Collaborative co-construction of humorous interaction among ELF

DOI 10.1515/jelf-2014-0004 JELF 2014; 3(1): 81 – 107

Yumi MatsumotoCollaborative co-construction of humorous interaction among ELF speakers

Abstract: This qualitative study analyzes the construction of humor in interac-tions of two dyads of English as a lingua franca (ELF) speakers who are female graduate students in the United States. Using a sequential analysis, this study closely investigates how these ELF speakers are co-constructing humor in their interactions. In particular, humorous talk including contextual cues such as joint laughing, smiling, and abruptness of talk are examined in sequential contexts. The humorous talk data exhibit the skillful use of humor to achieve and maintain solidarity and to minimize possible disagreement among these ELF speakers. In other words, collaborative co-construction of humorous interactions demon-strates ELF speakers’ “complex and skillful accomplishment” (Firth 2009: 158) of communicative success in English.

Keywords: ELF speakers’ humorous interaction, solidarity building, contextual cues

ELF話者の協力的ユーモアの構築

論文概要本研究では，米国留学中の二人の女性ELF話者によるユーモアの構築過程を質的に考察する。当考察においては，会話分析を用い，特に，笑い，笑顔，不意な会話変更等の文脈上の具体的特徴に焦点を当て，ELF話者がどのように談話内でユーモアを協力的に構築するかを精査する。本データはELF話者による巧みなユーモアの構築過程を例証しており，当分析結果は，そのユーモアの構築過程はELF話者間の連帯感を高め，意見の相違による緊張した雰囲気を和らげることを示している。つまり，ELF話者間による協力的なユーモアの構築プロセスは，Firth (2009)の述べる英語によるコミュニケーションの「複雑で巧みな成果」を例示している。

Keywords: ELF話者のユーモア構築、連帯感の構築、文脈上のシグナル

Yumi Matsumoto: Applied Linguistics, Pennsylvania State University. E-mail: [email protected]

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1 IntroductionThis paper focuses on humor in English as a lingua franca (hereafter, ELF) in-teractions, which has to date received little attention (see Pullin Stark 2009). According to Jenkins (2006, 2007) and Seidlhofer (2004), ELF is defined as com-munication in English between speakers who have different “linguacultures” (Jenkins 2006: 164). This, as they point out, does not preclude the involvement of native speakers, but the present study focuses attention on ELF interactions of non-native speaker dyads. Using a sequential analysis (Markee 2000; Sacks et al. 1974; Schegloff et al. 2002), this study investigates their ELF discourse, especially regarding how they co-construct humor in their interactions for a variety of purposes.

1.1 Features of ELF interactions and national cultures

A great number of studies in relation to ELF interactions (e.g., Firth 2009; House 2003; Kaur 2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Mauranen 2006, 2007, 2012; Meierkord 1998; Seidlhofer 2001, 2009) have found that ELF interactions mostly demonstrate a high degree of interactional robustness, cooperativeness, consensus-oriented behaviors, and resourcefulness of ELF speakers. Further-more, it is worth noting that in such intercultural communication overt mis-understanding and non-understanding are not very frequent despite supposedly expected miscommunication owing to variance in culture, language, and profi-ciency (Kaur 2011c; Mauranen 2006; Pitzl 2005; Watterson 2008).

In relation to roles of national cultures in ELF interactions, Meierkord (2002) argues that ELF speakers try to align with each other based on common grounds and identities as “non-native” speakers of English rather than national origins. Regarding the unique concept of ELF interactions, Day (2003) claims that lingua franca interactions constitute a context of linguistic and cultural neutrality, ordi-nariness and normalcy, and contends that lingua franca speakers orient to the substratum of message content and neutrality regarding ownership of the lan-guage.1 Furthermore, specifically about cultures, Baker (2009: 568) suggests that

1 This view, neutrality regarding ownership of the language, seems to be naïve; in several stud-ies on ELF speakers’ language attitudes like Matsuda (2003), many ELF speakers have internal-ized the “native” English speaker bias and held a view that they are only marginal participants when it comes to international communication in English. However, in my research context, Day’s (2003) view seems relevant to some degree.



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cultures in ELF should be construed “as liminal, emergent resources that are in constant state of fluidity and flux [. . .], creating new practices and forms in each instance of intercultural communication.” In other words, it can be assumed that ELF speakers are negotiating their cultural differences and commonalities, giving reciprocal assistance for communicative success, and constructing solidarity and rapport in their intercultural communication.

The ELF community at the international dormitory that I have studied does not seem to be based on national boundaries. Similar to Pennycook’s (2003, 2007) and Lee’s (2004) linguistic hybridity studies, the dorm community rep-resents a temporal, third space and a transcultural, transnational, “interstitial location” (Bhabha 1994) that challenges the relevancy of national borders in determining linguistic and cultural identities. In their interactions, ELF speakers do not seemingly need so-called native norms (see Meierkord 2002);2 instead, they exist in their own universe without being compared with more authorita-tive “native” speakers. Baker (2009) even states that there is no culture of ELF, because cul tural practices need to be constantly negotiated in each individual communicative context. Also, following Seidlhofer’s (2004) suggestion that ELF speakers’ superficially consensus-oriented interactions should be critically re- examined to acknowledge the possibility of conflicts arising, this study tries to examine not only collaborative ELF interactions but also extended disagree-ment among ELF speakers that then shifts into more collaborative humorous sequences.3

1.2 Humor and ELF speakers

In the field of sociolinguistics and conversation analysis, a great number of studies focusing on humor have been carried out. That research examines roles of humor in interaction, or conversational humor in various formal settings such as the workplace (e.g., Holmes 2006; Holmes and Marra 2002; Schnurr and Holmes 2009; Pullin 2011; Pullin Stark 2009) and the classroom (e.g., Davies 2003), and

2 While ELF speakers may not need “native” norms for these particular interactions in an ELF community, I also argue that they need “native” norms to some extent when they have to deal with their academic work outside the community.3 I fully acknowledge that humor is not necessarily collaborative by nature. Conflicts and antag-onistic exchanges can also lead to the use of humor. In fact, conflicts do not always mean lack of communicative skills; managing conflicts effectively requires much greater pragmatic compe-tence than does simply getting along with cooperative interactants.



