examples of “jokes.” The examples show a joke in English, German, and Chinese. Even though the author lists the Japanese term “jōdan” as an equivalent to the English “[canned] joke” in the headline (which is not accurate, as there is no tradition of the canned joke form in Japan and the word typically means “kidding”), he does not provide any example of a joke in Japanese. Likewise, there is no example of a joke in Arabic, only English with Arabic words mixed in. The examples are only presented and roughly translated and there is no analysis provided, which would show the application of the theory presented above. The examples also do not form a part of an interaction that would involve the stages described in the theoretical part of the text. The sources of the examples are not provided.

In addition to puns and jokes, the author specifically addresses two more forms of humor: satire and parody. These comprise two very short paragraphs each and involve only examples of visual humor: two American editorial cartoons in case of the former and three versions of Mona Lisa with no specification of the sources in case of the latter. No examples from the “four cultural traditions” that the text claims to be focusing on are presented. There is also no proper engagement with the theory that would show us how the use of the concepts argued for by the author in the text broaden our understanding of what is needed for humor to be accomplished. Visual humor is accomplished differently from verbal humor, which the first part of the text seems to be generally focused on. Satire and parody are, furthermore, quite different from joke telling sequences discussed in the first part of the text as for the processes through which they are achieved. 

The part where the author lists “genres of humor” in the “four cultural traditions” is even more confusing. For Japan, there are traditional genres like kyōgen, senryū, and rakugo listed alongside contemporary duo comedy manzai; for China, only xiàngsheng performances and the so called “cold jokes” are listed; for Germany there are mentions of cabaret, comedic theater, comedy TV shows, and improv comedy; and for Middle Eastern / Arabic tradition only celebrations of Mawlid are noted. It is not clear using what method and based on what data the author decided to include specifically these genres of comedy or humor in the text and exclude other "genres," some of which are arguably more significant for the given societies nowadays. To name just one example, variety (comedy) TV shows are very popular both in China and Japan, yet they are not mentioned. The author provides very broad descriptions of the genres with quite different levels of specificity, some being extremely brief and non-specific, while others longer than needed and containing unnecessary details. It is unclear what this listing of selected manifestations of humor is meant to demonstrate (other than the well-known fact that in different cultures different forms of comedy/humor have developed). With no explanation of what guided the author in his selection and no analytical attention paid to those manifestations, it is difficult to see any value in this list. Sources are provided only when discussing some of the “genres.” There is no clear connection of this part of the text to the discussions on pragmemic triggers or ba (other than the need for shared understanding of the language and culture).

The author states that “the primary focus of this discussion” is the process of humorous communication (p. 4). It is, however, difficult to view that as the focus of the article, since there are no examples of humorous communication, but for one canned joke, analyzed in the text and discussed in relation to the proposed framework.  

There are many formal mistakes in the text (see section on language below). Other types of inaccuracies include, for example, the author’s claim that masks are frequently used in kyōgen (p. 18), which is not accurate (in fact, the author himself also writes that facial expressions are key to the performances; masks are much less common than non-masked faces). The author presents waka as being “also known as tanka” (p. 20), but tanka is a form of waka (waka is an overarching term for various forms of Japanese poetry). The author claims that “[h]umor that diminishes or insults others is widely disapproved [in China and Japan]” (p. 24), but that is not accurate. Laughing at the expense of a third party or making fun of the co-participant is common in close personal relationships. Of course that making fun of the Communist Party (p. 25) is not approved by Chinese authorities, but that is not evidence of Chinese people not making fun of one another, as the author appears to suggest. The author states that there are three “uniquely human dimensions of behavior” (p. 2), which is a list that can be easily expanded by other things, such as, to mention just one, moral and ethical reasoning (the part of the text is, furthermore, rather redundant for the argument at hand). The claims that the author makes in his comparative summary of forms of humor are based on very little evidence – the text does not provide enough evidence to substantiate what the author presents here.

The author forgets to add macrons (marking long vowels) in several Japanese words (e.g., shujinkō or senryū) and “xiàngsheng” has the tone marking missing in the headline. The surname of Ohtsuka is once misspelled as Ohsuka. The book called An Antropology of Ba is referred to as The Anthropology of Ba. The explanations of the Japanese characters seem rather confusing and unhelpful (e.g., “known as a rakugo artist or rakugoka 落語家, (落”to fall”)”) and are not always fully correct (e.g., “The character 突 (tsuk) means “sudden” and 込(ko) means “into””—the kanji are not read on their own in that way). “Wortspiel” is “word play” rather than just “punning.” The section number 12.2 is attached to a wrong section and the rest is then incorrect as well. 

