Self-disparaging humor in conversations: a brief survey of a complex phenomenon usually considered as obvious

Résumé En

Self-disparaging humor is one of the numerous kinds of humor present in conversations. As with humor in general, it can occur anywhere in the conversation, either as a simple word or an anecdote, allowing the speaker to tell a funny story in which he/she has a bad image of him/herself. In this paper, I will point out the paradoxical aspects of self-disparaging humor concerning both its functions and its potential targets. Indeed, if it is true that self-disparaging humor is usually considered a threat to the speaker’s own face; it is also true that it allows him/her to present a good image of him/herself. In the same way, if it is reasonable to think that the target is the speaker, it could be also the hearer, the audience, or an absent tierce person. After having presented the necessary problem of defining this phenomenon, I will analyze some examples revealing that the target of self-disparaging humor is fuzzier than we think. Attempting to discriminate between the various targets of self-disparaging humor will pose several questions: when other targets can be identified, do these targets come in addition to the speaker? If yes, is the speaker the real target or is he/she just a kind of “screen”? And on another hand, when the speaker is clearly identified as the target, does he/she always laugh at him/herself or at just a (false) image of him/herself? I will try to answer these questions taking into account the audience’s reaction. This study is based on audiotaped conversations among four, six and seven close participants. All are friends or members of a single family.