Cartoon language - a world of violations a pragmatic and sociolinguistic study of cartoon as a communicational value: Case of children and adult cartoon magazines

Humor is among the common cultural values of humanity. In this aspect, it has universal features and finds a response in every society. Considering it is a social phenomenon, it is associated with many fields such as sociology, psychology, politics, communication, language, and culture. The relationship of humor with these fields has resulted in very significant and various structural features. In this regard, this study attempts to search for meaning behind humor and to investigate the differences of these meanings in the context of the sociolinguistic variant 'age'. The communicative message of humor can be clear and simple, but often implicit and complex. While this complexity diversifies and enriches the meaning, it also adds a closed and covered aspect. In order to grasp the meaning better, the message that is meant must be analyzed rather than the message that is said. While a pragmatic approach makes it possible to understand the meaning behind the message, sociolinguistic parameters make it possible to understand the diversity in the age variant. Accordingly, age as a sociolinguistic variant was included in the study within the framework of pragmatic criteria. In this study, cartoon, which is a literary and visual genre due to its humorous and linguistic elements, was determined as the sample. Considering the age variant, a selected corpus of adult and children cartoon magazines was formed and this corpus was analyzed using the content analysis method in light of pragmatic criteria. A comparative analysis based on the age variant was made in the study. In this regard, it was determined which humor theory was used the most in the theoretical context, which characters were used in the symbolic context, which themes were used in thematic context, and which principles were violated in the pragmatic context. Finally, a general overview of these contexts from the sociolinguistic perspective has been included. As a result of the study, it was observed that the incongruity theory was mostly used in the construction of humor and that pragmatic principles were violated. Based on the finding that the concept of violation is at the center of cartoon humor, a "violation theory" proposal has been developed and presented to be included among the humor theories. However, it was concluded that the language of cartoons - except for a few distinct differences - does not vary depending on the age, and hence indicates a common humor language.