Kotthoff Helga - oral genres of humour, MA - References
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Pragmatics 17:2.263-296 (2007)
International Pragmatics Association
ORAL GENRES OF HUMOR:
ON THE DIALECTIC OF GENRE KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVE
AUTHORING
Helga Kotthoff
Abstract
The article discusses humorous conversational activities ((e.g. jokes, teasing, joint fantasizing) in the
context of genre theory. The high degree of creativity, emergent construction and artistry typical of humor
call for a flexible concept of genre which makes sense of modifications and transgressions in
communicative processes. Some forms of conversational humor are generic, for example, standardized
jokes, joint fantasizing or teasing. Other forms exploit our knowledge of serious genres and activity types
(thereby relying on it): e.g. humorous stories about problems, humorous gossiping or counseling. Here the
keying is done from the start in such a way that a serious mode of understanding is undermined. Generic
boundaries are often transgressed and hybridized in joking; new sub-types arise, such as absurd meta-
jokes which violate the well-known expectation of a punch-line or other features of the genre.
Nevertheless, the realizations of these genres are related only by a sort of family resemblance. The
concept of intertextuality plays another important role in analyzing oral genres of humor. Genre
knowledge is also employed when the speakers violate expected patterns in such a way that further
information is located precisely in the violation. The article shows humorous co-construction as an
emergent phenomenon, which plays with genre knowledge.
Keywords
: Genre; Artistry, Intertextuality; Conversational humour; Emergent construction; Typification;
Hybridization; Keying; Performance; Teasing; Narration.
0. Introduction
Humor challenges genre theories whose concept of genre imposes an excessively high
standard of rigor and is too narrowly based on an interest in classifying ideals of pre-
patterned discourse. The high degree of creativity, emergent construction and artistry
typical of humor call for a concept of genre which makes sense of modifications and
transgressions in communicative processes, as shown by Luckmann (1986, 2002),
Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995), Günthner/Knoblauch (1995) and Muntigl & Gruber
(2005). Some forms of conversational humor are generic, for example, standardized
jokes. Other forms exploit our knowledge of serious genres and activity types (thereby
relying on it). Despite, or better because of this, generic boundaries are often
transgressed and hypridized in joking; new sub-types arise, such as absurd meta-jokes
which violate the well-known expectation of a punch-line or other features of the genre.
1
The paper’s first version is preprinted in Teun van Dijk (ed.) (2007): Major Works in Discourse
Studies. New Dehli: Sage.
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Helga Kotthoff
There are genres such as teasing which much more than jokes reflect their emergent
construction. We can define prototypes of teasing (and other humor genres), but the
genre is nevertheless realized in a great variety of ways. Linguists have also identified
some basic generic features of stories, but there are as well many sub-types of humorous
stories demanding a certain style of performance, a special framing and significant
deviation from their serious counterparts. There are also genres for which we lack a folk
taxonomy but which are nevertheless quite generic in their dialogical structure and
emergent performance (i.e. joint fantasizing).
I will take a close look at the above-mentioned genres and discuss how genre,
contextualization and keying relate to each other. Conversational humor often works
with contextualization procedures such as code switching, social stylistics, features of
oral art, repetition, marked wording, prosody, interjections, laughter, mimicry, etc. that
create a humorous keying. These cues index the continually changing contextual
presuppositions necessary for situated interpretations in oral discourse. Much of
spontaneous humorous discourse involves conversational inferencing in the sense of
Gumperz (1982).
Finally, I will discuss what it means for a genre such as gossip to be performed
as a play with gossip. Is “playing gossip” still gossip? Intertextuality is another
important concept that I draw upon.
1. Genre in the sociology of knowledge and in sociocognitive studies
Communicative processes following more or less fixed patterns are called "genres."
Luckmann (2002: 163) describes typification and routinization processes as going on
naturally in human action. It comes as no surprise that in the course of history
interlocutors consolidate certain structural expectations about how an activity might
begin, develop and come to an end, what role relations it allows, where it typically takes
place, what its reputation is, and what functions it is able to realize.