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informal settings (e.g., Coates 1997, 2007; Hay 2000). However, Coates (2007) ar-gues that there does not seem to be a general agreement on the term “conversa-tional humor.” In fact, a number of researchers tend to utilize a narrow interpre-tation, focusing on specific speech acts like joking. Of course, joking is one type of humor, but humor includes more elements. According to Chiaro (1992), a joke tends to disrupt a normal or serious conversation. By contrast, humorous talk may emerge from the ongoing sequence of talk and involve conversational partic-ipants’ joint efforts, shared laughter, and manifestation of intimacy. Such a joint activity might contribute to the creation and maintenance of solidarity among conversation participants (Bell 2006). As Holmes and Hay (1997: 131) observe, “successful humor is a joint construction involving a complex interaction be-tween the person intending a humorous remark and those with the potential of responding.” Furthermore, Kreuz and Roberts (1995: 29) argue that humorous co-construction is “a complex social phenomenon with rich semantic, pragmatic, and paralinguistic dimensions.” In short, collaboration is seemingly an essential component for humorous talk, because one of the major functions of humor is constructing friendliness, solidarity, or “positive politeness” (Brown and Levin-son 1987).

The current study focuses on collaborative humorous sequences in ELF speaker interactions because the use of humor is closely associated with success-ful communication by maintaining mutual understanding. In this study, I define successful ELF communication as instances in which ELF speakers can negotiate understanding with their interlocutors in the act of communicating with some success despite the fact that misunderstanding or non-understanding may occur in their interaction. Although they may discover disagreement, uncomfortable moments, and a potential for miscommunication in the course of their interac-tions, successful ELF communicators resolve problems by employing communi-cative resources they have, for instance, use of contextual cues such as laughter. Such usage of humor among ELF speakers, which requires subtle and quick reac-tions in interactions, can exhibit the resourcefulness and sheer communicative achievement of ELF speakers.

While there are a great number of studies on humor in conversation, both among native speakers of a shared culture only (e.g., Drew 1987; Norrick 1993) and between “native” and “non-native” speakers (e.g., Adelswärd and Öberg 1998; Rogerson-Revell 2007), there have been very few studies focusing on ELF interactions (see Pullin Stark 2009). For example, Bell (2006) studies conversa-tional adjustments made by “native” speakers for “non-native” interlocutors. Bell (2007) also sees construction of humor as a great challenge even to advanced L2 learners because sophisticated linguistic, social, and cultural competence, sit-uated interpretation, and linguistic and interactional accommodation would be




necessary for it. Furthermore, Davies (2003) examines how sympathetic “native” speakers can provide support in order to enable “non-native” speakers to joke. In short, based on such existing studies on conversational humor, it is assumed that there is a great risk that intended humor by “non-native” speakers might be heard as “error” (Piller 2002).

On the other hand, studies on intercultural communications between “na-tive” and “non-native” speakers (e.g., Bell 2006; Davies 2003) show that “non- native” speakers are often confronted with the issues of power inequality and marginality when compared to authoritative “native” speakers. To be specific, in these studies, it is usually “native” speakers who seem to control interactions and carefully make adjustments in creating humor to avoid possible miscommunica-tion. This power inequality can be a researcher bias because it tends to create assumptions about deficient “non-native” speakers in comparison to “native” speakers without giving a further impetus to examine what is actually going on in ELF interactions without bias. Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine humorous talk in ELF contexts where ELF speakers might feel less risk to attempt humor because of seemingly more equal status between interlocutors. This study exam-ines such a context.

As an example of a small number of studies dealing with ELF speaker hu-morous interactions, Pullin Stark (2009) investigates their strategic use of humor drawing on the concepts of face and relational work. The analysis demonstrates that bosses effectively employ humor in order to manage a business group and to promote harmony in the context of meetings at the workplace. She maintains that humor is identified as a powerful tool to maintain relationships in the workplace where an unequal power relationship or institutional hierarchy exists. However, humor as a social device used to amuse and create rapport might also be applica-ble to informal interactions such as ones among friends at an ELF community where the existence of inequality is less clear. Since there has been little empiri-cal investigation into the issue of humorous talk among ELF speakers, particu-larly, in contexts such as informal interactions among friends, the present study will contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of constructing humor in a different ELF context. Furthermore, this study can contribute to in-depth understanding of interactional phenomena among so-called Asian speakers of ELF since ELF research hitherto has mostly focused on investigations among ELF speakers with European backgrounds. Based on the preceding review, the following question emerges as my focus of analysis: How are the ELF speakers co-constructing humor in their interaction through employing linguistic and socio-pragmatic competence?



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2 Methodology

2.1 Research participants

Six ELF speakers voluntarily participated in this research. They come from vari-ous L1 backgrounds: Japanese (2 participants), Vietnamese, Indonesian, Man-darin, and Korean. All of them were graduate students at a large public university in the United States and resided in the same international graduate dormitory. Each of these students was enrolled in either a master’s or doctoral degree pro-gram at the university. At the time I collected the data, I was also a member of this ELF community and I had become acquainted with all of my participants.

While these ELF speakers come from different national cultures, the four cul-tures, namely, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese, are commonly seen as constituting an East Asian culture. Despite the fact that certain aspects of those cultural traditions and customs may differ from one another, it is generally con-sidered that Japan, Korea, and Vietnam are part of the Chinese cultural sphere. Consequently, they may share some cultural characteristics in common. For in-stance, Gudykunst (2001) points out shared features including collectivistic ten-dencies (i.e., group goals take precedence over individual’s), preference for high context communication and indirectness, and influence from Confucianism (i.e., people try to develop and maintain harmonious social relationships while re-specting vertical relations). Such common cultural values across these four cul-tures may influence these ELF speakers’ communication styles and patterns em-ployed in their interactions. Thus, it should be taken into consideration that the ELF speakers in the dorm analyzed below might be more similar in terms of their communicative practices, and therefore it would be simplistic to think that they mostly need to negotiate their differences in terms of national cultures. In other words, they might benefit from the close proximity of their cultural backgrounds.

2.2 Data collection and selection

I collected conversational data over three months in total (April, October, and November 2005). I set up dyads for the purpose of recording conversations be-tween the participants. Thus, the recorded conversations are not purely naturally occurring, but rather ones made for research purposes. Nevertheless, at least the data analyzed were selected from the part where these ELF speakers looked more comfortable after 10 minutes of recording. The interactional data were audio and video-recorded when the participants engaged in pair interactions at their dorm dinner table. I left the table once recording started in order to minimize possible




effects of the researcher’s presence on the participants. None of the dyads were comprised of speakers from the same L1 background. At the time of data collec-tion, all participants were sharing the same dorm communal kitchen, and ELF speakers forming the same dyad regularly talked to each other. Therefore, they were already accustomed to one another’s speech styles by the time of recording. The total recording time for each dyad’s interaction varied from 25 to 29 minutes.

