Publication details
Joint construction of humour in quasi-conversational interaction
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | This article analyses quasi-conversational interaction in live text commentary, with a focus on the role of humour and its joint construction by discourse participants. The analysis is based on a minute-by-minute sports report in the online version of the British newspaper the Guardian. Thanks to the inclusion of text segments by readers, the Guardian's match reports resemble a chat discussion with a strong conversational nature. Tracing the development of a single thematic line across the whole of the commentary, the article documents how elements of humour are woven into the text as joint constructions by the commentator and the readers. It argues that the use of humour is linked to one of the main functions of the genre, i.e., to amuse the readers. Moreover, humour and conversational joking also assist in constructing the virtual community of sports fans, often doing so in markedly local (British/Irish) terms and despite the necessarily global nature of the medium. |
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