Laughter and topic changes: Temporal distribution and information flow

Abstract

Laughter is an important component of social interaction that has attracted interest within conversational analysis. However, it is not universally accepted that laughs have a function in discourse structure. In this study we explore laughter in conversation in relation to topic changes trying to understand whether laughter can be considered as a signal of discourse structure, whether there is a recurrent pattern in laughter distribution with respect to topic changes, and whether laughter has a function in predicting topic changes. In order to answer these general questions, we investigate the laughter-topic change relation from two different points of view (timing and information flow), finding interesting regularities in laughter distributions. Thus, laughter has a function in discourse structure and, although not sufficient to predict a topic change in isolation, it can be an important indicator together with other sources of information.