What's so funny?

: Conceptual integration in humorous examples

Seana Coulson
An 'Off the Leash' cartoon by W.B. Park depicts a dozen or so pigs feeding at a
trough. One pig, however, has his head raised, as if addressing the approaching
farmer. The pig's words are apparently expressed in the cartoon's caption which reads,
"Garcon!" Thus the farmer in the cartoon has been compared to a waiter in a French
restaurant, and the viewer is left to speculate about the nature of the correspondence
between expensive French food and the contents of the feeding trough. Hofstadter &
Gabora (1989) point to the analogical nature of this joke, and pose the term frame
blend for a frame whose elements and relations are constructed from a combination of
two frames which share some abstract structure.
Below, I explore the role of such frame blends in a number of humorous examples,
focussing on political cartoons. In spite of their playful nature, the blends in such
examples often deal with serious issues. Analysis points to some of the cultural
concepts involved in these examples, and examines how processes of conceptual
blending work. Processes of conceptual blending are shown to be extremely flexible,
and consequently, play a central role in the extent to which our concepts change over
time. I show how conceptual integration in humorous materials serves to both
perpetuate and modify culturally relevant concepts.
1. CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION THEORY
Fauconnier & Turner (1994; 1998) have shown how frame blends occur in a wide
variety of cognitive phenomena and have developed an elaborate theory of conceptual
integration, or blending, to explain the representation of composite descriptions. Basic
concepts in conceptual integration theory include mental spaces, frames, or cultural
models, and mappings. Mental spaces (Fauconnier, 1994) can be thought of as

temporary containers for relevant information about a particular domain. A mental

space contains a partial representation of the entities and relations of a particular
scenario as construed by a speaker. Spaces are structured by elements which represent
each of the discourse entities, and simple frames to represent the relationships that
exist between them. Frames are hierarchically structured attribute-value pairs that can
either be integrated with perceptual information, or used to activate generic
knowledge about people and objects assumed by default. Finally, mappings are
abstract correspondences between elements and relations in different spaces.
1.1 Unsinkable Ships
For example, we might want to use mental spaces to understand how people can use
the same word "Titanic" to refer to both the ship and the movie about the ship. Mental
spaces are usually depicted with circles representing distinct spaces, and lines to
represent the mappings between corresponding elements in different spaces. Thus
figure 1 contains two spaces, one for the movie and one for the ship. This enables us
to represent the fact that the ship and the movie have different properties, while the
mappings between the two let us represent the non-arbitrary nature of their
correspondence.
[INSERT figure 1 (ship.gif) ABOUT HERE]
Moreover, we might recruit conceptual integration theory to account for the
comprehension of (1), a headline that referred to the number of Academy Awards
received by the movie "Titanic." [1]
(1) "Titanic" unsinkable afterall!
Exploiting the mapping between the movie and the ship, (1) recruits the term
"unsinkable" from the ship space, and applies it to an entity in the movie space.

Fauconnier & Turner (1998) suggest mappings such as these routinely recruit
blending, in which the imaginative processes of meaning construction are used to
create novel conceptualizations of events. Importantly, (1) seems to require the
construction of a blended space that contains a hybrid Titanic, with some of the
properties of the movie (a critically acclaimed blockbuster), and some of the
properties of the ship (being an object which can relevantly be called "unsinkable").
Blending is a set of operations for combining cognitive models in a network of mental
spaces. Conceptual integration networks typically consist of two or more input spaces,
a generic space, and a blendedspace. In the Titanic example, the input spaces are the
ship space and the movie space, each of which contain information about their
restricted domain. The generic space contains a very schematic representation of
structure common to all spaces. In this example, the generic space contains a
representation of a participant undergoing an event and an unspecified outcome. The
blended space contains structure from both input spaces, and can contain its own
emergent structure. In (1), the blended space involves a counterfactual ship voyage in
which the fate of the Titanic maps metaphorically onto the success of the movie
"Titanic," (see figure 2 ).
[INSERT figure 2 (titanic.gif) ABOUT here]
Although the meaning of the movie title "'Titanic'" can, in principle, be captured with
only two spaces (as in figure 1), conceptual integration theory suggests that speakers
in fact construct a more complex representation which includes a blended space with a
hybrid ship/movie Titanic. This apparent violation of Occam's razor is tolerated
because it affords a unified account of simple pragmatic functions (that is, the
understanding that the movie title "Titanic" is conceptually linked to its historical
topic) and creative examples like (1) which exploit such functions. Though the hybrid