The author also includes information that is of no clear value to the central arguments. These include, for example, a physician’s description of what happens when one laughs, a note included in the explanation of a joke in Chinese on the fact that what Chinese call jiaozi, the Japanese call gyōza, or a mention of Freud claiming that there need to be at least three participants for humor to be produced, which is just quoted, but not commented on or used in the text in any way.

Overall, the author appears to be taking way too broad perspective and trying to do too much within a single article. What he ended up with is a lot of ideas that are not yet weaved into a text with a logical structure and clear argumentation.

The study needs to acknowledge and work with the fact that there are many forms of humor and that they are not produced in the same way. The methodology needs to be more rigid. The author also needs to select data carefully and work with the examples – analyze them, using the concepts that he argues are useful for explaining humor. The study must demonstrate that the approach the author proposes affords us better understanding of humor than the other approaches we have or that it at least expands it in some useful way. To do that, the author needs to engage with other studies on humor as well. The whole article needs to be written in a much more focused manner and its claims must be based on close analyses of presented data.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The article is written by a native speaker of English. However, there are various mistakes that stem from the lack of proofreading of the manuscript before submission. There are mistakes, such as unfinished sentences that just end abruptly, same words mistakenly used repeatedly in a single sentence, wrong syntax, same things stated repeatedly (see, e.g., part about senryū), incorrect use of punctuation marks, incorrect marking of citations, etc.

The style resembles that of a conference paper or a lecture rather than a more precisely worded and carefully put together scientific article and could, therefore, be improved. The clarity of expression could also be improved, as the text is often difficult to follow because of the wording, which is often too vague, as well as the way in which the text is constructed. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Please see the file attached for the author's response to your comments. Thank you for your contribution to this process. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attached document for my comments and suggestions.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Please see the file attached for the author's response to your comments. Thank you for your contribution to this process. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised manuscript demonstrates clear improvement. In particular, the addition of two paragraphs in Section 14 (p. 29) offering further elaboration on forms of humor across different cultures builds on the discussion in Section 13 and enhances the persuasiveness and coherence of the overall argument.　

That said, various inconsistencies in formatting, notation, and stylistic conventions remain throughout the manuscript. I recommend that the authors carefully review the entire text for clarity and consistency. Specific suggestions and examples have been provided below. 

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Abstract

In the abstract, “Ba Theory” appears in upright font, while “ba” is mostly in upright font except for one italicized instance (“sustaining of a ba state”). This inconsistency may confuse readers. Please clarify whether this distinction is intentional, and if not, unify the formatting throughout.

In the phrase “the philosophy of Kitaro Nishida and Shimizu,” the use of the full name for Nishida and only the surname for Shimizu creates inconsistency. I suggest using the full name for both individuals (e.g., Kitaro Nishida and Hiroshi Shimizu) for stylistic consistency.

The keyword list includes ba in lowercase, but within the manuscript, both ba and Ba are used when the term appears on its own. If this distinction is not intentional, it is recommended that the usage be unified for consistency.

Inconsistencies in Notation and Formatting

P.2, line 21: Ba theory → Ba Theory

P.3, Table 1: knowledge) → delete closing parenthesis

P.4, line 7: Does Nishida (1990) address ba? Would Nishida (1965) or Nishida (2012) be more appropriate here? Please verify.

P.5, line 8: digestion. (Miller and Miller 2003: vii) → Place the period after the citation.

P.5, 2nd line from bottom: “funny”, → Quotation marks and punctuation are inconsistently placed throughout the manuscript. Please review whether commas and periods appear inside or outside quotation marks and unify according to your chosen style guide. On the same page (line 5), there is an example where a period appears inside the quotation marks.

P.6, lines 5–6: Tannen (Tannen, 1993) and Coulson (Coulson, 2001) are redundant. Suggested revision: Beeman (1981, 2010, 2015a, 2017), Noda (2014), Tannen (1993), Coulson (2001), and Ritchie (2005).

P.7, line 6: Add a period at the end of the sentence.

P.7, line 10: Ba theory → Ba Theory (not italicized)

P.7, line 15: The citation appears as “(Ohtsuka, 2011).” Please check and unify the placement of periods relative to quotation marks throughout the manuscript.

P.7, line 20: Nonako, et. al. 2000 → Nonaka, et al. (2000)

— note the correct spelling (Nonaka with “a,” not “o”) and that et al. has no period after “et” and no comma before “et al.”

P.7, line 26: Hanks, et. al. (2019) → Hanks, et al. (2019)  

P.7, Figure 2 caption: Add a closing parenthesis. Also, correct Nonako, et. al. to Nonaka et al. — note the correct spelling (Nonaka with “a,” not “o”) and that et al. has no period after “et” and no comma before “et al.”

