The competitive functions of humours in young women’s gossip

Abstract

Studies on gender and humour in spontaneous conversation have noted that women’s humorous practices in these contexts are characterized by their cooperative features and by their functionality primarily oriented to the reinforcement of solidarity and/or the subversion of gender norms and stereotypes. The aim of this article is to illuminate the formal and functional characteristics of humour in the practice of gossip by analyzing extracts of two spontaneous conversations among Galician female undergraduate students who are in their early twenties. In contrast to the general characterization of women’s conversational humour in the literature, this analysis highlights the competitive functions of this kind of discourse and as its role in the maintenance and reinforcement of forms of female symbolic capital such as physical appearance and sexual/romantic relationships with men.

Keywords

• conversación
• humor
• cotilleo
• estudiantes universitarias
• funciones competitivas
• capital social femenino
• apariencia física
• relaciones con los hombres