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Article In: Pragmatics and Society: Online-First Articles

Laughter as a metapragmatic awareness indicator in Chinese older adults with dementia

ORCiD logo with link | Tongji University
ORCiD logo with link | Tongji University
ORCiD logo with link | East China University of Science and Technology
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Abstract
The study regards laughter as a metapragmatic indicator that reflects metapragmatic awareness. It explores the metapragmatic functions of laughter, thereby revealing the metapragmatic awareness of Chinese older adults with dementia during cognitive assessments and lifecourse interviews. The findings indicate that laughter demonstrates metapragmatic awareness among older adults with dementia across various communicative aspects, including metapragmatic awareness of contact, discourse/text, message and addresser. Furthermore, through cognitive-pragmatic interpretation under rapport management theory, it was found that laughter serves as a key metapragmatic strategy for building rapport, as it dynamically manages face, interactional goals, sociality rights and obligations, and emotions. This research contributes to advancing metapragmatic theory, multimodal pragmatics and rapport management theory, with implications for interventions designed to enhance rapport in interactions involving older adults with dementia.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Laughter and dementia
    • 2.2Laughter and metapragmatic awareness
    • 2.3Laughter and rapport management
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Analytical framework
    • 3.4Analytical process
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1.1Managing face through metapragmatic awareness of contact
    • 4.1.2Maintaining sociality rights through metapragmatic awareness of discourse/text
    • 4.1.3Realizing interactional goals through metapragmatic awareness of the message
    • 4.1.4Regulating negative affect through metapragmatic awareness of the addresser
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Declaration of conflicting interests
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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