Sacks - An Analysis of the course of a Joke’s Telling in Conversation

1. Sacks - An Analysis of the course of a Joke’s Telling in Conversation • Process issues(?) • Motivation for telling • Self-congratulation (p. 344) • System designed to minimize gaps • “Understanding tests” (top of p. 346) • Recipient - test of supposed sophistication • Teller - questioning of teller’s understanding & possibly create dissapproving of teller • Orientation • Search / orientation to obscenity [2.3] (p. 346) • Preface (p. 340) (two utterance minimum) • [1.1] Offer • Components • Offer or request to tell • Initial characterization • Reference to time [/person/place/manner] of receiving joke • reference to person received from important if they are known to audience • (allows speaker to let audience know they are orienting to possibility the audience has previously heard joke) • Requirements • Joke is not known to audience • Teller orients to possibility that joke is known to one or more recipients • Allows audience to orient to joke • Indicates sort of response speaker is seeking • Accept / reject / negotiate • Responses (express degree of accept/reject/approval-level/orientation/preemption) • [1.2] (conditional acceptance) Roger’s rejection/counter-offer (L. 3) • orients to teller & gives teller options on interactional & consequent response • [2.0] Telling • Legitimate interruption reasons: failure to hear, understandability problem, • Understandability interruptions (L. 10, 23, alternative obscene interpretations • [3.0] Response Sequence • Responses • Overlapped laughing when punch line delivered • Laughing affiliates with either most recent utterance or state of current utterance [3.1, p. 348] • Delayed laughing - runs risk of being misaligned to wrong utterance by hearers. • No laughing - • [3.2] Recipient comparative wit assessment device • Relative laugh start allow comparative recipient assessment of their success at the ‘understanding test’ • Recipients therefore have motivation to laugh early, which causes something of a chain reaction. • Non-laughing can be used to negatively grade a joke [p. 350] • Mixed or complete non-laughing arms recipients with potential responses [p. 350, bottom] • [3.3] Aberrances • First two laughs do not overlap • After a gap, the teller laughs first • Teller’s first laugh and recipient’s subsequent laugh are mirthless and brief • Serves to transit to assess the telling w/o engaging comparative wit device • [1.3] (preemption) Al’s response analysis • Recipient can guess as way of rejection & preemption • [1.4] Close (L. 6) • Ken cancels Al’s preemption attempt & uses cancellation to strengthen his basis for telling (and thereby acquiring rights to the floor).