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Humor as a Resource for Mitigating Conflict in Interaction
Abstract
This article investigates humor as a conversational resource for mitigating conflict in interaction. It explores the structures and dynamics of conflict talk, showing how participants contextualize their interaction as conflict. Then it explores various types of humor and their effects on conflict sequences. In particular, it demonstrates: (1) how humor can successfully end conflict; (2) how one participant can for a time ignore/reject attempts at humor by others; (3) how humor can forestall an impending conflict, but fail to end it; (4) how two parties in conflict talk can ignore attempts at humor by a third, unratified party; (5) how laughter can help resolve conflict even in the absence of humor; and (6) how a humorous key can prevent conflict from arising in potentially contentious contexts. Further, it demonstrates that the effectiveness of humor depends on a series of factors: first, the seriousness of the conflict, second, the social power relationship between the participants, third, the kind of humor, fourth, the reactions of the participants, and finally, who initiates the humor.
... for change and the reinforcement of social bonds (Adams and Laursen, 2007); since, as, Norrick and Spitz (2008) claim, conflict talk is not in itself negative, given that it can help to verbalise our frustrations and negative emotions. 2 A key element is the way on which conflict is managed, since the types of practices involved can also undermine relationships, in that they might serve to trigger the polarisation of the positions of participants. According to Hicks (2001), during conflict, individuals feel that their social identities are being threatened, in that a cognitive misalignment has emerged. ...
... E. Linares-Bernab eu Journal of Pragmatics 213 (2023) 49e66 reconstruct peoples' versions of events, and mediators can make use of this, without giving direct instructions or advice, when they attempt to encourage parties to come to an agreement about ways to move forward. Likewise, previous studies (Brown and Levinson, 1987;Norrick and Spitz, 2008;Linares, 2022) have reported that the mediator's use of verbal humour can foster the transformation of the individual cognitive space of the parties in an inclusive way through humorous allusions to some aspect of real life familiar which represents shared knowledge for all participants. In the present study we look in particular at questioning as a technique of mediation, 5 since in taking steps to find common ground, questions are one of the strategies favoured by mediators (see Jacobs, 2002;Fraser, 2008). ...
... Following Luzon (2013: 113), we consider a conflict act to be "any discourse act where disagreement, criticism or dissension is explicitly marked by different discursive or lexical devices". We also take a dialogue to be a mediation sequence when participants contradict each other in three consecutive turns (Norrick and Spitz, 2008) and where this conflict act is interrupted due to the use of rhetorical-pragmatic strategies by a third, mediating party. ...
This study examines the role of questions in the negotiation of epistemic stance in diffuse mediation contexts. Diffuse mediation arises in various informal situations, for example, between friends seeking to re-establish relationships that are at risk, or relatives trying to resolve family conflicts. In fact, the stronger the social bonds, the greater the scope for this form of conflict resolution (Greco-Morasso, 2011; Berger, 2018). We hypothesise that third-parties acting as mediators in informal conversations are seldom fully aware of their role, and hence that they often show their point of view in attempting to resolve a conflict. Thus, we argue that a mediator's epistemic stance negotiation not only contributes to establishing common ground, but also reflects their own subjectivity (Jacobs, 2002; Fraser, 2007). Towards confirming this, the study presents an analysis of data from the Val.Es.Co. corpus, which comprises 78 conversations with a total duration of approximately 1465 min. From this material, our quantitative and qualitative analysis will focus on those conversational sequences in which a situation of informal mediation can be observed, a total of 38 sequences amounting to 64 min of dialogue. The results confirm that pragmatic strategies such as question-asking have a crucial role here, due to the negotiation of meanings and the cognitive alignment that is expected to occur during the conflict. The findings show that by asking questions, the mediator can redirect the issue to other topics, foster the negotiation of epistemic stance, and establish common ground between participants. Likewise, it is observed that situational and social knowledge in a specific context become essential in the process of diffuse mediation in everyday conversation.
... ESTHER LINARES BERNABÉU ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyse the uses and functions of verbal humour in informal communicative situations of mediation from a sociopragmatic perspective (Norrick & Spitz 2008, Schnurr & Plester 2017. We start from the hypothesis that the speaker acting as mediator employs humour markers during their interaction with the parties in conflict in order to relativize the dispute, protect their image and re-establish interpersonal relationships (Jacobs 2002, Fraser 2007. ...
... Siguiendo con las ideas comentadas en las líneas anteriores, investigaciones previas (Tannen 2006, Norrick y Spitz 2008 proponen el humor como un recurso conversacional al servicio de la mediación para mitigar el conflicto en contextos interactivos. Además, consideramos que el humor posee un gran potencial para la mediación difusa, es decir, para aquella que se produce en contextos situacionales cotidianos; puesto que promueve la creación de un espacio común entre las partes y reconduce la conversación, cuando esta se estanca en los elementos sobre los que los hablantes difieren. ...
... Si partimos de la propuesta formulada desde la Sociolingüística interaccional de que una secuencia de conflicto sucede cuando los participantes entran en una discusión en la que muestran su desacuerdo en, al menos, tres turnos conversacionales consecutivos (Schiffrin 1985, Coulter 1990), la introducción del humor serviría para conducir a la suspensión del conflicto o, como mínimo, para generar un alivio momentáneo (Norrick y Spitz 2008). Es decir, por unos instantes, los hablantes implicados en el conflicto son capaces de dejar a un lado lo que los divide y participar conjuntamente en la secuencia humorística que, posiblemente, haya iniciado una de las partes o un tercero que actúa como mediador dentro de la conversación. ...
El presente trabajo tiene por objeto analizar, desde una perspectiva sociopragmática (Norrick y Spitz 2008, Schnurr y Plester 2017), los usos y funciones del humor verbal en situaciones comunicativas informales de mediación. Partimos de la hipótesis de que el hablante que actúa como mediador emplea marcas e indicadores humorísticos durante su interacción con las partes en conflicto para relativizar la disputa, proteger su imagen y reconstruir las relaciones interpersonales (Jacobs 2002, Fraser 2007). En aras de verificar dicha conjetura, esta investigación utiliza el corpus Val.Es.Co. (Briz et al.2002, Pons 2022) y analiza las secuencias conversacionales en las que se producen situaciones de mediación informal. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que el humor es un recurso conversacional que fomenta los procesos de mediación en tanto que minimiza la fuerza ilocutiva del mensaje, reconceptualiza el tema en conflicto y fomenta la creación de lazos entre los participantes de la conversación. Asimismo, los datos reflejan que el éxito comunicativo del humor verbal depende de la seriedad del conflicto, de las relaciones sociales de poder entre los participantes y de su relación vivencial.
... Based on mediation literature and conflict resolution literature (Kressel, 2006;Norrick and Spitz, 2008;Kressel et al., 2012), three types of peacemaking behaviors can be distinguished: settlement oriented, emotion oriented and humorous peacemaking. Settlement-oriented peacemaking focuses on finding solutions for the conflict and helping parties to solve the "problem" (Kressel, 2006). ...
... Third, the use of humor can be used to loosen up the tense atmosphere. Research has already indicated that people often use humor to restore peace in conflict both as parties and bystanders (Vuchinich et al., 1988;Smith et al., 2000;Norrick and Spitz, 2008). Specifically, two humor styles might be used in peacemaking: affiliative humor and self-defeating humor. ...
... Affiliative humor may be more relevant as it has a strong intention to enhance relationships and restore peace (Martin et al., 2003;Vernon et al., 2008;Greengross et al., 2012). With the use of appropriate humor, unpleasant topics can be shifted or softened (Norrick and Spitz, 2008). Sometimes, it may help to put conflictive issues in a different perspective without losing face. ...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between personality, gender and interpersonal peacemaking. Peacemaking is considered as voluntary behavior of team members to help conflicting peers in an impartial way, to find an amicable solution. This study tests the relation between the Big Five personality dimensions, gender and five different components of interpersonal peacemaking (general involvement in peacemaking, multipartiality, focus of finding solutions, emotional support and the use of humor).
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 503 participants filled out a survey assessing their personality and peacemaking behavior at work. To test the hypotheses, this study conducted structural equation modeling in AMOS 22.0.
Findings
In line with expectations, openness, extraversion and agreeableness related positively to most peacemaking components, while conscientiousness and neuroticism related negatively to the use of humor and peacemakers’ multipartiality, respectively; comparing men and women, women engage more often in peacemaking in general and in emotional support, and use less humor than men. Results also showed that these gender differences are partially mediated by agreeableness being higher for women.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies exploring the relationship between personality (Big Five), gender and different aspects of interpersonal peacemaking. Peacemaking is an important, however understudied, behavior in teams and part of OCB. The promotion of peacemaking contributes to team effectiveness.
... O estudo se apóia, inicialmente, em Norrick (2008) e na sua investigação do humor operando no término de estruturas de conflito (ANTAKI, 1994(ANTAKI, , 1996COULTER, 1990;SCHIFFRIN, 1984). E complementa que o entendimento do humor enquanto sobreposto a outro enquadre, seja o do conflito ou de qualquer outro, vai depender do grau de relevância estipulado pelos sujeitos envolvidos na interação. ...
