Reconsidering the Evolution of Nonlinguistic Communication: The Case of Laughter

Nonlinguistic communication is typically proposed to convey representational messages, implying that particular signals are associated with specific signaler emotions, intentions, or external referents. However, common signals produced by both nonhuman primates and humans may not exhibit such specificity, with human laughter for example showing significant diversity in both acoustic form and production context. We therefore outline an alternative to the representational approach, arguing that laughter and other nonlinguistic vocalizations are used to influence the affective states of listeners, thereby also affecting their behavior. In the case of laughter, we propose a primary function of accentuating or inducing positive affect in the perceiver in order to promote a more favorable stance toward the laugher. Two simple strategies are identified, namely producing laughter with acoustic features that have an immediate impact on listener arousal, and pairing these sounds with positive affect in the listener to create learned affective responses. Both depend on factors like the listener's current emotional state and past interactions with the vocalizer, with laughers predicted to adjust their sounds accordingly. This approach is used to explain findings from two experimental studies that examined the use of laughter in same-sex and different-sex dyads composed of either friends or strangers, and may be applicable to other forms of nonlinguistic communication.     

论网络诗歌的民间化审美表征

网络诗歌的民间比现实社会受逻辑规则限制的民间更为开放和自由,这种虚拟的空间由于具有网络无远弗届的匿名性而呈现出狂欢化的审美表征。它采取的诙谐的文化态度和审美形式,体现出民间反抗中心和权威的智慧,其于文本中呈现出的形同质异的讽刺性模拟、语境错位的黑色幽默、暗寓解构的嘲讽笑谑,成为网络民间最典型的审美表征。但网络诗歌的民间具有的极端自由的色彩和藏污纳垢性,导致诗歌的审美表征从审美到审丑的偏执发展,由此引起的网络诗歌的热点和争议确实很引人深思。     

《黑暗中的笑声》与《包法利夫人》比较论

纳博科夫在《文学讲稿》中对福楼拜大加赞誉,认为《包法利夫人》堪称艺术品。而纳博科夫在其小说《黑暗中的笑声》中,对多声部配合法以及预示法的运用都堪称是对福楼拜的模仿。在人物塑造方面,《黑暗中的笑声》中的主人公欧比纳斯与《包法利夫人》中的查理和艾玛也均有某些渊源关系,在欧比纳斯身上可以清楚地看到查理与艾玛的影子;而两部小说中共同的浪漫主题的表达也不得不说是有意而为之。     

The aesthetic and practical fields of excrementality of L’boulevard festival

The revolutionary aspect of performance is given ample room in this article. “Conflict” deserves a renewed importance, because it places the term “transgression” in relation to festivals as sites for the embodiment of social struggles. We will hone in on L’boulevard festival, which not only participates in a dialogue with social conflicts, but also epitomises them through an ambivalent theatricality that merges the real with the unreal. As festival agents identify their marginal place in relation to the body of the system – generally present in the festival through panoptical surveillance, badges, barriers and an entire discourse of social categorisation, and as they are cognisant of the festival as possibly an empowering threshold, a place for no system other than that chosen by the theatres of roleplaying, they activate their excrementality, a mentality which, in its ideological framing, creates and innovates, inspired by excrement, its functionality and symbolism. Excreta-mental types would perform the very khsoriya (vulgarity) expected of them, by performing their marginality (their becoming central), among other things, through art.     

How to Sharpen Words: Mayakovsky’s Machines of Poetic Humour

Analysis of Mayakovsky’s prose writings of the mid-1920s on the craft of satire reveals that he understood it to be a scientific discipline subject to strict cause-and-effect relationships: if the satirical treatment of a theme — any theme — is correct, then the piece will produce ‘involuntary laughter’ (neproizvol’nyi smekh). As an example, he puts forward his 1923 poem ‘Schematic of Laughter’ (Skhema smekha) — a text he claims contains no comic ideas, but only the correct satirical sharpening of discourse. As a barebones inventory of comic devices, the poem is a perfect place to begin an examination of Mayakovsky’s poetics of humour. But it is not alone; in a note to the 1925 poem ‘Shallow Philosophy in Deep Places’ (Melkaia filosofiia na glubokikh mestakh), Mayakovsky explains that it too is a ‘skeleton poem’ (stikh-skelet), just like the ‘Schematic’, and another compendium of humorous devices. Together, then, these poems represent the purest and most concentrated expression of Mayakovsky’s understanding of the mechanics of poetic humour. Sustained close reading of both poems reveals that his humorous devices, ranging from formal to narrative, all serve to establish and then deceive expectations in the reader.     