Identifying humorous sequences for analysis is a daunting task. However, as Holmes (2000: 163) points out, “the analyst’s identification of instances of humour is a crucial component in the analytical process.” Therefore, this study relies on the ways in which humorous sequences are contextualized by overt cues. That is, the sequences containing jointly constructed, collaborative humor (Coates 2007), specifically the ones which include laughter, especially joint laughter were transcribed for data analysis.4 According to Adelswärd and Öberg (1998), unilateral laughter frequently happens among subordinated participants. I predicted that the rather equal status of each ELF speaker enables him or her to produce more mutual laughter. In fact, some instances of unilateral laughter were observable in collected data, but they were not coded for the data analysis, since the major focus of this study is to investigate collaborative co-construction of humorous sequences. In short, the transcription is particularly concerned with capturing sequential features of collaborative humorous talk.

According to Coates (2007), there are five major characteristics of talk in “a play frame” or humorous talk (Bateson 1953): namely, overlapping speech, co- constructed utterances, repetition, laughter, and use of metaphorical language. Although these features of humorous talk seem to be clear-cut, the categories are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, Holmes (2000: 163) defines humor as “utterances which are identified by the analyst, on the basis of paralinguistic, prosodic and discoursal clues, as intended by the speaker(s) to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some participants.” For this study, I focus on the sequences identified where humor is acknowledged by interlocutors with joint laughter, because I assert that laughter can be an important cue in identify-ing and establishing humorous talk and that mutual laughter in particular can be interpreted as a sign of rapport and consensus among interactants. Attardo (1994) and Jefferson et al. (1987) rightly argue that laughing together is a way to pursue and achieve affiliation.5

4 See the appendix for the transcription notations used in this article.5 It is true that laughter means different things in different cultures and that there must be dif-ferent kinds of laughter in a culture. Jefferson, Sacks, and Schegloff’s claim is potentially based on US norm. Furthermore, laughter should be examined depending on specific interactional contexts.



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In fact, laughter can allow participants to signal their involvement in what is being said and their continued presence in the collaborative floor and to demon-strate togetherness with interlocutors. As Norrick (1993) and Boxer and Cortés-Conde (1997) similarly state, shared laughter creates group cohesion, and once affiliations are established, humor is used to reinforce and display these af-filiations to others. However, there is a caveat that laughter is not necessarily a contextual cue signaling that preceding remarks are humorous. For example, laughter may also serve as a marker of surprise and embarrassment. Further-more, in addition to being a reaction to the previous turn, Jefferson (1979) and Glenn (2003) note that laughter can be used by speakers as an invitation to view their utterances as humorous. Therefore, conversational humor and laughter have to be analyzed and understood in the particular context in which they occur, since they are context dependent, jointly achieved, and negotiated.

In addition to mutual laughter, conversational humor is made explicit by other contextual cues – i.e., through smiling or smile voice – which often accom-pany a humorous utterance and indicate that the utterance is framed as amusing. Furthermore, through abruptness, or the lack of pausing and mitigation, the nat-ural production of the turn can create the non-verbal cue that it is a humorous comment rather than a serious statement. Finally, as Holmes (2006) and Coates (2007) similarly state, collaborative humor is of a highly coordinated nature and reflects the in-tuneness of the participants in interactions, nurturing group soli-darity and leading to bonding. This characteristic of coordination or in-tuneness (Davies 2003) might be exhibited in the equal distribution of turn taking. In sum, I consider that the key contextual cues that signal humorous sequences are joint laughing, smiling, and abruptness, but they need to be carefully examined in each interactional context. With this understanding of humorous talk, I selected collaborative humorous talk sequences.

2.3 Analytic approaches

For this study, I employ a sequential analysis (Koshik 2002; Markee 2000; Sacks et al. 1974; Schegloff et al. 2002) and integrate my insider perspective as the dorm community member to investigate the construction of humorous interaction. The major reasons why I combine the sequential analysis with the ethnographic perspective are: firstly, the sequential analysis can bring “analytical prevision” (Richards 2003), or detailed examination of the processes of how humor is se-quentially constructed by those ELF speakers; secondly, with the ethnographic information gained from my insider perspective, the sequential analysis can turn into broader interpretation, which allows triangulation of the data. Most impor-




tantly, the information regarding relationships among interlocutors (e.g., how well they know each other) is crucial in knowing how far their teasing and dis-agreements are surface or relate to deeper differences since individuals employ humor in various ways depending on the degree of social distance.

In addition, the present study draws on politeness theory (Brown and Levin-son 1987) to analyze the use of language and face. It is because the issues of face and identity are deeply involved when people engage in humorous interactions (Norrick and Chiaro 2009). According to Brown and Levinson, faces constitute two particular wants; negative and positive faces. Negative face is the want of being unimpeded by others; and positive face is the want to be desirable to at least some others. Therefore, negative politeness means verbal and nonverbal elements that target the addressee’s negative face wants (e.g., apologies and hedges). On the other hand, positive politeness indicates verbal and nonverbal components that target the addressee’s positive face wants (e.g., compliments and in-group sense). Furthermore, it is generally considered that two model per-sons should share the mutual interest of maintaining each other’s face and con-stantly attend to face in interaction. Nevertheless, Brown and Levinson argue that there should be some case that certain kinds of verbal and nonverbal acts intrin-sically threaten face, which is called face-threatening acts (hereafter, FTAs). Im-portantly, in regard to FTAs, they state, “any rational agent will seek to avoid these face-threatening acts or will employ certain strategies to minimize the threat” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 68). It is important to note that FTAs do not necessary mean a negative evaluation of an addressee’s face especially when a speaker demonstrates the sense of in-group-ness and shows he or she considers the addressee as a friend.

3 Data analysis: collaborative humorous talk in two female ELF dyads

Out of the three dyads, I could find humorous talk only in two dyads,6 Yuka and Pham, and Fang and Hijung.7 Each instance of humorous talk below seems to

6 One dyad did not include any overt humorous sequences in their interactions. From my ethno-graphic perspective, a candidate explanation for this may lie in the difference of English profi-ciency levels. The more comfortable ELF speakers feel toward speaking in English, the more they might be able to construct humor. Another possibility would be the difference in the personal relationship already established among each dyad. From my ethnographic information, these two ELF dyads have known each other longer than the dyad that entails no humorous sequence. Also, the difference of gender might have an influence: the two dyads in the analysis are all



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show different aspects of the usage of humor. Regarding topics of conversation, both ELF dyads seem to discuss their shared interests: Yuka and Pham talk about their graduate student life; on the other hand, Fang and Hijung choose the topic of interethnic children, possibly based on their status as married women. The choice of these topics itself might reflect the identities that these ELF speakers are projecting. At the same time, while their talk is taking place in a dormitory set-ting, academic identities of these speakers are apparent in the discourse as seen below.

