Publications
Publication details [#50843]
Norrick, Neal R. and Delia Chiaro, eds. 2009. Humor in Interaction. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 182). John Benjamins. xvii+238 pp.
Publication type
Book – edited volume
Publication language
English
Keywords
Annotation
This is the first edited volume dedicated specifically to humor in interaction. It is a rich collection of essays by an international array of scholars representing various theoretical perspectives, but all concerned with interactional aspects of humor. The contributors are scholars active both in the interdisciplinary area of humor studies and in adjacent disciplines such as linguistic pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, psycholinguistics, gender and translation studies. The volume effectively offers an overview of the range of phenomena falling in the broad category of ‘conversational humor’, and convincingly argues for the many different functions humor can fulfill, bypassing simplistic humor theories reducing humor to one function. All the articles draw on empirical material from different countries and cultures, comprising conversations among friends and family, talk in workplace situations, humor in educational settings, and experimental approaches to humor in interaction.