Negotiating the Serious Import of Humor

Covert messages contained in jokes may emerge into the open as an inadvertent consequence of failure to have a gesture accepted as a joke or as the result of negotiations to transpose the topic from a humorous to a serious framework. These negotiations are covert and tricky. In such negotiations the central issues are the amount of license permissible in humor and the assigning of responsibility for evading conventional guidelines. The transposer may seek to curb the license taken in jest or to suggest a discussion which would not ordinarily be suitable. After acquiescing in a transition, a joker may open negotiations to have his original gesture redefined as a joke. Such negotiations constitute private agreements to suspend general guidelines and thus have crucial significance for the stabilizing or subverting of social order.