... No que tange às fronteiras do discurso de humor, Norrick (2008) apresenta três momentos em que a agressividade se mostra presente. A primeira delas diz respeito à agressividade interpessoal expressa na forma de sarcasmo, chacota, humilhação, entre outros 2 ; a segunda se refere à agressividade interacional, o próprio ato de introduzir humor no tópico de uma conversa séria em andamento, pode ser percebido como agressivo "em que constitui uma intrusão, uma interrupção, uma perda de tempo" (NORRICK, 2008(NORRICK, p. 1663). E por último, o humor também pode funcionar como "um teste à inteligência, conhecimento ou pertencimento de grupo em que são necessários certos tipos de informação prévia ou mesmo perspicácia linguística e lógica para entender uma piada" (SACKS, 1974;SHERZER, 1978, 1985In NORRICK, 2008, p. 1663. ...
... A primeira delas diz respeito à agressividade interpessoal expressa na forma de sarcasmo, chacota, humilhação, entre outros 2 ; a segunda se refere à agressividade interacional, o próprio ato de introduzir humor no tópico de uma conversa séria em andamento, pode ser percebido como agressivo "em que constitui uma intrusão, uma interrupção, uma perda de tempo" (NORRICK, 2008(NORRICK, p. 1663). E por último, o humor também pode funcionar como "um teste à inteligência, conhecimento ou pertencimento de grupo em que são necessários certos tipos de informação prévia ou mesmo perspicácia linguística e lógica para entender uma piada" (SACKS, 1974;SHERZER, 1978, 1985In NORRICK, 2008, p. 1663. ...
Este artigo aborda a construção de identidades em relações afetivas através do humor conversacional. Investiga o entre-lugar (CUCHE, 2002; BHABHA, [1998] 2005) de produção de identidades, em que humor e agressividade se mostram presentes. Sob perspectiva da Análise da Conversa, adota a Análise de Categorização de Pertença (ACP) no intuito de entender o que é considerado relevante no jogo de construção de identidades em momentos de humor. O estudo se mostra relevante uma vez que pretende contribuir com a demonstração de padrões de humor conversacional sob uma perspectiva interacional, aprofundando discussões importantes tanto acerca de humor, quanto de estratégias de identidades em contextos afetivos. As relações analisadas demonstram a presença de sequências argumentativas de valor agressivo (ANTAKI, 1994) solucionadas pela relevância a elementos interacionais de humor demonstrando ora envolvimento do grupo, ora sentimentos de antagonismo.
... Mitigation involves "the different ways in which speakers are on their guard, blurring their utterances, toning them down, and making them somehow revocable" (Caffi 2005, p. 14). The ambiguity of laughter and shared laughter, in particular, has been found to accomplish multiple social functions such as mitigating tension and producing affiliation between interlocutors, or fostering intimacy (Jefferson et al. 1987;Norrick and Spitz 2008). It is often "invoked in potentially serious situations to take a nonserious stance toward other participants and the disagreement" (Warner-Garcia 2015, p. 160; also, Chafe 2007), and can therefore be a useful tool for navigating "touchy" or "delicate situations" (Du 2022, p. 42). ...
... not committing them to speak all the time" (Coates 2007, p. 44). Their giggles on Line 57 can also be read as marking "the end of conflict" (Norrick andSpitz 2008, p. 1681), or more precisely in this case, a period of tension. They can also be understood as "marking speakers' recognition of the establishment of a play frame and in marking its close" (Coates 2007, p. 45). ...
Migration stories are at the heart of how many immigrant-background Heritage Language Learners (HLLs) construct a sense of home, community, and identity across spatiotemporal scales. Nevertheless, narratives containing difficult knowledge (e.g., about war) are generally seen as threats to, rather than as assets in language learning and in education more broadly, and as such, are rarely drawn on in classrooms. In this paper I analyse excerpts from a group interview that I conducted with four grade-four girls during a year-long ethnographic case study. In particular, I examine how we all used various linguistic and paralingiustic resources to construct play frames . The play frames created a lower-stakes space in which to navigate the emotionally complex cultural memories that my interview questions about origins and migration prompted. The findings have implications for how language teachers listen to and engage with their HLLs’ funds of difficult knowledge.
... El estudio de la combinación del humor y el desacuerdo (o el conflicto) ha dado frutos en pragmática y en análisis de la conversación, sobre todo a la hora de explorar la función atenuadora del primero (Schnurr, 2010). Osvaldsson (2004), por ejemplo, estudia el valor en la risa para el sueco en interacciones semiprofesionales; Norrick y Spitz (2008) analizan la forma en que el humor pone fin al conflicto, lo retrasa o fracasa a la hora de resolverlo en inglés, y Warner-García (2014) se centra en la coping laughter con la que se gestiona el desacuerdo. Para el español, Bravo (1998) se centra en el valor de la risa en conversaciones polémicas de un curso de entrenamiento profesional; Cestero Mancera (1999, p. 604) establece que la risa en conversaciones coloquiales quita importancia "a fallos o defectos expresos del interlocutor y [muestra] desacuerdo con respecto al contenido del enunciado previo", y Bolaños Carpio (2015) se centra en la risa en los actos amenazadores de la imagen, en los que adquiere un valor de atenuación. ...
... Sin embargo, en los ejemplos sí que se da un daño mínimo e indudablemente hay críticas, pero parece que el humor tiene un efecto positivo igualmente, ya que los receptores no llevan a cabo actividades de autoimagen (Hernández-Flores, 2013), al menos mediante estrategias lingüísticas, que son las que se pueden apreciar. Este resultado está en acorde con Norrick y Spitz (2008), que afirman que la seriedad de la discusión y la importancia del tema influyen de forma determinante en la eficacia del humor y la trayectoria de la interacción. En los ejemplos analizados, no hay ningún interlocutor que manifieste malestar o que reaccione de forma negativa, y los temas de desacuerdo son muy cotidianos: unas rebanadas de pan quemadas, una tarta poco cocida, un vino de mala calidad y un problema de organización familiar que ni tan siquiera ha tenido lugar. ...
Este artículo tiene como objetivo estudiar la expresión del desacuerdo como fuente de humor conversacional, es decir, los casos en los que, en un marco humorístico, el desacuerdo se convierteen un elemento más que los hablantes usan para fortalecer las relaciones sociales y la solidaridad. Este valor está en acorde con la percepción situada y discursiva del estudio del conflicto en la interacción que prevalece actualmente, según la cual no se puede atribuiruna naturaleza amenazadora de la imagen al desacuerdo de forma intrínseca. El análisis cualitativo se basa en la selección de fragmentos de un corpus de conversaciones coloquiales en catalán entre amigos y familiarescercanos, caracterizadas en todos los casos por la proximidad y un marco y una temática muy cotidianos. Los resultadosmuestranque,dentro de un marco humorístico (identificado, entre otros indicios, conla aparición de la risa), los interlocutores construyen secuencias humorísticas que refuerzan los lazos afectivos del grupo a partir de la expresión del desacuerdo, que se manifiestade formas muy variadas.
... Humour has received considerable attention from researchers in diverse disciplines as a mechanism for reducing tension (Duncan, 1982), resolving problems (Norrick and Spitz, 2008;Smith et al., 2000) and as a catalyst for improving interpersonal relationships (Vinton, 1989), which may transfer to a service recovery context. In the realm of marketing, a substantial amount of evidence indicates that using humour increases liking towards marketing stimuli such as advertisements (Eisend, 2009). ...
... It is effective in dealing with stress and improving well-being, such as when it is used as a Bright and dark sides of humorous response stress-reducing mechanism among emergency personnel (Scott, 2007). It also facilitates interpersonal relationships by initiating interaction (Vinton, 1989), reducing tension (Duncan, 1982), and aiding in conflict resolution (Norrick and Spitz, 2008;Smith et al., 2000). From an institutional perspective, exposing employees to humour increases employee persistence (Cheng and Wang, 2015), and a manager's use of humour enhances communication effectiveness, creativity and group cohesiveness (Greatbatch and Clark, 2003;Romero and Cruthirds, 2006). ...
Purpose
Displaying a sense of humour provides various interpersonal benefits including reducing tension and promoting conflict resolution, but should a firm use humour in response to publicly viewable online customer complaints after a service failure? The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that a firm’s use of humour in response to negative online consumer reviews has both positive and negative effects on perceptions of corporate image from a customer-as-onlooker perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Three experimental studies are conducted and analysis of variance is used to empirically test the hypotheses.
Findings
Although humorous responses have an unfavourable influence on perceived trustworthiness of the firm, they have a favourable influence on perceived excitingness of the firm. The former influence is tied to lower perceived firm sincerity, whereas the latter is tied to higher perceived firm innovativeness and coolness. Furthermore, humour within the customer complaint itself is shown to moderate the influence of humorous responses on perceptions of the firm. Finally, regardless of the type of humour used (i.e. affiliative or aggressive humour) in the humorous response, the positive effect of humorous response remains strong, although aggressive humour further aggravates the negative impact of humorous response on trustworthiness.
Research limitations/implications
The experimental set-up may limit external validity of the study, and the research is limited to the variables examined.
Practical implications
Humorous response is identified as a non-traditional approach to online customer complaints that poses a double-edged sword for managers of service organizations. Firms should avoid using humour in online service recovery if perceptions of trustworthiness are critical or if complaints are written in a neutral tone. However, such responses may be successfully used when a firm wants to position itself as exciting and if complaints are also humorous. Finally, firms are advised to avoid aggressive humour.
Originality/value
The present research represents one of the few studies in marketing to examine the potential of injecting humour into complaint management and service recovery. In addition, this study considers the consumer-as-onlooker perspective inherent in social media.