Titanic seems at first superfluous, it soon proves to be crucial for the

conceptualization of an unsinkable Titanic.
As noted earlier, in default cases "unsinkable" applies to ships rather than to movies.
However, "unsinkable" is pertinent to the movie space for two reasons. First it is
significant because both the real Titanic and the represented Titanic sunk. [2] Second,
it promotes a metaphoric conceptualization of the film, construed as an artistic
creation, whose success or failure is established by ticket sales, critical acclaim, the
awards it wins, and so on. This latter mapping is facilitated by the existence of
entrenched connections between success and progress along physical paths (see
Lakoff & Turner, 1990 on the event structure metaphor).
In theory, the Titanic in the blend could have been linked to the Titanic represented in
the movie. However, because the continued progress of an unsinkable ship maps onto
success, it suggests the Titanic in the blend must be linked to something which can be
construed as successful: the movie. Thus the term "afterall" marks the structure in the
blended space both as diverging from structure in the ship input, and as corresponding
to the appropriate structure in the movie input (see also Turner & Fauconnier, in press
for more Titanic blends).
1.2 Blending and Humor
Though not all blends are humorous, blending does seem to be an inherent feature of
humor. In his discussion of comic creativity, Koestler (1964: 51) writes:
"The sudden bisociation of an idea or event with two habitually incompatible matrices
will produce a comic effect, provided that the narrative, the semantic pipeline, carries
the right kind of emotional tension. When the pipe is punctured, and our expectations
are fooled, the now redundant tension gushes out in laughter, or is spilled in the
gentler form of the sou-rire." [3]

With this somewhat cryptic reference to "bisociation," "matrices," and the "semantic
pipeline," Koestler alludes to the simple fact that humor often involves the unlikely
combination of related structures. For example, in Park's cartoon discussed above, part
of the humor can be attributed to the juxtaposition of the pig-feeding scenario with a
term more commonly associated with dining in a French restaurant. However, not just
any combination of these frames results in a comic effect. Hofstadter & Gabora
(1989) discuss several variations of the pig dining blend, some of which are funnier
than the original, and some of which are not funny at all.
As Koestler suggests, both the content of the joke and the way in which it develops
affect its comic potential. In the classic processing account of this phenomenon, joke
appreciation involves first, the recognition of incongruity, and its subsequent
resolution via the adoption of another set of assumptions (Suls, 1972). For example,
consider the following joke, quite popular with the under-7 crowd:
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.
Explaining the two-stage model of humor appreciation in this case, Lewis (1989)
notes the incongruity in this joke: chickens aren't found on streets, and aren't
customarily construed as having directional intentions. The resolution, in the answer,
is so obvious it's funny. Moreover, he notes how the humor disappears when the
chicken is framed congruously as a chicken:
Q: Why did the chicken cross the barnyard?
A: To get some scraps.

In the funny joke, the incongruity results from the blend involved in framing the
chicken as a person (see figure 3). Moreover, Lewis' alternative joke shows that
without the incongruity there can be no joke.
[INSERT figure 3 (chicken.gif) ABOUT HERE]
Interestingly, the resolution to the question of why the chicken crosses the road does
not involve reconceptualizing the chicken to be more chickenlike! The chicken who
crosses the road to get to the other side is still a chicken with human-like intentions.
So while the chicken/person blend is incongruous enough to sustain humor, it need
not be understood as fundamentally anomalous. In fact, it would seem that with a little
sustained blending activity, it can be understood quite well on its own.
Similarly, Coulson (1996; 1997) discusses blending in the following joke about a
computer virus with some decidedly human qualities:
Menendez Brothers Virus: Eliminates your files, takes the disk space they previously
occupied, and then claims it was a victim of physical and sexual abuse on the part of
the files it erased.
While ostensibly a warning about a computer virus, the rhetorical topic of this joke is
the trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez. These two California teenagers confessed to the
murder of their parents, and subsequently claimed they were only acting in selfdefense against parents who had repeatedly abused them. Here the joke refers to
elements in a blended space, in order to project structure to one of its inputs.
The inputs include the technical knowledge about real computer viruses, and the
social knowledge of the Menendez brothers' murder trial. While the initial structuring
of the blended space is quite congruent with knowledge about computer viruses, there
is some structure projected from the social input with no sensible counterparts in the

