Conversational Humour And (Im)politeness : A Pragmatic Analysis of Social Interaction.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (288 pages)
- Topics in Humor Research Series ; v.8 .
- Topics in Humor Research Series .
Intro -- Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness -- Editorial page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication page -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 The scope of this book -- 1.1.1 Why analyse two English-speaking cultural contexts? -- 1.2 A note on the transcription conventions -- 1.3 A note on the terminology used -- 1.4 The research questions -- 1.5 The structure of the book -- 2. Meanwhile in the world of (im)politeness -- 2.1 Traditional approaches to politeness and impoliteness -- 2.1.1 Classic politeness theories and major critique of Brown and Levinson's model -- 2.1.2 A note on the onset of linguistic impoliteness research -- 2.2 (Im)politeness in the era of discursive approaches -- 2.2.1 In search of a definition of (im)politeness -- 2.2.2 First-order and second-order concepts -- 2.2.3 The metapragmatics of (im)politeness -- 2.3 The view of (im)politeness taken in this research -- 3. Data: From corpora to reality television to interviews -- 3.1 Corpora: The British National Corpus ('BNC') and the 'Macquarie Dictionary' database of Australian English ('Ozcorp') -- 3.2 Reality television: Introducing 'Big Brother' -- 3.2.1 'Big Brother': The format and some local differences -- 3.2.2 'Big Brother' Australia 2012 and 'Big Brother' UK 2012 -- 3.3 Reality television, performance and real life -- 3.4 Reality television, (genuine) impoliteness, entertainment and (failed) humour -- 3.4.1 'Big Brother': An impoliteness-oriented context? -- 3.5 Qualitative interviewing -- 3.5.1 The use of qualitative interviewing in this research -- 3.6 Summary -- 4. Conversational humour: Jocular verbal behaviours -- 4.1 Overview of approaches to teasing - the epitome of jocular verbal behaviours -- 4.2 A note on the intracultural and intercultural research into humour -- 4.3 Jocular face-threatening and face-supportive acts. 4.3.1 Potentiality and genuineness (context and non-verbal cues) -- 4.4 Production-evaluation model -- 4.4.1 Impolite jocular behaviour -- 4.4.2 Non-impolite jocular behaviour -- 4.4.3 Non-polite jocular behaviour -- 4.4.4 Polite jocular behaviour -- 4.5 A corpus-assisted study of teasing: Evidence from the 'BNC' and 'Ozcorp' -- 4.5.1 Teasing how? Ways of doing teasing -- 4.5.2 Teasing why? Functions of teasing -- 4.5.3 Teasing and what then? After-teases -- 4.6 Summary -- 5. Jocular verbal behaviours in Australian and British cultural contexts -- 5.1 Jocularity, cultural values and interactional preferences -- 5.1.1 'Not taking yourself too seriously' -- 5.1.2 Self-deprecation -- 5.1.3 'Taking the piss/mickey out of someone' and 'rubbishing your mates' -- 5.2 Public offence and/vs personal offence -- 5.2.1 The preferred reaction -- 5.2.2 Laughter and funniness in relation to public offence -- 5.3 Summary -- 6. Frontstage and backstage reactions to jocularity -- 6.1 Goffman, the presentation of self and reality television -- 6.2 Frontstage and backstage in the 'Big Brother' house -- 6.3.2 'Big Brother' UK: "[S]he keeps winding me up about what happened the other day" -- 6.3.2.1 Frontstage I (1) -- 6.3.2.2 Backstage I -- 6.3.2.3 Backstage II -- 6.3.2.4 Frontstage I (2) -- 6.3.2.5 Frontstage II -- 6.3.1 'Big Brother' Australia: "Everything he says to me it's like he stabs me in the face" -- 6.3.1.1 Frontstage I (1) -- 6.3.1.2 Backstage I -- 6.3.1.3 Backstage II -- 6.3.1.4 Frontstage II -- 6.3.1.5 Frontstage I (2) -- 6.4 Summary -- 7. Negative evaluations of jocularity -- 7.2 Specific issues -- 7.2.1 Similarities in the Australian and British 'Big Brother' houses -- 7.2.1.1 Association with a negative name/person/group/activity -- 7.2.1.2 Breach of 'social norms'/taboo topics -- 7.2.1.3 Shifting the facts. 7.2.2 Differences between the Australian and British 'Big Brother' houses -- 7.2.2.1 Excluding (AU) -- 7.2.2.2 Being better (AU) -- 7.2.2.3 Criticising one's body/personal items (UK) -- 7.2.2.4 Reminding of a painful experience (UK) -- 7.2.3 Division of the specific issues into categories -- 7.3 Summary -- 8. Interviewees' attitudes to jocularity -- 8.1 The metapragmatics of jocular verbal behaviours -- 8.2 Different perspectives in the interviewees' evaluations -- 8.2.1 From the target's point of view -- 8.2.2 From the instigator's point of view -- 8.2.3 From the non-participant's point of view -- 8.3 Funnyp vs funnyn-p -- 8.4 Tendencies in interviewees' evaluations of jocularity and impoliteness in the 'Big Brother' houses -- 8.4.1 Two-party Australian interaction: "The treadmill" -- 8.4.1.1 Evaluations of the instigator's comment -- 8.4.1.2 Evaluations of the target's reaction -- 8.4.1.3 Interviewees' feelings -- 8.4.1.4 Interviewees' reaction -- 8.4.2 Multi-party British interaction: "McDonald's on the pyramid" -- 8.4.2.1 Evaluations of the instigator's comment -- 8.4.2.2 Evaluations of the target's reaction -- 8.4.2.3 Interviewees' feelings -- 8.4.2.4 Interviewees' reaction -- 8.5 Multi-party Australian-British interaction: Intracultural and intercultural evaluations -- 8.5.1 Intracultural evaluations -- 8.5.1.1 Australians about Australians -- 8.5.1.2 The British about the British -- 8.5.2 Intercultural evaluations -- 8.5.2.1 The British about Australians -- 8.5.2.2 Australians about the British -- 8.6 Summary -- 9. Conclusions -- 9.1 Contributions to the field -- 9.2 Future research directions and raised questions -- References -- Subject index.
Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness is the first systematic study that offers a socio-pragmatic perspective on humorous practices such as teasing, mockery and taking the piss and their relation to (im)politeness.