stand-up Cognitive Linguistic

8/10/2019 stand-up Cognitive Linguistic

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I Really Wanna Make You Laugh:

Stand-Up Comedy and Audience Response

Paul McIlvenny, Sari Mettovaara and Ritva Tapio

Department of English

University of Oulu

I really wanna make you laugh, okay. (Bill Nelson)

I love this audience. (Frank Skinner)

Im joking. Quack Quack! Im a comedian. (Arsenio Hall)

1. INTRODUCTION

In this paper we will sketch some preliminary research that explores how

live and improvised humour is interactively accomplished in public broadcast

transmissions or in videotaped live shows. Our spotlight will focus on

professional stand-up comedy, which is a rather strange and precarious line of

work in which to succeed one must routinely win the attention, approval andlaughter of a large assembly of people. The key elements of live stand-up

comedy are clearly expressed in the quotations that head this introduction -they

are taken from shows by some of the comedians in focus in this study and they

illustrate the demands of making an audience laugh, of winning their approval

and the danger of crossing social and cultural taboos.

The work of Sacks, Jefferson and other conversation analysts on the social

organisation of laughter and Atkinsons studies of interactional patterns of

speaker talk and audience response in public political discourse will form the

basis for an analysis of fragments of natural performance comedy in order to

begin to answer the following questions. What conversational devices does a

stand-up comedian use to elicit laughter and other audience responses? In what

ways can a comedian continue after eliciting an audience response? And how

can the comedian focus on the audience members in the construction of audience

identity and response? The work reported here is intended to challenge the

assumption that audiences act spontaneously and have little to do with what

performers do on stage. It is clear that the notion of a standard routine -

comedian tells joke, audience laugh, comedian continues to next joke -does not


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do justice to the variety and complexity of the interaction between comedian and

audience in contemporary performances.

2. STAND-UP COMEDY: ORIGINS AND PRESENT DAY

Serious talk often commands the most attention both in everyday life and in

academic research, so it is sometimes hard to recognise the pervasiveness of

humour, merry-making and comedy in a myriad of forms across cultures and

settings. Indeed, we should appreciate the routine use of humour (both

spontaneous and standardised) in everyday conversation by ordinary people and

that it requires no special gift. But it is also true, as Apte (1985, p. 199) notes,

that although the linguistic performance of most native speakers of a languageis suitable for everyday social interaction, few individuals excel in using speech

for the purpose of dramatization. We acknowledge the power of humour in

everyday life, but in this paper we wish to concentrate on those select few in

British and American culture who have excelled in using and exploiting humour

in front of an audience.

In Europe, jesters, clowns, fools and wits have entertained Kings, Queens

and ordinary folk since medieval times: Shakespeare in the 16th century used

them as incisive social critics and observers. In the 16th century in Italy

commedia dellarte refined the improvisatory comic social satire. From the late

18th century onwards in America, the fairground, the circus arena, the 19th

century lecture circuit, the American burlesque and the vaudeville stage have all

contributed to the development of what we now know as stand-up comedy.

Since the Second World War stand-up has thrown up gifted English speakingperformers such as Lenny Bruce, Billy Connolly, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams,

Richard Pryorand Whoopie Goldberg.

Indeed, stand-up comedy has become very popular in the last 10 years in

Britain and America. It increasingly finds its way onto mainstream TV and sales

of videos of stand-up performances are high if judged by the high profile they

command in high street record shops. Also, live performance stand-up comedy

has many venues in London; for example, in the summer of 1992 there could

easily be 70 different events each week spread over 15 or so clubs (TIME OUT

listings magazine). More alternative stand-up - improvised, theatrical or

cinematic - has also become popular in America, Britain and Europe (The

acclaimed British improvised comedy TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?


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was adapted for the Finnish market by Neil Hardwick and broadcast as Instant

Entertainment).

