Interactional Dynamics Of Jocular Mockery In Chinese Television Shows

Jocular mockery is characterized as a social practice(verbal or non-verbal)whereby the speaker provocatively belittles the importance of another individual or object within a playful or non-serious frame.Such practice is never an individually-achieved endeavor,but rather one that is negotiated and co-constructed by interactants within interaction.Therefore,the interpretation of jocular mockery cannot be predetermined by particular linguistic components.Accordingly,it cannot be fully understood without a full account of the interplay between linguistic and interactional dynamics.Based on the notion proposed by Haugh(2014),this paper takes interactional dynamics as the flow of moves embodied in sequences,the flow of turns suggested by turn-taking and prosodic cues that drive the flow of turns.Given that,this paper intends to unfold jocular mockery practices from the perspectives of sequence organization,turn taking and prosodic cues that facilitate the flow of turns.The following three questions will be addressed in the present research:(1)What are the patterns of sequence organization of jocular mockery employed in Chinese television shows?(2)How does a(next)speaker come to have a turn in exchanges?(3)What are the features of prosodic cues that enable a would-be next speaker to anticipate the possible turn completion of a current turn at talk?To answer the research questions,data were collected based on the trigger-frame-response framework of jocular mockery(Haugh,2014).Sixty episodes in which 139 instances of jocular mockery arise were selected from three Chinese television shows including Trump Card vs.Trump Card,Youth Travel and Super Sketch Show.The collected data were annotated and transcribed with ELAN(6.3)software based on Jefferson’s(2004)transcription conventions.Within the framework of interactional pragmatics and conversation analysis,this paper has analyzed tokens of jocular mockery turn by turn to find out the recurrent patterns of sequence organization and regularities of turn allocation techniques.Audio recordings of turns that implement jocular mockery were imported into PRAAT(6.2.10)software to present prosodic features.As for the first research question,there are two findings.Firstly,jocular-mockery sequence(s)can be achieved as side sequence or post-expansion sequence of an overall activity sequence;or it can be implemented as the focus of a sequence in its own right.Secondly,jocular mockery can be in the sequence-initiated place,which is in contrast to the previous finding that it must be a response to a prior turn.As far as the second research question is concerned,turns that implement jocular mockery are allocated to recipient(s)as a respondent through current-selects-next in nearly half of the instances of jocular mockery.Through self-selection or current-selects-next,side participants are selected as a co-respondent or a co-initiator When it comes to the third question,this study indicates that there is phonetic prominence that projects turn completion near the end of jocular mockery turn,especially prominent features of pitch and duration,but no evident prominence of intensity.With an aim to explore the interactional dynamics or the flow of interaction essential to the practices of jocular mockery,the present study has identified and analyzed the social practices of jocular mockery in a Chinese context of conversational interactions.The study has confirmed the earlier finding that jocular mockery can be a response to a prior turn.However,it has also proved that jocular mockery can also be initiated in a first turn with ensuing responses,which may contribute to the cross-cultural perspectives into the interactional dynamics of jocular mockery.