Learning and Using Conversational Humor in a Second Language During Study Abroad 9781614518617, 9781614518587

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Rachel Shively Learning and Using Conversational Humor in a Second Language During Study Abroad

Language Play and Creativity

Editor Nancy Bell

Volume 2

Rachel Shively

Learning and Using Conversational Humor in a Second Language During Study Abroad

ISBN 978-1-61451-858-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-861-7 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0117-3 ISSN 2363-7749

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin Typesetting: Integra Software Service Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Preface If you are a researcher in study abroad or humor studies, if you are a study abroad program administrator or advisor, or if you are a language instructor in the foreign or second language (L2) setting, this book has something to offer you. Humor is notorious for being difficult to understand and produce in an L2 and engaging in humor can, understandably, create considerable anxiety for L2 speakers. At the same time, humor is frequent in conversation and so for students who opt to study abroad in a country in which their L2 is widely spoken, there is a good chance that they will be exposed to conversational humor during their sojourn. For those researchers, administrators, advisors, and instructors who work with previous, current, or future study abroad students, knowing more about how learners use and develop L2 humor, as well as discovering the types of humor that study abroad students may be exposed to in their interactions with local people can inform our practice in various ways. Hence, the goal of this volume is to advance our understanding of the use and learning of conversational humor in an L2 during study abroad. The particular focus of this study is humor in everyday conversations between six US-based students who studied abroad in Spain and their Spanish host families and age peers. For researchers interested in L2 learning in study abroad, this book provides an in-depth look at the micro-social context of authentic interactions in the target language. A long-standing interest in study abroad research has been the nature of the social interaction in which students engage during their stay in the host country. In contrast with learning a language exclusively in the classroom environment, study abroad offers the opportunity for learners to use the L2 in a variety of settings, such as service encounters, workplace interactions (e.g., through an internship), and everyday conversations with host families. By looking at the micro-level of how interactions in different settings in study abroad unfold and how they are co-constructed by the participants, researchers have been better able to understand the diversity of experiences that students have with local people and how such experiences can enhance or detract from learning the target language. Despite its prevalence in everyday life, humor has not received much attention in the study abroad literature. At the same time, humor represents a valuable focus for study abroad researchers because it involves expressing meaning at multiple levels, serves a plethora of social functions, and is implicated in building relationships with others. In contrast to “black box” studies (Taguchi, 2016) that consider language gains following study abroad, this book details incremental developments in humor at multiple times over the course of a semester-long stay abroad. This book also contributes to the field of study abroad https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614518617-201

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by providing not only student perspectives, but also the voices of local people who interact with study abroad students—something that has been rare to date. Researchers in L2 humor will find this study to be of particular interest due to, first, its focus on the development of humor in an L2, second, its examination of the humor to which L2 speakers are exposed, and third, its consideration of humor use and development with different interlocutors. Although a fairly robust number of studies have examined humor and language play in an L2, few existing studies have sought to document development over time with L2 humor. A close examination of the humor that expert speakers of a language produce for an L2 hearer is likewise a topic that heretofore has been little explored in the literature, yet is crucial for understanding access to humorous forms by L2 speakers. Further, this study makes a unique contribution by exploring L2 speakers’ use and learning of humor with two different groups of interlocutors: Spanish-speaking age peers (language partners) and older adults (host families). Using humor is a jointly constructed activity and different groups of individuals may joke around in varying ways. Finally, this study also contributes to the growing database of studies that examine the ways in which L2 speakers at various proficiency levels and in diverse circumstances employ humor in conversation. Those readers who are involved in study abroad program administration and advising can also gain important insights from this book. Through the student interviews and journals as well as the analysis of conversations between study abroad students and their host families and Spanish-speaking age peers, you will be able to see the issues that students confront not just as they attempt to use humor, but as they use humor to develop relationships with local people. Although the analysis focuses on humor, other issues come to the surface, such as the challenges that both students and host families face as they negotiate their shared living space. Humor provides a window into the day-to-day study abroad experience. This study is also revealing in that it shows the considerable variety of experiences that study abroad students have as they interact with host families and Spanish-speaking age peers. As you will see in this book, some host families playfully teased and joked around with their students frequently while others did not; some family members were extremely talkative, while others were more reserved; some students had an easy-going relationship with their family, while for others it was, at times, more tense. The findings from this study also point to the value of providing study abroad students with structured opportunities to meet local people of their same age. While students may develop a close and meaningful relationship with their host family, they may also deeply value being able to build a friendship with someone closer to them in age and with whom they may be able to identify more strongly and present different aspects of themselves.