So what makes a skilful comedian? Improvisation, in addition to

memorisation and editing, is essential in live stand-up comedy as in many otherlive performance types. We should also note that a skilful comedian is more than

a joke-telling machine to tickle an audience with funny but forgettable content;

g o o d humour on stage often has a serious import behind it. Both Koziski (1984)

and Mintz (1985) recognise the important role of the comedian as critic and

observer of human life. One reason for the critical place of humour in western

societies, and maybe in all human societies is that it escapes the censor, thus

allowing a dangerous use and abuse of convention. But the danger can be

difused because the humorous mode separated from the realm of serious

discourse enables performers to deny the import of a humorous remark by

claiming it was only a joke (Mulkay 1988).

3. PUBLIC SPEAKING AND POLITICAL ORATORY

In order to begin an analysis of stand-up comedy it is profitable to compare

it to public speaking in general. The aim of a comedian as well as a public

speaker is to keep the attention of the audience and create affiliative audience

responses. Studies of public speaking, specifically political oratory, have shown

that one isnot just born to be a good speaker but that one can improve ones

performance by studying what actually happens in a performance by a good

speaker. Good public speakers do not only speak but they manipulate the

audience in order to elicit affiliative responses (Atkinson 1984, p. 12). Thepurpose of this paper is to show that comedians use similar as well as special

techniques in their routines. Indeed, the scant literature on stand-up comedy

does hint that the power and authority with which some comedians hold their

audiences attention and gain agreement with their points of view seem almost

shaministic (Koziski Olson 1988, p. 109).

Atkinsons work on political speakers and their rhetorical methods for

constructing political speeches that engage the audiences participation,

primarily through applause, was a stepping stone for the study reported here. We

can ask if similar rhetorical techniques are used by the stand-up comedian to

elicit laughter as by the politician to elicit applause.


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4. LAUGHTER IN EVERYDAY CONVERSATION

Jeffersons observations that laughter is not chaotic and that it cannot just

be described simply as spontaneous laughter in transcripts have led to the full

recognition that laughter is sensitively organised to the contingencies of talk.

Jefferson (1985) has shown that laughter is of different forms, such as huh or

hah, and is precisely timed according to the talk-in-progress and the evolving

social situation. For example, it has been misleadingly claimed that laughter

floods out during an utterance and is uncontrollable. Jefferson demonstrates

that often the laughter embedded in an utterance is precisely timed to overlap

and hide sensitive or taboo words and phrases. In addition, Jefferson (1979) hasexamined how laughter can be invited by a current speaker by the placing of a

laugh particle upon completion of an utterance. In this study, we attend to the

precise transcription of the comedians personal laughter and the communal

laughter of the audience, ie. its form, duration and contour. We also extend our

scope to cover other audience responses that we believe are also sensitively

organised, such as cheers, whoops, whistles, etc..

5. THE STUDY

Videotapes of stand-up comedians -broadcast on public TV or released as a

video for the general public (usually containing more offensive material) -

formed the core material for the study. Altogether, the shows of varying lengths

of nine stand-up comedians were analysed.

Linguistic resources for artistic verbal performance include words, phrases,

intonation patterns, tempo, voice quality, volume, and rhetorical devices such as

repetition, ellipsis, metaphor and alliteration (Apte 1985, p. 199). Of course,

linguistic resources are crucial to the success of a comedians show, but this

paper concentrates on how conversational devices are used to build humour and

to elicit audience responses.

5.1 Types of Audience Response

Audience responses in stand-up comedy are generally more varied and

more frequent than in political oratory. Both affiliative and dis-affiliative

responses were found in our corpus. Affiliation can be shown with laughter,

applause, cheers, whoops and whistles. In addition, a response of fairly recent

origin has emerged in the USA: that of the barf (like a low dog bark) with an


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accompanying rotating hand gesture as seen in Arsenio Halls show.