technical domain. While viruses often delete files, occupy disk space, and even have
colorful names, the suggestion that a computer virus could be the victim of physical
and/or sexual abuse is patently absurd. The inference that the virus's claim is
ridiculous and false gets transferred back to the source domain where it triggers a
similar inference for the Menendez Brothers Virus' social counterparts.
Coulson (1996) shows how blending in this joke results in two sorts of alterations of
conceptual structure, one momentary and one which is more sustained. First, there is
the momentary conceptual integration that enables us to conceptualize an abused
computer virus. Moreover, the joke also highlights how this sort of disposable blended
concept can reinforce a controversial construal of the social input space. In this case,
the agentive construal of the computer virus has been used to reinforce a publicly
available construal of the Menendez brothers as conspiring murderers with a phony
excuse. In the sections below, we will see how blending is often similarly recruited in
political cartoons. Conceptual integration processes allow us to construct bizarre,
disposable concepts which in turn promote particular construals of their input
domains.
2. TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
The cartoon in figure 4 alludes to discrepancies in U.S. President Clinton's public
statements about an alleged affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
In January of 1998, when first confronted with the issue, Clinton vehemently denied
he had had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. However, as time went on, Kenneth
Starr, the independant counsel who zealously pursued the case, managed to amass
evidence from a number of White House insiders, including Clinton's private
secretary, Secret Service agents assigned to guard the president, and Monica
Lewinsky herself. In August 1998, lawyers led by Starr questioned Clinton for over
five hours in the White House while a grand jury watched via a live video link.

[INSERT figure 4 (siers8_18.gif) ABOUT HERE]

Later that evening, Clinton publicly addressed the nation and admitted he had indeed
had a relationship with Lewinsky that was "not appropriate," but asserted that
statements he had made about the matter in the course of a sexual harassment suit
filed by Paula Jones had been "legally accurate." Although Clinton refused to answer
direct questions about intimate details of the affair, testimony by Lewinsky revealed
the basis for his defense. She testified that their relationship had included oral sex, but
not sexual intercourse. Moreover, because the definition of "sex" in the sexual
harassment suit was formulated from an agentive perspective, it was suggested that
though Lewinsky had had sex with Clinton, he had not had sex with her.
The dialogue in Siers' cartoon (figure 4) thus involves a blend of the two topics of
Clinton's grand jury testimony: his sexual dalliance and his honesty. Clinton, of
course, never actually admitted to an adulterous affair with Lewinsky, only an
inappropriate relationship. He did not admit to lying, either, only to misleading those
around him. In fact, both issues remain to this day, somewhat equivocal. Moreover,
the ambiguity is not primarily due to an absence of knowledge about the facts, but,
rather, resides in our very understanding of what constitutes a "lie." Clinton's
statement that he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky is precisely the sort of
utterance that motivates the need for a prototype semantics of "lie."
Coleman and Kay (1981) note that when asked to define the word "lie," most people
respond "a false statement." However, when asked to categorize various utterances as
lies, people's "lie" judgments were consistent only in cases where first, the statement
was, in fact, false; second, the speaker believed the statement to be false; and, finally,
that the speaker uttered the statement in order to deceive the listener. In cases where
only some of these conditions held, for example if the speaker actually believed the
statement to be true, judgments of whether a "lie" had been told were more variable.

Moreover, the supposedly essential condition of being a false statement, proved

the least important of the three conditions to people's judgments about whether
particular utterances should count as lies.
Sweetser (1987) suggests that this paradox can be resolved by understanding word
meaning as occurring against the background of culturally shared frames, or cultural
models, which structure social activity. She shows how the simple definition for the
word lie, that is, the one offered by Coleman and Kay's informants, depends on the
use of a simplified model of communication. In Sweetser's simplified speech act
world, people speak in order to communicate potentially helpful information; their
beliefs are adequately justified (and, as a result, are true); finally, people say what they
believe. When the assumptions of this cultural model obtain, the definition of a lie as a
false statement serves to clearly delineate lies from truths. However, when people's
communicative behavior does not conform to that laid out in the cultural model, the
definition of "lie" does not apply.
Thus while cultural models are widely shared among culture members, they need not
correspond in a realistic way to the external world. We know that people do not
always say what they believe; nor do they always speak with the intention of
providing helpful information. Nonetheless, the simplified speech act world is an
efficient representation for reasoners to use in the definition of speech acts
that don't fit the model. For example, the word mistake marks a deviation from the
norm in which the speaker's beliefs turn out to be untrue. Moreover, the term lie does
not apply in speech act contexts (such as joking and storytelling) which diverge from
the informational context defined by the model.
Thus Siers' cartoon, in depicting Clinton uttering words he never actually uttered, is
not a case of misrepresentation. However, the point of the cartoon itself is that the real
Clinton had made a number of statements which were deceptive, if not full-blown lies.

