The co-construction of conversational humor to mask different interactional objectives

• Main Authors: Clarissa Rollin Pinheiro Bastos, Leticia Rezende Stallone
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS) 2011-08-01
• Series: Calidoscópio
• Online Access: http://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/calidoscopio/article/view/259

<p>In this paper we intend to contribute to the study of conversational humor in everyday conversation under an interactional perspective. We show the co-construction of humor among friends based on the concept of frame (Bateson, 2002), taking into consideration the lamination of frames (Goffman, 1974; Tannen and Wallat, 2002 [1987]; Gordon, 2008) and contextualization cues (Gumperz, 1982) in conversational sequence. We have used as data the audio recording of three meetings among friends, in which they prepare tasty meals, totalizing 16 hours of recording. We have evidenced that (i) conversational humor may work as a laminated frame masking requests, (ii) the participants are aware of their abilities to manipulate frames, using simultaneously play and another type of interactional frame and (iii) requests masked by play frames are not necessarily attended.</p><p>Key words: conversational humor, informal conversation, interactional frame.</p>