3.1 Yuka and Pham’s interaction

In the data segment from Yuka and Pham’s interaction, two parts can be particu-larly considered as co-construction of humorous talk sequences: lines 4 through 8 and 20 through 25. In this segment, Yuka and Pham are mainly talking about some difficulty in their academic lives as graduate students.

(1) “oh, that means stupid.”1 Y: ◦I think◦ when we finish our programs2 (.) <if we’re different (.) from the first3 when we arrived here,>4 → P: ah, we are more intelligent or more5 → stupid, do you think?6 → aha[haha7 → Y: [haha both. [hahaha8 → P: [hahaha9 because I think that people with the10 Ph.D. or Maste:r degree: often forget a lot11 of things. cook and then, forget, (.) maybe12 eat, and then, leave without (.) washing13 the dishes.14 Y: yeah! you know, an, when I read an

female speakers, but the dyad containing no humorous talk consists of only male speakers. The influence of all women discourse (e.g., Lakoff 1975; Coates 1989), whose purpose is mainly the maintenance of good social relationship, might be involved. It might be possible to state that male speakers do not want to engage in face-threatening conversation such as humor. However, this issue would deserve future research.7 All of the participants were given pseudonyms. For the information regarding the nationality, Yuka is a Japanese ELF speaker, Pham is Vietnamese, Fang is Chinese, and Hijung is Korean.




15 article, but I easily forget. ((gazes at P))16 P: uh-huh. ((nods briefly))17 Y: what it was written about. (.) so I have18 to read again before the class. (1.0) so I19 read always twice. ((up forefinger and middle finger))20 → P: oh, that means stupid.21 → Y: ◦yeah.◦ ((nods briefly))22 → P: aha [hahahaha23 → Y: [hahahaha ((points at P with her right hand))24 → P: $sorry, I’m just kidding.$=25 → Y: =◦no no no◦ how many times do you26 usually read?27 P: two times.28 Y: ◦twice◦, a::h, ((nods)) (1.0) at least.29 P: ah, (.) the first time I read the (.) who:le30 Y: ◦un.◦31 P: (and) whole sources,32 Y: un. ◦un.◦33 P: second time I skim34 Y: ◦un.◦35 P: the idea,36 Y: ◦un, yeah [(just)37 P: [maybe I before go to class,38 I read39 Y: ◦un◦ ◦un◦40 P: one more more.41 Y: second time I just read my me:mos.42 P: (1.0) uh-huh, ((nods))43 Y: and skimming.

The process of how humor is constructed among Pham and Yuka is examined sequentially. At lines 1–3, Yuka uses “we” code to indicate that both she and Pham would become different people when they finish their programs. Then, at lines 4 and 5, Pham abruptly says, “ah, we are more intelligent or more stupid, do you think?”. Here, through this abruptness, the natural production of this turn seems to create the contextual cue that it is a humorous comment rather than a serious statement. Furthermore, with the use of the “tag question cue” (Kreuz 1996), or “do you think?”, Pham calls attention to this potentially face-threatening utter-ance, which implies to Yuka that this remark should not be interpreted liter-ally and rather be taken as a joke. Another interpretation is that using the tag



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question is a type of “women speech” in which the direct statement is softened and intimacy is sought (e.g., Lakoff 1975; Coates 1989). What’s more, statements including tag question cues can be seen as examples of positive politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987) to indicate that Pham is interested in Yuka’s opinion. In addi-tion, the use of “we” code leads to the displayed affiliation. In this way, Pham’s turn at lines 4 and 5 exhibits skillful usage of cues that signals her humorous in-tent or a play frame and the invitation to Yuka “to produce talk together whereby they can see themselves as intimate” (Jefferson et al. 1987: 160).

In fact, Pham’s turn (lines 4 and 5) is a sort of concluding statement for Yuka’s previous turn (lines 1–3). Right after that, at line 6, Yuka does not take up the next turn and then Pham fills it in and initiates laughing. Then Yuka echoes with Pham’s laughter. Pham’s initiation of this laughter might be interpreted as pro-viding Yuka with another cue that the previous turn is a humorous remark by her invitation to co-laugh (Jefferson 1979; Glenn 2003) or pretending as if the turn taking were normal even without Yuka’s uptake in the next turn. Yuka acknowl-edges Pham’s humorous intent by joining her laughter, and the brief co-laughter at line 7 is followed by Yuka’s comment, “both.” Then, the joint laughter re- occurs at line 8. Yuka’s comment here indicates that she takes Pham’s comment as humorous and accepts the prior invitation to intimacy by responding to Pham’s tag question and adding her point of view. Yuka’s turn at line 7 might be inter-preted as the acceptance part of the “adjacency-pair” structure (Schegloff and Sacks 1973: 296) accompanied by the first pair part of an invitation to laugh by Pham. Thus, successful, joint construction of humor between Yuka and Pham is achieved and Yuka meets Pham’s expectation in terms of making humor together through rightly getting Pham’s contextual cues. However, the co-laughter is still followed by Pham’s lengthy utterance (lines 9–13) which seemingly explains why she thinks people with MA or PhD degrees are stupid, which sounds more gen-eral than the previous one (lines 4 and 5). This turn might indicate that even after laughing together Pham is still trying to negotiate her previous utterance so that it does not sound offensive and can eventuate in affiliation.

Next, from line 14, a conversational topic shifts from general talk on cooking to more academic one. Specifically, Yuka narrates that she always has to read ac-ademic articles again before class because she easily forgets the contents. It ap-pears that Yuka is sharing her personal anecdote that is closely related to what Pham said in her previous turn. At line 16, Pham engages in back-channeling and nodding to show her listenership. At line 20, followed by Yuka’s completion of her statement, Pham abruptly says, “oh, that means stupid,” in a similar manner to lines 4 and 5. Here she expresses potentially face-threating messages in a very direct way. This utterance can be categorized as teasing that has the potential of biting (Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997). According to Boxer and Cortés-Conde,




teasing should be directed at someone present in conversation and a playful bite within a teasing frame occurs only among intimates who have shared conversa-tional history, since such teasing has a high risk in creating conflict and losing face. They even mention that teasing is often employed as a form of releasing ag-gression in a non-threatening way among intimates. In a similar vein, Attardo (1994) argues that teasing contains an element of criticism toward interlocutors. Thus, Pham’s teasing utterance here can be interpreted as her academic rivalry with Yuka. Furthermore, it also suggests a dialogic relationship with lines 4 and 5; that is, since Pham’s previous statement, “ah, we are more intelligent or more stupid, do you think?” is already considered as a mutual non-seriousness based on the joint laughter, Pham may be utilizing a similar type of joke in a more risky way, or using a more assertive tone, expecting that Yuka can recognize her allu-sive evocation of the humorous tone based on the conversational history between them. In other words, Pham attempts to test whether this more assertive and of-fensive type of humor can be accepted by Yuka. Also, similar to lines 4 and 5, Pham seems to be initiating a move into more intimate interaction with the use of “improper talk” (Jefferson et al. 1987: 160) that entails frankness and rudeness, which indexes intimate interaction and probably aims to reinforce solidarity with Yuka.