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Awareness of the aforementioned issues can inform the advising of study abroad students and aspects of program design. In addition to the areas discussed above, foreign language instructors who work with study abroad students before, during, or after their sojourn will find that this book can inform their teaching practice. The results of this study suggest that study abroad students are likely to have many opportunities to produce and interpret humorous utterances when they engage in everyday conversation in the target language, but that there are aspects of humor that may be difficult to learn through exposure and communicative practice alone. In that regard, the foreign or L2 classroom can play an important role in raising students’ awareness about prevalent humor types, styles, and topics typically found in humor in the target language and in the specific host culture. Instructors can integrate humor into their teaching practices—which has the potential to build rapport and make L2 forms more memorable—but they can also teach about humor in the L2, as they help L2 learners develop that component of communicative competence. The data and analysis in this book highlight specific aspects of L2 humor that classroom instruction can target as a means to complement the opportunities for reallife use of humor that students are likely to have if they engage in conversations in the L2 outside the classroom during their stay abroad. As the previous discussion indicates, this book has multiple intended audiences has the potential to contribute insights for research, programmatic, and pedagogical practice. Through the analysis of authentic conversations between six study abroad students and their Spanish-speaking host families and age peers, through the examination of student journals and interviews with students, host families, and on-site program staff, this book will describe the frequency of humor in everyday conversations, the types of humor employed by participants, the ways in which students shifted in their use of humor over the course of one semester in Spain, and how humor plays a crucial role in building and maintaining relationships between students and those they meet abroad.

Contents 1 1 2 2.1 3 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 5 5.1 6

Social contexts of humor and language learning   1 Introduction   1 Humor in social interaction   3 Humor and politeness   8 Humor theory and linguistic analysis of humor   11 Humor in a second language and in intercultural interactions  Frameworks for L2 competence with humor   16 L2 humor development   18 Humor in intercultural interactions   19 Language learning as social practice: Language socialization  Revoicing   24 Aims and organization of the volume   25

2 1 2 3 4 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 6 6.1 6.2 7

 27 Researching humor in a second language  Introduction   27 Research methods in L2 humor   27 Research site of the present study   33 Participants   34 Data collection   37 Discourse data   38 Student journals   40 Student questionnaires   40 Field notes   41 Student interviews   41 Host family and staff interviews   41 Data analysis   42 Discourse data   42 Journals, interviews, questionnaires, and field notes  Transcription notes   45

3 1 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.3.1

Second language humor use in study abroad  Introduction   46 Humor use by students   46 Humor frequency   47 Successful and failed humor   47 Humor target   55 Joking about oneself   58

 46

 44

 14

 22

X  2.3.2 2.3.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 3 4 1 2 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.2 3 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.2 4 4.1 4.1.1 4.1.2 4.1.3 4.1.4 4.2 5 5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.2 6

 Contents

Joking about an absent other   61 Teasing   64 Irony   71 Exaggeration   74 Revoicing   76 Playing with lexis, grammar, and phonology  Self-repetition   85 Contextualization cues   85 Humor topics   86 Initiation of humor   91 Humor functions   93 L2 humor use: Summary of findings   103

 84

Case studies of second language humor development  Introduction   104 Case study 1: Chloe   105 Chloe’s L2 humor development   108 Initiation of humor   108 Cultural references   115 Language socialization   120 Case study 2: Jared   120 Jared’s L2 humor development   123 Teasing frequency   123 Teasing content   126 Language socialization   130 Case study 3: Kyle   130 Kyle’s L2 humor development   133 Failed humor   133 Deadpan humor   142 US cultural references   143 Revoicing   144 Language socialization   146 Case study 4: Megan   148 Megan’s L2 humor development   154 Failed humor   154 Teasing   158 Revoicing   165 Language socialization   168 L2 humor development: Summary   168

 104

Contents 

5 1 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 3 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers   170 Introduction   170 Humor use by host Families and age peers   170 Humor frequency   170 Successful and failed humor   172 Humor target   181 Joking about oneself   183 Joking about an absent other   192 Teasing   195 Exaggeration   214 Revoicing   216 Playing with lexis, grammar, and phonology   219 Self-repetition   219 Contextualization cues   222 Humor topics   223 Initiation of humor   230 Responses to students’ humor   231 Humor use by host families and age peers: Summary  

 233

Learning and using humor in a second language during study abroad: Discussion, conclusions, and implications   234 Introduction   234 L2 humor use   234 L2 humor development   239 Humor use by host families and age peers   246 Conclusions   250 Pedagogical and programmatic implications   252 Suggestions for future research   254 Limitations   256

