Analyzing conversational data in GTVH terms: A new approach to the issue of identity construction via humor

ARGIRIS ARCHAKIS and VILLY TSAKONA

Abstract 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 eect (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 exible 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 rst 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. Keywords: General Theory of Verbal Humor; identity construction; humorous conversational narratives; target; group identity; laughter.
Humor 181 (2005), 4168 09331719/05/00180041 6 Walter de Gruyter

42 1.

A. Archakis and V. Tsakona Introduction

In a number of recent studies, it has been suggested that humor does not occur accidentally in discourse aiming solely at the participants amusement, but rather that it can be a very ecient means of the expression of identity, i.e. a persons sense of inclusion in (or exclusion from) a range of social roles and ways of being (Liechty 1995: 167). As Norrick suggests (1993: 52, 107109, 128130), humor allows conversationalists to demonstrate and test a wide variety of shared knowledge and attitudes. Along the same lines, Brown and Levinson (1987: 124) remark that since jokes are based on mutual shared background knowledge and values, jokes may be used to stress that shared background or those shared values (see also Cutting 2000: 24, 118). In short, it is arguable that one of the most common social functions of humor is the construction of solidarity and in-group identity, i.e. the sense of belonging to a group (see Holmes 2000: 159). In this paper, we draw upon the social constructionist paradigm (see Sarbin and Kitsuse 1994) in order to discuss the construction of identity. Our basic assumption is that identity is not an independent and discrete category, but rather that human social identities tend to be indeterminate, situational rather than permanent, dynamically and interactively constructed (Duszak 2002: 23). In other words, identity is something that people negotiate and co-construct in interactions, and not something they are. From this perspective, linguistic and conversational humorous choices can be seen as acts of identity, i.e. as discursive strategies by means of which people can construct their situated sense of social identity (see Holmes and Marra 2002a: 378). While humor serves a wide range of functions in everyday social interactions (e.g., Holmes and Marra 2002b), there have been few attempts to study the complex functions of humor in particular social settings s-Conde 1997) and illustrate how humor can be a (see Boxer and Corte exible discourse strategy to construct specic aspects of social identities. In relation to these issues, the work of Holmes (2000) and Holmes and Marra (2002a, 2002b) stand out, where the functions of humor are examined mainly within professional workplaces and are contrasted to functions within other types of settings. Regarding the classication of humorous functions, an interesting distinction has been put forward by Holmes and Marra (2002b: 7071), based on a critical discourse analytic approach (e.g., Fairclough 1995); they distinguish

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between reinforcing and subversive humor. The former reinforces existing power or solidarity relationships, whereas the latter challenges existing power relationships. The central aim of this paper is to contribute to this line of research, by applying the GTVH (see Attardo 1994, 2001) to an appreciation of the social interaction of everyday talk. More specically, we will concentrate on the functions of conversational humor in the oral narratives of a group of young Greek males. We will present an analysis of that part of our data which we consider revealing for the particular ways in which humor serves as a means of constructing youth identity and we will argue that our young informants build up their humorous narratives around one or more deviations from what they consider to be normal behavior, thus criticizing the deviation(s) presented. By focusing on the target of their humorous extracts (which is one of the six knowledge resources proposed by the GTVH for analyzing humor; see next section), we will identify who are the incongruous others these young people make fun of. We will conclude by suggesting that their humor is mostly (but not exclusively) reinforcing and, therefore, that it has a positive eect on the unity and solidarity of the group members through constructing and reinforcing group boundaries.

2. Dening conversational humor We begin our investigation by discussing the nature of humor and the circumstances under which an utterance (or a text) can be characterized as humorous. Various criteria have been proposed to identify humor and humorous utterances in analyzing spontaneous conversational data. Hay suggests that humor is anything the speaker intends to be funny (2000: 715, 2001: 56). However, she admits that this is not an objective approach, and she adds that background knowledge, tone of voice, audience reaction, and verbal clues all play an important role in establishing the humorous intention of the speakers. In a similar vein, Holmes supports the claim that humorous utterances are identied by the analyst on the basis of paralinguistic, prosodic and discoursal clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some participants (2000: 163; see also Holmes and Marra 2002a: 380). Despite their polysemous and multifunctional nature, all these paralinguistic and

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prosodic devices undoubtedly play an important role in the transmission of the speakers humorous intent. The most common of these devices is laughter. Humor is directly (though not necessarily; see next paragraphs) related to laughter, since it aims at provoking laughter. More specically, the presence of laughter is used in order to characterize an utterance or a text as humorous (Hay 2001: 56). Laughter may come from the speaker while producing his/her own text or from the audience as a reaction to what is being said. Jeerson (1985) claims that laughter is not always a matter of ooding out, but that it is rather a systematic activity, a methodic device that has to be examined in order to dene how and where it occurs. Moreover, Kottho supports that laughter is the contextualization cue for humor par excellence (2000: 64). It seems, therefore, that laughter can at least establish a humorous frame of interpretation for the utterance with which it occurs. It is obvious that laughter should not be overlooked, especially when analyzing oral data. However, humor researchers have to be careful in the examination of their data since it has been established that the presence of laughter does not necessarily imply the presence of humor. The relationship between the two is not a symmetrical one. Humor does not always result in laughter and laughter is not always an outcome of humor (Attardo 1994: 1013; see also Chapman and Foot 1996: 3; Morreall 2001: 294; Attardo 2003: 1288; for the variety and the polysemy of laughter see Poyatos 1993). Moreover, the absence of laughter is actually one of several possible reactions to humor and does not necessarily mean failure to understand the humorous import of the utterance. In her analysis of conversational data, Hay claims that the absence of any reaction to humor may imply either support of the speakers humorous intent, since no interruptions occur (2001: 65), or understanding but not appreciating the humor in certain cases (2001: 70). Moreover, a humor researcher has to take into consideration the facts that humor is based on incongruity and that people react to incongruity in various ways, only one of which is laughing. Fear, pity, moral disapprobation, indignation, disgust, confusion and problem solving are equally possible reactions to incongruity (see Morreall 1983: 19; Lewis 1989: 811; Schulz 1996: 2627). By contrast to the above, laughter reveals that people choose to adopt a playful (i.e. humorous) attitude towards incongruity, rather than a serious one.1 The presence, therefore, of laughter in the production and/or the reception of humorous