Although it is likely that miscommunication arises owing to its potential of-fensiveness and insult, Pham’s line 20 has the potential to be taken as humor by Yuka, particularly demonstrated through the sequences from lines 21 to 25. Right after Pham’s punch-line at line 20, Yuka seems to subtly signal her uptake by nodding briefly and saying “yeah” with quiet voice, which seems to show that she does not take offense. Likely because of Yuka’s rather unclear acknowledgement, Pham begins laughing and issues an invitation to laugh at line 22, and then Yuka quickly accepts the invitation, and joint laughter ensues. By joining laughing, Yuka seems to accept Pham’s utterance as teasing humor more clearly than line 21 and at the same time mitigate Pham’s potentially face-threatening behavior so that it does not jeopardize social relations and faces. In other words, instead of being upset by Pham’s utterance at line 20, Yuka agrees with Pham’s teasing re-mark and joins in with the laughter. Pham’s laughter at line 22 is qualitatively different from that at line 6, because Pham’s statement at line 20 sounds more offensive and potentially more face threatening, and needs to negotiate contex-tual cues more carefully to avoid miscommunication. This is clearly explicated in line 24 where Pham makes sure Yuka does not misinterpret her previous state-ment as offensive by stating “sorry, I’m just kidding.” with smile voice when ter-minating the co-laughter. Here, Pham seemingly makes her humorous intention more explicit. In addition, her statement can be interpreted as politeness that considers negative face wants. Besides the literal phrase itself, the usage of smile



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voice is also effective in terms of adding the humorous tone and supplying sever-al cues at the same time, which effectively places the comment within a non- serious framework. Furthermore, Pham’s turn here may indicate that she is not able to fully confirm the adequacy of Yuka’s understanding of her previous hu-morous utterance even by achieving co-laughter (lines 22 and 23). Latched to the utterance, Yuka says “no no no” with quiet voice at line 25. Such a smooth and harmonious series of sequences may indicate that Pham and Yuka delicately negotiate the meaning of comments that can be considered as offensive or face threatening and skillfully construct complex humorous sequences together with-out misunderstanding. In short, after Pham’s attempt of indicating a play frame by abruptly saying, “oh, that means stupid,” the later sequences of talk (lines 21–25) are jointly produced to co-construct humor and to display the intimacy as friends and affirm their friendship.

It is recognizable that Yuka and Pham seek to align with each other and use minimal tokens, such as “yeah” (lines 21, 36), “uh-huh” (lines 16, 42), and “un” (e.g., line 30), in order to make their interaction collaborative. According to Coates (1989, 1997), minimal responses seem to appear more frequently in col-laborative floors such as among all-female friends than when one dominant speaker holds the conversational floor. The use of minimal responses can support the speaker and indicate the listener’s active attention, which leads to joint con-struction of interactional sequences. Furthermore, Yuka’s utterance at lines 41 and 43 seem to be the continuation of Pham’s utterance at line 38 and 40, which appears to signal Yuka’s collaborative scaffolding. In other words, Yuka and Pham’s interaction gives evidence of highly collaborative and equally distributed turn taking.

Furthermore, it seems that the collaborative construction of humorous se-quence contributes to construction of solidarity between Pham and Yuka. Ac-cording to Coates (2007: 46), “playful talk is fun” and such joyful interactions with humor make people feel good and nurture solidarity. Boxer and Cortés-Conde (1997) similarly argue that teasing creates a bond of solidarity among intimate relations after its successful negotiations, especially through taking the risk of teasing that can weaken relations and cause a face threat. Successful solidarity co-construction between Pham and Yuka can be seen in their going through the rather risky act of making humor by understanding implicit and explicit humorous contextual cues. The occurrence of laughing together in this sequence reflects the playful nature of their talk and signals rapport among them. Risk-taking through making humorous sequences provides evidence not only of these speakers’ efforts to nurture solidarity with one another but also of their capability as successful users of English and their effective communicative strategies.




Especially looking at sequences from line 14, these speakers share the diffi-culty to retain information from academic articles by mentioning the necessity of reading twice. It seems that this shared experience contributes to the construc-tion of solidarity between Yuka and Pham. According to Bakhtin (1984 [1965]), laughing liberates one from difficulty and fear. They are laughing at how they forget many things. In other words, laughter may enable them to give a humorous perspective on their talk, to lighten their concerns about academic lives, and to distance themselves on them. In addition, they may empower themselves through sharing their difficulty or common frailty with others of similar status in interac-tion. Another interpretation from my perspective of an international graduate student and a member of the community would be that Yuka and Pham seem to be projecting a positive self-image as graduate students who read articles twice and prepare for courses. According to Norrick (1993), self-teasing can be used to present positive self who can laugh at problems and overcome them. It seems that these speakers are laughing at their forgetfulness and the comment, “oh, that means stupid,” can be appropriated to index their positive identities. In fact, from my regular communication and observation, I perceived that both Yuka and Pham are very confident in managing communication with any dorm resident regardless of nationality. This autonomy of projecting themselves in their favorite ways possibly reflects these ELF speakers’ autonomy in ELF interactions because of their more equal relationship and their taking ELF as normal.

To summarize, the collaborative humorous interaction between Pham and Yuka seems to build their relations and reinforce solidarity while also protecting their faces. Furthermore, these ELF speakers seem to be constructing their inter-actional space where collaborative and equally distributed turn taking is achieved based on their more equal status. They skillfully make a joke at Yuka’s forgetful-ness by saying “oh, that means stupid,” or teasing, and avoid miscommunication with strategic use of contextual cues. In addition, these ELF speakers align with each other through drawing on common ground in terms of academic identity regardless of cultural and linguistic differences. Similar to Jenkins (2007), these ELF speakers seem to utilize ELF as a vehicle for expressing and constructing their identities. Also, the construction of humor reflects these ELF speakers’ con-fidence in English language use, which is revealed in their risk taking when con-structing humor, especially biting teasing.

