Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-7drxs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T07:15:50.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Laughing together: laughter as a feature of affiliation in French conversation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Yvette Ellis
Yvette Ellis
Affiliation:
Department of French, The University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, email: y.m.l.ellis@ncl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I propose to show how the analysis of episodes of laughter in French interaction can be approached from the theoretical perspective of Conversation Analysis. Delicate microanalysis reveals how laughter is very carefully placed by participants during the course of their talk to achieve a range of interactional tasks. Using extracts from my corpus of naturally occurring French conversation, I examine how the collaborative construction of episodes of shared laughter contribute to the achievement of affiliation between co-participants. How the laughter is initiated, where it is placed and who joins in that laughter are shown to be significant to the task of constructing and displaying social relationships between the participants.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , September 1997 , pp. 147 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Drew, P. (1987) Po-faced receipts of teases. Linguistics 25: 219–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glenn, P. (1995) Laughing at and laughing with: negotiations of participant alignments through conversation. In: Ten Have, P. and Psathas, G. (eds.), Situated Order: Studies in the Social Organisation of Talk and Embodied Activities. International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and University Press of America Inc., pp. 43–56.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. (1982) Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1979) A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance declination. In: Psathas, G. (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York, Irvington Publishers Inc, pp. 79–96.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1984) On the organisation of laughter in talk about troubles. In: Maxwell-Atkinson, J. and Heritage, J., (eds.), Structures of Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 346–39.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1985) An exercise in the transcription and analysis of laughter. In: Dijk, Van and Teun, A. (eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis, vol. III. Discourse and Dialogue. London, Academic Press, pp. 25–34.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G., Sacks, H, and Schegloff, E. (1987) Notes on laughter in the pursuit of intimacy. In: Button, G. and Lee, J. R. E. (eds.), Talk and Social Organisation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd, pp. 152–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norrick, N. R. (1993) Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Psathas, G. (1995) Conversation Analysis: The Study of Talk-in-interaction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quéré, L. (1991) Construction de la relation et coordination de l'action dans la conversation. In: Conein, B., De Fornel, M. and Quéré, L. (eds.), Les Formes de la conversation, vol. II. Paris: CNET, pp. 253–88.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. and Jefferson, G. (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversationw. Language, 50: 696–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. (1987a) Analysing single episodes in interaction: an exercise in Conversation Analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50: 101–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. (1987b) Some sources of misunderstanding in talk-in-interaction. Linguistics, 25: 201–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schenkein, N. J. (1972) Towards an analysis of natural conversation and the aense of heheh. Semiotica, 6: 344–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straehle, C. A. (1993) ‘Samuel’ ‘Yes, dear?’ Teasing and conversational rapport. In: Tannen, D. (ed.), Framing in Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 210–30.Google Scholar