The University of Salford Sound of Laughter project

What follows is a report of the University of Salford’s Sound of Laughter Project (2018). This pilot study was set up as an initial attempt to ascertain whether it is possible to discern any meaning from the different laughter sounds that audiences might make during a stand-up comedy show. The experiment also aimed to discover whether comedians can recognise variations in the properties of laughter responses made during the act of public joking. Further, the study aimed to establish whether performers can discern these different audience laughter sounds in real time and use them as identifiable ‘cues’ to check the efficacy (or otherwise) of their comic communication. This combined report on the pilot study has been prepared by a group of researchers at the University of Salford, all of which were involved in different stages of the experiment and whose initials are appended to each relevant section of the report. Keywords: Audience laughter; stand-up comedy; joking; psychoacoustics, audience respons

Introduction: Shakespeare's public spheres

Habermas’ sense of a “cultural Public Sphere” is a notoriously complex term and, when applied to Early Modern cultures, needs careful definition. This essay both introduces the variety of methods by which we might approach playtexts with a view to their public – auditory – impact and contributes to a debate about an audience's understanding of Shakespeare's plays. By selecting two words and their spread of use in one play, Twelfth Night, we might appreciate the potential for meaningful ambiguity latent in how we hear the language of live performance. If we search for how certain terms (in this case, the cluster of semes derived from repetitions of “fancy” and “play”), we might find at times incompatible senses, yet we get near to appreciating the range of Early Modern dramatic language

Semiotics of theatre and drama

260 p. ; 21 cm

Introduzione

Introduzione ad un volume collettaneo su Twlefth Night di Shakespear

Semiotics of theatre and drama

260 p. ; 21 cm

“‘These old P.M.s are gruesome’: Post-mortem Poetics in Beckett’s Late Plays”

The essay examines Beckett’s affiliation with the concept of lateness and lastness and it offers an original reading of What Where by focusing on its enigmatic opening line “we are the last five”. In te light of Beckett's  “rip word” Beckett’s figures appears  as “post-human to the extent that they are posthumous, in the etymological sense of last, or of coming after (from posterus, posterior).The essay examines Beckett’s affiliation with the concept of lateness and lastness and it offers an original reading of What Where by focusing on its enigmatic opening line “we are the last five”. In te light of Beckett's  “rip word” Beckett’s figures appears  as “post-human to the extent that they are posthumous, in the etymological sense of last, or of coming after (from posterus, posterior)

Semiotics of theatre and drama

260 p. ; 21 cm