Frontmatter -- Table of contents -- 1. Humour as the killer-app of language A view from Cognitive Linguistics -- 2. Construction grammar and discoursal incongruity -- 3. Embodied grammar and humor -- 4. The humour of exceptional cases: Jokes as compressed thought experiments -- 5. Humorous Metaphors -- 6. A metaphorical perspective on humour -- 7. Know hope: Metaphor, optimal innovation and pleasure -- 8. Behavioral complexities in ironic humor -- 9. Frame-shifting and frame semantics: Joke comprehension on the space structuring model -- 10. Metaphor, humour and characterisation in the TV comedy programme Friends -- 11. The Art of Teasing A corpus study of teasing sequences in American sitcoms between 1990 and 1999 -- Index