The expression of subjectivity in children’s humour: evaluative elements, hedges and intensifiers

Abstract

The development of metapragmatic competence in general, and more precisely of verbal humour, is related to people’s age. This paper has as its aim to study the importance of subjectivity that the evaluative elements, intensifiers and attenuating devices show in the construction of a narrative discourse with humour of boys and girls of 8 and 12 years of age. In the text corpus of this study, which is made up of 300 essays, quantitative data concerning the uses and distribution of these elements in the construction of verbal humour was first analysed. Subsequently, it is observed how the same elements contribute to the creation of verbal humour. The result obtained shows how the analysed elements contribute to the creation of humour as well as the way they contribute to establish a gradual connection between the issuers’ age and the type of humorous production.