Disaffiliation is not so common in the shows of good comedians, unless elicited

deliberately, but can include jeers, boos and verbal heckles. Skilful comedians

can cut-down a heckler with ease.

Atkinson (1984) has noted some features of applause in public discourse -

it is a collective activity with a normative duration of 8 seconds and a

characteristic loudness curve that builds quickly to a peak and then dies away

slowly before falling rapidly at the end. Atkinson recognises that cheering has

quite a different dynamic than applause - it is usually brief and contains an

extended vowel sound that others can join in with. Is laughter a quite differentlyorganised response than applause? One obvious difference is that laughter is

much more prevalent, and quite local and personal. There is a need for close

attention to the flow of the performance because of the pressure in joking

situations to understand the puzzle/joke and display recognition as quickly as

possible in your local environment of friends or buddies. Pollio & Edgerly

(1976) claim from experimental studies that members of groups who watched

recorded comedians shows reacted differently according to the make-up of the

group (eg. strangers, friends, plant). As an illustration of this point, we note that

comedians often comment on the audience response directly by creating an

imaginary dialogue between one member and another that illustrates the

importance of the accountability of laughter - they may point to one couple and

say she said to him: dont laugh its rude. Also, laughter in an audience can

identify specific groups and hlight aparticularly strange or idio udience

response.

However, audiences often react not just with one response, but

simultaneously with two or more. It appears that responses are ordered in quite

specific ways such that their appearance and layering is tailored to the

performance in progress, eg. applause emerges from laughter (and drowns it out)

to show particular appreciation of the recent material. Other vocal responses

(cheers, whoops, whistles) have different characteristics - they are usually loud

and distinctive; the cheers are easy to join, but whistles and whoops are quite

individual responses of short duration.

What we need to remember for this paper is that the production of


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responses by audiences demonstrates that close attention is being paid to the

immediately preceding segment of talk. In fact, an audience is both shaped by

the talk it is attending and through its responses help shape what will be made

of thattalk (Goodwin 1986, p. 311), ie. its interpretation. Also, this is the onlyimmediate way in which a performer can test, gauge and establish audience

approval. As a byproduct, it is also a resource for the analyst. One last point to

note in this connection is that it has become common practice to explicitly cue

laughter for television recordings and even to add canned laughter to shows in

post-production. However, it is often clear for an attentive viewer that

something is amiss -the audience laughs too aggressively or the timing is

wrong. This clearly illustrates that audience responses are not just bland,predictable and uniform, but that they are sequentially sensitive and precisely

timed to the witnessable performance in progress.

5.2 Laugh Traps

The elicitation of audience response by a claptrap has been a focus of

Atkinsons research on political oratory (Atkinson 1984). In order to get

applause a politician must make it clear that he has come to the final stage ofdelivery of an applaudable message and make clear the point at which his

message is to be completed (p. 48). Here we can extend this analysis to consider

laughtraps -devices used by comedians to trap laughter. Stand-up comedians

must also prepare the audience for the laughable message and make clear the

point at which laughter is appropriate, for example after the punch line. Thus,

we ask of our material how it is that audiences recognise a laughable message

and at what precise time laughter is appropriate.

As most books on textual humour report, much humour in language is built

on the structure of language and its natural ambiguity. Very common standard

forms include conventional or fossilised linguistic structure, eg. syntactic form.

In the following two examples we see how the packaging of a recognisable

structure leads to a recognisable trajectory of a second pair part that plays in

some way with the structure of the first pair part. Example 1 shows how a twoitem list of qualities consisting of an adjective-noun structure is used in the

second pair part (B) to humourous effect by reversing the position of the

adjectives in the two structures. In Example 2, the first pair part proverb (A)

contains a two-item comparative structure it takes more energy to... than to...


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EXAMPLE 1 -[Bill Hicks: B18]

BH: maybe i'm just jealous man.everyone at the beach is wfecty'know

(turns to look at audience))A-> mn:'d tite

eeth.B->

i've got ate skin(.)mned tieth.

