26
Once Ian begins to laugh in unison, Maureen’ s laughter then‘ floods out’ much louder and heartily 30, as does Ian’ s laughter. As no further turns are produced, again the acceptance of the laughter invitation acts as the terminal exchange and the shared laughter effectively closes the dispute. This shared laughter continues to re-frame the conflict as humorous and allows for effective termination without either participant deferring their stance in the dispute. Therefore, similar to the previous extract, the laughter has not only been used directly to mitigate the conflict, but also in order to close the disagreement.
Therefore, as the extracts above illustrate, shared laughter de-escalates the dispute and allows for amicable conflict termination. Laughter often mimics the closing sequence and instances where the laughter invitation is accepted by the recipient, the dispute is successfully terminated. Presented below is an alternative example of conflict where laughter is not present.
Extract 3: M1. S1. E1. J1. Camera _( 00:15)
1 A: yeah but you just say:( 0.5) thanks Gin but it’ s 2 alright( 0.4) cause it’ s spensive you’ re not 3 allowed to touch it 4( 25:02) 5 A: don’ t ya 6( 0.6) 7 V: yes ma love 8( 5.6) 9 A:( especially when she’ s got her friends over) 10( 1.0)
11 →V: alri:: ght 12( 1.6)
13 → stop going on 14( 0.8) 15 A:( like I’ d) do that
Alicia is particularly prominent in this extract and on lines 1-3 reprimands Victor to which he does not respond. At this point Victor is withdrawn from the conflict as he is declining to participate. 31 However, after a considerable 25 second pause without response, on line 5 Alicia prompts Victor to which he responds on line 7. Victor’ s turn indicates agreement with Alicia’ s proposal, using the conflict strategy of submission to assent to her viewpoint and close the dispute. 32 Victor’ s assent on line 7, after his original withdrawal, provides a clear indication of willingness to terminate the dispute.
Despite this submission to Alicia’ s view, on line 9 following a further 25 second gap
30 Jefferson,“ An exercise in the transcription and analysis of laughter”. 31 Vuchinich,“ The Sequential Organization of Closing in Verbal Family Conflict”.
32 Ibid.