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utterances reveals that they are presented and/or perceived as humorous rather than serious. In sum, laughter by itself cannot be considered as an adequate criterion for dening a humorous utterance or text. It may reveal the conversationalists intention to face incongruity in a humorous way, but this is not always the case. In addition, laughter is not the only possible reaction to humor. To use Norricks terms (2000: 172), laughter is the desired effect of humor. A dierent basis for dening humor and identifying humorous texts is provided by the GTVH (in Attardo 1994, 2001), which denes humor by focusing on the semantic/pragmatic content of humorous utterances and texts and not on their paralinguistic or prosodic aspects. So far, the GTVH has been applied to the analysis of jokes and, most importantly, humorous narrative texts longer than jokes, such as poems, sitcoms, short stories, novels etc. (see Attardo 2001). Attardo claims that the GTVH is broadened to include (ideally) all humorous texts, of any length. Specically it is not limited to narrative texts, but also to dramatic and conversational texts, in which there is no narrator (or there isnt one in the text) (2001: 28). The GTVH suggests that humorous texts are divided in two classes. The rst class includes texts which are structurally similar to jokes and end with a punch line. The second class includes texts in which humor is not necessarily restricted to their end, but may be diused throughout those texts, encoded through words, phrases or sentences. In the rst case, humor is based on the punch line that brings a script opposition2 to the surface and causes the reinterpretation of the whole text (for the denition and the function of the script opposition in a text, see Raskin 1985 and Attardo 2001). The texts in the latter case contain a humorous component and a non-humorous one called serious relief (Attardo 2001: 89). The GTVH aims at describing and analyzing humorous texts of both types, with stronger emphasis on the second one. This is the reason why Attardo introduces a second kind of humorous line, the jab line (the rst one being the punch line). A jab line is a word, a phrase or a sentence including a script opposition. Thus, jab lines are semantically identical to punch lines. Their main dierence is their position: punch lines are always nal in a humorous text, while jab lines may occur in any part of it except for the end. Therefore, their function is also dierent: punch lines disrupt the ow of the humorous text, while jab lines are fully integrated in it and indispensable to the development of its plot (Attardo 2001: 8283).

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Both kinds of humorous lines can be analyzed using six knowledge resources: the script opposition, which is the necessary requirement for humor: a humorous text is fully or partially compatible with two dierent and opposed scripts (see also Raskin 1985); the logical mechanism, presenting the distorted and playful logic that causes the script opposition; the situation, including the objects, participants, activities, places etc. presented in the humorous text; the target, involving the persons, groups or institutions ridiculed by humor; the narrative strategy, referring to the text organization of the humorous text (narrative, dialogue, riddle etc.); and the language, which is responsible for the exact wording of the humorous text (for a detailed discussion of all the knowledge resources, see Attardo 2001: 128).

In the present study, we will use the GTVH in order to dene and analyze humorous utterances coming from natural conversations, i.e. spontaneous speech produced by one or more participants in an interaction. More specically, our data consist of humorous oral narratives. Since the GTVH has so far been applied exclusively to written narrative material produced by a single narrator, we will attempt to take a preliminary step towards broadening the theorys scope and, thus, reinforcing its explanatory power. In addition, for the purposes of the present study, the presence of laughter (whether produced by the speaker or by the audience) is considered and used as a secondary criterion for the characterization of the oral narratives under investigation as humorous. Therefore, narratives that contained one or more script oppositions (in the form of jab lines), but no laughter, either in their production or in their reception, were not included into the corpus used for the present study. To sum up, script opposition is considered here the necessary prerequisite for humor. However, at least in the analysis of oral conversational data, where laughter can be recorded and studied, laughter can be considered as an additional, secondary criterion for the characterization of an utterance or a text as humorous, since it reveals the conversationalists intention to adopt a humorous attitude towards incongruity.

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Finally, it should be pointed out that the identication of the interpretation processes undertaken by the audience of a humorous narrative is a very dicult problem, the solution of which lies outside the scope of the present study. For practical purposes, we can apply the old distinction proposed by Pike (1967; see also Taylor and Cameron 1987) between etic and emic analysis to the two criteria already proposed and consider the script opposition as a more etic, i.e. analyst oriented, criterion and the presence of laughter as a more emic, i.e. participant oriented, criterion for identifying humorous narratives.3 Thus, we adopt a principled analysis using reliable criteria: one may not get all the humor, but one can be relatively certain that the extracts included are intended as humorous.

3. The target of humor The general aim of the present study is to analyze data from everyday talk in GTVH terms. The more specic aim is to establish the social identity of a group of adolescents, by analyzing their conversations and their humorous narratives in particular. We intend to accomplish that by using the GTVH and, more specically, by focusing on the target, one of the knowledge resources proposed by the theory. We assume that a careful examination of the target of these adolescents humor would help us establish what it is exactly that they actually laugh at. Thus, it will be supported that such an approach can reveal important aspects of humor exploitation in the direction of social identity construction. The presence of a target in humor implies that humor can be considered as the expression of an aggressive intention. The superiority/hostility theory of humor (see Raskin 1985: 3638; Attardo 1994: 4950, among others) maintains that laughter results from a comparison between us and the others or between our former self and our present self. Humor (and laughter) occurs when this comparison reveals that we are in some way superior to the others or that our present self is superior to our former self. Through humor, the superior person can attack and attempt to modify the behavior of the inferior one. Since humor is based on incongruity, a humorous event has to deviate from the norm, i.e. to contradict what is expected or normal in given circumstances. In other words, a humorous event may usually be seen as violating the conditions of the real world (or of a world perceived as