Unfortunately for Clinton, while speakers consider deception to be less insidious than
a bald lie, their listeners do not (Sweetser, 1987). Of course, in deception, the listener's
own inferences render him an unwitting co-conspirator. However, in a lie, the blame
falls squarely on the speaker.
3. READ MY LIPS
Blending Clinton's scandal with another notorious presidential untruth, Mike Ritter
depicts Clinton saying, "Read my lips. . . ." Moreover, in the picture, Clinton's mouth
is surrounded by lipstick markings (see figure 5). The statement, "Read my lips," of
course, was made famous by former U.S. President George Bush, who then followed
by promising, "No new taxes." When taxes were subsequently raised, the remark was
heralded as an emblem of the untrustworthiness of the politician's pledge. In the visual
blend set up in the cartoon, Bush's modern-day counterpart Clinton has assumed his
role, and uses his words. However, both the lipstick marks and contextual knowledge
about the Lewinsky affair suggest Clinton's remarks pertain to his own sex scandal
rather than to taxes.
[INSERT figure 5 (ritter0818B.jpg) ABOUT HERE]
In fact, Ritter's cartoon is a hyper-blend, since the expression "read my lips" is itself a
blend. The appropriate time to use this expression is when someone asks you a
question, you answer, then, not believing the answer, they ask the same question
again. From the questioner's perspective, the repeated question is meant to indicate
that the respondent's answer was not believable. From the respondent's perspective,
however, the repeated question indicates a failure of the questioner to attend to, and/or
understand the initial answer. In saying, "read my lips," the respondent suggests that
the questioner cannot hear the answer to his own question, and therefore should resort
to lipreading. But, while the hyperbolic blend intended by the speaker emphasizes the

interviewer's deficiencies as a listener, the ultimate meaning of the expression

acknowledges the real intent behind the interviewer's repeated question: suspicion of
insincerity.
The understanding of the expression as marking the speaker's intended sincerity
results from the fact that it is understood as a blend of both perspectives. The
interviewer believes that the respondent's first utterance was a lie, while the
respondent believes (or pretends to believe) the interviewer did not hear or understand
the first utterance. In the blend, the words "Read my lips," get their relevance from the
respondent's perspective where the questioner simply did not hear the first response.
However, they are understood as the respondent's assurance of sincerity because the
questioner's question repetition counts as a tacit accusation that the respondent is not
being sincere. Even the generic event scenario associated with the phrase "Read my
lips," then, involves an allusion to a somewhat unbelievable statement, a tacit
accusation of insincerity, and the speaker's attempt to allay suspicion.
The blend in the cartoon capitalizes on this by evoking the particular scenario
associated with Bush in which the speaker ultimately proved to be untrustworthy.
Thus one way of unpacking the blend in the cartoon is to set up parallel structure in
the two input spaces. In the Bush space, the president says, "Read my lips: no new
taxes," and subsequently raises taxes. In the Clinton space, the president says "I never
had sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky," and subsequently admits to a
relationship with her. Moreover, the generic space includes a conception of an
utterance offered in a show of sincerity, that proves to be false. The blend, too,
involves an utterance offered as a show of sincerity, that proves obviously false.
Unlike the input spaces, however, the blend depicted in the cartoon compresses the
amount of time between the initial utterance and the proof of insincerity.

The point of the cartoon, presumably, is that the remark in the blend is selfreferentially falsifiable. Besides evoking knowledge about former-President Bush,
"Read my lips," provides the viewer with a cue to find the evidence to substantiate
Clinton's reputation as a womanizer. Thus the blend differs crucially from the inputs
in this respect. The proof of Bush's lie wasn't on his mouth, nor was the proof of
Clinton's on his. Presumably, the cartoon-Clinton means the remark in precisely the
way Bush did, as an assurance of sincerity. However, only the blend provides a
context in which the untrustworthiness of such an assurance can be graphically
depicted, and in such a way that it coincides temporally with the original utterance.
Many accounts of analogy and metaphor have emphasized the importance of abstract
relational structure over features. In contrast, note here how seemingly incidental
structure -- the fact that lip-reading involves scrutinizing the speaker's mouth, that the
speaker has lipstick marks on his mouth, and the knowledge that it is at least remotely
plausible that a man might have lipstick marks on his face after a sexual encounter
with a woman -- has been exploited in a novel way in the cartoon to reinforce a
negative framing of Clinton. Besides metonymically evoking the sex scandal, the
lipstick on cartoon-Clinton's face is meant to indicate how transparent the real
Clinton's lie was. Moreover, since it's completely implausible that anyone could
unwittingly have lipstick all over his face, the cartoon exaggerates the extent to which
Clinton had been caught in a lie.
The cartoon in figure 5 exemplifies some general characteristics of conceptual
blending. Firstly, it presents the initial utterance, the assurance of sincerity, and the
proof of the utterance's falsity as an integrated scenario. Second, the cartoonist uses
hyperbole to convey his message. Moreover, while hyperbole here is part of what
makes the cartoon funny, hyperbole in and of itself does not comedy make. For
example, George Bush's original use of the hyperbolic phrase "Read my lips," was not