3.2 Fang and Hijung’s interaction

Next, I will turn to Fang and Hijung’s interaction, which also contains the phe-nomenon of collaboratively co-constructing humorous talk based on their shared



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academic identities. However, their interaction seems to be different from Pham and Yuka’s in terms of the topic that they are discussing and the role of humor. In this data segment, they are talking about interethnic children, specifically, the future children that Hijung may have with her American husband. This can be a politically incorrect subject of mixed race. To give some ethnographic informa-tion, Fang and Hijung already know each other well and have shared their per-sonal information, such as the fact that Hijung’s husband is a white American, which is associated with the topic of the interaction. Furthermore, this interac-tion includes possible conflict or disagreement between two interlocutors before humor is constructed as can be seen below.

(2) “I think you should have three children . . .”41 → F: I think you: (.) your (2.0) your son and daughter (1.0) should be very42 → handsome=43 → H: =hahahahah!=44 F: =because mixed, right? ((makes cross with fingers))45 H: yea:h.46 F: I like the (.) boys and girls, (1.0) children mixed the blood. ((makes cross47 with fingers and gazes at H)) so: handsome. ((gazes at H))48 H: yea:h. ((nods))49 F: so: intelligent. ((gazes at H))50 H: do you think so?51 F: yeah, I think so. ((gazes shortly at H))52 → H: ◦um◦ I don’t know. I need to do some survey about it. ha[hah53 → F: [hah?54 H: (◦but◦) never blue eyes, then (.) you know that, right?55 F: umm.56 H: black eye, black hair is [dominant57 F: [yes sometimes58 your son exactly looks like your husband.59 → H: I don’t think so=60 → F: =yeah. ((nods)) because my >when we were< taking training in61 → Beijing, 62 H: ◦uh-huh.◦63 F: my foreign teacher, named the Michael. his wife is an (.)American?64 maybe second generation but (.) originally from China.65 H: ◦uh-huh◦66 F: so his son is exactly look like his father.67 H: ((gasps shortly)) rea:lly?68 F: very very white.




69 H: wah. it’s very rare.70 F: blue eye. ((points at her own eye))71 H: ((gasps)) that’s very rare.72 F: yea:h=73 H: =like two persons, three persons or something like that. so, majorities,74 mor: mo:re more than 90%75 F: uh-huh76 H: will have ah dark, I mean, (.) brown eyes and77 F: ((gives egg to H)) ◦finish.◦78 H: oh, thank you. brown eyes. brown hair. I heard. that’s what he said=79 → F: =$I think you should (1.0) have three children. one looks like your

→ father$80 → H: hahahahaha!81 → F: $husband. one looks like ((points to H)) this is third one is mixed.$82 → ahaha[hahaha!83 → H: [hahaha! ((covers mouth with her right hand))84 → F: right?85 → H: >it’ll be so funny<86 → F: hahahah!=87 → H: =if we go together, like somewhere ((moves her left hand left and right))88 → F: yeah. ((nods))

The process of humor construction among Hijung and Fang through using vari-ous pragmatic devices (e.g., politeness and impoliteness) and linguistic cues is examined sequentially. At lines 79–81, latched to Hijung’s utterance at line 78, Fang abruptly initiates the humorous talk with smile voice signaling the non- serious comment, where she suggests that Hijung and her husband should have three children: one child who looks like him, another who looks like Hijung, and a third one who is mixed. This sounds like cultural-ethnic humor about mixed race. In the initial sequences of this talk, at line 46, Fang positively com-ments that she likes mixed children, and she further asserts that mixed chil-dren are very handsome and intelligent at lines 41, 42, 47, and 49, even adding emphasis with the use of “so” or “very”. Fang’s utterances here can be inter-preted as a compliment to Hijung’s future children, which can show politeness to Hijung.

Looking closely at the sequences from lines 41 to 78 before the humorous se-quence occurs, it seems that Hijung and Fang may recognize that they disagree about understanding of interethnic children. This long sequence of talk exhibits a divergence between these ELF speakers. This is sharply contrastive to Yuka and Pham’s interaction where both of them create a collaborative mood through



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alignment and do not show clear disagreement during the whole interaction. More specifically, from lines 41 to 78, Hijung and Fang’s interaction rather shows misalignment of their stance on ethnicities; Hijung seems to consistently rely on the discourse of science and rationality to make sense of children who are the offspring of parents of different ethnicities. For example, Hijung’s utterances such as “I need to do some survey . . .” (line 52), “black eye . . . is dominant ” (line 56), or “mor: mo:re more than 90% . . .” (line 74) indicate her science-based views on ethnicities. On the other hand, Fang claims her personal expertise based on her experiences such as the utterance from line 60, and she even uses the “ex-treme case formulation” (Pomerantz 1986) strategy at lines 66 (“exactly”) and 68 (“very very”) in order to make her claims stronger. Likewise, competitiveness is also demonstrated in the sequence, especially in overlapped utterances at lines 56 and 57 and the latched ones at lines 59 and 60, both of which exhibit Hijung and Fang’s different points of view.

Although Hijung shows her acknowledgement and understanding by laugh-ing (line 43), saying “yeah” (lines 45 and 48), and nodding (line 48), she begins to show a rather negative evaluation by stating “um I don’t know” at line 52, which may indicate nuanced disagreement with Fang’s idea that mixed children are very handsome and intelligent. In addition, here is another possible interpreta-tion of Hijung’s utterance: “um I don’t know” can be interpreted as her attempt to downplay Fang’s compliment to show politeness. This nuanced phrase, “um I don’t know”, may demonstrate Hijung’s negative politeness and her desire to keep Fang from losing face. Right after stating, “um I don’t know. I need to do some survey about it”, Hijung initiates laughter. Unfortunately, this laughter is not fully acknowledged by Fang; she just uses minimal laughter with a rising tone. It seems that Hijung’s attempt at co-laughing here fails at lines 52 and 53. In short, the feeble quality of the laughter cannot lead to the construction of their playful framework around Hijung’s utterance. After that, contrastive stances be-tween Fang and Hijung are still shown in the sequence of talk. At line 54, Hijung asks Fang if she knows mixed children never have blue eyes using a tag question. Then, Fang responds with “umm”, which seems to be an unclear response that signals her disagreeing stance, so Hijung further adds her comment by stating “black eye, black hair is dominant”. To this utterance, Fang overlaps with Hi-jung’s turn by stating “yes sometimes your son exactly looks like your husband”. Even though she starts with “yes,” Fang’s statement here clearly shows disagree-ment with Hijung’s idea. Interestingly, at line 59, Hijung shows her stance by stat-ing “I don’t think so”. Right after this utterance, Fang quickly initiates her turn by stating, “yeah. because my when we were taking training in Beijing”, which shows her disagreement with Hijung and further offers the case that Fang knows from her personal experiences to support her claim.




