Humor in interaction: Sociopragmatic patterns in the spoken language of Madrid

El estudio del humor verbal ha experimentado un desarrollo considerable en las últimas décadas, en las que se ha abordado, especialmente, desde disciplinas que trabajan con el habla, como la pragmática, la lingüística cognitiva o el análisis del discurso y de la conversación, lo que ha favorecido una ampliación del objeto de estudio y la aparición de propuestas y enfoques interdisciplinarios. Uno de los aspectos menos trabajados en relación con el humor verbal, no obstante, es su utilización como estrategia discursiva, de interacción, además de la variación condicionada por factores sociales. Con el objetivo de profundizar en el conocimiento del uso y funcionamiento del humor verbal en interacciones en registro medio de lengua, y de la incidencia que tienen en su producción factores como la edad, el sexo y el nivel de instrucción de los hablantes, hemos iniciado una investigación sociopragmática sobre el humor en el habla de Madrid, enmarcada dentro del Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y América (PRESEEA), que parte de los presupuestos teórico-metodológicos del Grupo de investigación sobre ironía y humor en español (GRIALE). En este artículo, presentamos los primeros resultados, que permiten confirmar que se trata de una estrategia de no mucha rentabilidad en la interacción semiformal de los madrileños, que se emplea sobre todo para divertir y unir, marcándose asiduamente con risa, emisión entre risas y contraste prosódico, y que así lo hacen, en los distritos de Vallecas de Madrid, en mayor medida, los jóvenes, las mujeres y las personas con nivel de instrucción medio o alto. Es habitual, además, que los interlocutores reconozcan el humor cuando se realiza y, en ocasiones, incluso, que colaboren en su co-construcción, mostrando con ello una actitud neutra o favorable, que tiene un efecto social positivo, con mucha frecuencia hacia la persona que lo produce, aunque, también, hacia otros sujetos y determinadas situaciones.The study of verbal humor has undergone a considerable development in the last decades, which has been approached from disciplines on discourse and, specifically, the spoken language, such as pragmatics, cognitive linguistics or discourse and conversation analysis. These multiple perspectives have favored an expansion of the object of study and the appearance of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and methodological proposals in recent years. However, one aspect of verbal humor that has received very little attention is its use as a discursive and interactional strategy, as well as its variation according to social factors such as age, gender or educational background. Within the framework of the Project for de Sociolinguistic Study of Spanish from Spain and America (PRESEEA), a socio-pragmatic investigation to study verbal humor in the language from Madrid has been initiated, whose focus is the use of verbal humor in semi-formal register interactions, taking into account those sociocultural factors that have been less attended to in the literature by including age, gender, and level of instruction among the variables. The theoretical and methodological frameworks employed for the study are the ones developed by the research group GRIALE (Research Group on Irony and Humor in Spanish). In this article, we present preliminary results from the study of the one district in Madrid, Vallecas, which confirm that verbal humor is a socio-pragmatic strategy, mainly used to amuse and entertain, with low profitability for the speakers. The main manifestations of humor are continuous laugh, emission with laughter, and prosodic contrast, particularly so among younger generations, women, and speakers with an intermediate and high level of instruction. Interlocutors usually recognize humor whenever this occurs and, at times, speakers cooperate in the co-construction of humor, displaying a neutral or favorable attitude, with a positive social impact, mainly towards the person who utters the humorous act, but also towards other subjects or situations.Este trabajo se inscribe dentro de las actividades científicas del proyecto de I+D+i Agenda 2050. El español del centro-norte de España: procesos de variación y cambio espaciales y sociales (PID2019-104982GB-C51), financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación-Agencia Estatal de Investigación/10.13039/501100011033

Lidando com piadas na aula de ESL: uma proposta pedagógica centrada na compreensão

