Part of
Humor in InteractionEdited by Neal R. Norrick and Delia Chiaro
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 182] 2009
► pp. 143–164
Edited by Neal R. Norrick and Delia Chiaro
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 182] 2009
► pp. 143–164
Impolite responses to failed humor
The data discussed in this paper come from a larger project designed to address the neglected area of failed humor. A corpus of 207 elicited responses to failed humor was collected. The focus here is on the 44% that were coded as impolite. Findings show that most responses attacked the speaker using offensive, positive impoliteness strategies. Given that failing at humor is already humiliating, why might these interlocutors have opted to further punish the tellers with aggravated face attacks? Four somewhat overlapping reasons are suggested: the disruptive nature of humor, the expectations hearers held of the teller’s behavior, the characteristics of the study participants, and the identity concerns or face claims of the hearer.
Cited by
Cited by 11 other publications
Alvarado Ortega, M. Belén
2016. Descortesía y humor fallido en conversaciones entre hombres y mujeres. Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics 4:2 ► pp. 243 ff. 
Alvarado Ortega, M. Belén
2023. Communicative strategies in interactional male humour. In The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 335], ► pp. 152 ff.
Alvarado-Ortega, M. Belén
2016. Variability, adaptability and negotiability in conversational humor. In Metapragmatics of Humor [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 14], ► pp. 193 ff.
Cao, Ying, Chong Han, Xiangdong Liu & Adrian Hale
2021. ‘She is like a Yakshini’. The European Journal of Humour Research 9:4 ► pp. 110 ff.
Heaney, Dermot
2016. Taboo infringement and layered comedy: a linguistic analysis of convolution in Gervais and Merchant'sLife's Too Short. Comedy Studies 7:2 ► pp. 152 ff.
Kleinaltenkamp, Michael, Christine Mathies & Sarah Gansky
2015. Humor in Dienstleistungsinteraktionen – Was wir (nicht) wissen. In Aktuelle Aspekte in der Dienstleistungsforschung, ► pp. 145 ff.
Priego-Valverde, Béatrice
2021. Failed humor in conversation: disalignment and (dis)affiliation as a type of interactional failure. HUMOR 34:4 ► pp. 613 ff.
Stenström, Anna-Brita
2016. Review of Bell (2015): We are not amused. Failed humor in interaction. Functions of Language 23:3 ► pp. 384 ff.
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