LAUGHTER FOR SALE

An audio-visual recording is examined in detail to show how humour can be made available as an economic good and, at the same time, employed as a means of social control. It is argued that, in unstructured sett ings, vendors face special interactional problems in accomplishing eco nomic exchange and that the special features of humour as a form of di scourse and social action can be used to deal with these problems.