Humorous syntony as a metacommunicative language game

The present paper introduces the concept of “humor syntony” defined as felicitous humorous conversational exchange. Humorous exchanges are considered language games (WITTGENSTEIN 1953: 12). The model we present assumes two aspects of communication: a humorous text needs to have some features that make it potentially humorous (ATTARDO and RASKIN 1991) and, from the metacommunicative point of view (BATESON 1954, with explicit reference to Gestalt theory), the exchange is framed as humorous. The interactants’ behavior may then range widely from humor support (HAY 2001), to mode adoption (ATTARDO 2001). Such moves are organized in 4 levels (form level-1 to level+2) depending on the degree of humorous syntony reached by interlocutors. We present the first results of an empirical analysis of two films by Totò. Our results highlight the negotiated nature of humorous syntony as well as the double direction of filmic communication (communication between actors vs. actors to audience). We will also discuss the various ways in which the text signals its humorous intentionality in order to achieve humorous syntony.