| Humorous Italian discourse features a blend of poetry, performance, linguistic creativity, and cultural knowledge. Joking, be it written or spoken, acts as a form of entertainment as well as a medium for communication. On the one hand, speakers amuse each other with formulaic jokes, teasing, verbal play, anecdotes, and parody. On the other, participants relay extensive sociocultural information through playful talk. An examination of Italian conversational joking reveals that poetic and performance devices contribute to the cultural and esthetic impact of the Italian language.;The field work for this study took place during 1995 and 1996 in Italy (Milan, Genoa, and Rome), and in Austin, Texas. I gathered two types of data: (1) thirty tape-recorded hours of spontaneous face-to-face interactions and (2) three written texts containing political satire cartoons. I explore various brands of humor occurring in these data with a concentration on spoken dialogue.;The bulk of the analysis focuses on the role of poetics in Italian humor. Jakobson (1960, 1990) proposes a set of functions by which linguists may categorize factors involved in verbal communication. Especially relevant to my data is the poetic function: language for the pure enjoyment of language. Also important are performance frames (Goffman, 1974) which signal the joking context. To facilitate my analysis, I propose two types of frame-invoking devices: poetic devices and performance devices. Poetic devices encompass the traditional literary fare of irony, allusion, alliteration, repetition, and punning. Performance devices involve speech acts that present the language as enacted for the sake of entertainment. Examples include parody, role-playing, reported speech, and teasing. Excerpts from my Italian corpus are grouped into chapters which cover teasing, verbal play, repetition, narratives, and parody.;I conclude that Italian conversation is rich in both humor and art. Poetics and performance contribute to the zest of language while also foregrounding social and cultural topics. These combined forces of fun and function establish the verbal virtuosity required for successful creation and interpretation of playful talk. |
