The Linguistics of Laughter: A corpus-assisted Study of Laughter-talk

by Partington; Alan

• ISBN13: 9780415381666
• ISBN10: 0415381665
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-08-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Linguistics of Laughter examines what speakers try to achieve by producing "laughter-talk" (the talk preceding and eliciting an episode of laughter) and, using abundant examples from language corpora, what hearers are signaling when they produce laughter. In particular, Alan Partington focuses on the tactical use of laughter-talk to achieve specific rhetorical, and strategic, ends: for example, to construct an identity, to make an argumentative point, to threaten someone else's face or save one's own. Although laughter and humor are by no means always related, the book also considers the implications these corpus-based observations may have about humor theory in general. As one of the first works to have recourse to such a sizeable databank of examples of laughter in spontaneous running talk, this impressive volume will be a point of reference and an inspiration for scholars with an interest in corpus linguistics, discourse, humor, wordplay, irony and laughter-talk as a social phenomenon.

Author Biography

Alan Partington is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bologna, Italy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Introduction: laughter-talk – research questions and methods	1	(24)
1 Joke humour theory and language principles	25	(32)
2 Laughter in running discourse: shifts of mode, narrative, role and register	57	(25)
3 Face-work and the in-group	82	(28)
4 Wordplay, phraseplay and relexicalization	110	(34)
5 Teasing and verbal duelling	144	(38)
6 Irony and sarcasm	182	(43)
7 General conclusions	225	(12)
Appendix 1: visual puns and verbal-visual puns	237	(2)
Appendix 2: levels of sarcasm	239	(1)
Appendix 3: irony and popular historiography	240	(2)
Notes	242	(6)
Bibliography	248	(8)
Name index	256	(3)
Subject index	259