This book presents a new way of understanding verbal humour. Drawing on contemporary theories of language and mind, it explores and explains how the language of humour works both in a text and in a reader. Through investigation of carefully considered examples from a wide range of literary texts, the book proposes a new model that situates the cognitive phenomenon of humour within its social context and in relation to the affective response it produces. Included for consideration are works by writers of humorous fiction such as P.G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, Barbara Pym, Tom Holt and Lissa Evans and the discussion also extends to the performance of comic poetry and pantomime. The model presented makes it possible to explain how humour leads to amusement as well as the way in which it can be used as a social and cultural force, giving the reader a systematic way of analysing humour and its effects. The discussion builds into a thorough understanding of the principles of humour culminating in a greater appreciation of this rich, powerful and complex mode of discourse. The book offers researchers in stylistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics and literary and cultural studies a practical way of analysing and understanding the construction and effects of humour.