Beyond a Joke: Types of Conversational Humour

Abstract

bstractThe main objective of this article is to list and briefly characterise several semantic and pragmatic types of verbal humour, primarily those which cannot be reduced to (canned) jokes. First of all, a distinction is drawn between jokes and conversational humour, an umbrella term covering a variety of semantic and pragmatic types of humour, which recur in interpersonal communication, whether real-life (everyday conversations or TV programmes) or fictional (film and book dialogues). On a different axis representing formal structure, stylistic figures are distinguished, such as irony, puns and allusions.

“Laf wan kill me die” (I almost died laughing): An analysis of Akpos jokes and the readers’ responses

“…Communicative platforms on the internet provide Nigerians new opportunities for displaying creativity and cultural spaces for articulating their ideological inclinations. The platforms also accommodate the mode for joking, which Dynel (2009Dynel ( : 1286 calls "humorous mode/frame/key". In the humorous mode, speakers need not sincerely mean what their humorous utterances convey.…”

“…Studies on the conversational use of jokes and humour have focused on the structure of jokes, joke types and sequential organisation of jokes in conversations (Sacks 1974;Attardo 1994;Norrick 2000;Dynel 2009). Other linguistic studies on humour, for instance Yus (2003) and Krikmann (2006), have focused on the mechanisms of humour and the pragmatics of joke interpretation.…”

Online humour as a community-building cushioning glue

“…The creator of the game level inspired by "Metal Gear Solid" talks about "potential copyright implications" ({11}), a concern picked up by other users in subsequent comments ({13} and {14}). The creator finds a humorous way to disguise the game level by coining new morphemes and blending parts of words (Dynel 2009) through a clever "letter-play" that "remixes" the first letters of the original title: The sequence of the first letters changes from "MGSTEA" (in the original title) to "GMTSAE" (in the revised title), but all the letters are maintained. This technique prevents the administrators of the online platform from finding the game through a textual search.…”

“…A humorous quotation is a direct citation from a pre-existing text that demonstrates the user's knowledge of such text (Dynel 2009) and the assumption of a shared knowledge with the audience. In this form of "staged intertextuality" (Kotthoff 2002) humour functions as a bonding element that harnesses the inclusive and exclusive affordances of specialist language that define the boundaries of the community (a joke that can be understood only by insiders).…”

“…In this form of "staged intertextuality" (Kotthoff 2002) humour functions as a bonding element that harnesses the inclusive and exclusive affordances of specialist language that define the boundaries of the community (a joke that can be understood only by insiders). The prize elicited here is a "Mike dozer," which is a humorous neologism (Dynel 2009) that refers to the "Skulldozer," a mechanical creature that chases the protagonist of the game in a preset level of LittleBigPlanet. Humour is cued by the acronym "lol" and a smiley emoticon ("=)" which is a variation of the most common ":)" or ":-)").…”