References  Index 

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1 Social contexts of humor and language learning 1 Introduction Considering that the world is more interconnected than ever and international migration and student mobility have increased considerably in the past two decades (Institute of International Education [IIE] 2015; United Nations 2016), humor may be crossing more borders than ever before. It is often said, however, that humor does not travel well. One of the study abroad students in this project, a young woman and cinephile, told the story of going with another American student to the local movie theater during her sojourn in Toledo, Spain, to see the Hollywood comedy Night at the Museum. The two quickly realized that they were the only ones in the cinema laughing at the jokes in the film. Comedic films are notoriously less successful outside of their original cultural context compared to other genres, but Night at the Museum was actually quite popular internationally (Barthel-Couchier 2012). The student’s anecdote suggests that the humor in that film did not receive a favorable audience reaction in Spain. But what about humor in everyday conversation? How well does humor cross borders in intercultural interactions between American study abroad students and their Spanish-speaking acquaintances? Do study abroad students shift in their humor use over time? These are the overarching questions explored in the present volume. Currently, approximately 4.5 million university students from around the globe opt to study outside their home country (IIE 2015). US-based students make up only a fraction of that of number, although their ranks have steadily increased over the past two decades (IIE 2016). Not all American students who study abroad will pursue advanced proficiency in an additional language, but for those who do, being in the host society offers the chance for linguistic and cultural immersion. Ordering a coffee, asking about train schedules, inviting a local friend to hang out, and conversing over a meal are all activities that study abroad students might expect to accomplish in their second language (L2) while residing in an L2-speaking country. Indeed, the wealth of opportunities for out-of-class interaction in the L2 represent an important affordance of a sojourn in L2-land. Previous research on L2 learning in study abroad has examined the intensity of the contact that students have with the L2, the density and durability of their social networks with local people, their access to and engagement in different settings, as well as the qualities of interactions in which they participate (e.g., DuFon 1999; Isabelli-García 2006; Mitchell, Tracy-Ventura, and McManus 2015;

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614518617-001

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Siegal 1996). A close look at everyday interactions has revealed, for example, that study abroad students are not always exposed to the registers and varieties of language expected in native speaker (NS) interaction and may be oriented to by local people in ways that position them as outsiders and novice speakers of the L2 (e.g., Dings 2012; Fernández 2016; Iino 2006; Wilkinson 2002). Being in an immersion environment also does not guarantee intensive interaction between students and members of the host culture. Students may remain isolated from local people due to difficulties in cultural adjustment, fear of using the L2 with NSs, inability to make local contacts, or participation in social networks made up primarily of co-nationals and other international students (e.g., Coleman 2015; Duff 2014; Jackson 2008; Kinginger 2008; Menard-Warwick and Palmer 2012). In other cases, however, when students and local people invest the time to interact with each other, students have opportunities for socialization into the linguistic and social norms of the host community and, through that interaction, may develop their communicative competence in the L2 (e.g., H. Cook 2008; DuFon 2006; Kinginger 2015; Shively 2011; Wang 2010). Humor is a crucial component of communicative competence and plays an important role in social interaction. Humorous texts can be found in all domains of everyday life, including in films, on television, in the media, in stand-up comedy, in literary works, and—the focus here—in everyday conversation. In conversation, we use humor to have fun, to be creative, to display in-group identity, and to bond with others. That humor is pervasive in conversation suggests that we do not only or even primarily use language to transmit information, but rather, for mutual entertainment and affiliation within groups (e.g., Gee 1999; Norrick 1993). Given the frequency of humor in everyday life, study abroad students who interact with members of the host culture in their L2 can be expected to encounter and engage in humor in that language. Despite its prevalence in interaction and implication in building and maintaining relationships, little previous research has considered humor use and development by L2 speakers in this setting. Why research conversational humor in study abroad? This and subsequent chapters in the volume will show that an analysis of L2 humor can contribute not only to revealing how L2 speakers learn and use a multi-layered, multi-functional, and non-serious mode of communication, but also to deepening our understanding of the nature of social interaction in study abroad and the relationships that students develop with local people in that setting, the identities, stances, goals, and meanings that students and their hosts co-construct and negotiate, and the social processes of L2 learning. The present chapter begins with an overview of conversational humor, discusses frameworks for analyzing humor, and then closes with an examination of humor use and learning in an L2.