This paper makes a pedagogical proposal to delve into jokes in the ESL classroom and sensitise learners to their complexity. It consists of five instructional phases and is based, on the one hand, on another proposal to teach the pragmatics of speech acts in an L2. On the other hand, this proposal relies on a relevance-theoretic classification of jokes made on the basis of the various linguistic, cultural and cognitive factors that humorists exploit in their production. Since it only centres on how different types of jokes can be distinguished and what their correct comprehension involves, it has a cognitive orientation and does not address issues connected with joke production. The proposal is devised for ESL students with an advanced level of English and ultimately seeks to develop their metalinguistic, meta-cultural and metacognitive abilities as a way of enabling them to grasp the humorousness of funny texts, appraise them and react to them in an appropriate wayEste artigo traz uma proposta pedagógica para aprofundar as piadas na sala de aula de ESL (Inglês como língua estrangeira, na tradução para a língua portuguesa) e sensibilizar os alunos a respeito de sua complexidade. Ela consiste em cinco fases instrucionais que, por um lado, baseia-se em outra proposta de ensino da pragmática dos atos de fala em uma L2 e, por outro lado, baseia-se em uma classificação teórica da relevância das piadas feitas com base nos vários fatores linguísticos, culturais e cognitivos que os humoristas exploram em sua produção. Como a proposta se concentra apenas em como os diferentes tipos de piadas podem ser distinguidos e em qual a correta compreensão envolvida, ela tem uma orientação cognitiva e não aborda questões relacionadas à produção da piada. A proposta é elaborada para estudantes de ESL com um nível avançado de inglês e, por conseguinte, busca desenvolver suas habilidades metalinguísticas, meta-culturais e metacognitivas como uma maneira de permitir-lhes compreender o humor de textos engraçados, avaliá-los e reagir a eles apropriadamenteMinisterio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad. Agencia Estatal de Investigación. FFI2016-76047-

Differences in use and function of verbal irony between real and fictional discourse: (mis)interpretation and irony blindness

This paper presents a contrastive approach to the presence of two distinct types of verbal irony in real (natural, unscripted) versus fictional (scripted) discourse, with a special focus on irony blindness, i.e. the inability to recognize ironic utterances. Irony strategies are categorized into two general types, based on the relationship between the expressed and the intended meaning (Type 1: meaning reversal and Type 2: meaning replacement). First, the differences between these two types are discussed in terms of use, interpretation, and misinterpretation. It is found that the first type of irony strongly prevails in natural discourse, while the second type is considerably more present in fictional discourse than it is in natural discourse. At the same time, the first type of irony appears to be more at risk of misinterpretation in natural discourse, as opposed to the second type, which seems to be a safer (even though less frequently selected) option. These findings are then further analyzed in light of the discussion concerning fictional (comedic, in particular) irony blindness and the construction and role of the irony blind characters. Interestingly, the causes of fictional irony blindness are found to correlate more strongly with the (more humorous) misinterpretation of the second type of irony

Disrupted vs. sustained humor in colloquial conversations in peninsular Spanish

This paper shows the results of an analysis of humor in conversations in Peninsular Spanish, balanced between the short disruption of the progress of conversation and the sustained humor along a sequence. 67 conversations of a total duration of approximately 945 min were compiled, and from these conversations 148 humorous sequences were extracted. The data shows a trend (40%) towards the Least Disruption Principle (Eisterhold et al., 2006; Attardo et al. 2011, 2013), since irony and humor occur in a single turn and responses are limited to a later turn in 14% of instances. However, our corpus supports a wide-ranging trend towards sustained humor (Attardo, 2019) over more than three turns (46%). Additionally, the type of response (Kotthoff, 2003) is analyzed: to the said (11.36%), to the implied (19.32%), laughter (13.64%) and mixed responses (55.68%). Our analysis of humorous sequences indicates that there is a consistent framework in which as mixed responses increase, the humorous mode is fostered in colloquial conversations.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the grant PID2019-104980GB-I00 “Interactional humor in Spanish. Oral, written and technological genres” (MICINN-AEI, UE); and by the grant FFI2017-90738-REDT “Thematic Research Network on Studies of Discourse Analysis” (MINECO-AEI, UE). For further information, visit the website http://dfelg.ua.es/griale/

Humor and Play in Language Classroom Interaction: A Review of the Literature

The past two decades have seen a growing interest in the role of humor and play in second- language (L2) learning and teaching. Vega (1990) went as far as to propose viewing humor as a fifth element of communicative competence; more recently, Cook (2000) has argued that language play should be regarded as “both a means and an end of language learning” (p. 204). Teachers have, in fact, long been advised to introduce elements of humor and play into the language classroom (e.g., Holmes, 1980; Schmitz, 2002; Trachtenberg 1979). However, as Bell (2009, 2011, 2013) has pointed out, such recommendations have largely been based on assumptions and intuitions rather than empirical research. Studies of specific pedagogical interventions have generally been lacking (Bell, 2013)

We Are Not Amused

Placing failed humor within the broader category of miscommunication and drawing on a range of conversational data, this text represents the first comprehensive study of failed humor. It provides a framework for classifying the types of failure that can occur, examines the strategies used by both speakers and hearers to avoid and manage failure, and highlights the crucial role humor plays in social identity and relationship management