Abstract
Humour is part and parcel of daily life. Recent years have seen an enduring interest in pragmatic research on interactional humour, but systematic work is still missing. Based on this context, this fascinating volume, edited by Esther Linares-Bernabéu, presents an examination of different genres of humour ranging from digital settings, offline settings to fictional settings and offers distinct methodologies and perspectives for humour research. Ten cutting-edge contributions by renowned interactional humour researchers are included, which are organized into three genre-based thematic parts after an introduction.
The first part (Chapters 1–4) revolves around interactional humour in online interactions. In Chapter 1, Yus and Maíz-Arévalo, drawing on a classification of incongruity-resolution patterns (Yus, 2021), examine 150 Covid-related memes and find that frame-based incongruities are the most common in Covid-related memes, followed by discourse-image based incongruities and discourse-based incongruities. In Chapter 2, Pano-Alemán and Mancera-Rueda analyse political-electoral memes during the Spanish election campaign with a metapragmatic approach and claim that political humour generated by these memes serves to strengthen in-group solidarity while challenging political candidates and party members, echoing Piata’s (2018) research. In Chapter 3, Bischetti and Attardo, from a discursive-interactional perspective, delve into the reactions to a humorous tweet by celebrity comedian Ricky Gervais. In terms of macro-categories, compliments are the most common responses, followed by literal or figurative replies and unrelated replies. In terms of micro-categories, praise and compliments are the most common responses, followed by comic citations and literal replies. In Chapter 4, Chovanec and Tsakona investigate 1100 comments on YouTube in response to a video entitled Notre Dame and Joking, in which disaster humour and religious humour are found to be constructed interactionally via joking threads (i.e. online interactions involving (non)humorous metapragmatic comments in reaction to a preceding humour) in YouTube comments sections.
The second part (Chapters 5–8) centres on conversational humour in everyday interactions. In Chapter 5, Sheikhan and Haugh, from the perspective of epistemics, analyse conversational humour in intercultural first conversations, which is a step closer to ‘a rapproachment between cognitive and discursive accounts of conversational humor’ (p. 128). In Chapter 6, Ruiz-Gurillo identifies three main patterns in humour negotiation: politeness with an affiliative style in endogroup sequences; mock impoliteness with an aggressive style in endogroup sequences; and mock politeness with an aggressive style in confrontational sequences. In Chapter 7, drawing on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness (p. 213), Alvarado Ortega attempts to tease out communicative tactics that could save face in Spanish male-only humorous exchanges and finds that rapport management strategies (i.e. affiliative humour, self-humour and competitive humour) are achieved in domains such as the illocutionary, participatory, stylistic and non-verbal domains. In Chapter 8, Padilla Cruz examines humour with a phatic role in service encounters and compares the usage of humour at the beginning and end of service encounters in Seville.
The last part (Chapters 9–10) concentrates on interactional humour in fictional settings. In Chapter 9, Linares Bernabéu explores the deployment of kairos (i.e. the performer’s ability to seize the precise moment to make the audience laugh) and the collaborative construction of humour in Spanish female stand-up comedy between the comedian and audience. In Chapter 10, Timofeeva-Timofeev finds that children of different ages create different interactions with Martians in humorous narratives, reflecting their distinct attitudes towards the image of Martians.
This volume deserves praise for its remarkable coherence, innovative case studies and multifaceted examination of humour in interactive settings. First, these chapters are closely connected, even if they are written by different researchers. For instance, to some degree, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 overlap with each other in exploring memes. Likewise, Chapter 3 dovetails with Chapter 4 in exploring responses to humour in digital settings. Second, this volume examines some underexplored topics. For instance, Chapter 8 explores how humour is used at the opening and closing phases of small establishments. By analysing intercultural first interactions, Chapter 5 accentuates the role of epistemics in the theorization of humour. Both topics went unheeded in the previous studies. Third, the contributions in this volume present researchers with a repertoire of methodologies and perspectives to examine humour. These encompass research based on incongruity-resolution theory (Chapter 1), relevance theory (Chapter 8), the general theory of verbal humour (Chapter 2), Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness (Chapter 7), epistemics (Chapter 5), conversation analysis (Chapter 6) and sociopragmatics (Chapter 9). In addition, this volume broadens the scope of humour research by investigating interactive humour in various contexts, ranging from digital communication (Chapters 1–4), everyday interaction (Chapters 5–8), to fictional interaction (Chapters 9–10). Despite these strengths, the volume has room for minor improvement. The limitation of this book lies in its nearly whole focus on English and Spanish case studies. It would have benefited from case studies across languages and cultural contexts.
Notwithstanding the shortcoming, this volume is still commendable in that it offers innovative and enlightening viewpoints on humour studies in interactive contexts. It is highly recommended for researchers and students in pragmatics and discourse analysis who are interested in humour research to read this illuminating book.