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real). Since humor presents (sometimes even highlights) deviation from the norm, it is directly related to and results from evaluation or criticism procedures. Thus, humor can actually be used as a means of criticism. Moreover, since humor is related to laughter, it becomes a means of attenuated or covert criticism. Therefore, this kind of criticism originates in someone who considers him/herself superior and is directed towards someone or something considered inferior. In this sense, the target of humor may be a person, an institution or, generally, whatever causes an incongruity and is attacked via humor for exhibiting this kind of inferior behavior. Conversationalists laugh at the expense of whoever has caused the incongruity with his/her deviant or abnormal behavior or action. Besides, Bergson (1998) claims that laughter (which can be directly connected to humor, as mentioned above) has social meaning: it aims at correcting our way of behaving, whenever this behavior deviates from what is socially expected or approved. In sum, people who become targets of humor are presented as being responsible for incongruous/deviant actions. It will be shown that, in our data, interlocutors select targets either outside or inside their social group. It will be supported that, in the rst case, humor criticizes the other behavior, while, in the latter case, it attempts to correct in-group behavior in a rather covert manner. In both cases, humor and the target of humor in particular, highlights what is considered inappropriate for the members of this group. Therefore, their common beliefs and norms, which constitute basic aspects of their social identity, come to the surface and humor reinforces the already existing bonds among group members.

4.

The data

This paper is part of a large-scale ethnographic study of everyday interaction of youth groups in Patras (Greece).4 We have examined 30 conversations ranging between 30 and 80 minutes. From these conversations we have extracted 218 humorous narratives (as dened in Attardo 2001, see previous section).5 Out of those, 46 were focused upon, because they come from a single cohesive group of four young men. As our discussion will show, these particular young men are very sensitive in doing in-group identity via humor, targeting both out-group persons and institutions and

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group members. Since our study is intended to be a small-scale one, aiming mainly at testing the GTVH in natural conversations and integrating it with sociopragmatic approaches, we will restrict ourselves to this piece of data without making any unwarranted generalizations. The data specically analyzed in this paper are humorous narratives coming from two conversations among four young males of 18 and two researchers who are university students of about the same age, i.e. 20 years old. The researchers spent two months visiting the school of the informants at least three times per week. They attended the school-courses pretending that they were gathering material for their own university essays. During the breaks they tried to get acquainted with the students. They managed to develop a fairly strong bond with our four informants and tried to become their friends as peripheral members of the same group. They spent their leisure time together (mainly weekends), exchanging visits, going out for dinner or for a drink, etc. The recordings took place in one of the researchers home after a long period of frequent interactions. This place was chosen for convenience, since it provided a fairly noise-free environment for the recordings. The two conversations last 120 minutes and consist mostly of a succession of narrative performances (as dened in Georgakopoulou 1997), revolving around the school, family and religious life of the young friends. In this way the adolescents try to introduce the researchers into their everyday life. At the same time, the researchers try to keep their conversational contributions down to a minimum, by showing interest in the adolescents life and by maintaining a friendly supporting key (Hymes 1974). Notice that, as Blum-Kulka points out (1993: 391), the presence of a new audience (in this case the researchers) may sometimes trigger the narration of memories from a shared past. Our knowledge about our informants comes from their own linguistic representation of themselves in combination with the researchers ethnographic observations about them: we know that they wear their hair long, dress casually, wear earrings and badges of rock or punk groups and are usually scruy. They are also reported to often act in a way that gets them into trouble with their relatives, teachers, schoolmates, as well as the parish priests and the local policemen. The rock-band they have created is of special importance for them. Generally speaking, they systematically choose to refrain from the way their peers are expected to think and behave. All their claimed or inferred common beliefs and practices show their common mode of socialization and their shared frames of

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identication, as well as the close-knit relationship developed among them. In Eckert and McConnell-Ginets terms (1992: 464), the four friends form a community of practice, since their group is dened simultaneously by its membership and by the practices in which that membership engages. The informants appearance, reported actions and beliefs indicate a prevalent group identity which, according to van Dijk (1988: 123), involves a complex array of typical or routine practices, collective action, dress, objects [ . . . ] and other symbols. As we will see in the analysis of the data, our informants dynamically and selectively invoke elements of their youth (sub)culture in their discourse while doing their group identity (see also Georgakopoulou 1999: 125). Previous research on these particular conversational data has revealed the correlation between our informants discourse behavior and their identity. Specically, it has shown how their projected identity was the result of specic discourse choices (see Archakis 2002; Archakis and Vrakatseli 2002). In these papers, it has been supported that these adolescents express their identity as group members during their story telling activities, i.e. by the act of narrating in real time, the actual performance of a story before an audience (as dened in Blum-Kulka 1993: 363). More particularly, these adolescents have been found to use rst-person plural endings, to co-construct their narratives by using a collaborative, polyphonic oor full of interruptions, and to perform successive narratives with congruent structure and evaluation. This (sequential) organization of narratives with a high involvement style and, therefore, a positive politeness orientation (see Brown and Levinson 1987), presumably indicates that the four adolescents are close friends who share common experiences and values. On the other hand, in their tales involving the real-world building blocks used for the construction of the story (BlumKulka 1993: 364), the informants dene the characteristics and the behavior of people who do not belong to the same group with them, by using implicit or explicit negative evaluation. Such people are usually their relatives, teachers, priests or policemen, who appear in their stories and are portrayed as opponents. In what follows, it will be shown that our informants often select either the opponents or themselves to become the targets of their humor. Thus, we will attempt to describe the way humorous narratives contribute to the construction of our adolescents situated sense of group identity and more particularly to the construction of salient social boundaries (cf. Holmes and Marra 2002a: 379).