at all funny. Perhaps one contribution to the comic appeal of figure 5 is the cartoonist's
clever exploitation of incidental structure to convey his message.
4. HISTORICAL CONVERSATIONS
A cartoon by Chip Bok points up a contrast in Clinton's alleged behavior and that
attributed to his 18th-century political counterpart George Washington. On the lefthand side of the cartoon, George Washington says, "I cannot tell a lie." Addressing
Washington from the right-hand side of the cartoon, Clinton says, "If everyone's on
record denying it you've got no problem." In some ways the cartoon in figure 6 is
similar to a blend discussed by Fauconnier and Turner (1996) in which a modern-day
philosopher engages in an imagined debate with Immanuel Kant. In the Kant blend,
the professor projects Kant into the modern era so that he can get the esteemed
German's reactions to ideas composed after his death.
[INSERT figure 6 (bok4.gif) ABOUT HERE]
In figure 6, however, both lines were allegedly uttered by the parties in question.
Washington's lines come straight from the historical record, while Clinton's were
attributed to him by his former mistress, Gennifer Flowers. As for Washington, legend
has it that when he was a boy, he chopped down a cherry tree on his father's farm.
When Washington's father discovered what had happened, he went, furiously, to his
family and demanded to know who had chopped down the tree. Knowing that he
would likely receive a spanking for his efforts, Washington stood up and said, "I
cannot tell a lie. It was I who chopped down the cherry tree."[4]
On the other hand, Flowers attributed the remark in the right-hand panel of the
cartoon to Clinton in her declaration in the Paula Jones harassment suit against him.
Worried about whether people would perceive her relationship to then-Governor
Clinton as contributing to her successful career in Arkansas state government, Flowers

approached him to discuss whether she should admit to their adulterous affair.
Flowers' declaration suggests Clinton told her to deny it, and that he said, "If
everyone's on record as denying it, you got no problem."
The composition of the two men's utterances in the blend results in the activation of a
conversation frame and provides a context in which George Washington and Bill
Clinton can interact. The mere juxtaposition of the two statements points up a contrast
between the two presidents: Washington claimed to be incapable of dishonesty, while
Bok portrays Clinton as someone all too willing to lie. Moreover, knowledge that
Clinton's remark was originally addressed to Gennifer Flowers allows the reader to set
up a mapping between Washington in the blend, and Flowers in the Clinton input.
This makes Clinton look bad because it reinforces the idea that he's told people to lie
in the past, and, further, it suggests that he would attempt to corrupt someone as
upstanding as George Washington.
Moreover, it is only in the blend -- where Clinton addresses Washington rather than
Flowers -- that Clinton's remark can evoke a misunderstanding of Washington's
chestnut. While "I cannot tell a lie," was presumably intended to mean that the guilt he
would experience from lying precludes him from doing so, Clinton's remark suggests
a different interpretation. Rather than guilt over lying, Clinton believes Washington
fears reprisal for being caught. By offering Washington advice on how to lie without
getting caught, the cartoon Clinton presents himself as someone likely to behave (and
likely to have behaved) in accordance with his own advice. Consequently, it prompts
retrospective projections to Clinton's input space, framing denials of the real Clinton's
misdeeds as fabricated, and further framing him as untrustworthy. Though the cartoon
is probably motivated by the disanalogy between the reputation each of the two
political counterparts have for honesty, the interactive frame set up in the blend
provides a context in which unique structure can arise.

5. THE CHERRY TREE

A cartoon by Jeff MacNelly of the Chicago Tribune also exploits Clinton's and
Washington's shared political role in a two-sided blend of the cherry tree story and
Clinton's statements on the Lewinsky affair. In one input we have the historical tale
about George Washington; in the other, the more recent account of Clinton's
statements on the sex scandal. The blend is first suggested by the title, "William
Washington Clinton and the Cherry Tree," which inserts Washington's surname in the
place usually filled by Clinton's own middle name "Jefferson," which also happens to
be the name of a former U.S. president (Thomas Jefferson), and like Washington a
'Founding Father.'
[INSERT figure 7 (macnelly_edtoon082198.jpg) ABOUT HERE]
In the cartoon we see a toppled tree and Clinton, dressed in Colonial garb, wielding an
electric chainsaw. He says, "When I denied chopping down the cherry tree I was
legally accurate." The blend places Clinton in a counterfactual scenario structured
both by knowledge about Bill Clinton and by the tale of George Washington and the
cherry tree. The Clinton in the cartoon is not a clear-cut inhabitant of either the
colonial era nor our own. His clothes and hat clearly evoke the former, but the electric
chainsaw suggests the modern era. The name in the title banner "William Washington
Clinton" also suggests non-trivial fusion between George Washington and Bill Clinton
(see figure 7).
5.1 Analogical Counterfactuals
In this blend, the beginning of the story (involving the misdeed and the accusation)
comes from knowledge about George Washington, while the end (involving the denial
and the nature of the denial) comes from knowledge about Bill Clinton. Moreover, by
putting Clinton in for Washington, it allows us to contrast how Clinton would perform

