Lita Lundquist

Danish humor in cross-cultural professional settings: linguistic and social aspects

Abstract The specificities of national humor are often mentioned in humor research, but seldom explained in depth. This article concerns two studies, which reveal that Danish humor (as used in professional settings) is judged by Danes and non-Danes alike as ironic, self-ironic, sarcastic, and direct, with no limits or taboos. These characteristics of Danish humor are analyzed here using two different theoretical frameworks: linguistics – where an explanation is found in certain type-specific features of the Danish language, namely the dialogical particles typical of the Nordic languages in general – and the historico-sociological approach proposed by Norbert Elias. According to Elias, the mentality of a people has been molded through an ongoing historical process of civilization. The civilizing process specific to Danish society has engendered a “campfire mentality”, leading up to the egalitarian, consensual welfare state. Work relationships in Denmark are based on a horizontal, flat structure with low power distance, a structure for which management researchers actually recommend the use of humor, irony and self-irony. Finally, the specificities of Danish humor are linked to a low degree of gelotophobia, the fear of being laughed at, among Danes.

Text, Topos, and Mental Models.

We examine how predications in text affect the inferences which are generated and used during reading. Inferences of the so‐called “topos” type, that is, the more votes X gets, the more likely X will win (Anscombre, 1989; Ducrot, 1988) were explored in the reading of texts describing competitions which involved two main participants. The texts contained ambiguous definite noun phrases, as in “In the first round, John Smith got almost/only 500 votes. The Irish lawyer was leading/trailing.” When both sentences in such a sequence were oriented toward a winning or a losing outcome, the ambiguous noun phrases were interpreted as being coreferential with the individual just named, the text was judged as being clearer and more comprehensible, and reading was more rapid. In contrast, when the sentences were oriented in opposite directions, the ambiguous noun phrases were interpreted as referring to the other major participant in a contest, the text was rated as being less clear and less comprehensible, and readin...

Indefinite noun phrases in legal texts: Use, function and construction of mental spaces☆

Abstract As a counterpart to the many studies on definite noun phrases, the present article sets out to study the functions of indefinite noun phrases in texts, represented by four types of legal texts in French (textbooks, judgments, laws and legal articles). The study brings out characteristic features of the different text types, indefinite noun phrases being used mainly in a nonreferential, predicative function in laws and textbooks, and in a referential, specific function in judgments. In legal articles, indefinite noun phrases fill a more evenly distributed set of functions. Though the study is mainly empirical, theoretical questions are also raised as to how to describe the textual function of indefinite noun phrases, and an answer is given in terms of the theory of mental spaces.