Article published in:
Metapragmatics of Humor: Current research trends
Edited by Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 14] 2016
► pp. 215–233

Teasing in casual conversations

An opportunistic discursive strategy

| Aix-Marseille Université, Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix en Provence, France
In order to study teasing in casual conversations, I will focus the present work on a specific humorous device that frequently occurs in casual conversations: “linguistic pinning” (Traverso, 1999) described as a verbatim repetition of a word or expression said by the hearer to create humor. Teasing, as many other forms of conversational humor in a broad sense, is thus seen as a rebound on, at least, the prior turn. Consequently, the humorous speaker will be depicted as both a participant able to adapt her/himself to the context (discursive and more generally, relational) and an opportunist, watching out for the possibility of producing humor.After a description of the forms and function of linguistic pinning and after a comparison to other related phenomena (repetition and punning), I will analyze seven examples of pinning to show its discursive functioning and some reactions it triggers.
Keywords: Teasing, casual conversation, “linguistic pinning”, conversational humor
Published online: 24 November 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.14.11pri
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