Complexity theory and conversational humour: Tracing the birth and decline of a running joke in an online cancer support community
Complexity theory and conversational humour: Tracing the birth and decline of a running joke in an online cancer support community
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DOI：
10.1016/j.pragma.2018.06.001
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发表时间：
2018-08-01
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
Demjen, Zsofia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Demjen, Zsofia
本文认为，通过从复杂性理论（涵盖“复杂自适应系统理论”、“动态系统理论”、“混沌理论”等的总称）的角度进行至少一些对话幽默研究，可以更全面地理解对话幽默的多功能、多方面和异质性。复杂性理论鼓励人们提出一些关于对话幽默通常不会被问到的问题，并提供回答这些问题的方法。它“旨在解释复杂系统的相互作用部分如何引起系统的集体行为，以及这样的系统如何同时与其环境相互作用”，从而使“变化成为理论和方法的核心”（Larsen-Freeman & Cameron 2008：1）。 “关注的对象”不再是实体或事物（例如笑话、双关语等），而是过程、变化和连续性：特定的笑话、双关语或幽默词位是如何在给定的话语群体中产生的，它们的用途和意义是如何发展的？该论文通过将复杂性方法应用于会话幽默的一种特定表现形式，展示了会话幽默的复杂性方法的潜力：以引理 rolo* 为中心的 235 个连续笑话实例，包含约 680,000 个单词的在线同行支持数据（2544 篇论坛帖子、47 篇博客和博客评论），由 97 名贡献者在 2011 年至 2012 年的 13 个月内制作。 (C) 2018 作者。由 Elsevier B.V. 出版
This paper argues that a fuller understanding of conversational humour, in all its multifunctional, multifaceted, and heterogeneous nature, could be achieved by conducting at least some conversational humour research from the perspective of complexity theory (an umbrella term covering 'complex adaptive systems theory', 'dynamic systems theory', 'chaos theory', etc.). Complexity theory encourages questions that are not usually asked about conversational humour and provides ways of answering them. It 'aims to account for how the interacting parts of a complex system give rise to the system's collective behaviour and how such a system simultaneously interacts with its environment' making 'change central to theory and method' (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron 2008: 1). The 'objects of concern' are no longer entities or things (e.g. the joke, a pun, etc.), but processes, changes and continuities: how do particular jokes, puns or humorous lexemes come into being in a given discourse community, how do their uses and meanings develop? The paper demonstrates the potential of a complexity approach to conversational humour by applying it to one particular manifestation of conversational humour: 235 instances of a running joke centred around the lemma rolo*, in approximately 680,000 words of online peer-support data (2544 forum posts, 47 blogs and blog comments), produced by 97 contributors over a period of 13 months in 2011-2012. (C) 2018 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V.