Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 36

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Alicia either declines or misinterprets Victor’s invitation to end the disagreement. Alicia again
reprimands Victor, continuing to escalate the argument. On this occasion, Victor delivers
further acknowledgement with emphasis on an elongated ‘alri::ght’ on line 11 and an
increment on line 13 with ‘stop going on’. Victor not only accuses Alicia of nagging but also
reiterates his earlier indication that he is ready for her to terminate the topic and close the
discussion. On line 15, Alicia accepts Victor’s pre-closing indicator and issues a terminal
exchange. Although this conflict is terminated, it is ultimately left unresolved and concludes
in a noticeably less positive way when compared to the previous extracts closed using
shared laughter.
Discussion
Throughout my research a variety of studies have been considered which support the
importance of communication in relationship satisfaction and conflict management33. The
current research has focused in detail upon communication used by couples to manage
disagreements. Through subsequent analysis of the data, a clear phenomenon was
identified of shared laughter as a critical conversational technique. Laughter in these
disputes served as a mediator to de-escalate and re-orient it to a less serious discussion.
The laughter also signals topic termination34 and allows couples to mutually resolve the
dispute without either party losing face.
However, laughter is a particularly delicate conversational element and can be
easily misinterpreted by the recipient as negative or aggressive.35 In these instances the
disagreement will not diffuse but escalate further.36 This was not apparent within the current
data corpus, only positive laughter. However, further research may identify aggressive
humour and it would be beneficial to understand the role of this negative humour in conflict.
Furthermore, although my research aimed for naturalistic data, participants may have been
influenced by the presence of the recording equipment and therefore the data may not be
as inherently naturalistic as expected.37 However, participants appeared to become
accustomed to the camera, usually recording for hours at a time and the data appeared to
be relatively natural. In addition, this study was small scale and therefore research is
necessary with a larger data corpus to further support these findings.
However, in spite of these limitations, the findings of this study are supported by, and
build upon, previous literature concerning laughter and conversation closings. The research

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Yelsma, (1986), Vuchinich (1990), Birditt et al, (2010), Warner-Garcia, (2014).
Holt, (2011) “On the nature of 'laughables”
35
Martin, (2007) & Warner-Garcia (2014).
36
Vuchinich, “The Sequential Organization of Closing in Verbal Family Conflict”.
37
Hutchby and Wooffitt, Conversation Analysis.
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