AUD: hHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

BN: [khuh [NOT my environment

which is exploited in the second pair part response (B), inviting laughter. In this

case, a dialogue is constructed between a stranger and the comedian in which the

retort by the comedian humorously twists a conventional proverb. In theseexamples the production of a conventional format, followed by the same format

with humourous play allows an audience to track the laughable message and

predict its completion.

EXAMPLE 2 -[Bill Hicks: B 1 9 ]

BH: i got a(.)clasface: thati don't know what's wrong with my face but

people i don't even know walk up to me out of theblue

and go


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EXAMPLE3 -[Smith&Jones: B17]

S:

J:

al?+s: and ak:k their u:sk>isever with us:

J:

S:

J:

S: 2->J:

.

tch soin the

long as there is opussion and f;yrannym:rld.

they must the tight of hnpe

hrning,

yeh

lyes:

S: 3->

AUD:

TEN:D the -me of commsion,right

(0.5)

an'> irthe'SHIt a bit from time to time


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opposite parts which generally have similarities in grammatical structure, length

and content (Atkinson 1984, p. 73). At first Dame Edna raises a puzzle about

my hat (she is not wearing a hat). Through a three part list structure she builds

a contrast pair that contains the laughable message in the third item. The firsttwo items (Al, A2) tell of what hats she is not wearing; the third item (B) gives

the second part of the contrast pair -the hat she is supposedly wearing -which

resolves the puzzle metaphorically. Thus Dame Edna skilfully uses two devices

to simultaneously signal the impending laughable message. In addition, falling

intonation, stress on the key word gynaecological and the explicit cue wait for

this all add to the power of the punch line.

Next we shall look at a device that has not yet been found in political

oratory, viz. pre-positioned alignment in which a speaker aligns to something

before it is said. One particular form, a disclaimer, is used in everyday

conversation to prevent the hearer from reacting in a negative way to what the

speaker will say (Hewitt &Stokes 1975). McLaughlin (1985, p. 202) claims that

their function is to mark an upcoming utterance as a candidate basis for

negative typification, and to ask for the hearers indulgence. The typical formof a disclaimer is illustrated in Example 5 by the utterance i know i sound just

like a tourist which is pre-positioned before but ( )could you please please tell

mehhuhh.... The disclaimer device is structured to wind up the audience for the

punch line by adding disclaimers appropriate for the humorous message. By

their nature disclaimers delay the onset of the target utterance and allow time to

judge the response and thus change that target. In this example, two disclaimers

(Dl, D2) with similar format, both start with i know and are followed by a

EXAMPLE 5 -[EmoPhillips: B6]

AUD:

EP:

D1

D2

AUD:

E2: T

AUD:

AUD:

EP:

-x-

as soon as i got here,i pulled someone over an' i said look huh .hhi know y're

&k

of thishhuh (.)i know i sound just like a

mristhuhh

.h[-h-h-h-

(.)

but ( )could you s se -11 mehhuhhwhere they

we

(.)'bull's eyhehh .HHHHH HUH .HH[-h-hhhh?ZRBEfHBHHHHRU

HHHhhhhhhh (hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)hhhhhhhh[AN' IT'S RIGHT 'HEREHHHH .hhh huh oh


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breath and pause, are used to build a tension before the punch line (T). Before

the crucial name (a famous crass TV programme in Britain) Emo pauses and

then delivers it with falling intonation. He has thus given many clues to the form

expected and the timing of the applaudable message. In addition, his eccentric

character uses peculiar and often ingressive breath markers at appropriate points

to invite laughter.

