The Linguistics of Laughter
Subtitle: A corpus-assisted Study of Laughter-talk (Routledge Studies in Linguistics)
Publisher: Routledge
Published: August 31, 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780415381666
Description: "This book examines what speakers try to achieve by producing 'laughter-talk' (the talk preceding and eliciting an episode of laughter) and, using abundant examples from language corpora, what hearers are signalling when they produce laughter. In particular, the author focuses on the tactical use of laughter-talk to achieve specific rhetorical and strategic ends: for example, to construct an identity, to make an argumentative point, to threaten someone else's face or save one's own. Although laughter and humour are by no means always related, the book also considers the implications these corpus-based observations may have about humour theory in general."--Jacket.