Laughter as a Part of Speech

ABSTRACT In reviewing the considerable amount of empirical research devoted to the factors influencing the frequency and acoustic properties of laughter, it is suggested that traditional accounts of laughter are not easily extended to explain a person laughing when not otherwise evincing a positive emotional state. An alternative account, grounded in conversational and discourse analyses of everyday interaction, will be offered in which laughter is taken as a part of speech, specifically, an expletive, akin to swearing. Participants in interaction, by interpolating laughter within or adding laughter to the end of utterances, are able to perform laughter imbued speech acts that lack practical consequences. Interlocutors use these acts to index non‐serious speech events that can be examined in terms of Austin's analytical scheme of speech acts, as well as Harré’s ideas on positioning and social selves. Positions and selves are themselves grounded in the narrative content and illocutionary acts evident in any speech event and can be exploited to explain the modulation of solidarity during non‐serious talk. Support for this form of account will be identified in research on laughter in early infancy and from an examination of three types of non‐serious speech event involving adults: two forms of playful events and an example of a semi‐serious event. It will be concluded that by concentrating on laughter, speech acts, non‐serious speech events and selves, it is possible to explain the vast array of apparent uses of laughter without relying on the concepts of humour or emotional states more broadly.