LAUGHTER AS A FACE MANAGEMENT DEVICE IN TURKISH: EVIDENCE FROM TURKISH SPOKEN CORPUS

Abstract: Laughter, being a significant part of interaction, has been found to have important functions. Goffman (1967) and Brown Levinson (1987)’s theories in relation with politeness are one of the major approaches to interaction that inter-relate with the function of laughter in discourse. This study aims to examine how laughter is used to achieve politeness according to Politeness Theory (Brown Levinson, 1987) and Goffman’s concept of face (Goffman, 1972). For the purpose of this study, 26 laughter tokens out of 729 from the publishable files in Spoken Turkish Corpus (STC) are examined. EXAKT 1.2 is used to examine and retrieve tokens of laughter. The study shows that laughter is used by speakers for maintaining and saving positive and negative face. Laughter is not only used for maintaining one’s own face but also employed for saving the face of others.