Example 6 illustrates an extreme case of the use of the disclaimer. Mark

EXAMPLE 6 -[Mark Little: B4]

ML:

L-> D1

L-> D2

AUD:

L

->D3+LL

P

AUD:

AUD:

ML:

AUD:

WHAT I'D LIKE TO DO is just er:do something from my impressionistera (.)inaustralia==something that i'vebecome a J.&tle bit er:an' you're gonna hate me for this (.).h it's just that i've become a utle bit erm:>wellthis is an Mu1 thing to sy


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will show how the different types of audience response are related and organised

in relation to the comedians talk.

5.3 Post-Response Continuation in Overlap

We will now shift our attention to describing some patterns in comedian

continuations after audience response. Often the continuation is in overlap with

the audience response. If we look at Anglo-American conversational interaction,

overlap is minimised and often dealt with as a source of trouble (Sacks et al

1978). In public speaking, overlap has a simpler character as the setting

demands a certain orderliness which is engendered by a stricter and more

explicit turn-management system. We found that in stand-up comedy acontinuation by the comedian in overlap with an audience response can result in

the audience reacting in at least two ways: to stop responding or to continue or

enhance their current response.

Example 7 illustrates a straightforward and very common form of

continuation using loudness in which the response to a punch line is overlapped

by an utterance shifting to the next part of the act. The next example (Example

8) is more interesting in that it demonstrates that at other points in an act when

EXAMPLE 7-[Mark Little: C7]

ML: i have been in the country er: two weeks now.(0.5) an' i mlise that you have every 'righTh.

AUD: hhHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

wwwwwwww w------

ML: -> (2.0)

[WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO is just er:do something from my immsionist

era...

. continuation is not so obvious extra work has to be undertaken in

th the audience response. This often requires material to be recycled

ationwith an increase in volume. In the first half of Example 8 a

invited (R2) before reaching the punch line of a joke. Bob Nelson

quickly to overlap (C) with the response - loudness followed by

im ready im ready -and to lead into the visual gag based on the

g e of New York. One could describe this as keeping the audience on

h may be necessary because of the difficulty in relating the latter

:ontent to the early audience response elicitation (R2).

other form of continuation a comedian may prefer to work on current


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EXAMPLE 8 -[Bob Nelson: C5, C8,B12]

BN:->

AUD:

AUD:

BN:

BN:

B:

AUD:

AUD:

BN:

AUD:BN:

AUD:

BN:

AUD:

BN:

BN:

I'MWT

nervous thoughR1 because i mfrom new 'Yorkand i know i know

how to & this.-> R2 [i15)r:;z;h;e;-:yo:r--l and er:r,JO, )

I-x-

--x--x--x--xxx

i'mmdy for this (.)an' we're gonna have a good time i'mready

i jus' wanna let you know there's XLheckling (0.5)during my set=they say i'ma little harsh un- (.)i don' wanna the show t'get ugly or anything

[((jacket off))

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhP2->(0.5) [idon't ainkthere'll be any -trouble. heh

hahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

P3->never is (.) unfortunately heheh (1.0)

hhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhh]

C-> >thisa this looks real doesn't it?look real (0.5)does this look real to you?

humorous material in progress, rather than to move onto new material or

activities by refusing or competing with audience response, and hence a

comedian can encourage the audience to continue with their response. Example

8 illustrates some play continuations after the visual punch line. In this casethey are connected to the humorous material the audience is currently responding

to and they are presented with normal voice. Also, a laugh particle is present at

the end of each continuation utterance. Jefferson (1979) has argued that in

conversational interaction a laugh particle invites laughter when the status of a


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laughable message may be ambiguous. They are motivated here for an

important reason: they incite further audience response at the precise time when

the trajectory of the continuation may suggest the audience stop laughing and

attend to the next matter.

This phenomena parallels the finding in political oratory that charismatic

speakers, such as Tony Benn or Martin Luther King, repeatedly overlap their

audience responses using further claptraps (Atkinson 1984, p.99). Indeed,

orators are often refusing the invited applause through the veil of modesty;

however, in stand-up comedy we find that comedians are actively and

deliberately pursuing further response. There are interesting variants of this

device, for example an interesting mix of two techniques of continuing in

overlap was the trademark of a British comedian called Frankie Howard. He

would typically invite audience response through the casual and apparently

unintentional use of innuendoes and then refuse the invited laughter with the

catchphrase Ooh No, dont titter. This clever combination of refusal and play

. . . . . .