From line 63, Fang continues to talk about the inter-ethnic couple in China that had a son whose skin was white and whose eyes were blue just like his fa-ther’s. According to her previous statement, “I don’t think so” (line 59), Hijung does not seem to agree with Fang’s understanding of ethnicities based on her personal experiences. However, Hijung never stops listening to Fang and instead makes efforts to communicate with her.8 More specifically, Hijung seems to recog-nizably listen to Fang and signal her active involvement as the listener in the con-versation by minimal responses, “◦uh-huh.◦” (lines 62 and 65) and her interests in talk by adding her emotional comments such as “rea:lly?” (line 67) and “that’s very rare.” (line 71) with even adding emphasis. In other words, Hijung keeps demonstrating her involvement in Fang’s talk. All of Hijung’s turns may reflect her politeness strategy to keep this interaction going smoothly and to maintain a collaborative floor even though Hijung may not agree with Fang’s ideas. In other words, despite encountering disagreement, Hijung and Fang’s interaction also gives some evidence of collaborative and equally distributed turn taking.

Furthermore, to offer yet another interpretation, it can be the case that Hi-jung’s turns at lines 67, 69, and 71 display her uncertainty about her yet-to-be born children in terms of their appearance. More specifically, gasp (lines 67 and 71) and the utterances, “rea:lly?” (line 67) and “wah” (line 69) may suggest Hijung’s surprise at Fang’s statements. Furthermore, Hijung’s utterance “that’s very rare” (line 71) may indicate a change of state following the new knowledge provided by Fang. Therefore, this sequence by Hijung in particular exhibits her uncertainty rather than her disagreement with Fang’s utterances.

Understanding Fang and Hijung’s different stances about the topic of ethni-cally mixed children, the humorous utterance at lines 79 and 81 can be consid-ered as Fang’s courageous attempt to reduce tension and nurture a more friendly atmosphere. Especially after noticing the disagreement, such humorous talk con-struction without the topic shift might be perceived as a more risky act. However, Hijung’s minimal responses (e.g., “yeah” and “uh-huh”) and nodding that reflect her collaborative attitude might give Fang some confidence to construct a joke with Hijung. It is also possible that Fang perceives that Hijung can understand her humorous intent based on “common ground” (Clark and Marshall 1981) that they have built through regularly communicating with each other and their shared familiarity with the topic through engaging in this very interaction. Look-ing at the humorous sequence from line 79, after Fang abruptly states, “I think

8 This collaborative attitude might arise because both Hijung and Fang knew that their conver-sation was being recorded. In other words, if this were really naturally occurring conversation, the situation might be somewhat different.



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you should have three children. one looks like your father” with smile voice, Hijung starts to laugh loudly. Fang’s smile tone of voice may contextualize her previous utterance as fun, which helps Hijung to arrive at the correct inter-pretation. Hijung’s laughter here might signal her uptake of the previous turn as the initiation of humor. Also, Hijung’s unilateral laughter here might consti-tute the anticipatory laughter that projects the occurrence of something else as funny. Followed by Hijung’s laughter, Fang adds the utterance which is the con-tinuation of her previous turn by stating, “husband. one looks like ((points to H)) this is third one is mixed,” still with smile voice that frames the utterance as amusing. Interestingly, the first part of Fang’s humorous utterance is similar to her utterance at lines 41 and 42 (i.e., “I think you: (.) your your son and daughter should be very handsome”). Adding “I think” in the beginning may emphasize that this is her personal opinion. Fang’s use of this sentence structure at line 79 might have a dialogic relationship with Hijung’s previous laughter (at line 43) at her utterance.

In addition, Fang’s utterance (lines 79 and 81) might be interpreted as the “nonveridicality” (Kreuz and Roberts 1995; Kreuz 1996); that is, there is a clear discrepancy between the reality and the utterance. Generally speaking, it is un-realistic that people have three children, each of whom shows different ethnic characteristics. In other words, Fang’s remark expresses hyperbole or exaggera-tion and intends to send the signal of the humorous tone to Hijung. Here, such an exaggerated utterance clearly frames Fang’s utterance in humor. After finishing this punch line, Fang swiftly initiates laughing at line 82 as the invitation to co-laugh with Hijung, and then Hijung joins the laughter and finally simultaneous laughter occurs at line 83, which is indicative that this time Hijung does not take this topic seriously compared with the preceding sequence of interactions and that she acknowledges Fang’s remark as humorous. At line 84, Fang further asks for Hijung’s agreement with her previous utterance by stating “right?” and lines 85 and 87 show Hijung’s acceptance of Fang’s previous talk as jokes focusing on “funniness,” stating, “it’ll be so funny” with a quicker pace. Hijung’s joining the ongoing humorous talk with this use of the pronoun “it” indicates that she is lis-tening to Fang’s talk and waiting for another to co-participate in the talk. Further-more, Hijung’s remark at line 87 is latched to Fang’s laughter as the continuation of her unfinished utterance at line 85, which appears to signal Hijung’s collabora-tive scaffolding of a humorous sequence with Fang. In fact, this whole collabora-tive humorous sequence might be seen as a sort of “relational practice” (Holmes and Marra 2004: 377) that helps to maintain the interactants’ face, to reduce con-flicts, and to negotiate consensus. In other words, this humorous sequence con-struction is Hijung and Fang’s mutual effort to create supportive and collabora-tive talk after finding a disagreement, and their humor is used for “negative face




strategies” (Harris 2003) that serve interpersonal goals in assisting to avoid potential communication breakdown. According to Norrick and Chiaro (2009), humor enables people to interact more smoothly and to keep relationships work-ing. Thus, such humorous sequence of interaction constitutes a space in which these ELF speakers can communicate comfortably based on what they have nego-tiated as funny.

As a matter of fact, the focus on funniness is crucial since this time Hijung does not consider Fang’s idea of having three children who show a range of eth-nicities as “strange.” Instead Hijung accepts it as “funny” because Fang can suc-cessfully convey her humorous tone with strategic contextual cues in the course of sequences. It is probable that communication here serves as the opportunity for the maintenance of a friendly relationship with a display of co-construction of humor between these ELF speakers. In particular, their joint laughter as a re-sponse to Fang’s humorous remark can be interpreted as an attempt to prevent tension from building up further based on their disagreement about understand-ing of ethnicities and revert to a more friendly way of interacting with each other. The humor and laughter here seemingly help create a rather relaxed atmosphere and contribute to the acceptance of differences between these speakers in a light-hearted manner.

