Laughter and Truth in Fiji

What We May Learn from a Joke

Bibliographic Data

ID18935733
AuthorsC Toren (0000-0002-1722-5869, Brunel University of London, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume75
Issue3
Pages268-283
Publication date2005-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOceania (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-8077 • E-ISSN: 1834-4461
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/j.1834-4461.2005.tb02885.x
OpenAlexW2084257237
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited19

This paper examines a series of events which took place in a Fijian village in the late 1980s and which, for the ethnographer, brought into question joking, lying and telling the truth. The analysis suggests that our ideas of what language is good for necessarily inform our understanding of the truth conditions of what is said, from which it follows that truth may be regarded not as an absolute, but as a function of the moral force of language — itself an historical phenomenon that is embedded in, and constituted through, the everyday social relations that we may analyse in terms of gender, kinship, chiefship, and ideas of the person. Laughter emerges as central both to the events described and their analysis. Subtle though they may be, people's ideas of the moral force of language are amenable to investigation and analysis; but for all we may learn from laughter, it ultimately eludes any analysis — an observation that provides the key to its revelatory force

Epistemology · Ethnography · Joke · Kinship · Laughter · Linguistics · Phenomenon · Sociology · Anthropology · Humor Studies and Applications · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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