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Function and role of laughter in Malaysian women's and men's talk

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Published/Copyright: June 15, 2006
Multilingua
From the journal Volume 25 Issue 1-2

Abstract

Academically speaking, for many years humour has been studied in the spheres of philosophy, linguistics, sociology, psychology, anthropology and even the neurosciences. In its role, humour allows the speaker to represent a parallel reality, which often induces positive feedback such as laughter, smiles and grins from his/her fellow listeners. This gender study of humour, analyses the roles and functions as well as the similarities and differences of humour found in the recorded discourses of Malaysian males and females. Whilst males and females tend to share similar topics (such as sex), the data shows that both genders approach them in different ways. That is to say, males tend to be more direct as opposed to females.

Published Online: 2006-06-15
Published in Print: 2006-05-19

© Walter de Gruyter

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Preface
  2. Negation and the role of gender and ethnic identity in the discourse of Malaysian children
  3. Requests: Voices of Malaysian children
  4. On learning to be assertive: Women and public discourse
  5. Malay ESL college students' spoken discourse: The use of formulaic expressions
  6. Function and role of laughter in Malaysian women's and men's talk
  7. Patterns of repeats in Malaysian English
  8. Some peculiarities of Malaysian Iyer English
  9. The first keynote address of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the UMNO general assembly
  10. Levels of explicitness in political speeches
  11. Talking to older Malaysians: A case study
  12. Linguistic resources as evaluators in English and Chinese research articles
  13. Book reviews
https://doi.org/10.1515/MULTI.2006.006

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Preface
  2. Negation and the role of gender and ethnic identity in the discourse of Malaysian children
  3. Requests: Voices of Malaysian children
  4. On learning to be assertive: Women and public discourse
  5. Malay ESL college students' spoken discourse: The use of formulaic expressions
  6. Function and role of laughter in Malaysian women's and men's talk
  7. Patterns of repeats in Malaysian English
  8. Some peculiarities of Malaysian Iyer English
  9. The first keynote address of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the UMNO general assembly
  10. Levels of explicitness in political speeches
  11. Talking to older Malaysians: A case study
  12. Linguistic resources as evaluators in English and Chinese research articles
  13. Book reviews
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