... Salvatore Attardo (1994: 49-50), whose GTVH is a core instrument for the analyses of this paper, refers to the same strand of theory as hostility theory 3 and states about early theories that they "all mentioned the negative element of humor, its aggressive side" (49). It is certainly true that hostility may play an important role in the creation of humour (see Norrick andSpitz 2008 and for insights into the interrelation between conflict and humour). However, the notion that all humour can be explained in terms of aggression or superiority has been widely discarded (see for instance Morreall 2008: 221). ...
... Salvatore Attardo (1994: 49-50), whose GTVH is a core instrument for the analyses of this paper, refers to the same strand of theory as hostility theory 3 and states about early theories that they "all mentioned the negative element of humor, its aggressive side" (49). It is certainly true that hostility may play an important role in the creation of humour (see Norrick andSpitz 2008 and for insights into the interrelation between conflict and humour). However, the notion that all humour can be explained in terms of aggression or superiority has been widely discarded (see for instance Morreall 2008: 221). ...
Laughs in Translation: A Comparison between Verbal Humour in the Original and
the German Dubbed Version of The Big Bang Theory.
Lizentiatsarbeit der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Zürich
... Humorous responses, as noted by [49], often provide individuals with a way to sidestep contentious or problematic issues, thereby creating more favorable conditions for eventual resolution. Through humor, E skillfully avoids offering a direct answer that might provoke interpersonal tension, instead conveying his self-awareness and personal stance in a manner that is lighthearted yet meaningful. ...
Research on conflict discourse highlights the value of a cross-cultural perspective and the need to explore its features across different cultural contexts. However, there is limited research on conflict discourse among Chinese elders, particularly within the framework of building an Age-Friendly Society. To address this gap, this study adopts Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach in critical discourse analysis to examine the strategies Chinese elders employ in intergenerational conflicts. Drawing on Li’s framework of conflict strategies—competition, cooperation, avoidance, and compromise—this study identifies how Chinese elders use discourse to safeguard their rights and foster mutual understanding within family interactions. The findings reveal that these four strategies serve as discursive means for elders to achieve self-fulfillment, protect their rights, and sustain family harmony amidst social change. This study offers a systematic analysis of conflict resolution strategies in intergenerational discourse, highlighting the nuanced equilibrium that elders navigate between upholding traditional values and accommodating the evolving dynamics of contemporary family life.
... Se centra en las interacciones humorísticas que se dan en la conversación informal entre amigos (Coates 2007: 29) y se preocupa por el papel que, en entornos humorísticos, desempeñan las diversas variables sociales (edad, sexo, nivel sociocultural, etnia, etc.) (Hay 2000: 717) y en cómo se abordan significados sociales complejos cuando se interactúa (Davies 2017: 483;Coates 2014 Giora y Gur 2003). Asimismo, conocemos que existen usos diferenciados del humor imbricados con la identidad de género (Lampert y Ervin-Tripp 1998Davies 2003;Norrick y Spitz 2008, 2010 y que los contextos interculturales en los que se produce el humor pueden influir en cómo este aparece en las conversaciones Mullan y Béale 2018;Haugh y Weinglass 2018;Priego-Valverde et al. 2018;Mullan et al. 2020). Los estudios de humor conversacional han fomentado un nuevo itinerario, que podemos denominar humor interactivo. ...
In this paper, an analysis of politeness in the humorous sequences of VALESCO.HUMOR is carried out. The corpus consists of 149 sequences that have been identified as humorous, digitalized, and compiled at the website: http://www.observahumor.com/. Focused on a concept centered on conversational humour and, more specifically, on interactive humour (Chovanec and Tsakona 2017), and also taking into account the third wave of politeness (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and Bou-Franch 2020), which primarily considers the inferences and evaluations of the participants, three main trends have been established in the VALESCO.HUMOR corpus. Firstly, politeness with an affiliative style that aims to show solidarity with the community of practice (Holmes and Meyerhoff 1999) and results in an in-group sequence; is represented by 58.38%. Secondly, mock impoliteness, where an aggressive style is used that initially does not intend to harm the target of the mockery but rather to strengthen the bonds among the participants; it accounts for 25.50% of the examples. Finally, impoliteness refers to those sequences where the participants use an aggressive style that aims to confront the group. This last trend is represented by 10.06%. Additionally, an analysis of some examples is also achieved. This detailed description provides us a more comprehensive analysis on how humor is negotiated in colloquial conversations.
... However, the perception of China's image abroad often starkly contrasts with its domestic portrayal, owing to factors such as biased reception, publication mechanisms, ideological differences, and cultural disparities (Kurlantzick, 2022;Wang, 2018;Yang & Zhang, 2020). To cultivate a more positive global perception of China's national and diplomatic standing, the Chinese government has embarked on a concerted effort to construct a favorable national image since the eighteenth National Congress of the CPC (Fan & Wang, communicating parties (Norrick & Spitz, 2008). ...
This study investigates the translation of conflictive responses in Chinese diplomatic discourse into English. Utilizing the three-dimensional transformation framework of eco-translatology, encompassing linguistic, cultural, and communicative dimensions, the research identifies strategies and challenges in achieving semantic equivalence, cultural appropriateness, and communicative effectiveness. The study employs a qualitative approach, combining descriptive translation studies and content analysis. The corpus is sourced from the official website of China’s Foreign Ministry’s press conferences in 2020 delivered by the spokesperson Zhao Lijian. Findings reveal that idiomatic expressions and neologisms with negative connotations characterize conflictive responses and present significant translation challenges. The three-dimensional transformations are not always fully realized, particularly in neologisms lacking direct equivalents in the target language. Adaptation and description are frequently adopted, and the literal translation is not often applicable when dealing with culturally-rendered expressions. This study underscores the importance of a translator-centered approach that highlights the critical role of translation in shaping diplomatic discourse.
... In addition, Tannen (2006) shows how couples overcome conflicts and arguments through 'humorous reframing and rekeying' (p. 602), while Norrick and Spitz (2008: 1681-1682 identify how a 'light tone', humorous 'exaggeration' and employing 'ironic intonation' can defuse negative emotions in family discussions. ...
Humour has a well-established role in the public life of politics; however, its use within families affected by macro-level political events remains understudied. This article explores how families employed humour to navigate family troubles introduced by Brexit, the United Kingdom’s tumultuous exit from the European Union. Through an ethnographic study, we demonstrate how extraordinary political times test the positive relational potentials of humour. Families reframed situations through ‘playfulness’, exercised gentle and well-timed teasing, and digitally shared Brexit-related comedy objects to alleviate stresses and anxieties. However, the intensity of the Brexit drama rendered some family humour practices futile, and in particular circumstances, humour became an additional burden. By examining the interrelations of political events, everyday family practices and humour, this article demonstrates the integral role of humour in the reconstitution of familial relationships, the importance of craft, and the significance of relational and situational contexts to the successful deployment of humour.
... Dainas/Herring, 2021;Beißwenger/Pappert, 2019) or humor (cf. Norrick/Spitz, 2008;Werner-Garcia, 2014). In our study, an additional level of complexity is constituted by the fact that the corrected deviance is part of an attempted correction itselfin other words, an FTA serves as a reaction to what is itself likely an FTA (see also next section). ...
In highly standardized literate cultures, orthographic norms are perceived as socially binding, giving rise to negative evaluations of 'incorrect' writing, i.e., writing that deviates from the norm. This is evident in prescriptive practices in interactions on social media including direct corrections of a deviance (*you're) or comments more or less implicitly referring to it ("would be great if you knew how to spell"). In this study, we focus on a special type of corrections and the reactions to them: incorrect corrections. They are often corrected in so-called re-corrections, which frequently give rise to entire chains of corrections and comments that reflect diverse practices and attitudes both shaped by and towards normativity. By conducting an exploratory case study, we investigate (meta-)pragmatic strategies of stancetaking-such as mocking or doing being an expert-as well as their negotiation in (re-)corrections. Specifically, we focus on three posts taken from the public Facebook group People Incorrectly Correcting Other People consisting of, on the one hand, decontextualized screenshots showing an incorrect correction and ensuing re-corrections framed by the reaction of the poster posting them to the group. On the other hand, given the large number of group members, they include a myriad of additional comments discussing (re-)corrections at a meta-level. Our analysis suggests that re-correcting serves to criticize not a mistake but the positioning of correctors as superior. Thus, it implicitly challenges the normativity of standard language ideologies by exposing the hypocrisy of prescriptive practices.
... To this end, the display of humour (see ironic comment 'it was Monday and it feels like a thousand years ago, ' followed by laughter in example 1) may be interpreted as a form of mitigation [72] of the story that follows. The choice of pronouns (consider 'the children' rather than 'my children' , and 'one' rather than 'I' in example 2) also helps posters work through their emotions in the forum as they distance themselves from their very own stories, impersonalizing them and, thus, making them more easily relatable to other posters. ...
Background
The dramatic reconfigurations of work-family roles and social boundaries resulting from the social restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic led working mums to look for online sites as spaces of emotional support and regulation where they could vent their emotions, share their concerns and griefs, and seek advice. They also became interactional spaces where mums’ relevant identities were reassessed and enacted as they aimed to balance work-family roles and improve their wellbeing. The paper explores how working mums discursively negotiated their multiple identities in an online support forum during times of global struggle, how these identity constructions reflect the domains of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and how working mums perceived these identities are related to their mental health.