In sum, Hijung and Fang are successfully constructing humorous talk (espe-cially lines 79–88) about the very topic on which they find disagreement without changing the topic about ethnically mixed children. The function of humor here might be for minimizing possible conflicts and disagreements they found through the earlier sequences of interactions in terms of understanding ethnicities. In addition, it can be said that the humorous construction between Hijung and Fang is not possible without a certain degree of solidarity that they have already con-structed by regular conversations. If there was no solidarity, they could have just played it safe and not taken a risk of making humor. Furthermore, this humorous sequence itself is probably exploited to reinforce the existing bonds between them. Additionally, even though they do not agree with each other’s opinions, Fang and Hijung seem to be showing politeness and willingness to communicate collaboratively through such techniques as smiling, laughing, nodding, back- channeling, scaffolding, and overlapping. Finally, their humorous construction seemingly helps them transcend disagreement to some degree and their non- standard language forms, especially Fang’s, do not hold this back in any way. In short, through humor, these ELF speaker talk displays their collaborative work in terms of negotiating meaning with a successful use of contextual cues, show-ing politeness, saving face, equally distributing turn taking, and understand-ing each other without leading to miscommunication after taking risks of making humor.



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4 ConclusionEven though the present study is qualitative in nature, data driven, and small in scale with the consequence of limited generalizability, it is nevertheless the rich data that present the actual processes of construction of humorous interactions among ELF speakers in an ELF community, more specifically in the context of an international student dormitory. The analysis demonstrates quite distinctive types of ELF speakers’ humorous talk: the one between Yuka and Pham displays humor that nurtures existing solidarity through biting teasing and reflects their academic identities, which is their common ground; and the other between Hi-jung and Fang especially shows humor as a way of releasing tension, securing solidarity, and maintaining politeness after finding out about possible disagree-ment with each other’s opinions about ethnicities. Through using humor, Hijung and Fang appear to agree to differ. Furthermore, similar to Yuka and Pham’s, their talk also reflects their academic identities.

Although these humorous talks reveal rather different characteristics of ELF interactions, both of them provide some evidence that they are capable of col-laboratively constructing and contextualizing humorous intentions through ne-gotiating both explicit and implicit meanings with the strategic use of contex-tual cues and based on common ground of academic identities or familiarity with each other’s speech styles. Furthermore, the data certainly provide evidence of collaborative construction of solidarity and rapport among these ELF inter-locutors. In addition, the data reveal that these ELF speakers are as legitimate and competent language users as other English speakers who joke around in English. In other words, as Jenkins (2007) argues, these ELF speakers probably view ELF as a legitimate vehicle for expressing themselves and creating their own cultures and identities. Furthermore, interestingly, both kinds of humor in the analysis are indeed context-based, not dependent on specific culturally-based knowledge assumed to be shared among certain cultural members. Instead, these ELF speakers seem to make all efforts to align with each other based on common ground and identity as graduate students. Most importantly, these ELF speakers communicate successfully in terms of joint meaning making and creating con-tingent interactions where both speakers actively engage to co-construct con-nectedness and conversational symmetry. Such contingent interaction is evi-denced by the equal distribution of turn taking in both of ELF dyads’ humorous interactions.

In particular, ELF speakers are capable of managing the intricate processes of humorous talk construction. In fact, humorous co-construction is “a complex so-cial phenomenon with rich semantic, pragmatic, and paralinguistic dimensions” (Kreuz and Roberts 1995: 29). Furthermore, when interlocutors attempt to engage




in interactions involving humor, “there is much at stake in terms of face and iden-tity” (Norrick and Chiaro 2009: xv). Therefore, humorous interactions need to be handled with care and sufficient linguistic and pragmatic competence. In other words, it can be argued that these ELF speakers have acquired sophisticated so-cial and interpersonal skills such as familiarity with nonverbal cues, in addition to linguistic competence or successfully transferred elements of their L1 socio- pragmatic competence. Thus, similar to previous studies (e.g., Kaur 2009; Mau-ranen 2006; Pitzl 2005; Watterson 2008), the analysis above can dispute the common claim that lack of shared knowledge among ELF speakers from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds frequently leads to misunderstanding and communication difficulties.9 In fact, as Kaur (2009) and Mauranen (2006) show, ELF speakers seem to be ready for potential misunderstanding and prepare for it by utilizing communicative strategies.

To conclude, the analysis demonstrates that the ELF speakers in this study effectively utilize humor to mitigate face threats both to self and the interlocutor, respect their interlocutor’s face needs, manage potential conflicts, and build and nurture solidarity among them, which is similar to Pullin Stark’s (2009) findings. Pullin Stark demonstrates that humor is achieved effectively to save face and to lighten the atmosphere after problems are encountered, and to build solidarity and bond among workers in the context of business-related ELF interactions. In short, it appears that humor serves various functions in specific interactional contexts and that ELF speakers make use of humor for multiple purposes. Re-gardless of differences in interactional contexts, similar to Pullin Stark’s (2009), the present study demonstrates ELF speakers’ interactional robustness and ac-complished achievement (Firth 1996), and their legitimacy and capability as suc-cessful users of English. More future investigation into ELF speakers’ various humor construction will further illuminate our understanding of the important contribution that humor can make in ELF interactions and their effective commu-nicative strategies, including competence pertinent to humor.

Appendix: transcription symbolsThe audio- and video-recorded materials were transcribed according to the fol-lowing notation system, whose core was originally developed by Gail Jefferson for the analytic research of conversation (cited by Atkinson and Heritage 1999).

9 The lack of misunderstanding and non-understanding in this study might be because these ELF speakers may share some values and customs from so-called Asian cultures.



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Symbol Represents[ overlapping utterance= latched utterance(.) micro pause(2.0) timed pause (e.g., 2-second pause): extended sound or syllable. falling intonation, continuing intonation? rising intonation! animated intonationYeah emphasis◦Um◦ speech quieter than the surrounding talk>word< speech at a pace quicker than the surrounding talk<word> speech at a pace slower than the surrounding talk$ smile voice(( )) non-vocal action, details of conversational scene( ) unrecoverable speech→ feature of interest to analyze

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BionoteYumi Matsumoto is a PhD candidate of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University. She has taught at elementary and secondary schools in Japan and is currently teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels in the United States. Her research interests include English as a lingua franca, gesture analysis, humorous interaction, conversation analysis, teacher identity development, and second language writing.



Documents

Collaborative co-construction of humorous interaction among ELF