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EXAMPLE 9 -[Ben Elton: C2]

AUD:

BE:

B->

AUD:BE:

AUD:

BE:

AUD:BE:

AUD:

BE:

BE:

P->

AUD:BE: Pl

AUD:

BE:

AUD:

AUD:

BE: P2

AUD:BE:

P3

AUD:

BE: P4P5

AUD:

BE: P6P7

AUD:BE:

BE:

AUD:

AUD:

BE: c->

-x-x-x-x-

the:gn

(0.8)for (0.6)is a triangle(0.5)containing a

m(O.g)digging.

hhhhhh[WHY.

hhhHHHHHHhhh

[WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you saw anyonegoing

at theside

of theaad

[(h

h hh)hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh[OR

ANYTHING

(hhhhhhh)

ELSE GOING ON for aat ter=

=i'lltell you what (sign for) the roadworks shouldbe (0.5) a triangle (0.4) full of (0.6) a: all.

hHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh

2.5)

[my:= ALL (0.5)

hhhhhhhhhhhh

[will go on till September.2.0)

IhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

f-*-*-*-

HHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

-x-x-x-x-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxLw---

--

-

-

-

s-s-

[&lays due to akall, (3.0)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-x-x- -x--x- an' then (1.0) then it should be (0.5)

>another

(sign)< (0.5)

tik all end(.)

hhhHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

(0.5)end(0.5)of &&all=there is no more(.)- all

HHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'hhhhhhhhhhh

(l.O) all is over (1.O)youmay proceed without

hhh'hhhhhHHHHHHHHHh-h-h-h-h- -h- -h-I

J

all(l.O)for three hundred yards just enough time

to get into third when tick allwill begin all over again

2.0)

LhhhhHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh

[-*--*-

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-h-h-h-

ladies and gentleman ( . when they `really...


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applause dies down he prefaces the continuation with anthen (1.0) then it

should be as if moving onto new material. Thus he orients to the terminal

nature of applause whilst shifting back to the prior humorous format, ie. roadsign

texts with fuck all replacing the activity. Skilfully he manages to invite (P3) a

further response from silence and to play (P4-P7) further with that. He finally

moves onto a new development of the joke with the conventional attention-

seeking phrase (C): ladies and gentleman, after which the audience cease

responding.

So, it is clear that the organisation of comedian talk and audience response

in stand-up comedy is a multi-faceted phenomena that does not conform to thestandard model proposed by Atkinson for public speaking, ie. a joke + punch

line, then an 8 second audience response, followed by the next joke + punch line,

etc.. A live comedy show can best be described as consisting of a rich

interaction between a comedian and audience, in which the comedians talk and

the variety of audience responses are intricately interwoven. As we have seen,

continuations in overlap with an audience response are fine-tuned to the work of

creating and maintaining laughter whilst moving stepwise through a show.

5.4 Reference to Membership Categories: Constructing Audience Identity

Next we will look at a classic way for a comedian to involve and find out

about the audience. In conversational interaction, it has been found that

participants are continually invoking members categories that are inference-

rich, in that a great deal of knowledge that members have about a society is

available through these categories, and any member of any category is

presumptively a representative member (whether they like it or not) (Sacks 1989,

p. 271-2).

In the stand-up comedy show a comedian may on many occasions use a

membership category to involve the audience in identifying, affiliating or

disaffiliating with such a category, usually with some explicit response. Then

the comedian can build humour on the knowledge available through the

membership category; either making favourable or unfavourable references. In

political oratory, Atkinson (1984, p.37) has shown how favourable references to

us or unfavourable references to them are used to invite applause from a

supportive audience. The comedian has more of a problem in that an audience is

a disparate group of people that do not as a matter of course clearly identify with


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a particular membership category, such as a political cause.