Like poetics, theology and literary criticism, classical rhetoric works with a
genre concept. Because of the excessive demands for rigor and clarity expected in
scientific definitions of genre, "thus far in the illustrious history of the discipline, not so
much as one genre has been completely defined" (Dundes, cited following Swales 1990:
34). Genre theorists have mainly been preoccupied with written texts, whereas the work
of Bakhtin (1986/1994) and Voloshinov (1929/1975) prompted a 'communicative turn'
in genre theory, as discussed by Günthner/Knoblauch (1995). The two authors opposed
a static concept of genre such as the ones common in folklore studies and literary
criticism. In linguistic anthropology (Hanks 1995; Foley 1997), and likewise in
sociocognitive studies (Berkenkotter & Huckin 1995), there is a tendency to no longer
consider genres as static, monological products, but rather to adopt a performance-
centered approach and to study genres in the process of their interactive production
within a conversational and socio-cultural context. Even for written, academic genres
Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995) and Bhatia (2004) show a range of appropriations of
generic resources bending generic norms to create hybrid forms, thereby highlighting
intertextuality as well as interdiscursivity. This includes showing how and why speakers
violate conventions and index originality.
Conversation Analysis has also had an important influence on genre research.
Sacks (1974, 1978), for example, analyzed joke- telling in natural settings. He showed
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how joke-telling suspends the normal turn-taking procedure. For the length of the joke,
the teller reserves the right to speak. This is why jokes are usually introduced before
they are told. The announced intention to tell a joke must first be ratified by the
prospective listeners.
Joke-telling is temporally and sequentially organized. The story unfolds in a
simple series of events located in time (Sacks 1974, 1978). The sequential structure of
the joke relies on a series of implausibilities. In order for a joke to be received as such, it
is necessary from the very beginning to secure an appropriate reception by the listeners.
The conflation of temporal and sequential order allows the sequence of events to appear
coherent.
Earlier studies have suggested that disbelief is suspended for the length of the
joke. Sacks, however, emphasizes that the implausibilities of jokes must be handled
systematically. Jokes are not invalidated by implausibility, but rather implausibilities
help to secure the appropriate reception through the canonical order of time (1974: 337).
He writes that in receiving a story listeners should believe the events being told; if
necessary, they are expected to suspend 'disbelief'. In telling a joke, the teller
concentrates on constructing the punch-line so that listeners can figure it out (get it) as
easily and quickly as possible. Recipients should understand a joke directly, without
receiving hints or additional information, and laughter is the preferred and desired
reaction. But Sacks also showed that joke-telling can be used for context-specific
purposes. Speakers can, as is the case in Sacks' (1978) example, use jokes to show their
knowledge of sexual behavior. An interlocking of functions and goals arises. Of course,
one function of jokes is to amuse people. Individual and context-specific functions can
also be added. Genres may be reframed strategically in various ways. As Günthner and
Knoblauch (1995: 7) explain, reframing can only succeed if there are pre-fixed
communicative patterns.
Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995: 2) argue with Bakhtin (1981) that genres are
sites of tension between unifying and stratifying forces. “The authentic environment of
an utterance, the environment in which it lives and takes shape, is dialogized
heteroglossia, anonymous and social as language, but simultaneously concrete, filled
with specific content and accented as an individual utterance” (p. 272). They see genres
as inherently dynamic rhetorical structures that can be manipulated according to the
conditions of use, and they conceptualize genre knowledge as a form of situated
cognition. Günthner and Knoblauch hold that pre-patterning is located on three different
structural levels: The level of internal structure, the situative level and the level of
external structure. Many features of the internal structure of jokes can be identified. At
the situative level, it remains clear that joke-telling is typical of informal settings. It may
be used to deformalize a context. The external structure is quite loose, because we
seldom find situations that make joking obligatory. One such occasion is the German
"Büttenrede," a speech delivered during the Carnival season. And there are situations
when joking is forbidden, for example, at funerals. There is an ideology underlying
standardized joking, as there is for every genre. In Germany, and perhaps throughout
Western Europe, men were in the past more likely to tell jokes in the public than
women. There was a critical meta-discourse about jokes. Many jokes were, for example,
regarded by the women's movement as carrying sexist messages. Most jokes took place
in a male world; women were often the butt of jokes (Legman 1970; Kotthoff 2006a).
Then the women's movement began to produce numerous jokes aimed at men. In this
way, the genre gained a new status in society’s communicative household.
