Prosody and Humor
Table 1. Differences between jokes and conversational humor Canned joke
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| Table 1. Differences between jokes and conversational humor
Canned joke Conversational humor Narrative Non-narrative Punch line: humor at the end of a narrative Jab line: humor anywhere in the text Extended turn Normal length turn Introduced by negotiating sequence Not introduced The research question addressed in this study then is: are these differences between conversational and canned humor reflected prosodically? To put it differently, is conversational humor prosodically different from narrative, canned humor? Furthermore, it becomes interesting to consider how speakers interact around 1. There are exceptions: some jokes are not short, some of them are not (entirely) narrative, and some do not end with a punch line (for example, shaggy dog jokes, or meta-jokes). We can safely ignore these details in this context. The interested reader should refer to Attardo (1994) for discussion and references. 2. This is not to say that the hearer(s) cannot interrupt or provide backchannel support. 3. Conceivably, the speaker could use his/her own prior turn as a setup of sorts and present a punch line at the end of his/her turn; we would categorize this as a narrative joke. Prosodic and multimodal markers of humor in conversation 39 humorous turns, whether or not they choose to signal prosodically or kinesically the humorous nature of the turn and especially how they react to it (supportively or not). Before we proceed with the discussion, we need to introduce two concepts from humor research: the jab line, mentioned above, and humor support. 1.1 The jab line Just like the punch line indicates in humor theory the occurrence of a humorous instance at the end of the text (see Attardo et al. 1994 for evidence), the jab line indicates the occurrence of a humorous instance anywhere else. Jab and punch lines are semantically indistinguishable, but they differ at a narratological level. Whereas punch lines are disruptive of the narrative they close, jab lines are not, and in fact often contribute to the development of the text (Attardo 2001). Punch lines and jab lines can be defined “broadly” or “narrowly”. The broad definition is the sentence, turn, or pause-based unit in which the humor appears. The nar- row definition is the (syntactic) phrase 4 within the sentence or turn in which the humor appears which removes completely the humor if deleted, all other things being equal. Broad and narrow definition may coincide, if the sentence or turn consists of only one phrase. 5 1.2 Humor support Humor support is defined as the conversational strategies used to acknowledge and support humorous utterances, among which figures prominently the produc- tion of more humor and/or laughter (Hay 2001). The strategies listed by Hay are: – laughter (ibid.: 57–60) – contribute more humor (mode adoption; ibid.: 60–62) – echo (repeat part of the previous turn; ibid.: 63) – offer sympathy or contradict self-deprecating humor (ibid.: 63–64) – overlap and heightened involvement in conversation (ibid.: 65) Hay further notes that humor support is not needed in at least two cases: for hu- mor support itself and for irony (2001: 65–66). Finally, Hay notes that the hearer 4. The use of phrases (NP, VP, PP, etc.) in the Hockett test (see below) to segment the sentences of jokes and locate punch lines was adopted in Attardo et al. (1994). The only difference in the present context is the extension of the method to spoken utterances, as opposed to written ones. 5. One of the referees notes that the broad and narrow definition of jab line correspond to syn- tactic and prosodic criteria defining the domain of the humorous instance. 40 Salvatore Attardo, Lucy Pickering, and Amanda Baker may display understanding but not provide support, or withhold reaction entirely (and obviously these do not count as humor support). It should be noted that Hay’s original definition of humor support is limited only to vocal support, and so excludes smiles, for example. Hay was entirely aware of the fact that support can be also produced non-verbally, but chose to limit her analysis to the verbal text alone. There is obviously no need to retain that limita- tion and we will accept as humor support smiles and similar phenomena (e.g., smirks). We also add to the inventory the category of “metalinguistic humor sup- port” to indicate all instances of comments on the humorous utterance that ex- press support (most commonly asseverative particles such as “yeah!”). tải về 1.21 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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