Identity construction via humor

Table 1. Description of the data Narratives including out-group target(s) Narratives including in-group target(s) Narratives including both out-group and in-group targets 3 9 12

51

Total

Monologic narratives Co-constructed narratives Total

20 12 32

1 1 2

24 22 46

5. The analysis of the oral humorous narratives All the humorous narratives examined for the purposes of the present paper are personal anecdotes, i.e. narratives relating authentic personal experiences or recycling a witty story heard elsewhere (for a detailed description, see Norrick 1993: 4557, 1994: 412). Almost half of them (22 out of 46; see table 1) are jointly produced narratives (co-narrations): usually two speakers participate more or less equally in the construction of the narrative (as described in Norrick 1993: 5759). Moreover, in GTVH terms, all of these narratives belong to the second type of humorous texts mentioned in the preceding section: they usually include two or more jab lines. No narrative ending with a punch line has been found in our conversational data (cf. Norrick 1993: 125). A close examination of the humor in our data shows that all the humorous utterances included in this corpus have a target.6 Furthermore, it seems that there are two kinds of targets in these adolescents humorous narratives: the out-group targets and the in-group ones. The out-group targets found in our data are some absent others, like the interlocutors parents, their relatives, their school teachers, school in general, the priests, the Church as an institution, the policemen, some of their fellow students who do not belong to the same peer group, or even unknown people who happened to be present when the narrated events took place. All those out-group targeted persons are considered to be the opponents for the members of this peer group (see previous section). In-group targets found in the humorous narratives are present or absent members of the same peer group, the whole peer group, or even the narrator himself. Finally, some narratives contained more than one in-group or outgroup target and some of them (12 out of 46; see table 1) contained both kinds of targets at the same time (but not in the same jab lines).

52 5.1.

A. Archakis and V. Tsakona Out-group targets

We will now present ve of these narratives, in order to describe the function of the target and of humor in general.7 In example (1), Yannis is the main narrator, while Nikos and the two researchers comment on various points of the narration. There is a single out-group target, Maria. Maria is one of Yannis schoolmates, she is described as a fairly good student and she does not belong in the specic peer group. It seems that Yannis and Nikos do not like her. During a biology test, for which Yannis came unprepared, he asked Maria to help him: (1) Yannis: Now see, I was taking a biology test on Monday, it was my rst class; there were me, Filippos and Anna and the teacher puts the three of us at the very back desks, one by one/ / Res(earcher)1: Ahaa. Yannis: I sit down and in front of me was Maria/ / Nikos: Oh, fuck ( )/ / Yannis: I was absolutely unprepared. As the teacher asks me to start writing, I see the questions on the paper, elliptic circle, I push her, Maria what is elliptic circle? Hurry up Maria, hurry up, hurry up Maria.8 And as I am writing now, on my desk there is only a piece of paper and a pen, nothing else, she gives me her whole notebook. Copy, she says to me and she puts it on my desk and she leaves.9 ((everybody laughs)). She turns her back on me putting the notebook open on my desk/ /10 Res.2: Oooh/ / Yannis: I throw it back to her, take it11 fucking asshole I tell her, what are you doing?12 And then/ / Res.1: Why didnt you take it? Couldnt you do that in view of every one? Yannis: I couldnt do it. The teacher would see me. It was the whole notebook, I couldnt hide it. A very small piece of paper was all I needed, not to mention that the answer wouldnt be right anyway/ /13 14 Res.1: Yes, the answer wouldnt be right anyway Yannis: Sure, she might have written down something else. Res.1: ( ) Yannis: Maria, Maria what is the elliptical circle? I asked her. And could you believe it? She passes back to me a small piece of paper and what does she write on it? What do you want, she says to me,

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why are you bothering me?15 Please stop doing that. Are you out of your mind, I write to her, write down what is an elliptical circle. And what does she say to me? Ill tell you later.16 Nikos: ((laughter)) She will tell you later ((laughter))17 Yannis: The bell rings. The teacher comes in/ / Nikos: ((laughter))/ / Yannis: She ((the teacher)) was behind my back, I was the only one, nobody else was in the classroom. Me and Maria. Maria was still in the classroom. Maria was sitting in front of me, the teacher was behind my back. Maria turns back to me and what does she say to me? Elliptical circle is. And the teacher can hear her.18 ((laughter from the audience)). And the teacher has her eyes on her, while Maria hasnt realized what is going on.19 Res.2: ( ) Yannis: Though I was trying to write, I throw the pen and I sit like this, and I say to myself let her talk and she had turned behind without the teacher seeing her and she keeps on saying.20 Elliptical circle is the cells which cause this ee:: e: and she keeps on talking, talking, talking and the teacher is watching her,21 well she is absolutely mad. Res.2: ((laughter)) Oh God. The analysis of the jab lines found in this narrative suggests that the humor is based on Marias incongruous actions: she was slow to give an answer to Yannis, while there was actually no time to waste (notes 8, 16 and 17); she left a notebook on the desk while they were having a test, instead of writing the answer on a small piece of paper and handing it to him furtively (notes 912). Yannis and one of the researchers also think that Maria would not know the correct answer anyway (notes 13 and 14). Although Maria was not sure about what Yannis wanted from her (note 15), she nally gave him the correct answer while the teacher was near them and was watching them (notes 18, 19 and 21). Even before the rst humorous utterance (see note 8), it is obvious that Maria is a possible target of humor: Nikos comment Oh fuck at the beginning of the narration indicates that they do not like her. All the jab lines appear to have the same target, i.e. Maria (there is a single exception in the jab line analyzed in note 20, where the teacher becomes the target of humor; needless to say, the teacher is also an out-group target). The audience seems to agree on the selection of the main target by making humorous contributions to the narrative (notes 14 and 17) and also by