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Helga Kotthoff
Briggs/Bauman (1992: 147), also applying Bakhtin's concept of intertextuality -
describe as an "intertextual relationship" a linkage of texts that are "ordered, unified,
and bounded, on the one hand, and fragmented, heterogeneous, and open-ended, on the
other." Günthner and Knoblauch (1995: 21) sum up approaches that underline the
interrelationship between generic speech practices and social structures, values and
ideologies. With Luckmann they see genres as part of a cultural system, as an important
link between language and culture. Speakers are always open to modifying typified
forms of communicative behavior. I see this flexibility as the advantage of discussing
genres within the context of the sociology of knowledge. It is perfectly in line with new
approaches from applied linguistics such as Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995) and Bhatia
(2004). Knowledge of typified genre realization frees speakers to inscribe new social
meanings into a genre. Identical realignments hold true for everyday communication, as
has been discussed in connection with the evolution of the creative arts:
How a competent reader approaches a work of literature, his attitude and expectations,
depend importantly upon the genre he sees it as exemplifying. A work that rebels against
genre-conventions equally relies on the reader's recognition of the conventions being
rejected. Aesthetically relevant features of a work may stand out only if its reader has a
background awareness of the historical development of the genre, or of the style, that the
work is transforming in its distinctive way and perhaps without direct allusions within the
text itself. The work demands to be seen against the foil of the whole tradition from which
it stems, and which it modifies by its very existence. (Hepburn 1983: 496, cited following
Swales 1990: 37).
It is also the case that humor is produced and perceived in relation to the norm
constituted by codification. The fact that communicative activities violate the norms of
their genres does not mean that those genres necessarily disappear.
I will look at jokes, teasing activities, humorous stories, joint fantasizing,
humorous gossip and humorous counseling in order to discover the creative potentials
that depend on genre knowledge.
2. Beyond the standards of standardized jokes
The genre of the "joke" is familiar to everyone in our culture, and this can be relied on. I
have already summarized Sacks' joke analysis. He writes that the joke, constructed as a
test of comprehension, always makes special interpretative demands on reception (1974:
346). The demands for plausibility and coherence are different from those in serious
discourse. Freud already in 1905 referred to the high ‘density’ of jokes. Sacks (1978:
259) stresses that there are no divergences from the central focus. 'Embellishment' is
typical of stories, but not of jokes. Everything should be eliminated in jokes that does
not direct attention to the punch-line.
But there are indeed aesthetic strategies that improve a joke.
The next joke was told in the US state of Minnesota during a dinner shared by several
friends. David, Wendy and Vivian are Americans, Roland is German.
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Datum 1
David (D), Vivian (V), Wendy (W), Roland (R)
1 D: ...which remInds me of a JOke i wanna tell you.
2 W: oh yeah. hehe
3 D: uhm
4 V: dAve it's time to GO.
5 W: oh NO:::: hehe
6 V: hehehe
7 D: uh this uh THIS guy came over from EUrope
8 in about the MIddle of eighteensIxty you know,
9 around that PEriod, mIddle eighteenhundreds
10 Anyway, SOMEwhere in there, (-)
11 and the REAson he came Over of course is to make
12 his fOrtune in this new LAND.
13 he heard, the further wEst you WENT, the bEtter
14 chance you had at making a FORtune.
15 remEmber there was a GUY [that said,
16 W: [go WEST young mAn.
17 go WEST young mAn. go WEST.
18 W: yeah.
19 D: (? ?) i think his nAme was.
20 Anyway he comes over and he he lAnds in new YORK.
21 well All the money that he had OBviously was spent for passage. sEE'
22 W: yeah. ((glass is tipped over))
23 D: so, Anyway he uh he goes and he hears that there=s a Wagon train
24 that's being set Up (-) in new YORK,
25 and he wants to gEt on this Wagon train.
26 but (-) he has no MOney. so he goes to the Wagon master
27 and he says, uh sOmething about,
28 (-) uh i would like to go as far WEST as you people are gOing.
29 and he said, wEll, we're going ALL the way over to the Oregon
territory.
30 wEll he says, i'd like to go WITH,
31 but i don't have any MOney. he says,
32 but i'd be glAd to do ANY kind of wOrk
33 that yOU would like me to DO'
34 wEll, he said uh, how are you with a RIfle.
35 (-) and he says i'm uh really vEry GOOD with a with a gun. see.
36 so they said wEll, we're gonna set you on the last
37 Wagon of the wagon train.
38 you're gonna sit on the BACK and watch out for Indians.
39 okay? so they take Off from new YORK.
40 well they go through you know ohIo,
41 (-) and pennsylvAnia, and Illinois, and the whole wOrks,
2
The data stem from various circles of friends who were at the time of the recordings between 30 and
40 years old; most have an academic training background. The data are characterized in Kotthoff 1998.
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