This chapter explores the use of direct address to create humor in scripted jokes and in everyday conversation based on examples from corpora of transcribed conversational English. We take direct address to include any reference to a real or imagined listener with a proper or invented term of address. We show how forms of address in humor build on, extend and subvert the standard system. Direct address always has both an ‘attention, identification’ function and a ‘contact, expressive’ function, with one more prominent in any given context, but both these functions play various roles in the creation of humorous discourse, for instance when reciprocal direct address between friends, partners and family members leads to humorous banter in conversation. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue! i’ faith, I love thee. Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II II. 4. 233–236
2015. Communities of Addressing Practice? Address in Internet Forums Based in German-Speaking Countries. In Address Practice As Social Action: European Perspectives, ► pp. 33 ff.
Li, Xiaoting
2020. Interpersonal Touch in Conversational Joking. Research on Language and Social Interaction 53:3 ► pp. 357 ff.
Park, Innhwa
2023. The chair’s use of address terms in workplace meetings. Text & Talk 43:2 ► pp. 185 ff.
Reddington, Elizabeth & Hansun Zhang Waring
2015. Understanding the Sequential Resources for Doing Humor in the Language Classroom. HUMOR 28:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Reichl, Isabella & Eleni Kapogianni
2022. A delicate balance. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 10:2 ► pp. 288 ff.
Zilberman Friedmann, Yael & Hadar Netz
2023. ‘You son of a perverse rebellious woman’: Mobilizing the storytelling event for self-empowerment. Language in Society 52:3 ► pp. 433 ff.
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