A socio-pragmatic analysis ofwúlítóu‘nonsense’ in Taiwanese verbal interactions

Humor has long attracted scholarly interest in many academic disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, anthropology, cultural studies, etc. Among the various types of humor, wúlítóu ‘nonsense’ has greatly influenced Taiwanese’s sense of humor. Based on previous studies on the concept of wúlítóu ‘nonsense’ (e.g., Tan 2000; Jiang 2004; Chueh 2006; Yen 2009; Tao 2010), this study further examines its social-pragmatic functions in Taiwanese verbal interactions, as well as the discourse strategies used to construct it. The methodological approaches used for analysis are informed by conversation analysis, multimodal discourse analysis and interactional linguistics. Major findings are: (a) There are three discourse strategies frequently used to construct wúlítóu ‘nonsense’: theatrical performance, fictional episode and dramatic expression/code. (b) Taiwanese’s frequent use of wúlítóu ‘nonsense’ shows not only their playful attitudes towards their life, but also their dealing with the pressures in life with xiǎoquèxìng ‘the pleasure coming from trivial, but exact daily things’.