Methods
127 posts of Chilean working mums published in a public online support forum for working mums collected during the first half of 2020 were analysed in three phases. The first one involved a thematic analysis to identify themes and subthemes related to working mums’ identity construction in the data. The second phase involved conducting a narrative analysis of working mums’ microstorias in order to identify a master narrative crafted by these working mums, and contesting and conforming ideologies of motherhood, among others. Finally, the third phase involved a fine-grained discourse analysis of the most representative extracts illustrating working mums’ identity negotiation.
Results
The sociolinguistic analysis showed that working mums’ discourses displayed three themes of self-reflection, namely, diminishing self-care, reassessing their self, and enhancing self through self-care. Identity-related sub-themes for each main theme are discussed and discursively analysed. Two main points are emphasised: (1) the identity that was most salient in working mums’ discourse was their personal identity (rather than work-family roles and identities), and (2) microstorias allowed working mums to challenge the hegemonic power of dominant discourses around their identities and their work-family roles.
Conclusions
The study shows that a sociolinguistic approach to the exploration of working mums’ identity negotiation is useful to highlight the ways in which mums contest binary assumptions of work-family roles and the need to reconsider working mums’ life domains so that they reflect working mums’ actual identity needs and lived experiences. Future lines of research are outlined.
... When used appropriately, humor can change the dynamic of situations that are headed for conflict [61][62][63]. By introducing surprise, incongruity, humor can disrupt established patterns of behavior, which in turn can promote improvisation to yield a different outcome. ...
Background
Despite the widespread use of humor in social interactions and the considerable literature on humor in multiple fields of study, the use of humor in parenting has received very little formal study. The purpose of this pilot study was to gather preliminary data on the use of humor in the raising of children.
Materials and methods
We developed and administered a 10-item survey to measure people’s experiences being raised with humor and their views regarding humor as a parenting tool. Responses were aggregated into Disagree, Indeterminate, and Agree, and analyzed using standard statistical methods.
Results
Respondents (n = 312) predominantly identified as male (63.6%) and white (76.6%) and were (by selection) between the ages of 18–45 years old. The majority of participants reported that they: were raised by people who used humor in their parenting (55.2%); believe humor can be an effective parenting tool (71.8%) and in that capacity has more potential benefit than harm (63.3%); either use (or plan to use) humor in parenting their own children (61.8%); and would value a course on how to utilize humor in parenting (69.7%). Significant correlations were found between the use of humor and both i) the quality of respondents’ relationships with their parents and ii) assessments of how good a job their parents had done.
Conclusions
In this pilot study, respondents of childbearing/rearing age reported positive views about humor as a parenting tool.
... We argue that when supervisors do use humour to turn down employee voice, under certain circumstances, it can promote voice resilience. Importantly, however, the use of humour does not guarantee voice resilience and may also harm it (Malone, 1980;Norrick & Spitz, 2008). ...
Given that not all suggestions can be implemented, understanding how supervisors can turn down employee voiced suggestions while not discouraging employees voicing in the future is critical for theoretical and practical reasons. Supervisors may use humour when not endorsing employees' suggestions as they attempt to ease tension by injecting something lighthearted, but doing so, we argue, is not uniformly beneficial. Hence, we conducted a preregistered study that tests how supervisors' use of humour when turning down an employee's voiced suggestion affects voice resilience. Utilizing signaling theory, we theorize supervisors' use of humour when turning down voice strengthens voice safety but weakens voice impact perceptions. Indirectly, humour therefore may constitute a mixed blessing for voice resilience (voice behaviour after voice non‐endorsement). Additionally, we hypothesized that the positive link between humour and voice safety and the negative link between humour and voice impact are moderated by supervisor–employee relationship quality (leader–member exchange (LMX)). We tested these predictions in a time‐lagged study of 343 employees whose voice was recently turned down. Humour indeed increased voice resilience via voice safety; against expectations, humour positively related to voice impact (via it, resilience). LMX is significantly moderated. However, unexpectedly, humour helped voice safety, impact and the resilience of low LMX employees.
... While A's accompanying laughter may represent an attempt to soften the criticism, it is not reciprocated. This absence of echoed laughter or any verbal response constitute further conflict cues [Author, 2021; see also Norrick & Spitz, 2008]. Crucially, then, the design of E's counter and her overall linguistic behaviour means that it is treated as problematising and problematic -despite its being a neutral counter and E's general strong distal deontic status regarding which food she orders. ...
This paper examines an understudied way of refusing: counters, i.e. utterances which not only block one course of action but put forward an alternative. An interactional approach to pragmatic meaning was taken to examine the content, design, and interpersonal implications of counters in (semi-)informal future-action negotiations. Regarding their content, it was found that counters can retain the distribution of cost/benefit of initial proffers (neutral), change them to the refuser’s benefit (egoistic), or change them to the profferer’s benefit (altruistic). Regarding their design, it was found that counters can be formatted as either interpersonally delicate or non-delicate actions – irrespective of their content. This suggests that specific benefactive chances are not intrinsically associated with specific interpersonal effects, e.g. egoistic and altruistic counters do not necessarily indicate interpersonal trouble or guarantee harmony, respectively. Rather, it is the design which has particular interpersonal implications, with counters formatted as non-delicate actions being hearable as problematising and/or treated as problematic. It is furthermore argued that counters are more constrained in terms of design than initial proffers – which may be formatted as non-delicate without negative interpersonal implications – and that this constraint results from their sequential position and the prior speaker’s right to make a proffer.
... A few involve humor and political discourse, e.g. humor can end conflict in Neal and Alice (2008). Humor in digital platform has been used as a means to mobilize the public to political participation (Smith & Voth 2012;Kopper 2021). ...
Despite the repeated call for humor research, few attempts have been made to address humorous metaphors in diplomatic discourse. This paper examined each type of strategic humor behind these metaphors in Chinese diplomatic discourse from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics. Blending theory, metaphorical mapping, and inferential structure between source and target domain were examined to construe the implicature behind humorous metaphors in digital diplomacy, press conferences, and presidential speeches. We found: (1) multimodal resources can add more value to metaphor inference in digital diplomacy, especially with blending theory; (2) many offensive metaphors of PATIENT, PERFORMANCE have been attributed to the US and its allies.
... Humor, being one of the major topics studied in the literature on conversational interaction, has been examined within the scope of psychology (Martin, 2007), sociology (Kipers, 2006), and linguistics (Attardo, 1994). One of the functions of humor in interaction is mitigating conflict (Norrick & Spitz, 2008). By investigating conflict talk, the study found that humor is used as a means for decreasing conflict in interactions. ...
Laughter, being a significant part of interaction, has been found to have important functions. Goffman (1967) and Brown & Levinson (1987)'s theories in relation with politeness are one of the major approaches to interaction that interrelate with the function of laughter in discourse. This study aims to examine how laughter is used to achieve politeness according to Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987) and Goffman's concept of face (Goffman, 1972). For the purpose of this study, 26 laughter tokens out of 729 from the publishable files in Spoken Turkish Corpus (STC) are examined. EXAKT 1.2 is used to examine and retrieve tokens of laughter. The study shows that laughter is used by speakers for maintaining and saving positive and negative face. Laughter is not only used for maintaining one's own face but also employed for saving the face of others.
... Ashby and Neilsen-Hewett, 2012; Blank and Schneider, 2011;Butovskaya et al., 2000;Clarke et al., 2019;Hay and Ross, 1982;Shantz, 1987) including through the use of incongruity-based humour (Loizou, 2005(Loizou, , 2016Singer, 2019;Singer and de Haan, 2007). Much like adults (Norrick and Spitz, 2008), the children in these extracts used humour to resolve and defuse conflict interactions which otherwise directly threatened their interpersonal relations and possibly even their own reputational standing. Humour helped them manage their social relationships (Bergen, 2007;Singer, 2019;Singer and de Haan, 2007) and its use was linked to relational power (Loizou, 2005). ...
While research on children’s humour is growing, few investigations have focused on how children use humour in conflict interactions, and specifically in group early childhood settings. Using data extracts from a project that investigated children’s naturally occurring conflict interactions in a multi-ethnic early childhood setting, we use interactional sociolinguistics to analyse how children used humour at unexpected moments during conflict situations. The analysis probes different meanings carried in the children’s use of humour, illustrating how humour intersected with personal and relational power to resolve or defuse conflict, or to coerce compliance with existing peer relational positions. The analysis broadens understandings of the significance of humour in children’s lives in early childhood settings, and particularly in the context of conflict interactions that have a ‘stretchy temporality’ connecting interactive moves to others in the past, and to existing power positions in peer relationships.
... For instance, through applying methods including discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and ethnomethodology, discourse studies have provided significant observations in various settings such as the workplace (e.g., Schnurr & Chan, 2011;Schnurr, 2009;Holmes & Marra, 2002;Holmes, 2007Holmes, , 2006, computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction (e.g., Morkes et al., 1999), gender studies (e.g., Holmes, 2006;Hay, 2000). In these studies, the main analytic focus has been on the functions of humour, suggesting that it mitigates conflicts (e.g., Norrick & Spitz, 2008), reduces stress (e.g., Lynch, 2002), and establishes social bonds (e.g., Van Praag et al., 2017;Martin, 2007). ...
Humour is a complex and dynamic phenomenon prevalent in social interaction in various settings, such as mundane talk and institutional contexts. It has been a focus of interest in social interaction research for decades. To date, scholars have sought to gain insights regarding what counts as humorous and why we find certain utterances funny (e.g., Carroll, 2014; Bell & Pomerantz, 2016). As such, scholars from various fields ranging from philosophy, sociology, psychology, pragmatics, and linguistics, to name a few, have adopted different approaches in the examination of humour. One of the new perspectives that offers unique insights into humour scholarship is Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology. CA is a method and a research field in itself deriving from ethnomethodology, and it provides valuable opportunities for researchers to investigate humour in interaction. Thus, the main aim of this study is to present Conversation Analysis as a candidate methodology to be used for analysing humour in interaction. It also provides a critical discussion of how CA approaches ‘humour’.
