
The Importance of Not Being Earnest
The feeling behind laughter and humor
Wallace Chafe(Author)
John Benjamins Publishing Co
Published on 1. February 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
167 pages
978-90-272-4154-2 (ISBN)
Description
The thesis of this book is that neither laughter nor humor can be understood apart from the feeling that underlies them. This feeling is a mental state in which people exclude some situation from their knowledge of how the world really is, thereby inhibiting seriousness where seriousness would be counterproductive. Laughter is viewed as an expression of this feeling, and humor as a set of devices designed to trigger it because it is so pleasant and distracting. Beginning with phonetic analyses of laughter, the book examines ways in which the feeling behind the laughter is elicited by both humorous and nonhumorous situations. It discusses properties of this feeling that justify its inclusion in the repertoire of human emotions. Against this background it illustrates the creation of humor in several folklore genres and across several cultures. Finally, it reconciles this understanding with various already familiar ways of explaining humor and laughter.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-272-4154-2 (9789027241542)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Content
1. Preface; 2. Symbols Used in Transcribing Laughter; 3. Introduction; 4. Part One: How we laugh; 5. The essential ingredients of laughter; 6. Varieties of laughter; 7. Laughing while speaking; 8. Beyond the vocal tract; 9. Part Two: Why we laugh; 10. The feeling of nonseriousness; 11. Nonseriousness without humor; 12. Unplanned humor; 13. Planned humor in oral traditions; 14. Planned humor in writing; 15. Humor in other cultures; 16. Part Three: Pulling things together; 17. Recapitulation; 18. Reconciliation with other studies; 19. Coda; 20. References; 21. Index