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Understanding Conversational Joking
A cognitive-pragmatic study based on Russian interactions
This book examines the diverse forms of conversational humor with the help of examples drawn from casual interactions among Russian speakers. It argues that neither an exclusively discourse-analytic perspective on the phenomenon nor an exclusively cognitive one can adequately account for conversational joking. Instead, the work advocates reconciling these two perspectives in order to describe such humor as a form of cognitive and communicative creativity, by means of which interlocutors convey additional meanings and imply further interpretive frames. Accordingly, in order to analyze cognition in interaction, it introduces a discourse-semantic framework which complements mental spaces and blending theory with ideas from discourse analysis. On the one hand, this enables both the emergent and interactive character and the surface features of conversational joking to be addressed. On the other, it incorporates into the analysis those normally backgrounded cognitive processes responsible for the additional meanings emerging from, and communicated by jocular utterances.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 310] 2020. x, 287 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 29 May 2020
Published online on 29 May 2020
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- List of figures | pp. vii–viii
- Transcription conventions | pp. ix–x
- Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–11
- Chapter 2. Conversational joking from a discourse-analytic perspective | pp. 13–104
- Chapter 3. Humor as a cognitive phenomenon | pp. 105–184
- Chapter 4. Conversational humor from a discourse-semantic perspective | pp. 185–258
- Chapter 5. Conclusion | pp. 259–261
- References
- Appendix | p. 283
- Index | pp. 285–287
“Understanding Conversational Joking by Nadine Thielemann offers a comprehensive overview of major theories and approaches to conversational humour and attempts at leveraging a variety of approaches, some of which have often been overlooked in humour studies. The extent of the review of the literature, as well as the examination of discourse examples from a variety of angles, provides a valuable source for humour scholars, particularly graduate students of humour studies. The eclectic approach of the book may not be entirely novel, but there are new, perceptive points of view offered in the book (e.g., adding interpretive sociolinguistics to conversation analysis) or some previous concepts are improved in definition, such as the very insightful discussion about norms, normalcy, frames, cognitive contrast, etc.”
Reza Arab, Griffith University, Australia, in The European Journal of Humor Research 11 (4), 2023.
Cited by (8)
Cited by eight other publications
Chang, Wei-Lin Melody
Ruiz Gurillo, Leonor
Ruiz Gurillo, Leonor
Sheikhan, Amir & Michael Haugh
2023. Epistemics and conversational humour in intercultural first conversations. In The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 335], ► pp. 110 ff.
Yus, Francisco
Yus, Francisco
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
[no author supplied]
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