humor

[Susan Ervin-Tripp]

There will be at least three panels on humor at the International Pragmatics
Conference in Goteborg, Sweden next July.

"Jokes" in the conventional sense of a retold genre are rare in the data of
American conversational analysts. Usually joking, the exchange of 
laughter during
conversation about intentionally humorous stories and comments, involves both
the teller and the hearer in laughter. It is possible that in long 
retolds with a punchline, or
even skilled telling of a switch-ending story, people deliberately 
with-hold cues of humor.

However, what we usually see is that the teasing and humorous banter 
in conversations
of friends precisely doesn't restrain laughter, in fact the mood of 
humor is crucial in
permitting the damaging revelations about the self or the other that 
are the stuff of
such intimate humor. We will have lots of examples in our session on 
self-revealing humor.

However, it is certainly conceivable that some genres of skilled 
retold jokes require
not laughing, in some cultural milieux. We hope by talking about 
these issues at an
international conference that we can stoke some contrastiing evidence.

Susan Ervin-Tripp

>A colleague asked me about linguistic anthropological work on joking 
>in cross-cultural perspective.  Freud writes we have the urge to 
>tell a joke as soon as we hear it, and we keep a straight face until 
>the recipient gets it.  Any proof of this in other cases than Vienna 
>or the US, or refutation of this, or just some other takes?
>
>Someone on this list probably has a full syllabus on jokes (not just 
>joking as a key but jokes themselves of whatever form).
>
>Apologies for the query so close to AAA.
>
>Thanks,
>Katherine Hoffman
>