One-sided laughter in academic presentations: a small-scale investigation

Abstract

This investigation focuses on analysing one-sided laughter (i.e. laughter initiated by the speaker and not shared with other parties) in academic presentations — a form of ‘institutional talk’ (Drew and Heritage, 1992) defined here as goal-oriented talk about and for the business (in the broadest sense) at hand, and given at structural settings of certain formality as the lecture theatre in this case. The analytical tool employed is a partial adoption of Partington’s (2006) laughter classification/categorization drawing on the theories of ‘Politeness’ (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987) and ‘Face’ (Goffman, 1967, 1981). This is a rather new approach which, nonetheless, contributes positively to the field of laughter analysis since these theories are ‘much less examined in relationship to institutional settings’ (Harris, 2001: 452). The data analysed for this purpose is David Nunan’s (2006) presentation entitled ‘Action Research and Professional Growth’, given at the JALT First Joint Conference in Japan. The findings suggest that one-sided laughter is a communication strategy of mainly rhetorical nature capable of revealing the underlying meaning of the interaction: its hidden ideology, purpose and goal.