In:Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness: A pragmatic analysis of social interaction
Valeria Sinkeviciute
[Topics in Humor Research 8] 2019
► pp. vii–x
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Published online: 31 October 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/thr.8.toc
https://doi.org/10.1075/thr.8.toc
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
xi
Chapter 1.Introduction
1
1.1The scope of this book
2
1.1.1Why analyse two English-speaking cultural contexts?
3
1.2A note on transcription conventions
5
1.3A note on the terminology used
5
1.4Research questions
6
1.5Structure of the book
7
Chapter 2.Meanwhile in the world of (im)politeness
11
2.1Traditional approaches to politeness and impoliteness
11
2.1.1Classic politeness theories and major critique of Brown and Levinson’s model
12
2.1.2A note on the onset of linguistic impoliteness research
16
2.2(Im)politeness in the era of discursive approaches
17
2.2.1In search of a definition of (im)politeness
22
2.2.2First-order and second-order concepts
24
2.2.3The metapragmatics of (im)politeness
26
2.3The view of (im)politeness taken in this research
28
Chapter 3.Data: From corpora to reality television to interviews
31
3.1Corpora: The British National Corpus (BNC) and The Macquarie Dictionary Database of Australian English (OZCORP)
31
3.2Reality television: Introducing Big Brother
35
3.2.1
Big Brother: The format and some local differences
37
3.2.2
Big Brother Australia 2012 and Big Brother UK 2012
41
3.3Reality television, performance and real life
44
3.4
Reality Television, (genuine) impoliteness, entertainment and (failed) humour
47
3.4.1
Big Brother: An impoliteness-oriented context?
51
3.5Qualitative interviewing
53
3.5.1The use of qualitative interviewing in this research
57
3.6Summary
59
Chapter 4.Conversational humour: Jocular verbal behaviours
61
4.1Overview of approaches to teasing – the epitome of jocular verbal behaviours
62
4.2A note on intracultural and intercultural research into humour
66
4.3Jocular face-threatening and face-supportive acts
68
4.3.1Potentiality and genuineness (context and non-verbal cues)
70
4.4Production-evaluation model
73
4.4.1Impolite jocular behaviour
75
4.4.2Non-impolite jocular behaviour
76
4.4.3Non-polite jocular behaviour
77
4.4.4Polite jocular behaviour
78
4.5A corpus-assisted study of teasing: Evidence from the BNC and OZCORP
79
4.5.1Teasing how? Ways of doing teasing
80
4.5.2Teasing why? Functions of teasing
83
4.5.3Teasing and what then? After-teases
85
4.6Summary
88
Chapter 5.Jocular verbal behaviours in Australian and British cultural contexts
91
5.1Jocularity, cultural values and interactional preferences
92
5.1.1
Not taking yourself too seriously
94
5.1.2Self-deprecation
98
5.1.3
Taking the piss/mickey out of someone and rubbishing your mates
101
5.2Public offence and/vs personal offence
108
5.2.1The preferred reaction
113
5.2.2Laughter and funniness in relation to public offence
118
5.3Summary
123
Chapter 6.
Frontstage and backstage reactions to jocularity
125
6.1Goffman, the presentation of self and reality television
125
6.2Frontstage and backstage in the Big Brother house
129
6.3From frontstage to backstage, from mock impoliteness to impoliteness
132
6.3.1
Big Brother Australia: “Everything he says to me it’s like he stabs me in the face”
133
6.3.1.1Frontstage I (1)
6.3.1.2Backstage I
6.3.1.3Backstage II
6.3.1.4Frontstage II
6.3.1.5Frontstage I (2)
6.3.2
Big Brother UK: “[S]he keeps winding me up about what happened the other day”
140
6.3.2.1Frontstage I (1)
6.3.2.2Backstage I
6.3.2.3Backstage II
6.3.2.4Frontstage I (2)
6.3.2.5Frontstage II
6.4Summary
147
Chapter 7.Negative evaluations of jocularity
149
7.1General issues
150
7.2Specific issues
153
7.2.1Similarities in the Australian and British Big Brother houses
154
7.2.1.1Association with a negative name/person/group/activity
7.2.1.2Breach of ‘social norms’/taboo topics
7.2.1.3Shifting the facts
7.2.2Differences between the Australian and British Big Brother houses
162
7.2.2.1Excluding (AU)
7.2.2.2Being better (AU)
7.2.2.3Criticising one’s body/personal items (UK)
7.2.2.4Reminding of a painful experience (UK)
7.2.3Division of the specific issues into categories
168
7.3Summary
170
Chapter 8.Interviewees’ attitudes to jocularity
173
8.1The metapragmatics of jocular verbal behaviours
173
8.2Different perspectives in the interviewees’ evaluations
176
8.2.1From the target’s point of view
178
8.2.2From the instigator’s point of view
179
8.2.3From the non-participant’s point of view
179
8.3Funny
p
vs funny
n-p
180
8.4Tendencies in interviewees’ evaluations of jocularity and impoliteness in the Big Brother houses
183
8.4.1Two-party Australian interaction: “The treadmill”
184
8.4.1.1Evaluations of the instigator’s comment
8.4.1.2Evaluations of the target’s reaction
8.4.1.3Interviewees’ feelings
8.4.1.4Interviewees’ reaction
8.4.2Multi-party British interaction: “McDonald’s on the pyramid”
206
8.4.2.1Evaluations of the instigator’s comment
8.4.2.2Evaluations of the target’s reaction
8.4.2.3Interviewees’ feelings
8.4.2.4Interviewees’ reaction
8.5Multi-party Australian-British interaction: Intracultural and intercultural evaluations
227
8.5.1Intracultural evaluations
229
8.5.1.1Australians about Australians
8.5.1.2The British about the British
8.5.2Intercultural evaluations
234
8.5.2.1The British about Australians
8.5.2.2Australians about the British
8.6Summary
241
Chapter 9.
Conclusions
245
9.1Contributions to the field
245
9.2Future research directions and raised questions
248
References
251
Subject index
273
