Multi-layered analysis of laughter

Abstract : This paper presents a multi-layered classification of laughter in French and Chinese dialogues (from the DUEL corpus). Analysis related to the form, the semantic meaning and the function of laughter and its context provides a detailed study of the range of uses of laughter and their distributions. A similar distribution was observed in most of the data collected for French and Chi-nese. We ground our classification in a formal semantic and pragmatic analysis. We propose that most functions of laughter can be analyzed by positing a unified meaning with two dimensions, which when aligned with rich contextual reasoning , yields a wide range of functions. However, we also argue that a proper treatment of laughter involves a significant conceptual modification of information state account of dialogue to incorporate emotive aspects of interaction.