in Washington's situation. In this respect, the blend is similar to (2), initially proposed
by Fauconnier (1996).
(2) In France, Watergate wouldn't have harmed Nixon.
Meaning construction for (2) involves the establishment of mappings between
elements in French and American politics and the construction of parallel structure in
the two spaces. Moreover, (2) also requires the construction of a blended space in
which an event from American history is blended with knowledge of the French
political system. Although the blend is accessed from the American Politics space (i.e.
we use terms such as ``Nixon'' and ``Watergate'' which come from American Politics),
its elaboration is constrained by knowledge of French Politics. The contrast between
Nixon's plight in the American Politics space and that of his blended counterpart
triggers construction of a French Politics frame which can relate the scandal to the
lack of ramifications. Consequently, (2) suggests inferences about the French political
system and the temperament of the French populace.
Similarly, the William Washington Clinton blend projects structure to its inputs so as
to point up the contrast between Washington's admission of guilt and Clinton's denial.
As suggested in figure 8, the mapping between chopping down a tree and the
relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky only arises out of a larger mapping
between speech acts surrounding the respective incidents. The commonality, that is,
the structure in the generic space, is a story of committing a misdeed, being accused
of committing the misdeed, and responding to the accusation. Though the plot
involves some action, this blend is primarily a tale of speech acts.
[INSERT figure 8 (metaling.gif) ABOUT HERE]
Processes of conceptual blending here afford event integration so that all aspects of
the scenario are brought together in one scene. Unlike our knowledge about the affair

between Clinton and Lewinsky, the relationship between William Washington Clinton
and the felled cherry tree is easily inferred from information present in the cartoon.
Cartoon Clinton's placement in front of the fallen tree, the saw in his hand, and his
indirect reference to the event all suggest his guilt. Further, the manner in which
William Washington Clinton has apparently felled the tree is evident from the smooth
tree stump and the chainsaw in his hand.
While the manner of felling the tree was of little importance in the original story about
George Washington, the chainsaw takes on a key role in the blend. Besides linking
Clinton to the modern era, it enables the legalistic distinction that links us to the
Clinton space. The contrast between this manner of felling the tree and chopping it
down, of course, are what the phrase "legally accurate" refers to in the blend. The
verbiage, though, as well as the concept it refers to, has been inherited from the topic
space of modern politics. There is no conception of a legally accurate remark in the
Washington input, and, in fact, the idea of a legally accurate response to the query
about the cherry tree is more than a little absurd. As in the joke about the Menendez
Brothers Virus, this absurdity in the blend gets projected back onto the Clinton input,
and reinforces an extant framing of Clinton's statements about the Lewinsky affair.
5.2 Hedges
Clinton's phrase, "legally accurate," is a hedge, a linguistic expression which marks
the metalinguistic status of its utterance. For example, Kay (1987) suggests "loosely
speaking" is a hedge which qualifies the utterance in which it appears in particular
ways. It can reflect an incoherent description, as in (3), a coherent but wrong
description, as in (4), the presence of an unintended presupposition, as in (5), or a
combination of these factors, as in (6) (Kay, 1987).

(3) Strictly speaking, one can't really talk about "the first human beings," but loosely
speaking, the first human beings lived in Kenya.
(4) Strictly speaking, we can only talk of the first human population known to science,
but loosely speaking, the first human beings...
(5) Loosely speaking, in Kenya; strictly speaking, in the place now called Kenya.
(6) Loosely speaking in Kenya. Strictly speaking, we are dealing here with a complex
situation involving sites mainly in Kenya, but also in Tanzania and Uganda, and with
a set of fossils which may not all represent the same species... [5]
Kay argues that loosely speaking appeals to a folk model of truth in which words
represent objects with feature sets that either do or do not match the properties of
objects in the world. Moreover, in this model, the meanings of individual words are
combined systematically to refer to complex objects and scenarios in the world. When
a speaker precedes her utterance with the phrase, "loosely speaking," she marks its
deviance from this model. Thus specifying the meaning of loosely speaking requires
an appeal to the speaker's cultural models of language use.
In contrast to the Fregean concept of utterances which can be strictly speaking true or
false, technically appeals to a folk model of language which has been dealt with more
formally by Putnam. In the cultural model underlying technically, the meaning of
words often relies on the existence of expert knowledge (e.g. chemistry in the
definition of gold, or botany in the definition of an elm tree) that the individual
speaker need not possess. Contrasting (7) and (8), (his 9a and 9b), Kay argues that (7)
is pragmatically odd, because varmint is a colloquialism, and thus falls outside the
domain where expert judgments are required for naming.
(7) Technically, that's a rodent.

