Abstract
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.
Highlights
We already know a lot about conversational humour, yet there are still questions that are not being asked
In this paper, using 235 instances of the lemma rolo* as a case study, I hope to have demonstrated how a complexity approach might encourage us to focus more on the conditions and parameters that influence particular interactional phenomena e in this case conversational humour e forcing us to ask the questions of why and how did this develop? I traced the emergence and decline of a running joke represented by the comedic kernel ‘rolo’ through different phases over time, showing both the conceptual links between various meanings and uses, as well as the more random instances that occasionally surface
In the data discussed above there are certain initial conditions and parameters that provide a suitable backdrop for humorous creativity: contributors have or have had some form of bowel cancer, which has a specific location and requires specific treatment and check-ups; there is a play frame, established both in the title of the thread and its first post
Summary
We already know a lot about conversational humour, yet there are still questions that are not being asked. Conversational humour ( ‘CH’) is an umbrella term covering a range of linguistic manifestations of humour, e.g. humorous lexemes, puns, witticisms, irony, teasing, banter, put-downs, self-denigration, anecdotes, etc., which can occur in conversations (Dynel, 2009) It is well-established that CH is a co-constructed, context dependent, multi-functional and multi-formal, protean phenomenon, where ‘punchlines turn into wisecracks, witty repartees grow into anecdotes, anecdotes develop into jokes, and so on’ (Norrick, 2003: 1338, see Dynel, 2009; Norrick and Chiaro, 2009). Dundes, 1987) captures the phenomenon of certain types of jokes (e.g. socalled ‘elephant’, ‘sick’ or particular kinds of political jokes) going through a period of popularity within a 'culture' (equated with country) and being replaced by others Dundes argues that these cycles are always meaningful and reflect contemporary anxieties and taboos: ‘The joke typically provides a socially sanctioned outlet for talking about what normally cannot be discussed openly’ (1987: 14). As I ague adopting a complexity theory perspective facilitates the asking of such questions and organizes influencing variables and multiple layers of context into a coherent model of conversational humour, even when applied in a ‘light-touch’ manner
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