P.8, line 2: Move the period after (Nonaka & Konno, 1998: 46)

P.8, paragraphs 2–3: ba, Ba, Primary Ba, primary ba, Secondary Ba, secondary ba all appear in varying formats. If these distinctions are intentional, please clarify their meaning. Otherwise, unify their usage throughout the text.

P.8, 3rd line from bottom: Nonaka, Toyama and Konno is used here, while Nonaka et. al. appears on the following page (line 1). Please consider standardizing author references. Also, note that et al. should not include a period after et — it should be et al. (not et. al.).

P.9, Figure 3: Dependence → dependence

P.9, Figure 3: Hanks et.al. 2019 → Hanks et al., 2019

P.9, line 3: Hanks, et. al. (2019) → Hanks et al. (2019)

P.9, last line: BBa → Ba

P.10, line 21: Review punctuation placement in “ordinary reality.” for consistency with other uses.

P.10, paragraphs 4–8: Confirm consistency in usage of primary ba, primary Ba, secondary ba, secondary Ba.

P.11, line 1: A comma appears before the citation group. Please review comma placement in relation to citations throughout the manuscript and ensure consistent formatting—either before or after the citation group, but used consistently.

P.11, lines 12 and 27: Confirm consistent placement of quotation marks and punctuation.

P.11, line 22: Add a period after “a ludic modality of communication.”

P.13, line 2: Replace double hyphens (“--”) with proper em dashes (“—”) in “feature—verbal, visual, or behavioral—”

P.13, line 15: Add a period at the end of the sentence.

P.13, line 19: Confirm whether primary ba should be capitalized.

P.13, line 4 from bottom: Replace double hyphens with em dashes.

P.14, line 18: Remove unnecessary period after Black.

P.14, line 22: In section title 9.2, replace double hyphens with em dashes.

P.14, line 26: Confirm capitalization of primary ba.

P.15, line 16: Review punctuation and quotation mark placement.

P.17, line 14: Add a period at the end.

P.17, line 17: BaBa appears duplicated. Please revise.

P.18, paragraphs 1–2: Confirm usage of primary ba (capitalization).

P.19, section 12.1.5: Italicize the section title Arabid to match other headings.

P.19, section 12.3: Should this be 12.2? Please review the numbering of subsequent sections (e.g., 12.4 → 12.3, 12.5 → 12.4, etc.).

Pp. 20–21, sections 12.4, 12.5: Confirm capitalization of primary ba.

P.20, line 21: Sigmundsdóttir 1990-, 2016, 2016 includes an unclear element (“1990-”), which also appears in the bibliography but does not seem appropriate. Additionally, the year 2016 is repeated. Please revise to (Sigmundsdóttir, 2016).

P.22, line 15: Add period at sentence end.

P.23, section 13.1.3: To match the formatting of other section titles, the entire heading—including the section number—should be italicized and left-aligned.

P.23, paragraph 2:

Correct “;>komi” to tsukkomi (突っ込み).

Clarify meaning of 突 (tsuku = “to thrust/poke”) and 込 (komu = “to enter/insert”).

P. 23, line 10: The phrase ends with a redundant repetition of 道化 and is missing a period. Please delete the final 道化 and add a period at the end of the sentence.

P.24, line 2: The parentheses and quotation marks in (Senryū) (川柳 “willow river.”) are confusing. Please revise.

P.24, line 11: Change period to comma after satire in “humor, wit, and satire.”

P.24, line 17: Remove extra ū.

P.24, lines 18–19: The sentence contains several issues: “traditional the classic poetic form” is redundant, the quotation mark in “lit. Japanese poetry” is not closed, the parenthetical phrase is unclear, and the final period is missing. Please revise.

P.24, line 20: Add period after forms.

P.24, 6th line from bottom: Confirm capitalization of primary ba.

P.25, line 20: Is the quotation around "冷笑话" (lěng xiàohuà) necessary? Other examples are unquoted. Please standardize.

P.26, section 13.3.1: To match the formatting of other section titles, the entire heading—including the section number—should be italicized and left-aligned.

P.28, section 14: Confirm capitalization of primary ba.

P.29, lines 1–4: Font style appears inconsistent. Please confirm.

 

Bibliography

P.31, line 2: Consider removing kanji for Abe, Y. (阿部泰郎) to match other references.

P. 36, line 3: In the entry for Kajimaru et al. (2021), the phrase “$fedited by…” appears to be an editing artifact and should be removed.

P. 41, line 2 from the bottom: The entry Sigmundsdóttir 1990-, O. (2016) contains an unclear birthdate-like number “1990-”.

Please review the entire list for such inconsistencies in punctuation, author formatting, title capitalization, and unintended encoding or placeholder text.

 

Author Response

Please see the attached author response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the author(s)' thorough responses to my questions and feedback on their previous version of manuscript. I do not have any further suggestions.

Author Response

No further comment from the reviewer in this round.