... This study tends to adopt the American-English definition of sarcasm. In this paper, sarcasm is equated as irony, or often also called verbal irony (Norrick & Spitz, 2008;Colston, 2019). In addition, sarcasm also has a special purpose compared to irony, namely ridiculing and hurting the interlocutor (Gibbs, 1994;Lee & Katz, 1998). ...
Recently, there has been apprehension in the society about expressing ideas, particularly on political concerns. As a result, public figures such as comedians tend to use sarcasm as their primary weapon in exposing political leaders' weakness, incompetence, or corrupt behavior, as well as government officials' actions. The goal of this research is to look at the form, meaning, and function of sarcasm on the TikTok account @Podcastkeseaje. All of the utterances said by the narrator or speakers in the video recording from the TikTok account @podcastkeselaje are used as data sources in this study. Indirect observation was used to obtain data, which was then followed by recording and note-taking techniques. The data were examined using Camp's (2012) theory for the form of sarcasm, Chaer's (2009) theory for the meaning of sarcasm, and Chaer's (2009) theory for the meaning of sarcasm.
... Humor is defined as a stimulus that elicits or is intended to elicit laughter, amusement, or the perception that something is funny (Warren et al., 2018). Humor "lubricates" social relations by facilitating relationships (Duncan & Feisal, 1989, p. 29) and reduces stress (Scott, 2007) and conflict (Norrick & Spitz, 2008) in situations that provoke tension. Most research on humor in marketing is primarily focused on the effectiveness of humor appeals in advertisements. ...
Technological advances have enabled firms to automate customer service by employing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. Despite their many potential benefits, interactions with chatbots may still feel machine‐like and cold. The current study proposes the use of humour by chatbots as a gateway to humanizing them and thereby enhancing the customer experience. Across three experimental studies, the results reveal that (i) the use of humour enhances service satisfaction when it is used by a chatbot but not when it is used by a human agent, (ii) this chatbot humour effect is serially mediated by enhanced perceptions of anthropomorphism and interestingness of the interactions with the chatbot, and (iii) whilst both positively and negatively valenced chatbot humour may enhance the interestingness of the interactions, socially appropriate (i.e., affiliative) humour as opposed to inappropriate (i.e., aggressive) humour leads to enhanced service satisfaction. This study extends the understanding of the humanization processes of chatbots and provides guidelines for how firms should use chatbot humour to positively influence consumers' service satisfaction.
... In his study on children's arguments in multiparty interactions, Maynard (1985) found that children in disputes act as political actors, creating alliances, defending their practical interests, and positioning themselves in relation to the group. Conflictual interaction among children develops their sense of social structure and makes them deal with authority, alliances and other interactional patterns that are relevant to disputes (Maynard, 1985;Norrick & Spitz, 2008). From a communicative point of view, positions can shift very quickly in disputes (Goffman, 1981) so children practice the discourse of both alignment and disaffiliation, and learn ways for distancing oneself from a conflictual situation and creating boundaries (Nguyen, 2011). ...
Sibling interaction is a key socializing arena for language practices due to the variety of age and position of the siblings; the ever-looming possibility of conflict also equip children with abilities for conflict management and resolution. Using Conversation Analysis, this study examines data from videorecordings of a family including two parents and four children under the age of twelve during mealtimes and play. The analysis focuses on format tying, i.e. a way to produce new turns-at-talk by incorporating parts of a previous turn, within conflict talk among the siblings. We illustrate two functions of format tying: the first is in lending structure to argumentative moves, where format tying reveals affordances for escalating conflict. The second is the transformation of an initial conflict into verbal play, with the repetition triggering language reflexivity. Finally, we discuss format tying as a readily available resource for engagement within the siblings group, and its contribution to family politics.
... Mientras que las otras dos, denominadas "imposición" y "diferenciación", distancian a los interlocutores. En este sentido, se ha observado que el humor puede ser utilizado para modificar el flujo conversacional (Norrick, 2003), para generar una mayor participación en una conversación grupal (La Gaipa, 1977), para disminuir la agresividad de una afirmación (Dews, Kaplan, y Winner, 1995) o para mitigar situaciones conflictivas (Norrick y Spitz, 2008). ...
Resumen capítulo: El humor, como medio de comunicación social, posibilita la transmisión de información en una interacción social determinada y, debido a sus características específicas, es capaz de modificar la forma en el que el mensaje es interpretado. Como se puede extraer de estas palabras, el humor es un proceso social a través del cual se pueden expresar actitudes o emociones, así como influir en otras personas de formas muy diversas (procesos de persuasión, discriminación, establecimiento de relaciones interpersonales, etc.); es por ello que el humor ha sido considerado como objeto de estudio desde la Psicología Social. El presente capitulo se organizará en base a cuatro puntos claves para comprender la importancia del estudio del humor desde la psicología social. En primer lugar, se mostrará la relevancia del humor como acontecimiento psicosocial y su vinculación con la psicología social. En un segundo apartado se expondrán las funciones sociales del humor, resaltando los efectos que tiene a nivel interpersonal y grupal. En un tercer apartado se hará especial hincapié en un tipo específico de humor: el humor de denigración, el cual ha sido especialmente analizado en relación a eventos sexistas y racistas. Por último, se presentarán las consecuencias del humor de denigración a nivel endogrupal y exogrupal. Finalmente se hará un balance de los aspectos más importantes.expuestos a lo largo del capítulo así como de los retos de investigación que se plantean en la actualidad en el estudio de este tipo humor. Palabras clave: psicología social, humor de denigración, relaciones intergrupales, prejuicio.
... When the humor climate in the team is perceived as positive, regardless of whether it is targeting someone or something in-group or out-group, it will be able to strengthen the group. This assumption is in line with previous research indicating that positive humor is beneficial for team functioning, especially when the team is dealing with stressful situations or intra-team conflicts (Norrick and Spitz, 2008;Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012). In contrast, a negative humor climate may be detrimental and have potentially dysfunctional consequences for individuals (e.g., reduced satisfaction and wellbeing; Kuiper and McHale, 2009), and groups (e.g., reduced cohesion and increased conflicts; Wood et al., 2007). ...
In sport teams, humor is an essential element that influences communication processes, and plays an important role in group dynamics. Despite this, no current instrument is presented in the literature to measure humor climate in sport teams. Therefore, the current study presents the development and initial validation of the Humor Climate in Sport Scale (HCSS). The aim was to assess content, structural and concurrent validity of the developed instrument, and to examine differential item functioning (DIF) as a function of sex. Three different phases were completed in this study. The first phase involved focus groups (n = 5) that explored humor as communication in a team sport context. In phase 2, information from the focus groups was used to create a pool of potential items for the questionnaire. Two discussion groups with sport science students contributed to the development of 80 potential items, that two different expert groups then assessed for item quality. The final version of the instrument after this phase contained 14 items, representing three different humor dimensions. In phase 3, two independent samples with a total number of 776 participants were recruited for the psychometric evaluation of the instrument. EFA, ICM-CFA, and ESEM analysis were performed, supporting a three-factor structure with positive humor, negative humor in-group, and negative humor out-group. In addition, partial DIF as a function of sex on the negative humor dimensions was found, indicating differences in how male and female interpret the negative humor items. The findings in the current study expand our understanding of humor in sport teams and may be a starting point for further research on humor climate in sport teams and its role in group function.
... Siblings can rapidly shift from intensely positive to intensely negative interactions. Thus, positive affect during sibling conflict may function exclusively to lighten the mood and offer a break from intense conflict (Norrick & Spitz, 2008). ...
Early adolescents (aged 12-15) were observed during dyadic conflict discussions with their siblings ( n = 23) and mothers ( n = 32) in their homes. The verbal conflict behaviors and affect of family members were coded continuously. Sequential analyses identified temporal associations between individuals’ affect and their own and their partners’ verbal conflict behaviors. In addition, within-family and across-context similarities in behavior were examined. Results revealed that while many links between emotion and behavior were consistent with previous research (e.g., attack/assert when frowning/upset, withdraw/concede when sad), several differences emerged depending on the relationship (sibling vs. mother-adolescent) and position in the family (e.g., adolescent vs. mother). Furthermore, many within-family similarities were observed in responses to emotion, while adolescents showed few similarities in their behavior across contexts. Results are discussed in relation to the developmental context of early adolescence and family systems theory.
... During this research, we also explored other tactics, including the use of self-deprecating and superiority-based humor in sponsorship announcements to reduce agonistic emotion. Humor is often deployed to reduce tension, conflict and anger in inter-personal relations (Norrick and Spitz, 2008). However, we found both types of humor to be ineffective. ...
Purpose: sponsorships involving foreign brands are ubiquitous, but those involving a company from an animosity-evoking country can adversely affect rather than enhance domestic consumers’ attitude towards the brand. This paper explains the mechanisms by which brand denigration occurs, introducing and validating a model of the animosity transfer process as well as considering if various framing and timing strategies attenuate or lead to adverse consumer responses.