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laughing at Marias incompetence. Thus, they align themselves with the narrators view about her behavior. Therefore, it can be argued, rstly, that the narrator evaluates the behavior of an out-group person via humor and, secondly, that the participants display and reinforce their common beliefs by commenting on the narrative and by showing their agreement with the narrators choice of target. Our next example (2), a jointly constructed narrative by Yannis and Nikos, describes the way Yannis uncle and father behaved when the Ecumenical Patriarch had visited Patras. It therefore includes two out-group targets: (2) Nikos: His uncle/ who was the one that/ / Yannis: Well my uncle/ the Ecumenical Patriarch had come to Patras a month or so ago and/ my uncle was going to Saint-Andreas church and as he was trying to get into the church, well all around there was a regular crowd of policemen, a lot of security, and I see my uncle now/ / Nikos: On T.V. you mean. Yannis: On Channel Super B, crawling through the feet of the policemen22 and/ / Nikos: pushing forward 23 Yannis: tearing down24 ( ) doing all sorts of crap and he comes up to the Ecumenical Patriarch, and he moves, he touches him and starts crossing himself like this / /25 Nikos: As if the Patriarch were God himself.26 Yannis: Well, y know some two days later my father bumps into my uncle, ah he says to him I touched/ I touched the Ecumenical Patriarch.27 I got holiness.28 And my father goes like this, really? Give me some, will you 29 ((laughter))

The humor of narrative (2) is based, rst of all, on the excessive enthusiasm of Yannis uncle to get close to the Patriarch and touch him (notes 2224). Another script opposition emerges from the fact that both Yannis uncle and father treat the Patriarch as if he were a saint (notes 25 27) and they appear to believe that they will be blessed only by touching him and then by touching each other in order to share the blessing (notes 28 and 29). Yannis and Nikos seem to think that this kind of behavior is incongruous and worth laughing at. Thus, they ridicule two respectable gures and appear to challenge their status. The co-narration of the story in example (2) indicates that at least two members of the group

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agree on their evaluation regarding the behavior of the out-group targets. In such cases, the common targets of humor are chosen by more than one of the participants who build their contributions collaboratively. In our data all four friends were found to criticize in a humorous manner the incompetent, ignorant or deviant behavior of outgroup gures of respect and/or authority, like teachers (see also example 5), priests and policemen (cf. Schrauf 2000: 131).

5.2.

In-group targets

We will now present cases where one or more members of the group become the targets of humor, i.e. where one or more in-group targets are present in a single oral narrative. The following narrative (3) refers to the way some members of the group behaved while attending mass at church. Nikos and Yannis become co-narrators: (3) Nikos: Well, we reach the church, there is a crowd all around, actually a very large crowd, how shall we get in we wonder, how shall we get in, ((and we tell him)) Yannis you go rst and tell them that we are members of Saint-Andreas church / /30 Yannis: Please, please we are for the holy bread, let us through / /31 Nikos: Now hear this, the old ladies open up a passage by falling back one upon another, y know, we squeeze through32 and we cross ourselves and get to the icon of Jesus, such a big icon where Jesus was not on the crucix/ / Yannis: It was Jesus with the mantle, the holy wreath Res.: I see, I see Yannis: The stick/ well where he holds the lance and seems to be leaning forward somehow, pondering over the blood. So I go and kiss the icon, so does Kostas, and I hear now Nikos, well guys, asking loudly in the middle of the church of Saint-Andreas who on earth is this?33 The asshole was confused, I dont know what was wrong with him, he hadnt realized it was Jesus [Christ]34 Nikos: [((laughter))] Yannis: You asshole I tell him, do wake up, its Jesus Christ I tell him, cant you see that? 35 Whats that you are saying guys, this cant be Jesus.36 Nikos: ((laughter))

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A. Archakis and V. Tsakona Yannis: Look man I tell him, its Jesus all right, and he stood gaping.37 Nikos: I was stuck, man!38 Yannis: It was Jesus Christ, you asshole. Nikos: Ill go have a second look.39

The script oppositions in (3) are based on the following facts: rstly, the young men pretend to be carrying holy bread, in order to pass through the crowd and get inside the over-crowded church (notes 3032); secondly, one of them, Nikos, does not recognize Christs gure on an icon (notes 3339). In jab lines 3032, there is an out-group target of humor, since the adolescents laugh at the people they tried to fool by pretending to be carrying holy bread. However, in the majority of jab lines (notes 3339), the target is Nikos, a group member, who is also a co-narrator and is actually recorded to be laughing at himself. The most important aspect in such cases is the fact that, at least in our data, no in-group targeted humor actually results in a row or a ght between the group members. Since one or more group members laugh at the expense of another one (whether absent or present), a quarrel would be a possible and even expected outcome if the participants were not close friends but some socially unintegrated individuals. However, the absence of a quarrel does not mean that humor loses its evaluative force (as described above). On the contrary, it shows that the bonds between the group members are so strong that they cannot be threatened by such an evaluation or criticism. Therefore, the in-group target of humor and the laughter caused by it eventually highlight the intimacy shared by the group members and the safety they feel while attacking their friends deviant behavior. Conversationalists who share an intimate relationship commonly use humor in their attempt to correct or modify each others behavior without jeopardizing the already existing close relationship (see s-Conde 1997: 280; Holmes also Norrick 1993: 5657; Boxer and Corte 2000: 174). Sometimes the whole group becomes the target of humor. Their common features and actions are presented in the narrative and become the source of humor. This can be illustrated in following narrative (4), which is about the friends musical performance at a school event: (4) Res.1: O.K., you are really a nice group, the thing is in the school celebration you didnt sound too good. Nikos: O.K., sure, we should have special instruments / / [to]

