The performance of humor

Abstract

This chapter introduces the third section of the book, dedicated to the performance of humor (as opposed to competence) or using another term to the sociopragmatics of humor. It starts out with a discussion of the performance of humor (in a theatrical sense), including standup comedy. The rest of the chapter presents the Hymes-Gumperz sociolinguistic model, which will guide the remaining chapters of the book. In particular the concepts of repertoire, speech acts and events, genres, and contextualization cues are explicated. The chapter is capped by a discussion of empirical studies on markers of humor performance.