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2 Humor in social interaction The study of social interaction in study abroad would be incomplete without an examination of humor in everyday conversation. A focus on humor highlights interaction as multidimensional and dynamic with its “shifts of key, problematic boundaries of units, multifunctionality of utterances, constellations of cues at different linguistic levels, layering of social meaning, and embeddedness in context” (Davies 2003: 1362). Humor plays a fundamental role in our interactions with others, not only to have fun and amuse, but also to build rapport, reveal common ground, negotiate identities, ease tensions, convey criticism, and manage conversational openings, closings, and topic shifts, among other functions (e.g., Ervin-Tripp and Lampert 1992; Graham, Papa, and Brooks 1992; Norrick 1993). Although humor has psychological dimensions, the focus in this volume is on humor as a social phenomenon, that is, a “form of communication embedded in social relationships” (Kuipers 2015: 7) in which the interpersonal functions of humor tend to predominate over ideational or referential functions (e.g., Norrick 1993). Successful humor in conversation is a jointly constructed and collaborative activity between a speaker who makes an attempt to amuse and hearers who react to that humor (e.g., Davies 2003; Holmes and Hay 1997). Humor itself is considered to be universal, but, as described above, cultural differences abound with regard to the styles, topics, and mechanisms of humor, as well as sociolinguistic aspects such as when and with whom it is appropriate to use certain types of humor. As this section will describe, discourse analytic and sociolinguistic approaches to humor offer insights into the functions and types of humor found in everyday conversation. Spontaneous verbal humor in conversation, also termed “conversational humor” or “conversational joking,” is typically considered a different speech activity from “joke telling” in interaction (e.g., Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Coates 2014; Norrick 1993). Joke telling refers to performing narrative or “canned” jokes that are portable and formulaic, such as knock-knock jokes in English or chistes de tres actos (‘three acts jokes’) and similar variants (e.g., chistes de se abre el telón ‘the curtain opens jokes’) in Spanish, an example of which is shown below. The actos genre relies on a pun in the punchline (i.e., the last line of the joke) for the humor, which, in the example below, is generated by a play on the phonological similarity between the prepositional phrase con bata (‘with a bathrobe’) and the verb combata (‘to combat’); that is, the /n/ in con assimilates to the following bilabial consonant /b/ and is produced as [m], making the two homophones.

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Primer acto: una mosca con bata

First act: a fly with a bathrobe

Segundo acto: llega otra mosca con bata

Second act: enter another fly with a bathrobe

Tercer acto: otra mosca más con bata

Third act: another fly with a bathrobe

¿Cómo se llama la obra?

What’s the name of the play?

Combata las moscas.

Combat flies (flies with bathrobe)

When speakers tell canned jokes like the one above in conversation, they may do so to entertain and to test their listeners’ attitudes and beliefs. Although canned jokes are not tied to a particular discourse or social context, when told in conversation, they do tend to relate topically to the previous talk and are often cued through an explicit introduction such as “I’ve got a joke for you” (e.g., Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Norrick 1993). In contrast to joke telling, conversational humor refers to humor that is highly context-dependent and situational such that it might not understandable by someone not involved in the conversation (e.g., Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997). Many scholars have employed Bateson’s (1953) notion of framing as a means to understand conversational humor. Bateson argued that speakers frame their actions as either “serious” or “play,” depending on their intention. When talk is framed as play, the metamessage is that the “actions in which we now engage do not denote what those actions for which they stand would denote” (Bateson 1972: 180), meaning the talk was non-serious. The concept of interpretive frame does not specify what types of talk can be play, which means that potentially any communicative act can be performed humorously. The term frame is treated as synonymous with key by most authors (cf. Goffman 1974), the latter of which refers to a “tone, manner, or spirit in which an act is done” (Hymes 1972: 62). How speakers signal their humorous intent and facilitate the hearer’s inferencing has been described through reference to verbal and non-verbal contextualization cues (Gumperz 1992), such as laughter, exaggerated intonation and lexis, repetition, shift in speed of delivery, smiling, facial expression, and gestures (e.g., Attardo, Wagner, and Urios-Aparisi 2013; Kotthoff 1999; Lytra 2009; Straehle 1993). Despite the evidence of such cues being employed to mark a play frame, framing or keying is not conventionalized and misinterpretation of the frame may occur (e.g., Bell 2015). Establishing a play frame involves collaboration among parties to the talk and highlights the co-constructed nature of humor in conversation. That is, a speaker can signal humorous intent, but the hearer must recognize and adopt the play frame for humor to be successful (e.g., Davies 1984; 2003; Holmes and Hay 1997). Laughter is the quintessential, but not only reaction to humor; listeners often show their understanding and/or appreciation of the humor by engaging in other humor support moves such as contributing more humor, echoing the humor, and playing along with the gag (Hay 2001; see also Bell 2007c).