Design/methodology/approach: study 1 tests the animosity transfer model, utilizing a scenario in which English consumers respond to a German brand sponsoring the England soccer team. Study 2 assesses the generalizability of the model in the context of Indian consumers’ responses to sponsorship of their cricket team by a Chinese company, and the extent to which an honest framing of the sponsorship choice through the announcement affects outcomes. Study 3 returns to an England-Germany country dyad, testing whether priming consumers with information about the sponsorship prior to a full announcement, attenuates or intensifies the impact of animosity on the studied outcomes.
Findings : the three studies demonstrate that when consumers learn of a sponsorship, it triggers an evaluation process in which the agonistic emotion (anger) they feel plays a pivotal role. More intense emotional appraisals weaken perceptions of sponsor-sponsee congruence, which together act as consecutive process variables mediating the relationship between animosity and sponsorship outcomes. Framing the sponsorship announcement with an honest justification for the partnership can improve outcomes but not amongst those with the highest animosity. Providing consumers with an advanced warning (preannouncement) of the sponsorship also amplifies consumers’ unfavorable evaluations showcasing how difficult animosity is to manage in this context.
Originality/value: the animosity transfer model aids understanding of the mechanisms by which animosity affects brand attitude for foreign (out-group) sponsors. It identifies how animosity generates agonistic emotions and in turn weakens perceived fit between the sponsor and sponsee, leading to adverse consumer responses.
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... In critical situations, humor can "appease" not only the person responsible for the humor, but also the recipient (e.g., Lynch, 2002;Meyer, 2015). Indeed, humor often appears to act as a peacemaker in contentious interactions (Norrick & Spitz, 2008); it eases tension, smoothes over negative feelings, and creates a moment of positivity (De Koning & Weiss, 2002). This ability to rapidly relieve tension (creating a sudden change from bad to good -Shurcliff, 1968) may make it superior to apologies or financial compensation. ...
Several psychological studies indicate that, in certain situations, humor can reduce tension and lead to a feeling of relief. In the literature on service management, however, the effect of humor in appeasing disgruntled consumers when services break down is almost unexplored. This paper seeks to answer the question: Can humor have a positive effect in such situations, leading to greater "leniency" on the part of the injured party, or does it intensify the consumer's negative experience of the service? We do this by analyzing consumer reactions to humor as a tool for "service recovery". We conduct a number of vignette experiments, the results of which confirm the positive effects of self-deprecating humor on customers, but at the same time show that the humor has to be experienced as particularly funny, otherwise it is less effective than traditional service recovery tools, such as a sincere apology or financial (or other) compensation.
... Disagreement does not necessarily involve language use that may be perceived by the interactants as impolite. Rather, it can challenge the boundaries of "politic" or appropriate linguistic behaviour when it includes conflictual interactions (Graham 2007, Norrick andSpitz 2008). ...
The paper presents an analysis of the language used on the Internet (social media) by Poles living in Norway. Emphasis is placed on identity construction, integration and impoliteness strategies. The material presented in this study was retrieved from a corpus which was collected as part of a project devoted to national identity in immigration discourse. The method of analysis presented in this paper follows Culpeper’s (1996) taxonomy of impoliteness strategies. The data under inspection illustrate several types of positive and negative impoliteness. The results of the study demonstrate that the Polish diaspora in Norway is only partially integrated and that the language Poles use while writing both about the Norwegians and, in particular, about other Poles is imbued with insults, negative associations and derogatory nominations.
... This often occurred when participants laughed and joked together. It has been argued that while humor can interfere with conflict resolution, it can also pause heated conflicts and defuse hostile emotions, allowing dyads to resume their discussion once calm (Norrick and Spitz 2008). Thus, this brief avoidance may indirectly promote productive conflict discussion. ...
How youth learn to manage emotions during mother-child conflict influences their socioemotional development. Ninety-four mother-preadolescent (aged 9-13, 57.4% female) dyads were observed during conflict discussions and completed questionnaire measures at one prior time-point (Time 1; ages 6-10) and one subsequent time-point (Time 3; ages 11-16) to the observations (Time 2). The temporal associations between individuals' emotional expressions and their own and their partners' verbal conflict behaviors were observed. Mothers and preadolescents were more attacking and assertive when angry, and more conciliatory and avoidant when sad. Neutral affect predicted the most constructive behaviors, while positive affect promoted avoidance. The responses were similar following their partners' emotions. Maternal conflict-escalating responses to anger were associated with difficult characteristics in earlier childhood and socioemotional difficulties in adolescence. Maternal and child de-escalation following sadness predicted socioemotional adjustment in adolescence. These results demonstrate that conflict resolution between preadolescents and their mothers is influenced by the emotional climate of the interaction, and that the management of negative emotions within the dyad is tied to youth's socioemotional development.
The topic of humor (and laughter) in healthcare contexts has attracted considerable scholarly interest, especially in professional-patient communication. Yet much remains to be investigated about its forms and functions in backstage inter-professional interaction from a discourse analytical/pragmatic perspective. In this light, this paper explores the role of humor in interpersonal conflict management in hospital handover meetings with the aim of providing insights into both the various functions this inconspicuous discursive strategy may perform on a macro-level, as well as the way this is achieved at the micro-level. Interpersonal conflict is said to be an inherent aspect of such high-stakes medical settings, and conflict management is of vital importance for negotiating patients’ cases and treatment paths. Drawing on authentic handover meetings recorded at a hospital in New Zealand, we provide useful insights into the ways in which conflicts are managed and medical knowledge is transferred in these backstage encounters. The paper shows how different kinds of potentially face-threatening humor is used to manage and avoid conflict by those in superior as well as those in more junior positions. Finally, we argue that these ways of ‘doing’ humor in conflict management are a reflection (and reinforcement) of the team’s close-knit social relations and directly address the high-stakes nature of these medical encounters.
La conversación coloquial se distingue por ser un género colaborativo donde los participantes buscan armonía y acuerdo. A diferencia de géneros conflictivos como tertulias televisivas o debates parlamentarios, la conversación coloquial no es inherentemente conflictiva, aunque no está libre de conflictos. Este estudio examina cómo se manifiesta lingüísticamente el conflicto en conversaciones espontáneas, basándose en indicadores estructurales, interaccionales y lingüísticos identificados en la literatura. Se utiliza un corpus de conversaciones familiares recogidas con micrófono oculto, etiquetadas por una interlocutora presente. El análisis compara la definición de conflicto en la bibliografía con la percepción de los participantes, identificando áreas de coincidencia y discrepancia, y reflexionando sobre las zonas de indefinición entre ambas perspectivas.
Decades of stigma research has shown that people draw on different coping strategies to manage stigma in their daily lives. Yet, scholar have paid less attention to how people deal with and manage feelings of stigma as they arise in ongoing interactions. Drawing on observations of police‐parent interactions, in this study I identify four common ways that parents of young offenders respond to police interventions: compliance, passivity, minimization of severity, and defensive attacks. I discuss how these parental responses shape and change the interactional dynamics between police and parents, and how they simultaneously may help the parents protect and regulate their sense of parental identity in interaction. Finally, although the stigma defenses I identify are based on police‐parent interactions, I conclude that the same responses may be found in other relatable fields and interactions.
This paper considers verbal conflicts at the workplace and asks how team members negotiate conflict termination. Our corpus consists of meetings where computer scientists discuss the progress of projects they are working on, a context where conflict resolution is crucial for the continuation of work. Following the literature, we define conflicts as continued disagreement. The analysis focuses on conflict termination formats that show whether a conflict can be resolved as well as episode length and disagreement mitigation that indicate the severity of the conflict. Power relations among participants are also discussed. Our results show that most conflicts end after two or three disagreements. Among the termination formats, submission is the most frequent, followed by stand-off and compromise. We further show that participants minimize conflicts by concluding them as soon as someone indicates their unwillingness to concede, whereas the pattern of conflict minimization varies with the termination format that participants negotiate.
The way humorous verbal communication is construed in a linguaculture can be analyzed within the framework of cognitive metaphor theory and its more discursive and cultural developments. Cognitive/conceptual metaphors are instrumental for framing humor as a communicative form which goes beyond mere aesthetic experience. This article focuses on the conceptualization of verbal forms of humor in Romanian. The examples are retrieved mainly from internet mediated communication, backed by corpus analysis, and compared to older literary examples (19th–early 20th century). The examples illustrate the stability of various metaphorical scenarios in the Romanian linguaculture. The analysis reveals that several conventional metaphorical scenarios exist in parallel, displaying what are the functions of humor in an emic perspective. In the case of the Romanian examples, the list comprises the disciplinary, aesthetic, and therapeutic functions. The main metaphorical scenarios are subsumed to (physical) aggression, food , and health domains. The scenarios associated with each domain emphasize a certain function: for example, the disciplinary function of humor relates to physical aggression, while the aesthetic function relates to food . However, the conventional scenarios also show combinations between these functions.
This volume presents innovative research on the interface between pragmatics and translation. Taking a broad understanding of translation, papers are presented in four different parts. Part I focuses on interpreting; Part II centers on the translation of fictional and non-fictional texts and spaces; Part III discusses audiovisual translation; and Part IV explores translation in a wider context that includes transforming senses and action into language. The issues that transpire as worth exploring in these areas are mediality and multi-modality, interpersonal pragmatics, close and approximate renditions, interpretese and translationese, participation structures and the negotiation of discourses and power.
