A Script-based Analysis of Verbal Humor in the American and Egyptian Stand-up Comedy: A Contrastive Study

This study explores the phenomenon of verbal humor and its relationship with stand-up comedy shows. In addition, it seeks to discover the basic role of verbal humor and the analysis of comic examples and their composition, as well as their objectivity. This study applies the model of the theory of comic texts; especially the Incongruity theory by Kant (1790) and the Semantic-based script theory of humor by Raskin, (1985), in order to highlight some joke techniques such as repetition, discourse markers, pauses, audience interaction, pantomime and mimics. This study also addresses the differences between American and Egyptian stand-up comedy programs such as Hot and Fluffy (2007) and I’m not Fat I’m Fluffy (2009) by Gabriel Iglesias and the Stand-up Show (2012) by the Egyptian comedian Hamdy El-Merghany. The study explores the cynical role of verbal humor in stand-up comedy. The comparison between Gabriel Iglesias and Hamdy El-Merghany shows that both use punchlines and joke techniques. However, each of them excels in a particular element rather than the other. Iglesias excels in using joke techniques, while El-Merghany excels in delivering punchlines. Therefore, their performances are totally different.