Laughter in Interpersonal Communication: When Laughter Conveys Disaffiliation

Abstract

Laughter serves primarily as a social instrument, functioning as a social facilitator commonly observed in interpersonal interactions, and playing a crucial role in fostering and maintaining relationships. Affiliation and disaffiliation are interactive phenomena that are externally and measurably manifested, serving as pivotal components in the establishment of social bonds. Affiliation entails the overt demonstration of endorsement and concordance among interacting individuals, whereas disaffiliation within social relationships typically materializes through assessments, leading to disagreements and side-arguments. Laughter, when serving as a tool for strengthening social bonds between individuals, it not only signals affiliation but also disaffiliation among conversational partners. Through the method of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, this article will specifically analyze the role of laughter as a means of conveying disaffiliation. Focusing on analyzing three specific functions of laughter to show disaffiliation, which encompass self-image preservation, face-saving, and transitioning from an embarrassing to a non-embarrassing context, the thesis will present three prototypical dialogues originating from diverse backgrounds as exemplars to elucidate the three functions.