(8) # Technically, that's a varmint.

Interestingly, (8) is fine as a joke, and seems to be a meta-meta-linguistic comment on
the need for expert naming conventions for the creature, or perhaps the need for
expert naming conventions full stop.
Clinton's use of legally accurate appeals to a cultural model similar to that employed
in strictly speaking, but bearing some similarity to meaning model Kay associates
with the hedge technically. In thelegally accurate model, words and phrases represent
objects and actions in the world via sets of necessary and sufficient conditions.
However, the exact set of these conditions is subject to legal negotiation. For example,
a New Yorker who is one-sixteenth Cherokee might call herself a Native American
and be "legally accurate," while her half-brother, raised on a reservation in Oklahoma,
but only one-thirty-second Cherokee, could not. Moreover, if the law which defines
Native American as one-sixteenth were revised or overturned, it's quite possible that
our New Yorker's claim would no longer be "legally accurate."
Like loosely speaking and technically, the acceptability of this hedge depends on the
applicability of the underlying cultural model of meaning. For example, if squirrels
are defined by law to be rodents (and thus subject to things like extermination), (9)
would be acceptable but (10) would not.
(9) To call it a rodent would be legally accurate.
(10) *To call it a varmint would be legally accurate.
However, if there were no legal definition of rodent, (9) would also be pragmatically
odd.

Because there was no legal dispute in the cherry tree legend, the blended Clinton in
figure 7 makes an inappropriate appeal to the legally accurate hedge which gets
projected back to the Bill Clinton input. This is somewhat curious as the legally
accurate model is slightly more applicable in the Bill Clinton space since there was,
in fact, a legal dispute. However, the blend also highlights the mappings between the
incident (felling the tree with a chainsaw) and the accusation (felling the tree with an
ax) and their consequences (a dead tree) and projects parallel structure to the Bill
Clinton space. The point of course is that the veracity of the denial has almost no
bearing on the morality of the act itself.
6. SEX, LIES, AND BLENDING
Lewis (1989: 34) writes, "humor embodies values not by virtue of its content alone
but as a consequence of what it does with its materials. To get a joke we must resolve
its incongruity by retrieving or discovering an image or idea that can connect its oddly
associated ideas or images." Indeed part of the appeal of humorous examples is the
fun of getting the joke. The cartoon presents itself as a puzzle for the viewer to solve.
The challenge, it seems, is to activate the appropriate information in response to the
imagery and the verbal cues, and to integrate it with abstract narrative structure.
Unpacking the blend and structuring the input spaces allows the viewer to solve the
puzzle, and the cartoonist to make his point.
Because the cartoonist must provide the viewer with just enough information to
reconstitute the input spaces, humorous examples necessarily depend on viewers
having relevant knowledge and shared understandings about these domains.
Knowledge of entrenched metaphoric and metonymic mappings are routinely
exploited in the comprehension of political cartoons. Moreover, they recruit blending
processes known as completion and elaboration. First, completion occurs when we
activate relevant bits of world knowledge given sparse clues. For instance, the

utterance "Read my lips," in figure 5 is enough to activate a schematic representation

of the scenario that involves George Bush and the U.S. tax code.
Second, elaboration is the ability to animate eclectic models built with pieces from
disparate domains. In figure 6, for example, the interactive frame set up in the blend
provides a context that allows us to directly compare two presidents from different
eras. Even more spectacularly, it allows us to observe Clinton's attempts to corrupt
George Washington.
Hofstadter and Gabora (1989) insightfully compare the input frames in humorous
blends to the notion of figure and ground in a piece of art. Thus the elements
contributed by one frame can be interpreted against the ground of the other. MacNelly,
for instance, projects Bill Clinton back in time and inserts him into the legend of
George Washington and the cherry tree. This seems to be a general function of
blending in these examples: to project people into new contexts where the cartoonist's
point can be clearly illustrated. The cartoons discussed above are a testament to our
ability to derive meaningful information from partial, non-systematic correspondences
in structure, and even, to exploit accidental characteristics of the input frames.
While there does seem to be a certain entertainment value in blending for its own
sake, the humorous effect of these blends goes beyond their formal properties. Rather,
it involves the role that frames and cultural models play in structuring our actions,
reactions, and interactions in an ever-changing world. As Freud noted, joking provides
a relatively safe arena for expressing aggressive, insulting, or otherwise socially
unacceptable utterances. Blending and the cognitive abilities that support it, are
crucial in this respect by enabling us to frame taboo topics in terms and domains
which are not taboo. It is far more acceptable, for example, to discuss why William
Washington Clinton did not chop down the cherry tree than to debate the actions of his
real world counterpart.

