Metapragmatics of Humor: Current research trends contributes to a new area in the pragmatics of humor: its conception as a metapragmatic ability. The book collects thirteen chapters organized into three parts: Revisions and applications of General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) in a metapragmatic context; Metapragmatic awareness of humor across textual modes; and Metapragmatic practices within the acquisition of humor. Thus, this book provides an up-to-date panorama of this field, where metapragmatic abilities are described in adults as well as in children, on humorous and non-humorous genres — jokes, cartoons, humorous monologues, parodies, conversation, Twitter —, and using several approaches, such as GTVH, multimodality, conversational analysis, eye-tracking methodology, etc.
Irony and Humor: From pragmatics to discourse is a complete updated panorama of linguistic research on irony and humor, based on a variety of perspectives, corpora and theories. The book collects the most recent contributions from such diverse approaches as Relevance Theory, Cognitive Linguistics, General Theory of Verbal Humor, Neo-Gricean Pragmatics or Argumentation. The volume is organized in three parts referring to pragmatic perspectives, mediated discourse, and conversational interaction. This book will be highly relevant for anyone interested in pragmatics, discourse analysis as well as social sciences.
Humor may surface in numerous and diverse contexts, which at the same time determine how humor works, its form, and its functions and consequences for interlocutors. Adopting a sociolinguistic and discourse analytic perspective, this study is aligned with approaches to humor exploring the variety of humorous genres, the wide range of sociopragmatic functions of humor, and the more or less dissimilar perceptions speakers may have concerning what humor is, what it means, and how it works. The chapters of this book propose a new theoretical approach to the analysis of humor by bringing context into focus. Furthermore, the study explores how we can teach about humor within a critical literacy framework creating classroom space for everyday humorous texts that are part of students’ social realities, and simultaneously taking into account that humor may yield multiple, disparaging, and often conflicting interpretations. This book is intended to appeal to humor researchers from various disciplines (such as linguistics, media studies, cultural studies, literary studies, sociology, anthropology, folklore) as well as to professionals or researchers in education.
This collection of papers fills a gap in current research on both metapragmatics and pragmatics in that it combines data-based pragmatic analysis with metapragmatic theory and focuses on the ways in which metadiscourse is actually used. The 12 contributions investigate speech acts and verbal (as well as non-verbal) expressions which highlight (meta-)linguistic aspects of ongoing discourse and thus provoke a deviation from the latter s original direction and purpose. All case studies discuss ways and means which interactants employ to resolve diverging pragmatic expectations in communication. The papers analyze authentic examples from English and other languages (and cultures), including Thai, Chinese and Japanese, and center around three principal domains of communication: ordinary everyday interaction, interaction in educational contexts and in specialized discourse. The introductory chapter locates the various contributions within a systematically broader theoretical framework. The wide scope of the collection, its empirical orientation and the reader-friendly form of presentation should appeal to anyone interested in pragmatics, whether scholar or student.
This monograph explores the diverse sociopragmatic functions and meanings of humorous discourse in various online contexts affecting its use. To this end, an analytical model is proposed which takes into consideration the aspects of context which are relevant to the production and reception of humor, and hence to its sociopragmatic analysis. The model is employed for addressing research questions such as the following: Why may an utterance/text be intended and perceived as humorous by some speakers and fail for others? How and why may speakers attempt to regulate language use through humor? Why and how may the same humorous utterance/text engender diverse and contradictory interpretations? How do speakers create social groups and project social identities through humor? How could the sociopragmatic analysis of humor form the basis for teaching about humor within a critical literacy framework?
Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in interactional humour from social and pragmatic perspectives, with fascinating results. Released more than a decade later than Norrick and Chiaro (2009) Humor in Interaction, The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts gathers some of the most recent work on humour in interaction, with contributions taking (meta)pragmatic approaches to the analysis of various genres of interactive humour in both online and offline settings. This volume illustrates that a range of methodologies and perspectives can be applied to the study of such a complex phenomenon. These include analyses with a cognitive orientation and with multimodal approaches, work based on Relevance Theory, the General Theory of Verbal Humour, and Conversation Analysis, among others. In addition, all the authors represented here are recognised experts on the subject, and in most cases, are leading specialists in their respective fields. The book can be of use not only to scholars who study the linguistics of humour in interaction but also to students who wish to pursue research in the area.
This book is the first comprehensive and systematic introduction to the linguistics of humor, exploring not only theoretical linguistic analyses, but also topics from applied linguistics. It will be a valuable resource for students from advanced undergraduate level upwards, particularly those coming to linguistics from related disciplines.
This book examines the use of conversational humor in a second language in the context of study abroad. Using a longitudinal design, naturalistic interactions, and a language socialization framework, the study investigates the ways in which study abroad students develop in their production of humor in second language Spanish and discusses how those developments are the result of language learning processes grounded in social interaction.
The De Gruyter Handbook of Humor Studies consolidates the cumulative contributions in theory and research on humor from 57 international scholars representing 21 different countries in the widest possible diversity of disciplines. It organizes research in a unique conceptual framework addressing two broad themes: the Essence of Humor and the Functions of Humor. Furthermore, scholars of humor have recognized that humor is not only a universal human experience, it is also inherently social, shared among people and woven into the fabric of nearly every type of interpersonal relationship. Scholars across all academic disciplines have addressed questions about the essence and functions of humor at different "levels of analysis" relating to how narrowly or broadly they conceptualize the social context of humor. Accordingly, the editors have organized each broad thematic section into four subsections defined by "level of analysis." The book first addresses questions about individual psychological processes and text properties, then moves to questions involving broader conceptualizations of the social context addressing humor and social relations, and humor and culture. By providing a comprehensive review of foundational work as well as new research and theoretical advancements across academic disciplines, the De Gruyter Handbook of Humor Studies will serve as the foremost authoritative research handbook for experienced humor scholars as well as an essential starting point for newcomers to the field, such as graduate students seeking to conduct their own research on humor. Further, by highlighting the interdisciplinary interest of new and emerging areas of research the book identifies and defines directions for future research for scholars from every discipline that contributes to our understanding of humor.
WINNER — 2020 Choice’s Outstanding Academic Title During the Mao years, laughter in China was serious business. Simultaneously an outlet for frustrations and grievances, a vehicle for socialist education, and an object of official study, laughter brought together the political, the personal, the aesthetic, the ethical, the affective, the physical, the aural, and the visual. The ten essays in Maoist Laughter convincingly demonstrate that the connection between laughter and political culture was far more complex than conventional conceptions of communist indoctrination can explain. Their sophisticated readings of a variety of genres—including dance, cartoon, children’s literature, comedy, regional oral performance, film, and fiction—uncover many nuanced innovations and experiments with laughter during what has been too often misinterpreted as an unrelentingly bleak period. In Mao’s China, laughter helped to regulate both political and popular culture and often served as an indicator of shifting values, alliances, and political campaigns. In exploring this phenomenon, Maoist Laughter is a significant correction to conventional depictions of socialist China. “Maoist Laughter brings together prominent scholars of contemporary China to make a timely and original contribution to the burgeoning field of Maoist literature and culture. One of its main strengths lies in the sheer number of genres covered, including dance, traditional Chinese performance, visual arts, film, and literature. The focus on humor in the Maoist period gives an exciting new perspective from which to understand cultural production in twentieth-century China.” —Krista Van Fleit, University of South Carolina “An illuminating study of the culture of laughter in the Maoist period. Focusing on much-neglected topics such as satire, jokes, and humor, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of how socialist culture actually ‘worked’ as a coherent, dynamic, and constructive life experience. The chapters show that traditional culture could almost blend perfectly with revolutionary mission.” —Xiaomei Chen, University of California, Davis