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Res.1: [of course] Res.2: The guy who was singing/ / Res.1: Well, you ((the musicians)) were O.K., but the singer couldnt be heard/ / Res.2: [yes] Nikos: [Mmm] Res.1: You could be heard all right. Nikos: Well, in the rst piece one of the guitars was out and we didnt nish the song properly,40 in the second piece I dont know what actually happened, but I had my ngers benumbed and I couldnt play, I couldnt hold the tempo ((of the guitar)) properly.41 Res.1: ((laughter)) Res.2: And what about the third song/ / Nikos: We were afraid that the third song would be a total disaster, and that the audience wou/ would boo us, well we did perform this one perfectly,42 but I dont know how this happened. Res.1: ((laughter)) In GTVH terms, the rst two script oppositions are based on the fact that the sound of the group playing was good, although one of the guitars was broken (note 40) and the guitarist was out of tempo (note 41). The third script opposition (note 42) is based on the fact that the third song was well performed, even though everybody had fears for the opposite. In these jab lines, the whole group becomes the target of humor and the narrator focuses on the shared experience and responsibility for what happened. Thus, he is conrming and strengthening the bonds between the group members. Finally, there are a number of narratives where the narrator becomes the target of humor, i.e. he is attacking himself in a typical self-disparaging manner. This can be illustrated in narrative (5), which is about a school visit to the new Metro of Athens. Yannis relates a funny incident involving his teacher of English and himself. Nikos contributes to the narration (but not to the humor of the story) by adding some details of the narrated event: (5) Yannis: Well, what a funny turn, Anastasopoulou, the teacher came up to me/ / Nikos: Hm, hm ((the teacher)) of English/ / Yannis: of English Res.1: She had come along??

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A. Archakis and V. Tsakona Yannis: [Well I in the mean time] Nikos: [yes] Yannis: Well I in the meantime I had that return ticket, I get onto the Metro and start chewing it, I practically ate the whole thing / /43 Res.1: You mean you swallowed it? Yannis: No/ / Nikos: He spat it out, man. Res.1: ( ) Yannis: So upon getting o on arrival, I spit it all out. After, errh, after about a quarter the teacher comes up to me, in front of quite a crowd of rst graders, you know, and she says to me, Yannis I think I saw something, she says/ / Res.1: ( )/ / Yannis: No, she says I think I saw something she says, and I didnt like it at all. You gonna say some crap again, I say,44 please, she says ( ) in front of the rst graders ((in a low voice)). Come on now I say, out with it;45 I saw you spitting she says, it wasnt me spitting I say, I just ate the ticket;46 the ticket she says, and how are we supposed to get back, she says, I dont know, I tell her, I was hungry,47 why didnt you buy me anything to eat,48 I was hungry, I am hungry now, I am famished,49 go away I tell her or Ill eat you up,50 I am starving, starving / /51 Res.2: Poor teacher/ / Res.1: ((laughter))

The jab lines in narrative (5) are based on the following script oppositions: the student chewed his ticket, while he still needed to use it in the Metro (notes 43 and 46); his excuse for chewing the ticket was that he was very hungry and he wanted to satisfy his appetite (notes 47, 49, and 51); he also spoke to his teacher very rudely while at the same time trying to make fun of her (notes 4445); he claimed he had expected from his teacher to provide food for him, rather than having made his own arrangements (note 48) and, nally, he threatened to eat her so as to appease his pangs of hunger (note 50). All these script oppositions form the humorous component of this oral narrative. The analysis of the jab lines shows that example (5) contains both kinds of target: the narrators teacher is the out-group target (notes 44, 45 and 50), and he himself is the in-group one (notes 43, 4649 and 51). It is obvious that humor allows conversationalists to show that they can laugh

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not only with what other people do, but also with their own incongruous actions. And to the extent that a group values humor, its eective selfdeprecatory use can add to a persons prestige (cf. Holmes 2000: 169). In this sense, humor enables conversationalists to express and verify their beliefs and values and to present their social identity in a pleasant and amusing way. Consequently, humor can bring the group members closer to each other, since the narrator makes everybody laugh at his own abnormal behavior by relating his story.

Discussion Based on the analysis above we can argue that our young informants use conversational humor as a means for the construction of their identity. More specically, the humor targeting out-group people and institutions (prevailing in our data, see table 1) highlights the kinds of behavior these adolescents do not accept or strongly disapprove of. So, the others are ridiculed via humor. Since in our data the others are usually gures of respect and/or authority (e.g. parents, relatives, teachers, good students, policemen, priests), this sort of out-group targeting humor becomes a discourse device encoding critical intent, namely a means of delegitimating the gures that are invested with power in the status quo (cf. van Dijk 1988: 259). From this perspective we can characterize this kind of humor as subversive humor, i.e. humor which challenges the status quo, using Holmes and Marras term (2002b: 70). However, we have to make clear that, since the focus of humor is not a present participant, the humorist is in a much safer position. On the other hand, the acceptance of humor targets by the rest of the participants, through laughter or through their contribution to the current narrative (in cases of conarrations), indicates the group membership of these adolescents. It should be stressed here that most of the co-constructed humorous narratives, where the participants build on the contribution of others, are found in out-group targeting (see table 1). In this way, our young informants do collegiality by laughing at the respectable and authoritative s-Conde point out, gures outside their peer group. As Boxer and Corte what makes us part of an in-group is having in common an out-group (1997: 283). Thus, in our data the reinforcing-solidarity function of outgroup targeting humor is gained via ridiculing the others.

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In-group members also become the target of humor. In-group targets are not preferred in our data and usually are co-present with out-group targets in the same narrative (see table 1). In this case, the identity of our young informants as members of this particular group is also strengthened in a very interesting way: As the narrators target comes from inside the group, it is expected to threaten his positive face (Brown and Levinson 1987) or that of someone else from the same group. However, the humorous shots seem to be blank, after all, since they do not result in a rude or violent reaction by anyone of the participants in none of the humorous narratives of our data including in-group targets. It seems that this feeling of bonding between group members gives them the opportunity to shoot their humorous arrows even towards their fellow participants. Holmes (2000: 174), elaborating on a similar issue, suggests that [ jocular] insults between those who know each other well are also signals of solidarity and markers of in-group membership (i.e. we know each other well enough to insult each other without causing oence) (see also Antonopoulou and Sianou 2003). Hence, in-group targeting humor can encode critical evaluation or corrective intent regarding the assumed as deviant behavior of the co-present friends without risk. In this way humor becomes a means of attenuated or covert criticism, a exible device for reconciling criticism with solidarity. In Norricks terms (1994: 423, 2003), even if there is aggression in the message, there is solidarity in the humorous meta-message. Therefore, the in-group targeting humor between the equal members of our group, despite its critical load, has a positive inuence on the unity and solidarity of the group, by raising and reinforcing the already existing bonds between them, and, at the same time, by adding an amusing tone in the conversation (see among others Pizzini 1991: 477; Holmes 2000). In addition, of special importance is the fact that, in our data, there is some sort of showing o of the unity and solidarity of the group. This is evident in the cases of the co-constructed narratives, where the co-narrators capitalize on their common background and beliefs. But, most of all, it is evident in that, most of the times, in-group targets cooccur with out-group targets (see table 1). In such cases, the risk of attacking a group member is balanced out through the common attack at an opponent. To sum up, in our data, humor can function at least in two parallel and opposing ways: a) as a device of criticism towards people either inside or outside the group, and b) as a positive politeness strategy (see Brown and