However, even if the social implications of statements made in jokes are somewhat
muted, the content of the emergent structure of humorous blends is important
nonetheless. For the way that humor "embodies" values is by inviting the viewer to
construct a particular framing of a current event. Because our construals of particular
current events derive their social significance from the larger cultural models they
evoke, framings implicitly reinforce the status of those models as interpretive
resources. In the examples discussed above, the cartoons concern our cultural models
of communication and seem to negotiate the import of the relationship between lying
and authority.
Cultural models of the simplified speech act world underlie our actions as well as our
words. They provide the context for both semantic distinctions between lies and
mistakes, and moral distinctions between lies and deception. Besides framing
Clinton's linguistic behavior as ridiculous, one function of these cartoons is to
demarcate the limits of the application of the folk model of meaning that
underlies legally accurate. Indeed one aspect of the Clinton sex scandal is that his
linguistic gymnastics are only possible because his behavior with Lewinsky diverges
from that specified in idealized cultural scripts for intimacy. Not only did this
motivate the "misleading" utterances, it problematized the use of evaluative frames.
Because we rely on cultural models for the interpretation of both words and actions, it
creates social pressure for people's behavior to conform at least somewhat, and in
certain restricted circumstances, to the guidelines laid out in the cultural models.
When models cannot be exploited our word meanings cease to function effectively.
Moreover, Goffman (1974) suggests that when the legitimacy of a frame is challenged
it can undermine its role in the structuring and interpretation of social activity.
Because social reality is in some sense constituted by the use of these frames to
organize experience, undermining a frame is no small matter. Thus the cartoons above

can be seen as part of the larger social negotiation of which cultural models are to be
allowed to apply when.
We have seen that humorous examples, especially in political cartoons, often have a
serious rhetorical agenda. Did Clinton lie or merely deceive? Was the "legally
accurate" remark a cover-up or a hedge? Indeed cartoons such as those described
above often play on frames which share abstract structure but differ in the social
and/or emotional responses they elicit. By projecting prominent personalities into new
contexts, cartoonists can show us the ridiculous side of a serious situation, or, (as in
many of the examples discussed above), the serious side of the ridiculous. Cartoons
promote particular construals of events and personalities, they reinforce the
availability of cultural models, and perhaps even police their use. Moreover, in
exploiting the fortuitous structure that arises in blended spaces, humorous examples
allow us to test the flexibility of our conceptual system, navigate the space of possible
construals, and explore the radically different social and emotional consequences they
can trigger.
Endnotes
[1] This example was pointed out by Mark Turner. See Turner & Fauconnier (in press)
for more extensive discussion of Titanic blends.
[2] Actually, since I refused to see this film (on the grounds that one shouldn't
feel obliged to see a movie just because a lot of money was spent to make it), I'm not
positive that the Titanic sinks. But I think it's a safe bet.
[3] The unconventional hyphenation here is meant to highlight the etymology of the
French word sourire, or smile. Elsewhere in The Act of Creation, Koestler
suggests sourire comes from sous (below) rire(to laugh). Given a metaphoric

interpretation of below, we can construe smiling as the registration of a comic event

which is not quite funny enough to laugh at.
[4] In fact, this story is apocryphal. It was invented by George Washington's first
biographer, Martin Weems, shortly after Washingtons death.
[5] Examples (3) - (6) are all from Kay (1987) where they occur as examples (2) - (5).

References
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Hofstadter, D. and Gabora, L. 1989. Synopsis of the workshop on humor and
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Antonio Barcelona (Ed.), Metonymy and Metaphor. Mouton de Gruyter.

Figures

Figure 1. Mental space configuration representing the pragmatic function connecting

the ship and the movie about the ship.

Figure 2. Conceptual integration network to represent "Titanic" unsinkable afterall!

Figure 3. Conceptual integration network to represent the concept of a chicken which

underlies the old joke about why the chicken crosses the road.

Figure 4. Cartoon by Kevin Siers of the Charlotte Observer.

Figure 5. Cartoon by Mike Ritter from Tribune Newspapers, Arizona

Figure 6. Cartoon by Chip Bok, The Akron Beacon Journal.

Figure 7. Cartoon by Jeff MacNelly, Chicago Illinois.

Figure 8. Conceptual integration network for the William Washington Clinton blend.