The co-construction of conversational humor to mask different interactional objectives

Authors

  • Clarissa Rollin Pinheiro Bastos PUC RIO
  • Leticia Rezende Stallone UFF

Abstract

In this paper we intend to contribute to the study of conversational humor in everyday conversation under an interactional perspective. We show the co-construction of humor among friends based on the concept of frame (Bateson, 2002), taking into consideration the lamination of frames (Goffman, 1974; Tannen and Wallat, 2002 [1987]; Gordon, 2008) and contextualization cues (Gumperz, 1982) in conversational sequence. We have used as data the audio recording of three meetings among friends, in which they prepare tasty meals, totalizing 16 hours of recording. We have evidenced that (i) conversational humor may work as a laminated frame masking requests, (ii) the participants are aware of their abilities to manipulate frames, using simultaneously play and another type of interactional frame and (iii) requests masked by play frames are not necessarily attended.

Key words: conversational humor, informal conversation, interactional frame.

Author Biographies

Clarissa Rollin Pinheiro Bastos, PUC RIO

Professora Adjunta do Departamento de Letras da PUC-Rio e Colaboradora do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras.

Leticia Rezende Stallone, UFF

Professora; Mestre em Estudos da Linguagem pela PUC-Rio e doutoranda em Estudos da Linguagem pela UFF.

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Published

2011-07-05

How to Cite

Bastos, C. R. P., & Stallone, L. R. (2011). The co-construction of conversational humor to mask different interactional objectives. Calidoscópio, 9(2), 159–168. Retrieved from https://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/calidoscopio/article/view/cld.2011.92.08

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2011): May/August

Section

Articles

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