We show how comedians may craftily use such references to gauge

audience receptivity and provide a platform from which to launch a joke or

comment related to that membership category. One aspect of this device is the

delivery of a reference to a membership category which invites an audience

response. Different responses are possible, such as applause, cheers or groans

depending on the affiliation or assessment demanded.

In the next two examples, a favourable reference to something we identify

with -usually something clearly bounded and that a disparate audience will

have in common - elicits a response. In Example 10, Emo Philips clearlyarticulates (A) the home town where the show is taking place, pauses, breathes

audibly, and elicits a cheer to which he responds with the news receipt token

EXAMPLE 10-[EmoPhillips: B14a]

AUD:

EP:

AUD:

w---

[ and yesterday i watched the a:iders bnsas

city &.iefs' 'wme(.h)

AUD:

AH:

aa

[yeah yeh (1.2) [tough outcome for us but itwas a gnodg.ame (.)an' you know (.)what i er er

i learned there's a a -back (.)for the efs named


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pause the audience grumble or groan (they had performed badly) and Arsenio

provides a second assessment in the standard position. He then goes on to make

a humorous comment about one of the opposing team members.

In Example 12, Frank Skinner refers (R) to the home town as having the

oldest football club in the world, which is an achievement worthy of some sort

of response. The cheers start during his comment (P) on his discovery. The

standard receipt token yeah occurs after a slight pause and then, in contrast to

previous examples, he slights (P) the team for their visible signs of age.

EXAMPLE 12 -[Frank Skinner: B13]

FS: it's ni:ceto be inmtingum (.)ah-R->

i-incidentally nottingham is the hameof theel:dest faatball dubin the m:rld

P-> i discovered in fact (.)yeah2.0)

AN' IT SHO:WSAUD:

I-cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccJ

I-,-

--xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

[s s w l

FS:

AUD:

FS:

doesn't it esPhhhhhhhhhh

[as the bloke over there said()

From the analyses above we can see that the delivery of a membership

category inviting response most likely involves a clear mention of the category, a

pause and then a post response receipt, acknowledgement or assessment token.

Of course the exact reference choice is very important, however it usually occurs

at lulls in the show routine when no joke is currently in progress. Through the

use of this device the comedian can construct and establish audience identity.

Indeed, Mintz (1985, p. 78) notes that working the room -constructing the

homogeneity of the group for the audience itself -is essential if laughter as an

expression of shared values is to occur.

However, delivery does not guarantee an immediate response as we shall

see in the next example. If we return to the long Example 8, we see Bob Nelson

attempt, as in Example 10, to mention (Rl) a home town (the category dweller

of New York; the show is not in New York), but the audience falters in its

response to the mention (R2). The 0.5 second pause elicits only a whoop, and he

recycles the reference. The earlier recycle i know i know and the filler and

er: are interesting in that these types of talk resources often occur in post-

punchline position at or just after audience response in anticipation of an


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audience response flooding out a continuation by the comedian. They are not

rich in content nor topic development but they save a certain amount of modesty

for the poor comedian who can no longer continue because of the unexpected

audience response. The second time, Bob Nelson does get his audience torespond but rather weakly. The typical receipt token yeah appears a short way

into the response. The reference to New York is essential for the success of the

visual gag that appears later.

The next example is most interesting because it clearly highlights the

power of a reference to a home place, and thus that audience members are

constantly tracking for possible references that they can respond to. In ExampleEXAMPLE 13 -[Arsenio Hall: B15]

AH: ah: a young lady by the name of mdy kexnpa- speaking of words (0.5) ((looks to left))( ) interesting spelling thingah wendykemp tipis an

ghth

aderRl+R2->

who mnthezsno

mllingtie

inxas

(.)

