HUMOUR IN TED TALKS: A MULTIMODAL ACCOUNT

TED talks represent a popular digital genre for the dissemination and popularisation of knowledge of multiple domains, and humour is one of its endemic characteristics. While past research has mainly focused on the linguistic expression of humour in the talks, the present contribution explores multimodal ensembles comprising visuals (i.e., slides with images and videos), words and gestures which jointly contribute to humour generation in various ways. The data come from a small corpus of talks from the domains of Technology, Economics and Law. The domain of Technology proves to be the richest in humorous episodes, some of which are illustrated through multimodal transcription and a detailed qualitative analysis. The latter leads to the identification of the causes for humour and its varied functions within the talks, which go beyond the management of interpersonal relations and sometimes intertwine with argumentation and strategies of popularisation for the development of the main topics of the talks. As humour understanding may be a particularly challenging task for an international audience such as the one addressed by TED speakers, a more comprehensive grasp of its dynamics may hopefully shed light on its subtleties, and on its engagement or captivating potential for ESP learners and EFL extramural contact.