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Part of
The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts
Edited by Esther Linares Bernabéu
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 335] 2023
► pp. 65–86

From mode adoption to saluting a dead kitten

Reactions to a humorous tweet by Ricky Gervais

| University School for Advanced Studies IUSS – Pavia
| Texas A&M University-Commerce
There has been some research in what can be broadly described as humor performance in the reactions to humorous turns (be they punch lines or jab lines). Two areas that have received particular attention are (1) the reactions to irony, which have been shown to range from mode adoption (i.e., when the respondent adopts the ironical mode and responds with irony to the irony) to treating the irony as a “literal” statement and reacting to it ignoring its ironical intention; and (2) failed humor, in which the range of reactions is much broader, from laughter to open expression of displeasure.
Much less has been written on reactions in online discourse and this case study of one humorous tweet by comedian Ricky Gervais, mocking the Academy Award ceremony (the Oscars), will be examined to examine the differences between a corpus of 200+ tweets as responses to Gervais’ original tweet, and proviso studies. We will also consider how much the exchange can be quantified as to its viral nature.
Keywords: irony, reactions, twitter, ironical intention, failed humor
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Description of Ricky Gervais’ tweet
    • 2.2Data collection and corpus creation section
    • 2.3Replies categorization
    • 2.4Corpus creation
    • 2.5Data analysis
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Corpus analysis and classification of tweets
    • 3.2Analysis of individual tweets
      • 3.2.1GTVH analysis of a plaudit
      • 3.2.2A case of seemingly failed intention recognition
      • 3.2.3The case of “aware” mode adoption
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Limitations of the study
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Reference list
Published online: 24 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.335.03bis
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