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Levinson 1987) reinforcing the group bonds. The critical function of humor highlights the deviation that can be observed inside or outside the group and, hence, indicates what is considered accepted behavior by the humorist(s). The reinforcing-solidarity function of humor is closely related to and actually results from the critical function: When the target is a respectable or authoritative person or an institution outside the group, the young friends form a unity against this particular person or institution. When the target is a person inside the group, the threat is avoided due to the raised protective solidarity among the four friends (cf. what is said about inclusive and exclusive humor in Attardo 1994: 50). More generally, these ndings seem to reveal how humorous narratives can function as an index of the identity of the narrators, namely as a linguistic lens through which to discover peoples portraits, i.e. their views of themselves and of others as situated in a social structure (cf. Schirin 1996: 170, 199). This analysis, as Schirin (1996: 199) would claim, forces us to attend to speech activities, and to the interactions in which they are situated, as a frame in which our social roles are realized and our identities are displayed.

7. Concluding remarks Previous research on conversational humor has come to conclusions relevant and similar to ours (see Pizzini 1991; Norrick 1993, 1994; Boxer s-Conde 1997; Kottho 1999, 2000; Holmes 2000; Hay 2001; and Corte Holmes and Marra 2002a, 2002b, among others). However, what we propose in the present paper is a new methodology for analyzing humorous conversational data. The present study attests that the GTVH can actually be applied not only to written texts, but also to oral, conversational data. The GTVH forms a useful tool rstly for recognizing humorous utterances or turns on the basis of their semantic/pragmatic content rather than their paralinguistic features, and secondly for analyzing such utterances in a principled manner. Furthermore, this new approach constitutes an important heuristic tool for describing the social meaning and function of humor more accurately, namely by elaborating on the characteristics of its target. And it is this knowledge resource that can reveal the s-Condes (1997) terms bonding and biting in Boxer and Corte function of humor, which renders it a very exible device for the construction of participants identity.

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In our research, we have focused on the target as the most useful knowledge resource for our purposes, because it brings the evaluative dimension of humor to the surface and, hence, distinguishes between what our young informants consider appropriate behavior from what they consider inappropriate behavior. Thus, humor reveals information regarding the humorists shared beliefs and values, and proves to be a very ecient means for the participants to construct their situated sense of social identity. Our socio-linguistic perspective reveals that two basic theories of humor, i.e. incongruity theory and superiority/hostility theory, are actually combined in the GTVH frame of analysis. In other words, the GTVH not only succeeds in describing the cognitive nature of humor (i.e. humor as incongruity), but can also highlight at least some of its social aspects (i.e. humor as hostility or social corrective). This social corrective function of humor emerges clearly from the study of the target knowledge resource. Consequently, the application of the GTVH to the analysis of conversational data can actually be a systematic theoretical tool for analyzing data and lead to some very interesting conclusions regarding the use of humor in natural settings and interactions. University of Patras University of Athens

Notes
Correspondence address: tsakona@hol.gr The authors wish to thank Eleni Antonopoulou for insightful discussions, the anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and Athena Apostolou-Panara, Stella Lambropoulou, and Anna Roussou for reading an earlier version of this paper. 1. Mulkay (1988) argues that there are two distinct ways to construct and interpret reality: the humorous mode and the serious mode. The selection between the two modes depends on the social context in which this reality is to be constructed and/or interpreted. 2. The terms incongruity and script opposition have practically the same meaning in this context. Script-based theories for humor (the GTVH included) have been classied as incongruity theories (Attardo 1994: 49). 3. This perspective is compatible with Attardos claims about the GTVH, namely that this is a theory of the speakers competence [in the Chomskyan sense] at producing/ interpreting longer humorous texts, not a theory of their performance doing so (italics in the original; 2001: 30). The GTVH emphasizes the potential production/ interpretation, not the actual concrete interpretation of a humorous text; it is neither

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4. 5.

6. 7.

a theory of the audience nor a theory of the speaker (Attardo 2001: 3035; see also Attardo 2003). This project (K. Karatheodoris, 2425) is funded by the Research Committee of the University of Patras (Greece). It should be pointed out that the humorous narratives on which our analysis has been based were not the only humorous genres found in our data. There were also teases, humorous ctionalization (as described in Kottho 1999; see also fantasy humor in Hay 2001), and irony. However, in this paper we focus on the humorous narratives. However, it should be noted that the target is considered to be an optional parameter (Attardo 2001: 2324). The narratives presented are translated from Greek by the authors. For the transcription of our data, we use the following conventions: / / / [xzx] ( ) ((xzx)) indicates interruption indicates self-correction indicates simultaneous talk indicates the incomprehensible parts of utterances includes comments of the authors

