Salvatore Attardo

Salvatore Attardo is a full professor at Texas A&M University–Commerce and was the editor-in-chief of Humor, the journal for the from 2002 to 2011. He studied at Purdue University under Victor Raskin and extended Raskin's script-based semantic theory of humor into the general theory of verbal humor. He publishes in the field of humor in literature and is considered to be one of the top authorities in the area. He is also the author of Humor 2.0: How the Internet Changed Humor published by Anthem Press in 2023.
He was born March 14, 1962, in Anderlecht, Belgium, to an Italian State Railways employee and a Belgian mother, living thereafter in Como, Italy, until adulthood. He has been a permanent resident of the United States since 1991. He has one daughter, Gaia,
born in 1994. Attardo is a native speaker of Italian and French.
He has served on the thesis and dissertation committees for other humor scholars, including Christian F. Hempelmann and Katrina Triezenberg.

Education

Ph.D., 1991. Major: Linguistics/English. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. Dissertation: “From Linguistics to Humor Research and Back: Applications of Linguistics to Humor and Their Implications for Linguistic Theory and Methodology” supervised by Professor Victor Raskin..
Doctorate, 1986. Major: French Language and Literature /Linguistics, Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy. Dissertation: “For a Synthesis of Linguistic Research on Humor” supervised by Professor Eddo Rigotti.

Experience

August 2008–Present: Professor, Department of Literature and Languages, Texas A&M University–Commerce.
August 2000 – 2008: Professor, Department of English, Youngstown SU.
September 1996 – 2000: Associate Professor, Department of English, Youngstown SU.
September 1992 - Sept. 1996: Assistant Professor, Department of English, Youngstown SU.
March 1994 - 1995: English as a Second Language Program, Coordinator, Youngstown SU.
Fall 2003 Visiting Professor, Purdue University.
August 1991 - May 1992: Visiting Lecturer, Department of English, Purdue University.
January 1991 - May 1991: Visiting Lecturer, Department of English and Linguistics, Indiana University/Purdue University at Ft. Wayne.

Major publications

Humor 2.0: How the Internet Changed Humor, Anthem Press. 2023
"Irony as relevant inappropriateness." Journal of Pragmatics 32, 793-826, 2000.
Second edition of Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation. 2005.
Workbook for Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2005.
Humorous Texts: A semantic and pragmatic analysis. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. 2001.
Quiz Booklet to accompany Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2001.
Understanding Language Structure, Interaction, and Variation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2000.
Linguistic Theories of Humor, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994.
“Script Theory Revised: Joke similarity and joke representation model.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research, 4:3/4, 1991, pp. 347–411.

Trivia

As a teenager, Attardo attended a High School specializing in Humanities where along with fellow students he published a satirical magazine on the school life, its teachers and principal, called "Giravolta." In these early days, he was known by the nickname of "Pidou."