This study explores whether leader humor can encourage staff to exceed job expectations in their positive behavior toward customers, even in the notoriously stressful context of the hospitality industry. Based on our findings, leaders who use humor are more likely to prompt employees to engage in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Leader humor affects customer-oriented OCB through the mediating effect of relational energy. In addition, employee traditionality and relational energy differentiation moderate the process. Using time-lagged data collected from 456 employees in 71 teams in China’s hotel industry, this study adds significant knowledge to the under-researched area of humor and leader humor in the hospitality industry. The findings suggest that hospitality leaders can implement humor to obtain positive effects by raising relational energy and triggering customer-oriented OCB, particularly among less-traditional workers and in situations of low relational energy differentiation.
Amusement is an emotion with power. It has the power to make us laugh, but it can also have a power over us (for good or for ill) to control our attention or memory. Amusement can empower our resistance to oppression, or it can itself become an oppressive force. Our amusement can make others feel shame. Amusement even has the power to affect (and be affected by) out moral assessment of others.
This volume offers twelve essays from leading and emerging scholars that explore the moral quagmire that is the emotion of amusement. It is a collection that considers the moral psychology of amusement from a range of perspectives, going as far back as ancient Chinese and Greek philosophy up to the most current psychological and sociological findings.
This study investigates the relational functions of shared laughter in workplace conflict interactions. It is argued that two intertwined but distinct relational concerns are addressed in conflict interactions, namely ‘face’ at the individual level and ‘relational dynamics’ at the interactional level. Based on a case analysis of an intercultural conflictual meeting, it is found that laughing together can be strategically deployed to achieve different relational goals at different stages of the conflict process, including launching aligned face attack, mitigating relational tension, and facilitating reconciliation. It is also found that the audience plays a proactive role in mobilizing shared laughter to mitigate relational tension. Under the verbal constraints of their participation role, they achieve this by transforming the speaker's mitigation laughter into a laughter invitation and thereby constructing metacommunicative laughables. The metacommunicative laughable makes it possible to achieve ‘laughing with’ without ‘laughing at’ and affiliation without disaffiliation in sensitive conflict situations. The process of co-constructing the metacommunicative laughables shows how the intercultural interactants can locally and collaboratively develop shared practices at the interactional level despite possible cultural differences in values, expectations, and practices.
Interactional humour in colloquial conversations in Spanish
This paper shows the results of an analysis of humor in conversations in Peninsular Spanish, balanced between the short disruption of the progress of conversation and the sustained humor along a sequence. 67 conversations of a total duration of approximately 945 min were compiled, and from these conversations 148 humorous sequences were extracted. The data shows a trend (40%) towards the Least Disruption Principle (Eisterhold et al., 2006; Attardo et al. 2011, 2013), since irony and humor occur in a single turn and responses are limited to a later turn in 14% of instances. However, our corpus supports a wide-ranging trend towards sustained humor (Attardo, 2019) over more than three turns (46%). Additionally, the type of response (Kotthoff, 2003) is analyzed: to the said (11.36%), to the implied (19.32%), laughter (13.64%) and mixed responses (55.68%). Our analysis of humorous sequences indicates that there is a consistent framework in which as mixed responses increase, the humorous mode is fostered in colloquial conversations.
This paper examines the factors that influence the outcome of exchanges containing refusals, focusing specifically on the role of irony. For this purpose, we analyse spontaneous conversations in English (SPICE-Ireland Corpus and Spoken BNC) within a discursive framework ( Eelen 2001 ; Mills 2003 ; Watts 2003 ) that considers the negotiation of opposing views as well as relationships between interlocutors. We propose a model that relies on the crucial distinction we draw between the ‘positional’ and the ‘interpersonal’ level, pointing at mismatches between the two when it comes to the presence of conflict. We determine the presence and (non-)resolution of interpersonal conflict based on evidence of relational work (Locher and Watts 2008) and show that although there is no fixed trajectory from irony type ( Kapogianni 2011 , 2018 ) to interpersonal effect, some ironies are more interpersonally risky than others.
This book deals with the construction of diverse forms of humor in everyday oral, written, and mediatized interactions. It sheds light on the differences and, most importantly, the similarities in the production of interactional humor in face-to-face and various technology-mediated forms of communication, including scripted and non-scripted situations. The chapters analyze humor-related issues in such genres as spontaneous conversations, broadcast dialogues, storytelling, media blogs, bilingual conversations, stand-up comedy, TV documentaries, drama series, family sitcoms, Facebook posts, and internet memes. The individual authors trace how speakers collaboratively circulate, reconstruct, and (re)frame either personal or public accounts of reality, aiming –among other things– to produce and/or reproduce humor. Rather than being “finished” products with a “single” interpretation, humorous texts are thus approached as dynamic communicative events that give rise to diverse interpretations and meanings. The book draws on a variety of up-to-date approaches and methodologies, and will appeal to scholars in discourse analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, ethnography of communication, and social semiotics.
Este livro reúne capítulos de pesquisadores que participaram do III Encontro do Gedim, em Vitória-ES, na Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. São capítulos que contemplam diferentes perspectivas de pesquisa que tomam como objeto de análise os discursos veiculados na mídia. O livro demonstra que o Grupo de Estudos sobre Discursos da Mídia (Gedim) tem a preocupação em partilhar com a comunidade acadêmica, com pesquisadores, com demais grupos de estudo e núcleos de pesquisa
que tratam de temas relacionados, bem como interessados em mídia e reflexões sobre
direito, gênero, sociedade, sexualidade, discriminação, violências e conflitos sociais.
This study examines how nondistressed families manage spontaneous verbal conflicts that occur during family dinners in the home. The focus is on who starts the conflicts, how long they are continued, and how they are brought to a close. The involvement of basic family roles (i.e., mother, father, son, daughter) in conflict management is described. Overall, conflict initiation was evenly distributed across family roles. The extension of conflict was constrained by a constant probability of a next conflict move occurring. Most of the conflicts ended with no resolution. Mothers were most active in closing off conflicts.
We examine the conversational structure and facework in everyday arguing. Our analyses are predicated on three turn exchanges in arguing, which consist of Speaker A in Turn 1 (T1) making a claim that is disputed by Speaker B in T2, following which A in T3 either directly supports his/her T1 claim or directly disagrees with the T2 disagreement. Examination of the acts within the second and third turn of 164 naturally occurring arguing exchanges revealed distinct types of acts with varying structural and pragmatic characteristics. Additionally, there were regularities in the T2–T3 sequences. It was proposed that speakers' attempts to do facework is a major determinant of these regularities. Analyses revealed that the more Speaker B's T2 act damages Speaker A's face, the more likely A is to respond with a T3 act that directly supports A's T1 claim.
The goals of the present study were to investigate the ways in which 2 people resolve differences of opinion during an argument, to describe the conflict talk associated with different argument outcomes and to explore the content of argument memories when the outcome of an argument varies. In examining these issues, 2 dimensions, in particular, were thought to constrain the types of conflict talk and resolution strategies that are used during an argument: the gender of the arguers and the instructions they received before negotiation.
The present study was designed to resolve some of the discrepancies and limitations of previous studies. Negotiations between adolescents were video and audio taped. The gender of arguers was varied so that an equal number of all male and all female dyads were compared to the same number of male–female dyads. Prior knowledge of each arguer was assessed before negotiation began and perceptions and reactions to the argument were assessed during the negotiation. 178 high school students participated in the study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article discusses disagreement sequences in German and Anglo-American disputes. It is argued that the context sensitivity of preference for agreement with assessments that Pomerantz 1984 found in her data has to be elaborated and extended. My findings suggest that the preference structure can change once a dissent-turn-sequence has been displayed; in this case, opponents are expected to defend their positions. The reduction of reluctance markers creates a new preference structure which itself has to be accomplished by all participants. Concessions, defined as a participant's agreeing to the central issue after his or her prior disagreement, show reluctance markers which are viewed as indicators of the dispreferred status in other types of talk. Concessions can be distinguished from partially agreeing presequences of dissent turns. Speakers move toward concessions stepwise. Unprepared position shifts can be regarded by the interlocutors as the inability to defend an opinion. Concessions, being an interactional achievement, reframe the dispute. (Conversation analysis, dispute, context studies, expectation management)
Previous research on children's arguments has neglected their initial phases, particularly how they arise out of children's ongoing practical activities. This paper examines how any utterance or activity can be opposed, the concept of opposition being at the center of any definition of argument. However, once opposition has occurred, it can be treated in a variety of ways, and a full-blown argument or dispute is only one possible and contingent outcome. Children analyze others's moves not only verbally, but nonverbally as well. Thus, bodily actions and presupposition are necessary components in the analysis of how arguments are started. Nonverbal oppositional moves may be at the base of semantically constructed disputes. When opposition occurs, it is to be taken to imply the violation of some rule or value. The meaning of that rule or value relative to children's culture is taken to have to do not with its content, but its usage in promoting a local social organization. (Conversational analysis, child language, social organization, presupposition, dispute genres, American English [middle class, Caucasian])
This chapter presents a notion of negotiation as a situated and locally developed process. The outcomes of negotiation and even the nature of compromise cannot be adequately understood in terms of pre-existent variables, such as the interests and bargaining positions of the negotiators, but is emergent from the negotiating process itself. Through an intensive analysis of a single exchange, the chapter describes how the participants get from suggestion to opposition and argument and from there to a decision that can be said to represent a compromise. The chapter examines one exchange that occurred during a meeting in a division of the Federal Trade Commission. The issue was the content of a memorandum that was to be sent from the division to the Office of the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. The Bureau, supervised the work of the division. The memo described the charges and evidence against the XYZ loan company, and suggested what orders to the company might be issued and what penalties might be assessed.
