Stretching, Sawing, and Snapping: Reclassification through Humor

• In Event: 3184 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 12. Music, Art, and Performance

Abstract

A fundamental principle of symbolic interactionism is that meanings are not inherent but are created socially. The processes of classification shared by each group provide structure to an otherwise ambiguous world. Being social, these boundaries that classify often change. This project examines the construction of humor as one way in which this is done. Analysis focuses on stretching, where additional material is subsumed into pre-existing classifications, and snapping, where the boundary between classifications previously considered to be distinct are broken. While these two forms of boundary adjustment are present in all aspects of social life, they occur rapidly in humor.

This project examines books written for those who aspire to write and/or perform three forms of comedy: improvisational comedy, stand-up comedy, and narrative humor such as that in many movies and television shows. These data demonstrate different ways through which humor primes a system of classification, makes associations with other classifications, and then leads people to interpret boundaries between concepts in a new way. Findings reveal a lot about how changes in classification occur in all aspects of social life, occurring through the inclusion of additional material into previously established boundaries (stretching), the negotiation of conflict between agents with different levels of power (sawing), and the dissolution of a boundary between two elements previously thought to be distinct (snapping).

Author

• Adrian Good, Rutgers University