[Paper Review] Context and Humor: Understanding Amul advertisements of India

Radhika Mamidi|arXiv (Cornell University)|Apr 15, 2018

Humor Studies and Applications13 references3 citations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how contextual knowledge—linguistic, cultural, and situational—enables understanding of humor in India's iconic Amul cartoon advertisements. By analyzing linguistic devices like puns, parodies, and portmanteaus in bilingual English-Hindi ads, the study demonstrates that humor in advertising relies heavily on shared contextual awareness, with effective communication contingent on audience familiarity with both language and socio-cultural references.

ABSTRACT

Contextual knowledge is the most important element in understanding language. By contextual knowledge we mean both general knowledge and discourse knowledge i.e. knowledge of the situational context, background knowledge and the co-textual context [10]. In this paper, we will discuss the importance of contextual knowledge in understanding the humor present in the cartoon based Amul advertisements in India.In the process, we will analyze these advertisements and also see if humor is an effective tool for advertising and thereby, for marketing.These bilingual advertisements also expect the audience to have the appropriate linguistic knowledge which includes knowledge of English and Hindi vocabulary, morphology and syntax. Different techniques like punning, portmanteaus and parodies of popular proverbs, expressions, acronyms, famous dialogues, songs etc are employed to convey the message in a humorous way. The present study will concentrate on these linguistic cues and the required context for understanding wit and humor.

Motivation & Objective

• To examine the role of contextual knowledge—general, situational, and discourse-based—in interpreting humor in Amul advertisements.
• To identify linguistic techniques such as puns, portmanteaus, and parodies of proverbs, songs, and dialogues used to convey humor.
• To assess whether humor functions as an effective tool in advertising, particularly in bilingual (English-Hindi) contexts.
• To explore the cognitive and linguistic prerequisites required for audiences to decode humor in these ads.
• To highlight the interplay between language proficiency and cultural familiarity in understanding context-dependent humor in media.

Proposed method

• Analysis of a curated set of cartoon-based Amul advertisements from public archives and media sources.
• Identification and categorization of linguistic humor devices, including puns, portmanteaus, and parodies of well-known expressions.
• Examination of the bilingual (English-Hindi) linguistic structure to assess code-switching and multilingual humor strategies.
• Use of discourse analysis to map co-textual and situational context that supports humor comprehension.
• Application of computational linguistics principles to model how contextual cues enable interpretation of non-literal language.
• Evaluation of audience comprehension requirements based on linguistic and cultural knowledge, informed by corpus-based observations.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How do contextual cues—linguistic, cultural, and situational—enable the comprehension of humor in Amul advertisements?
• RQ2 What specific linguistic devices (e.g., puns, parodies) are employed to generate humor in these bilingual ads?
• RQ3 To what extent does audience familiarity with Hindi and English linguistic structures and cultural references affect humor perception?
• RQ4 How does the interplay between text and image in cartoon ads contribute to the humorous effect?
• RQ5 In what ways does humor function as a strategic tool in Indian advertising, particularly in multilingual contexts?

Key findings

• Humor in Amul advertisements is deeply dependent on contextual knowledge, including familiarity with current events, cultural references, and linguistic play.
• Linguistic devices such as puns, portmanteaus, and parodies of proverbs or famous dialogues are consistently used to create layered humor.
• The effectiveness of humor is contingent on the audience’s bilingual proficiency in English and Hindi, as well as their cultural literacy.
• Contextual cues from the co-text and situational setting are essential for disambiguating humorous intent in the absence of explicit explanation.
• The study confirms that humor enhances ad memorability and engagement, particularly when it relies on shared cultural and linguistic knowledge.
• Bilingual ads succeed in humor delivery only when the audience possesses both linguistic competence and background knowledge relevant to the context.