AUD:

AUD:AH:

AH:

AUD:

and erm ((looks around audience))

yes-x-x-x-x-x- uhehh](2.0)[-x-x-x-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-x-x-

is that for FORWDY?

OR FORTEXAS.

WAS that for mdy? or for aas.

(wendy)

tE:X:S)

AH:

AUD:

AH:

oh: ok s:syEKS (0.5)tias(.)

[hhhhhhh

well she won the renospelling bee thereand the ?~ss asked her...

13, Arsenio Hall primes a joke by announcing the achievement of a schoolgirl in

a spelling competition (Rl+R2). This is a typical applaudable message and it

could be that Arsenio Hall invites a response with the pause and filler and er:.

However, he seems genuinely surprised by the response and also raises the

empirical ambiguity of the object of the response by saying: is that for Wendy

or for texas? The proximity of the mention of the state in which she won to the

audience response does seem to give support to his construction of an

ambiguity and it would seem that the type of response -applause -does not


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favour of the other. At the onset of the spontaneous

ll gives the classic receipt token yes and after receiving an

uityquestion, he repeats it as if responding again but to a

t heapplause prompted by the reference to Texas.

e looked at favourable references to membership categories

e is taken as representative of. But, unfavourable references

In Example 14, Mark Little is clearly Australian and has

ark Little: Bl6]

only been in the sountry a shartLimeyou might have noticed that er:mss (.)actually got ont- onto meand actually -ted me in theayingyou were a nchof tinging

'ms

.h **** (no) ccccc

cccccccccccccccccccc-ccc-cccc-cccc-

[i'dlike to take i would like totike

this

Lrmityto aaogise for that (.)er:

lowered; waves hands))

show of using this as material. He makes an unfavourable

ou(the English) and the audience respond after a slight

jeering cheer. Instead of responding with the yeah receipt

wnthe response with his hands -which both acknowledges

of the response and yet claims the response given is uncalled

vith the beginnings of an apology that leads into his joke.

e examples and in every show we have studied so far,

use of this special device that draws on membership

humorous message is usually packaged in two halfs: the first

curs at lulls in the show, elicits the audience response to the

second half launches into the humorous message bouncingnowledgeavailable from the category which has now been

section of the audience.

: we have illuminated a little of the complexity of the


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asymmetric interaction between stand-up comedian and audience, and that we

have not destroyed your enjoyment of stand-up comedy. In future we hope to

address some of the following issues that have arisen in the course of this study.

How does performance comedy differ from humour in everyday life? How are

interactional and linguistic resources used to construct humour on stage? How

does a comedian accomplish a successful joke and invite laughter? What sorts

of response does an audience give during a comedians set? How does a

comedians material change according to situated performance and audience

response? What happens when the audience doesnt laugh? What does it mean

to have the elusive comic timing? Too much for just one paper.

Before we close we would like to acknowledge the inherent problems that

one encounters both theoretically and empirically when analysing humour. As

Mulkay (1988, p. 28) points out: analysts of humour operate within a different

discursive mode from participants in humour.... Analysts of humour are, of

course, unavoidably committed to assessing humour according to the

requirements of the serious mode. But, in so doing, we must be alert to the

dangers involved. In sum, for an analyst of humour it is not yet clear whether

or not the serious and humorous modes of discourse are incommensurable.

While we appreciate the depth of this problem, we feel that our study has

scratched an interactional surface. Whether further and deeper analyses of

humour and improvisation can really come to grips with the phenomena we shall

see.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

This paper is the result of the work of a student research group; in

particular, the work of two students, Ritva Tapio and Sari Mettovaara, forms a

substantial part of the paper. Threads were tied and other sections added by Paul

McIlvenny.


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TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS:

Amalgamated, with additions, from Heritage(l989), Atkinson(1984) and

Jefferson(1985).

.CAPS

kjil

u

>hgj

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