The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts

This paper analyses the construction of fictional interaction in humorous narratives written by children of 8, 10 and 12 years of age, as compiled in the CHILDHUM corpus. These informants were asked to write a humorous story about an imaginary school exchange program with Mars. The analysis will explore the ways in which children shape their fictional conversational interactions with Martians, and how the data that arise can be correlated with the psychosocial and metalinguistic maturation of th