Abstract
When we look at laughters uttered in conversation, we can easily realize that the traditional incongruity theory has not a general validity. Moreover, laughter is often uttered in a situation where there is no playful tone. Analyzing not only speakers’ but also recipients’ laughter, I will point out that any laugher laughs when he is not what he is presenting or has presented as self x and is leaking a minimum hint for the others to negatively qualify his ongoing self in such a manner, i.e. he is non (x). Therefore I would define laughter as a collaborative metacommunication to avoid mutual misunderstandg about the participation stance of self. Nevertheless the message \(\textless\)now he is not x\(\textgreater\) does not specify \(\textless\)what he is now\(\textgreater\). The equivocality of laughter derives from the basic nature of its message, the surrounding context and the availability of relevant informations.
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References
Milner, G.B.: Homo Ridens: Towards a semiotic theory of humour and laughter. Semiotica 5(1), 1–30 (1972)
Bateson, G.: A theory of play and fantasy. In: Step to an Ecology of Mind, pp. 177–193. Ballantine Books (1972)
Goffman, E.: Forms of Talk, pp. 70–71. University of Pennsylvania Press (1981)
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Tani, Y. (2009). Laughter: Its Basic Nature and Its Background of Equivocal Impression. In: Hattori, H., Kawamura, T., Idé, T., Yokoo, M., Murakami, Y. (eds) New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. JSAI 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5447. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00609-8_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00609-8_28
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