Abstract This study undertakes a contrastive lexical-semantic analysis of a set of related verbs in English and French (English to joke and to kid, French rigoler and plaisanter), using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to semantic analysis. We show that the semantic and conceptual differences between French and English are greater than commonly assumed. These differences, we argue, have significant implications for humor studies: first, they shed light on different cultural orientations towards “laughter talk” in Anglo and French linguacultures; second; they highlight the danger of conceptual Anglocentrism in relying on English-specific words as a theoretical vocabulary for humor studies.

中文翻译：

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用法语和英语解释“和别人一起笑”的动词（以及为什么它对幽默研究很重要）

摘要 本研究使用自然语义元语言 (NSM) 方法进行语义分析，对英语和法语中的一组相关动词（英语 to joke 和 to Kid、法语 rigoler 和 plaisanter）进行对比词汇语义分析。我们表明法语和英语之间的语义和概念差异比通常假设的要大。我们认为，这些差异对幽默研究具有重要意义：首先，它们阐明了盎格鲁和法国语言文化中对“笑声”的不同文化取向；第二; 他们强调了依赖英语特定词汇作为幽默研究的理论词汇的概念性英语中心主义的危险。