The (meta)pragmatics of teasing

Michael Haugh
The University of Queensland

One of the key challenges we face when studying different forms of conversational humour is that the terms we use to identify and describe instances of humour can vary across different languages (and varieties of those languages). Work to date on the role of ‘teasing’ in the interactional accomplishment of conversational humour is a case a point. While a rich set of lay terms used to describe and evaluate ‘teasing’ can be found across different languages, definitions used by researchers point to ‘teasing’ involving a juxtaposition of ‘serious’ (e.g. critical, derogatory, insulting, antagonistic)) and ‘non-serious’ (e.g. playful, joking, humorous, affectionate) stances. However, it is often less clear whether researchers are using such terms to refer to ‘teasing’ as a culturally-bound concept (i.e. a metapragmatic label) or a socially situated practice (i.e. a pragmatic act) (Haugh 2017). A metapragmatic perspective on ‘teasing’ explicitly draws on and connects both as it involves systematic study of reflexive awareness on the part of users (and observers) about their use of language through examining the various ways in which they use language to refer to and comment on their use of language (Bublitz & Hübler 2007; Ruiz Gurillo 2016; Verschueren 2000). In this presentation I outline how a metapragmatic perspective can further our understanding of ‘teasing’ across linguistic and cultural contexts, and consider the implications of this for how we go about studying conversational humour more generally.

References

Bublitz, W. & A. Hubler (eds.) (2007). Metapragmatics in Use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Haugh, M. (2017). ‘Teasing’. In S. Attardo (ed.), Handbook of Language and Humour (pp.204-218). London: Routledge.

Ruiz-Gurillo, L. (ed.) (2016). Metapragmatics of Humor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Verschueren, J. (2000). ‘Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use’. Pragmatics 10(4): 439-456.