Drawing on such aspects of discourse as preference organization, turn-taking behavior, and forms of cohesion between turns during interpersonal conflict episodes, this paper presents a definition of interpersonal conflict sequences on the micro- and macro level of discourse organization. Based on this definition the sequential placement, the internal structure, and cohesive ties between different forms of disagreements in conflict sequences are investigated and two main structural types of disagreeing utterances-overt and pragmatic disagreements-are discussed. In closing, the structural properties of conflict talk are viewed in the broader context of studies in which 'aberrations' from the classical CA-model of turn-taking were found. It is proposed that these 'aberrations' can be explained by taking into account differing degrees of cooperativeness and involvement between participants.
Adolescents' understanding of societal conflict and of compromise resolution in the context of peer and authority relations was investigated. Six conflict stories were prepared for three social issues. Each issue included two similar stories that were counterbalanced for presentation in peer or authority context. The adolescents-ages 11, 13, 15, and 17-were asked to develop dialogues by continuing conversations from the stories with the aim of resolving the conflict. Responses were categorized on a 3-point scale: (1) noncompromise, (2) routine compromise, and (3) constructive compromise. In addition, one moral and one political dilemma were presented in order to relate conflict resolution to moral and political development. The major findings were an increase in frequency of constructive compromise with age and in peer vs authority context. Further, both moral and political development were significantly related to conflict resolution scores in peer but not in authority context. Results corroborate an interpretation that considers peer communicative relations of mutual respect and cooperation as a primary path to mature stages of social reasoning.
After positing both individual and family humor styles as logical extensions of individual conversational style and customary joking relationships, I apply a sociolinguistic discourse analysis to an hour of naturally occurring family interaction to show how this Kansas family uses ostensibly aggressive humor to the ends of solidarity, intimacy and the ongoing socialization of family members in a mindset of competence and hope. The humor strategies that emerge show the immense productivity of repetition as a resource for humor, including several types of imitation and impersonation, as well as other aggressive humor forms that can be subsumed under mocking remarks and replies. The analysis shows how the family uses humor to accomplish various interactional goals, foremost of which is a relational harmony, which is achieved largely through drawing all members into involvement in the interaction through humor.
This article explores the meaning and use of humorous remarks between doctors and patients in the obstetrical/gynaecological setting. Some elements common to the behaviours analysed can be summarized as follows: humour is used to reinforce existing power relationships in several ways; humour serves different communicative functions: sometimes used to move interview/talk along, sometimes used as comfort, sometimes used to stop patients from rambling on; the women clients use different humour strategies, depending upon whether they are interacting with nurses, midwives or doctors; power relationships shift as gender and institutional roles intersect. The nurses and midwives have more power when the doctors are not there. First we focus on the meaning and effects of this research field on women; we then move on to the social meaning of humour and finally concentrate on two studies carried out in some maternity wards and family health clinics in Italy.
Building on Becker's notion of prior text and Bakhtin's of dialogicality, I explore intertextuality in family discourse by tracing how three couples' conflicts about domestic responsibilities are recycled, reframed, and rekeyed over time, both between each other and in conversation with others: in one case with a friend, and in another with the couple's child. I use the term 'recycling' for situations where a topic is closed then arises again later in the same or a different conversation; 'reframing' for a change in what the conversation is about; and 'rekeying' for a change in the tone or tenor of an interaction. I trace a conflict in each of three families-the first two briefly, the third at length-in order to examine how speakers negotiate conflicts about the division of household responsibilities. In the third example, analysis helps explain why the issue of household responsibilities carries so much weight. In all three examples, restoring harmony was accomplished in part by reframing in a humorous key, and in ways that reinforced the speakers' shared family identities. The paper thus demonstrates how the abstract concept, intertextuality, actually works in everyday interaction.
This article explores the concept of relational practice, the wide
range of off-line, backstage, or collaborative work that people do
which goes largely unrecognized and unrewarded in the workplace (Fletcher 1999). The analysis identifies a range of
different ways in which people do relational practice in workplace
discourse, and critically examines the proposal that, as subtle support
work, relational practice is considered “women's
work.” Drawing on the large Wellington Language in the Workplace
database, it explores a variety of ways in which such relational work
is manifested in workplace discourse; the analysis focuses on specific
instances of relational practice, illustrating how such support work is
backgrounded and typically discounted in New Zealand workplaces. The
implications of the analysis for the gender/power dynamic are
explored. Discussed in particular is the hypothesis that manifestations
of relational practice differ in distinct communities of practice, and
the validity of the equation of relational practice with
“feminized” discourse is questioned. a
This paper examines conversational dialogue. It is divided into four parts. The first presents arguments for dialogic analysis, the second lists some failings, the third applies this critical view to the notion of a ‘reply’; the final part is an overview.
Preference is treated as a single concept in conversation analysis, but it has in fact developed into an assemblage of loosely related concepts. It has also been construed in a variety of mutually incompatible, and sometimes meth-odologically questionable, ways. This is due, at least in part, to a confusion between preference in its everyday usage and preference as a technical notion. This paper attempts to present a clear and unitary concept of preference and investigate the properties of that concept, differentiate related concepts (including conversational implicature), and reveal common confusions. (Conversation analysis, preference, methodology, implicature)
Tischgesprä. U ¨ ber Formen kommunikativer Vergemeinschaftung am Beispiel der Konversa-tion in Familien
- Keppler
- Angela
Keppler, Angela, 1994. Tischgesprä. U ¨ ber Formen kommunikativer Vergemeinschaftung am Beispiel der Konversa-tion in Familien. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt A.M..
Power and Politeness in the Workplace Confrontation Talk. Arguments Asymmetries and Power on Talk Radio
- Holmes
- Janet
- Stubbe
- Maria
Holmes, Janet, Stubbe, Maria, 2003. Power and Politeness in the Workplace. Longman, London. Hutchby, Ian, 1996. Confrontation Talk. Arguments Asymmetries and Power on Talk Radio. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Discourse, Consciousness and Time Elementary properties of argument sequences
- Chafe
- Wallace
Chafe, Wallace, 1994. Discourse, Consciousness and Time. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Coulter, Jeff, 1990. Elementary properties of argument sequences. In: Psathas, G. (Ed.), Interaction Competence. University Press of America, Washington DC, pp. 181–204.
Power plays-mother-daughter disputes in contemporary plays by women. A study in discourse analysis
- Alice Spitz
Spitz, Alice, 2006, Power plays—mother-daughter disputes in contemporary plays by women. A study in discourse analysis. Ph.D. dissertation, Saarland University.
Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature
- Chafe
Chafe, Wallace, 1982. Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. In: Tannen, D. (Ed.), Spoken and Written Language: Advances in Discourse Processes, vol.
Compromise formation in social conflicts
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Levya, Andre F., Furth, Hans G., 1986. Compromise formation in social conflicts. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 15, 441–452.
Spitz, 2006 among others): an action or utterance by a speaker A must be References Auer
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Schiffrin, 1985; Spitz, 2006 among others): an action or utterance by a speaker A must be References Auer, Peter, 1986. Kontextualisierung. Studium Linguistik 20, 22–47.
Forms of Talk University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Gruber, Helmut, 1996. Streitgesprä. Zur Pragmatik einer Diskursform Disagreeing: sequential placement and internal structure of disagreements in conflict episodes
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Goffman, Erving, 1981. Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Gruber, Helmut, 1996. Streitgesprä. Zur Pragmatik einer Diskursform. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen. Gruber, Helmut, 1998. Disagreeing: sequential placement and internal structure of disagreements in conflict episodes. Text 18, 467–503.
Everyday argument: the organisation of diversity in talk Handbook of Discourse Analysis
- Schiffrin
- Deborah
Schiffrin, Deborah, 1985. Everyday argument: the organisation of diversity in talk. In: van Dijk, T.A. (Ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Academic Press, London, pp. 35–46.
Discourse Strategies Contextualization revisited The Contextualization of Language
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Gumperz, John, 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Gumperz, John, 1992. Contextualization revisited. In: Auer, P., Di Luzio, A. (Eds.), The Contextualization of Language. Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 39–54.
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic The concept of preference in conversation analysis
- Bergson
- Henri
Bergson, Henri, 1911 [1899]. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Macmillan, New York. Billig, Michael, 2005. Laughter and Ridicule. Sage, London. Bilmes, Jack, 1988. The concept of preference in conversation analysis. Language in Society 17, 161–181.
Conversational Joking Engaging Humor Partnerbezogenes Argumentieren? Jugendliche Mä im Konfliktgesprä mit ihrer Freundin Communication hierarchies in humour: gender differences in the obstetrical/gynaecological setting
- Neal R Norrick
Norrick, Neal R., 1993. Conversational Joking. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Oring, Elliott, 2003. Engaging Humor. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Pikowsky, Birgit, 1993. Partnerbezogenes Argumentieren? Jugendliche Mä im Konfliktgesprä mit ihrer Freundin. Mutter und Schwester, Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.M.. Pizzini, Franca, 1991. Communication hierarchies in humour: gender differences in the obstetrical/gynaecological setting. Discourse and Society 2, 477–488.
Sprachliche Mittel der Konfliktreduzierung in Streitgesprächen
- Schwitalla
Schwitalla, Johannes, 1987. Sprachliche Mittel der Konfliktreduzierung in Streitgesprä. In: Schwank, G., Schwitalla, J. (Eds.), Konflikte in Gesprä. Narr, Tü, pp. 99–175.
Elementary properties of argument sequences
- Coulter
Oh! That's a pun and I didn’t mean it
- Sherzer