Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:10:08.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Laughter and Dialogue: The Social Significance of Laughter in Institutional Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Viveka Adelswärd
Viveka Adelswärd
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Studies, University of Linköping, S-581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Get access

Abstract

This study is based interaction in institutional settings (job interviews, post-trial interviews with defendants, negotiations between high-school students, telephone conversations between social-walfare officers and parents) and examines the social significance of laughter in dialogue. As an example, two assumptions put forward by Jefferson (1979, 1984) are questioned—namely, that laughter is regularly triggered by something funny and that laughter always has a strong inviting character. The analyses show that, in dialogue, we often laugh alone and not always at things considered particularly funny. Mutual laughter is a sign of rapport and consensus. This is exemplified by the fact that in the job interviews resulting in a job offer there was more mutual laughter than in those involving applicants who were unsuccessful. Unilateral laughter is used to modify verbal expressions or attitudes and can help us in handling ambiguities and tension.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , December 1989 , pp. 107 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adelswärd, V. 1983. Gymnasister i en förhandlingssituation. Arbetsrapportfrån Tema K 1983: 1. Linköping: Department of Communication Studies.Google Scholar
Adelswärd, V., Aronsson, K., Jönsson, L. & Linell, P. 1987. The Unequal Distribution of Interactional Space: Dominance and Control in Courtroom Interaction. Text 7, 313–346.Google Scholar
Adelswärd, V., Aronsson, K.. & Linell, P. 1988. Discourse of Blame: Courtroom Construction of Social Identity fromthe Perspective of the Defendant. Semiotica 71, 261–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adelswärd, V. 1988. Styles of Success. On Impression Management as Collaborative Action in Job Interviews. (Diss.; Linköping Studies in Arts and Science,23). University of Linköping.Google Scholar
Agar, M. 1985. Institutional Discourse. Text 5, 147–168.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. 1974. The Art of the World and the Culture of Folk Humor. In Baran, H. (ed.), Semiotics and Structuralism. White Plains NY: International Arts and Sciences Press Inc.Google Scholar
Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of the Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Bergson, H. (1900) 1967. Le Rire. Essai sur la Signification du Comique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Brown, P. & Levinson, S.C. 1987. Politeness. Some Universalsin Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cedersund, E. n.d. Datacorpus at Department of Communication Studies, University of Linköping.Google Scholar
Chapman, A. J. & Foot, H. C. (eds.). 1977. It's a Funny Thing, Humour. Proceedings of the International Conference on Humour and Laughter. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Coser, R. L. 1959, Some Social Functions of Laughter. Human Relations 12, 171–182.Google Scholar
Coser, R. L. 1960. Laughter among colleagues. Psychiatry 23: 81–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duncan, S. Jr & Fiske, D. W. 1977. Face-to-Face Interaction. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Laurence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Durant, J. & Miller, J. (eds.) 1988. Laughing Matters. A Serious Look at Humour. Essex, UK: Longman.Google Scholar
Edmondson, Munro S. 1987. Notes on Laughter. Anthropological Linguistics 29, 23–34.Google Scholar
Einarsson, J. & Hultman, T. 1984. Godmorgonpojkar och flickor. Malmö: Liber Forlag.Google Scholar
Farley, P. & Peterson, J. M. 1979. Identifying a Distressed Marriage from the Interactions between Spouses: A Structural Analysis. Family Therapy 6, 119–122.Google Scholar
Fink, E. & Walker, B. 1977. Humorous Responses to Embarrassment. Psychological Reports, 40,475–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foerster, C. 1984. Le rire: aspect non verbal dans l'interaction. Français dans le Monde 183, 35–39.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1905) 1986. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Reading, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959) 1982. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1961. Encounters. Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organisation of Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hazlitt, W.Cited from: Morreall, (ed.) 1987:65 (From Lectures on the English Comic Writers. London: George Bell, 1885).Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. 1979. A Technique for Inviting Laughter and its Subsequent Acceptance Declination. In Psathas, G. (ed.), Everyday Language. Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington Publishers.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. 1984. On the Organization of Laughter in Talk about Troubles. In Atkinson, J. M. & Heritage, J. (eds.) Structures of Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. 1985. An Exercise in the Transcription and Analysis of Laughter. In van Dijk, T. (ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Volume 3. Discourse and Dialogue. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G., Sacks, H. & Schegloff, E. 1987. Notes on Laughter in the Pursuit of Intimacy. In Button, G. & Lee, J. R. E. (eds.) Talk and Social Organization. Clevedon, Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters Ltd.Google Scholar
Koestler, A. 1975. Why We Laugh. Dialogue 8, 95–107.Google Scholar
Long, D. & Graesser, A. D. 1988. Wit and Humor in Discourse Processing. Discourse Processes 11, 35–60.Google Scholar
Morreall, John, (ed.) 1987. The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor. New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Nordberg, B. 1985. Ungdomars samtalsstil. Nysvenska studier 64, 5–27.Google Scholar
Nordenstam, K. 1986. Kvinnlig och manlig samtalsstil. Göteborg: Dept. of Nordic Languages.Google Scholar
O'Donnell-Trujillo, N. & Adams, K. 1983. Hehe in Conversation: Some Coordination Accomplishments of Laughter. Western Journal of Speech Communication 47, 175–191.Google Scholar
Schenkein, James N. 1972. Towards an Analysis of Natural Conversation and the Sense of Hehe. Semiotica 6, 344–377.Google Scholar
Steams, Frederic R. 1980. Laughing. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas Publishers.Google Scholar
West, C. 1984. Routine Complications. Troubles with Talk between Doctors and Patients. Bloomington, md.: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar