An Ethnography of Laughter Onomatopoeia in Japanese and Chinese Comics: The Case of Dispreffered Responses
Abstract
Laughter, as a ubiquitous human behavior, is often expressed through ‘laughter onomatopoeia’ (LO), to depict diverse types of laughter and emotions such as joy, anger, and sadness. Notably, laughter can serve a disaffiliative function, while functioning to increase or decrease disagreement between speakers (Glenn and Holt 2013); numerous studies in China have emphasized the use of the LO ‘hehehe’ for this purpose.
This study focuses on the use of the Chinese LO ‘hehe’ and compares it with its Japanese counterparts. Specifically, the study analyzes the utilization of LO as discourse markers in dispreferred responses in the two languages and cultural backgrounds.
The study’s findings indicate that the Chinese LO ‘hehe,’ along with the Japanese ‘fufu’ and ‘haha,’ are commonly employed in dispreferred responses to express an aggressive function, leading to increased disagreement and conversation breakdown. However, in the Chinese context, speakers frequently use LO when laughing to evade a current topic, where the LO serves a covert disaffiliative function. In contrast, in the Japanese context, speakers often avoid using LO to prevent unnecessary disagreement and misunderstanding, opting instead for indirect language to avoid direct such confrontation.
Keywords: Laughter onomatopoeia, interjections, discourse markers, face threatening acts, Asia, linguistic anthropology