Introduction
Judges and humour are rarely thought of together; however, humour and the judiciary intersect in a wide variety of ways, as the contributions to this book demonstrate. Judges individually and collectively may be the subject or target of humour; judicial decisions may have to determine questions of humour and its effect(s); and judges may create and use humour themselves, often as a way of managing their work, especially in court, but also in the interface between the judicial role and personal life. Courts and their participants, both lay and professional, often feature in comedies and satires that present judicial or legal formalities and customs as entertainment. This chapter introduces the multi-layered connections that unite the seriousness of the work of the judiciary on the one hand with the lightheartedness of humour on the other. The book as a whole examines humour relating to the judiciary,1 legal processes, cases and legal systems from a range of countries and over time in order to illuminate the many ways humour and the judiciary intersect.
The aim of this chapter is to open up a field rather than to arrive at a definitive account. This is partly because the task of studying humour in any domain is complex and demandingâeven unlimited. Empirical research and interpretive analyses of writings on humour and the related topic of laughter reveal two fundamental issues:Since these two issues are closely linked to ideas about the judge, judging and humour explored in this book, this introductory chapter addresses them generally and in light of particular themes raised by the other chapters.
- Differences in the ways researchers and scholars from various disciplines approach, define, categorise, conceptualise, and theorise humour and its cognate or allied termsâsense of humour, humorous behaviours and styles (or types) of humour.
- Attention to how humour emerges, functions and is used in everyday life, particularly in workplaces but also in theatre and entertainment, both in the past and the present.
What is Humour?
Humour is âan umbrella term to cover all categories of the funnyâ including comedy, wit, satire and jokes (Lippitt 1994: 147). Humour embraces many structures and types of funny material such as canned jokes, spontaneous humour (such as jesting, witticisms, quips and wisecracks), anecdotes, wordplay or puns, and modalities such as irony, self-deprecation and sarcasm (Jorgensen 1996; Martin 2007), as well as comic entertainment of all kinds (such as sketches, comedies, parodies, comic novels and rhymes). Precise distinctions between forms and types of humour can be difficult to identify. Interpretations of images, gestures or speech as humorous are often culturally specific, subjective, context-dependent and variable (Haugh 2014; Holmes 2000; Holmes and Marra 2002; Norrick 1993). There is no one agreed definition. Dictionary definitions generally struggle to reflect the breadth of its modern international usage (Milner Davis 2013).
Within this umbrella term there is a subordinate specialist meaning for humour as good-natured humour, as distinct from sarcasm or irony. This reflects the etymological development of the word humour from its original medieval sense of various bodily âhumoursâ governing different types of personality or behaviour such as the choleric or angry person or the cheerful, sanguine person (Milner Davis 2011; Ruch 1998; Wickberg 1998). In a related aspect of modern usage, humour also harks back to these origins by referring to a particular (usually admirable) aesthetic world-view: one that triumphs over the adversities and imperfections of life by smiling at them in the philosophical tradition originally attributed to Democritus.2 Both the broad and the narrower, benevolent meanings need to be acknowledged, and both are included within the scope of humour as used in this book.
It is important to distinguish the thing (what is funny), firstly from the audience or perceiverâs cognitive experience of âgettingâ the humour and secondly from the affective responseâwhich may or may not be one of enjoyment and pleasure. While attempted or failed humour may not amount to humour according to some interpretations, it does at least indicate that the speaker or proponent intended or thought the communication would be humorous or amusing, even though the audience or other observers failed to comprehend it as such, or disagreed (Bell 2009, 2013; Hay 2001; Schnurr and Chan 2009). This is consistent in part with Holmes and Marraâs (2002) approach to studying humour in the workplace: âHumorous utterances are defined as those which are identified by the analyst on the basis of ⊠clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some participantsâ (Holmes and Marra 2002: 1693, also see Holmes 2000: 163). Several chapters of this book include things said or written which are identified as having been intended to be humorous, even where the apparent humour was not perceived as amusing by the intended audience (see Chap. 8). Including failed humour helps to illuminate the circumstances in which humour succeeds or not, and to identify the normative limits of humour (Bell 2009; Coser 1960: 82â3, Footnote 86).
Sense of humour is another thing altogether. A modern (and modernising) concept that evolved specifically in nineteenth-century English culture, a sense of humour is bound up with the idea of the individual and so links to psychological studies of humour discussed below. Ever since the development of early personality tests in the 1930s by Gordon Allport at Harvard University, having a sense of humour has been considered a desirable trait. Allport himself came to regard it as indicative of maturity and good mental health (see Wickberg 1998). This view appears to be shared by some judicial officers. A national survey of the Australian judiciary finds that over half the respondents assessed having a sense of humour as essential or very important in their everyday work (see Chap. 5). At the ceremonial sittings of courts for the swearing in or farewelling of a judge, the particular judgeâs sense of humour is often a subject of positive comment (and humour) made by senior legal personnelâsuch as law society and bar association presidents, government legal officers, or other judges.3
Another terminological issue concerns the notion of humour styles or styles of humour which means one thing in literary terminology but something quite different in the psychology of humour. For those who study the things that are in and of themselves comic or humorous, style is a matter of the flavour or tonality of the piece. This can vary from being savagely biting (ironic or satiric or even sarcastic in style), to benign and warm-hearted (like a sitcom or a romantic comedy), or perhaps be characterised by knock-about slapstick and physical gags (farce) (Milner Davis 2003; Ornstein 1994). For psychologists, since the work of Rod Martin (Martin et al. 2003), humour styles mean the ways that individuals tend to use humour in their daily life. Recent studies recognise these two different usages (Chen et al. 2011; Ruch et al. 2018), which helpfully allows for usage in the sociology of humour where the term indicates very broad styles of humour appreciated by or associated with different âtaste-culturesâ in localised societies (Kuipers 2009).
In its broad sense, humour is a term now used in ordinary language and recognised in everyday situations around the world (see Milner Davis 2013). It is the subject of considerable academic and scholarly inquiry and empirical research. Interpretive analyses of humour are found across many fields of academic inquiry, including ant...