Review of Partington (2006): The linguistics of laughter: A corpus-assisted study of laughter talk

Abstract

ReviewsAlan Partington. 2006. The linguistics of laughter: A corpus-assisted study of laughter talk. New York: Routledge. vi + 262 pp. (ISBN10: 0-415-38166-5 / ISBN13: 978-0-415-38166-6) Reviewed by Laura Gavioli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)The Linguistics of Laughter is a book investigating the phenomenon of "laughtertalk" when it is used to achieve specific rhetorical ends, for example, to construct an identity, to make an argumentative point, to threaten someone else's face or boost one's own. "Laughter talk" is defined as the talk preceding and providing a bout of laughter, intentionally or unintentionally. The research is a corpus-assisted study investigating a 1,000,000-word corpus collecting 180 transcriptions of White House press conference briefings and is based on a search of laughter episodes and an analysis of their embedding features. The Linguistics of Laughter, though, goes much beyond this, not only in that it compares data from other larger and more varied corpora, but in that, starting from an analysis of linguistic patterns and cues, it takes the reader through a detailed, fascinating reflection into what humorous and non-humorous laughter involves, looking at laughter as both a cognitive and an interactional communicative phenomenon. In this sense, the volume provides an interesting example of how far methods of corpus linguistics can go in analysing language features and functions.Methodologically, Partington's idea is that of adapting some of the instruments used in corpus analysis to the study of discourse. He sets out with the ambitious, but interesting (and indeed achieved) task of developing a model which can "encompass and render compatible three elements: a theory of language production and reception, a theory of cognition as it relates to humour, and a theory of human social interaction" (p. 2). The model he suggests is that of Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS), an approach arising from the realization that some of the methodology and instruments commonly used in corpus linguistics might be adapted for the study of features of discourse. The book comprises an introduction, seven chapters including the conclusion, three appendices, notes, bibliography, a name and a subject index. In what follows, I summarize those points in the book that seem to me the most interesting and I provide a final comment about its main achievements.