The roles of humour and laughter in youth focus groups on school food

The article examines young people's group interaction and the roles of humor and laughter in relation to school food and school lunch situations. The analysed focus group discussion data is drawn from a broader case study (2012?2013) with 9th grade students (15–16 years old; 62 pupils; 25 boys and 37 girls; 14 groups; 4?6 pupils per group) in a Finnish secondary school. The analysis is based on existing interpretations and classifications of humor in literature, which is complemented by notions drawn from the study's data set. It is argued that an analysis of humor and laughter can provide valuable notions of how collective attitudes towards school food are constructed, enforced and distributed among students, while also providing insight regarding what kinds of issues around school lunch practices are considered important and worthwhile in the context of students' informal peer cultures. The results illustrate how humor and laughter functioned for the students as a space for (1) Constructing ‘us’ versus ‘them’; (2) Negotiating social order; and (3) Engaging in fun and safe interaction. Results are discussed in the light of how humor and laughter uphold or divide social groups, as well mediate shifts between formal conventions and students' informal worlds.     

Laughter in medical interaction: From quantification to analysis,and back

This study discusses the use of quantification in analysing interactional practices, especially in conversation analytical work. The paper concentrates on laughter in medical interaction and starts from a quantitative point of view. West (1984) found certain statistical patterns of laughter in medical interaction: the patients laugh more than the doctors and most laughter is not reciprocated, i.e. the interactants mostly laugh alone. This statistical pattern is also found in Finnish data but it is approached again from the micro‐analytical point of view and some features of it are problematised through analysing in more detail: (1) the ways in which laughter is made relevant; (2) how laughter is responded to; and (3) the interactional functions laughter can have. The paper shows that Schegloff’s (1993) critique of quantitative interactional work is indeed called for, but nevertheless also presents advantages of quantification: the distribution of laughter between the participants in medical interaction turned out to be an interesting issue, one which is revealing of their different interactional roles and footings.     

Children with profound and multiple learning difficulties: laughter,capability and relating to others

There are numerous ways in which human beings respond to humour: they smile, grin, laugh, giggle or guffaw, and their behaviour might include anything from a glint in the eye to an uncontrollable heaving of the whole body. We consider how laughter is displayed in the lives of four children with profound and multiple learning difficulties and disabilities (PMLD), and reflect on what this reveals about their capabilities and relationships. We look at examples of absurdity and incongruity as elements of humour, and we explore how these create a space for ‘relational commonality’ between people whose differences are many and profound. We suggest that laughter, and involvement in humorous interaction, enables children with PMLD to express themselves, to develop relations with others and to be seen as fully our fellow human beings.     

Children's humour and the grotesque pleasures in school mealtime socialisation

In this paper, we argue for two propositions: children are socialised and guided to become competent members of school mealtime community, and children have the capacity to modify and challenge existing practices. We draw on Bakhtin's concepts of the carnivalesque laughter and grotesque realism to illustrate how children use humour to test the boundaries of what is permitted. Children's mealtime interactions foster the development of social skills to subvert and negotiate adult authority and manage unfolding interactions between children and adults. We present findings from a child-centred perspective in a primary school in the United Kingdom.     

Learning through laughing: an ‘African-American’ singer with ‘Japanese soul’ and the possibility of a new subjectivity in Japan

In this article, we argue that laughter can be a catalyst in learning about a new subjectivity – simultaneously African-American and Japanese – by analyzing an audience’s initial reaction to Jero, a young ‘African-American’ singer wearing hip hop attire who sings enka, a genre of music that is considered the ‘heart and soul of Japan’. Using television clips uploaded to YouTube and the viewers’ comments left on the sites as data, we analyze the audience’s laughter and amazement, followed by the question, ‘Why?’ and explanation of his background. Drawing on Hervé Varenne’s argument that learning occurs when we acknowledge our ignorance and seek to change it, we argue that the laughter marks their ignorance of such subjectivity, followed by learning as to why such subjectivity is possible. Challenging hegemonic behavior in daily life is often considered ‘bad sport’ and thus difficult. While involving complex relations of power of consumer-performer relations and authenticator-authenticated relations as well as a problematic race-talent link, we suggest that learning-through-laughing may be a new field worth exploring as an effective strategy for social change.