Humor negotiation in interactional sequences in Spanish

Abstract

This paper reports on the analysis of humor negotiation in Spanish, using a database of 148 humorous sequences drawn from 67 colloquial conversations of the VALESCO.HUMOR corpus (accessible at www.observahumor.com; cf. Ruiz-Gurillo, 2021; 2022). To this end, three variables were addressed. First, following Martin et al. (2003), the style adopted by the speaker in their turn was analyzed as affiliative, aggressive, self-defeating or self-enhancing. Affiliative and aggressive styles predominate in the data, whereas self-defeating and self-enhancing styles are underrepresented. Second, we asked how participants are seen to evaluate the verbal behavior within sequences in terms of politeness, mock impoliteness, impoliteness and non-politeness (Sinkeviciute, 2019). Finally, an assessment was made of each sequence regarding how it could be understood as creating intimacy (endogroup sequence) or as a form of confrontation (confrontational sequence). Taken together, these variables (style, evaluation of politeness, and the main effect of the sequence) led to the identification of three main trends: politeness with an affiliative style in endogroup sequences; mock impoliteness with an aggressive style in endogroup sequences; and mock politeness with an aggressive style in confrontational sequences.