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

All the jab lines included in the ve humorous narratives presented in this paper are marked in italics in the text and they are dened and analyzed in the notes following the GTVH (as presented in Attardo 2001). Attardo uses the following abbreviations for the six knowledge resources analyzing humor: SO for script opposition, LM for logical mechanism, SI for situation, TA for target, NS for narrative strategy and LA for language. It should be noted that the careful analysis and identication of the knowledge resources other than the target also contribute to the clear appreciation of the target of humor. Especially the script opposition knowledge resource is directly related to the content of the butt of the joke, thus contributing to a systematic, principled analysis of what participants laugh at. SO: normal/abnormal, Maria should give the answer quickly/Maria does not reply immediately, LM: juxtaposition, SI: Yannis asked for Marias help in a biology test, TA: Maria, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. SO: normal/abnormal, Maria should tell him the answer/Maria leaves a notebook on his desk, LM: faulty reasoning, SI: co-text, TA: Maria, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. See note 9. SO: normal/abnormal, Yannis uses the notebook/Yannis throws the notebook back at her, LM: juxtaposition, SI: co-text, TA: Maria, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. See note 9. SO: actual/non actual, Maria knew the answer/Maria would not know the answer, LM: faulty reasoning, SI: co-text, TA: Maria, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. SO: actual/non actual, Maria knew the answer/Maria would not know the answer, LM: faulty reasoning, SI: co-text, TA: Maria, NS: audiences comment, LA: irrelevant. SO: normal/abnormal, Maria understands what Yannis wants/Maria does not understand what Yannis wants, LM: ignoring the obvious, SI: co-text, TA: Maria, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. See note 8. SO: normal/abnormal, Maria should give the answer quickly/Maria does not reply immediately, LM: juxtaposition, SI: Yannis asked for Marias help in a biology test, TA: Maria, NS: audiences comment, LA: irrelevant.

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18. SO: actual/non actual, Maria should give the answer while not attracting the teachers attention/Maria talks to Yannis while the teacher is watching them, LM: ignoring the obvious, SI: co-text, TA: Maria, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 19. See note 18. 20. SO: actual/non actual, Maria should give the answer while not attracting the teachers attention/Maria talks to Yannis while the teacher is watching them, LM: ignoring the obvious, SI: co-text, TA: teacher, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 21. See note 18. 22. SO: normal/abnormal, normal behavior/exaggerated behavior, LM: exaggeration, SI: Yannis uncle wanted to get close to the Ecumenical Patriarch, TA: Yannis uncle, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 23. See note 22. 24. See note 22. 25. SO: actual/non actual, the Ecumenical Patriarch is human/the Ecumenical Patriarch is God, LM: false analogy, SI: co-text, TA: Yannis uncle, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 26. See note 25. 27. See note 25. 28. SO: actual/non actual, holiness is not contagious/holiness is contagious, LM: reasoning from false premises, SI: co-text, TA: Yannis uncle, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 29. SO: actual/non actual, holiness is not contagious/holiness is contagious, LM: reasoning from false premises, SI: co-text, TA: Yannis uncle and father, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. It should be noted here that, in our data, conversationalists often make fun of their relatives who are (or are presented to be) conservative, religious and superstitious people. In this context, it is possible that the father is sharing the uncles beliefs about holiness, i.e. that he is being serious in asking the uncle for holiness. In other words, our analysis is based on the assumption that the father and the uncle have common beliefs and attitudes. The anonymous reviewers pointed out that another interpretation of this jab line is more likely: not only the two narrators, but also the father may be laughing at the uncles behavior. In this case, the only out-group target is the uncle and the two narrators happen to agree with the fathers assessment. However, it should be taken into account that, in the rest of our data, group members do not usually share their relatives and teachers beliefs and attitudes. Nevertheless, it is not impossible for the two narrators to construct a gure in such a way that s/he can support their own communicative point. In other words, our group members might have acted as authors, i.e. as persons who edit the story by re-sequencing the events and shaping the dialogues (cf. Goman 1981: 1445). Thus, they might have constructed the fathers gure and words in line with their own way of thinking, in order to ridicule the religious and superstitious behavior of the uncle more eectively. 30. SO: actual/non actual, they were not from St. Andreas church/they pretended to be from St. Andreas church, LM: ignoring the obvious, SI: the adolescents tried to enter a very crowded church, TA: people around them, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 31. See note 30. 32. See note 30. 33. SO: normal/abnormal, people recognize Christs gure/Nikos did not recognize it, LM: exaggeration, SI: co-text, TA: Nikos, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 34. See note 33. 35. See note 33. 36. See note 33.

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37. See note 33. 38. SO: normal/abnormal, people recognize Christs gure/Nikos did not recognize it, LM: exaggeration, SI: co-text, TA: Nikos, NS: statement, LA: irrelevant. 39. See note 38. 40. SO: normal/abnormal, the groups sound was very good/the guitar was broken, LM: contradiction, SI: the rock group played in a school celebration, TA: the group, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 41. normal/abnormal, the sound of the group was very good/the guitarist was out of tempo, LM: contradiction, SI: co-text, TA: the group, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 42. normal/abnormal, they expected the third song to be a disaster/the third song was well performed, LM: reversal, SI: co-text, TA: the group, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 43. SO: normal/abnormal, people do not eat tickets/Yannis ate his ticket, LM: reasoning from false premises, SI: the teacher tells Yannis o, TA: Yannis, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 44. SO: normal/abnormal, students speak politely to their teachers/Yannis spoke to her rudely, LM: exaggeration, SI: co-text, TA: teacher, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 45. See note 44. 46. See note 43. 47. SO: normal/abnormal, people eat food when hungry/Yannis ate his ticket, LM: reasoning from false premises, SI: co-text, TA: Yannis, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 48. SO: normal/abnormal, Yannis should have bought himself something to eat/Yannis expected his teacher to buy him something to eat, LM: reasoning from false premises, SI: co-text, TA: Yannis, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 49. See note 47. 50. SO: normal/abnormal, people eat food when hungry/Yannis wanted to eat his teacher, LM: reasoning from false premises, SI: co-text, TA: teacher, NS: narration, LA: irrelevant. 51. See note 47.

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