Humor in Everyday Conversation

DRC Sponsor: Kurt DeVore

As compared to other forms of talk, humor has some unique qualities. It requires a response, its consequences can be denied; it can mean less than and more than what is being said. Humor can establish people's identities; it can define, confirm and solidify the meaning of past, present and future situations by presenting accounts or justifications for actions. It can provide a means of social control, create alternative definitions or reality, and reinterpret past events. DRC member and retired Luther College communications professor Alan Lerstrom will entertain us with examples designed to describe humor as a non-literal form of communication and its use to create amusement, and how it plays a special role in our everyday interactions.