Volume 18, Issue 1

Every interacting social group develops, over time, a joking culture: a set of humorous references that are known to members of the group to which members can refer and that serve as the basis of further interaction. Joking, thus, has a historical, retrospective, and reflexive character. We argue that group joking is embedded, interactive, and referential, and these features give it power within the group context. Elements of the joking culture serve to smooth group interaction, share affiliation, separate the group from outsiders, and secure the compliance of group members through social control. To demonstrate these processes we rely upon two detailed ethnographic examples of continuing joking: one from mushroom collectors and the second from professional meteorologists.

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that irony aptness is sensitive to both ironiness and sophistication. In a previous study, we established irony gradedness as a function of narrowing the gap between what is said and what is referred to (Giora et al. 2005b). Experiments 1A and 1B show that the higher the ironiness of a target, the more apt it is. This has been replicated for echoic ironies (Sperber and Wilson 1986) as well. Indeed, in Experiment 2, we show that echoic ironies rated as highly ironic due to the accessibility (rather than explicitness, see Gibbs 1986; Yus 2001) of the source of their echo are also evaluated as highly apt. In addition, we show that sophistication (as defined by Raskin and Triezenberg 2003) and aptness ratings are highly correlated, though ironiness and sophistication are not.

The central aim of this paper is to apply the General Theory of Verbal Humor (henceforth GTVH; Attardo 2001) to conversational narratives and to integrate it with sociopragmatic approaches. We consider script opposition as a necessary prerequisite for humor and its perlocutionary effect (i.e. eliciting laughter) as a secondary criterion for the characterization of a narrative as humorous. Despite the fact that one of the most common social functions of humor is the construction of solidarity and in-group identity, there is relatively little sociolinguistic research on this issue. Thus, a more particular aim of this paper is to illustrate how humor can be a flexible discourse strategy to construct particular aspects of social identities by focusing on a particular aspect of humor encoded in GTVH terms as the knowledge resource of “target”. It will be shown that, in our conversational data coming from a cohesive group of young Greek males, interlocutors select targets either outside or inside their group and that, while in the first case humor criticizes the “other” behavior, in the latter case it serves as a correction mechanism of in-group behavior in a rather covert manner. In both cases, the target of humor reinforces the already existing bonds among group members, while bringing the evaluative dimension of humor to the surface. It is therefore suggested that the target of humor is an important heuristic tool for describing its social function, revealing how it is exploited by conversationalists to project their shared beliefs and values, i.e. their social identity.

Humor can ease social relations, be exploited to further productivity, and improve the environment and the general well being of the individual. Through humor people negotiate their value as men and demarcate insider/outsiders relations. At the same time, humor often interrupts the flow of work, slowing down productivity, and wasting time and money. Humor can also be exploited ambiguously to further self-interest and justify and re-interpret one's deceitful conduct. In the ambiguously humorous environment, people further their interests, crossing the boundaries of licit and illicit, offensive and acceptable behavior. Humor offers a place to dream a better reality, but it can also actually transform the context. Humorous topics revert around scatology, sex, gender, fish, and value manipulation. These are central fish market themes that define each other relationally. Whatever the practical purpose and the change of context that the jokes are aiming at, jokers construct primarily themselves and in the process they give sense to their life. In this paper I try to draw a picture in which the individual, with his desires and needs, and the culture at large come together. Almost all names, family names and nicknames are pseudonyms, unless indicated otherwise.