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An attempt at humor can also fail to amuse listeners, an example of miscommunication (Bell 2015). Bell argues that some aspects of failed humor are shared with other types of miscommunication in serious talk (e.g., not understanding an utterance because of loud background noise), but some aspects are unique to talk in a play frame (e.g., not understanding the incongruity that creates the humor). Like successful humor, failed humor is also jointly constructed by both the speaker and the hearer and, consequently, can fail due to problems in humor production or comprehension. Bell (2015) and Bell and Attardo (2011) examined the reasons why humor can fail in either NS-NS or intercultural interactions. These include lack of understanding of the pragmatic force of the utterance (e.g., interpreting an ironic quip literally), lack of understanding the message form (e.g., lack of familiarity with the jokes in three acts genre in Spanish), misinterpreting the key (e.g., not recognizing a play frame), and not appreciating the humor (e.g., being offended by racist or sexist jokes). These sources for failed humor arise in joking among NSs, but may be more frequent in intercultural interactions due to difficulties with humor in another language. L2 speakers, for example, may not recognize the contextualization cues employed to create a play frame, understand the linguistic material of the utterance due to lack of lexical or grammatical knowledge, or lack the relevant scripts to understand the humorous incongruity (Bell and Attardo 2010). Apart from amusing and entertaining others, conversationalists may also employ humor for various other psychological, discourse, and social functions. Psychological functions include the motives for using humor, such as a desire to avoid conflict or as a coping strategy, and discourse functions relate to conversational management, such as opening an interaction, shifting the topic, or controlling the conversation. With regard to social functions, a number have been identified and described in the literature (e.g., Attardo 2001; Alvarado Ortega 2013; Ervin-Tripp and Lampert 1992; Holmes 2000; Iglesias Casal 2000; Norrick 1993; Ziv 1984), but Hay (1995) identified three that she considered primary: emphasize power differences, protect oneself from threats to face, and establish or maintain solidarity within a group. Holmes (2000: 165) argued that “humor is a very effective way of ‘doing power’ less explicitly,” and humor can be used to either enact or subvert power relationships (Holmes and Marra 2002). For example, Coates (2014) showed how male speakers asserted power by using humor to gain the floor in an interaction. In terms of self-presentation, when confronted with a shortcoming, a speaker may use self-deprecatory humor to present a positive image of self as someone with a sense of humor and who does not take problems too seriously (e.g., Kotthoff 1999; Lytra 2009; Norrick 1993). Although humor can be aggressive and antagonistic, humor is primarily affiliative and serves to strengthen bonds between people. By laughing together at

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the same humor, individuals emphasize their common ground, intersubjectivity, and shared attitudes and beliefs, which creates bonding and in-group cohesion (e.g., Alvarado Ortega 2012a; 2012b; Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Holmes 2000). Joking about others who are outsiders, for instance, can enhance solidarity and reinforce an in-group identity. More broadly speaking, those espousing the encryption theory have proposed that humor originally evolved in humans as a way to determine those with whom we are most compatible since humor functions as a “reliable index of the relative degree of shared cognitive environments, styles, and backgrounds” (Flamson and Bryant 2013: 63). Through humor, participants in conversation also discursively display and construct their individual and group identities by portraying themselves in desired ways and positioning themselves as members of a group. Identity here is understood within the poststructuralist framework in which, as Block (2007: 27) described, identities are viewed “as socially constructed, self-conscious, ongoing narratives that individuals perform, interpret and project in dress, bodily movements, actions and language … identities are about negotiating new subject positions at the crossroads of the past, present and future.” This definition highlights the notion that a person’s identity is not fixed in time or place and, instead, can shift as one asserts new subject positions and aligns with or contests positioning by others. In this way, the process of identity negotiation is discursively co-constructed between self and others in interaction. Humor is one means by which conversationalists do their identity construction in collaboration with co-participants through referencing individual aspects of their identity (e.g., being a strong person in the face of adversity) and group identities (e.g., family, friends, workplace, class, gender, race). Although much humor is affiliative and serves to strengthen group solidarity and relational identities, humor can also be used aggressively and to exclude people from a group (e.g., Kotthoff 1996). Who is being joked about is another aspect relevant to understanding the social functions of humor. Participants can laugh about themselves, about someone who is absent, or about a co-present participant. Joking about an outsider as well as joking about someone present can both serve to reinforce in-group identity. In the first case, as described above, ridiculing others highlights the contrast between “us” and “them,” displaying in-group identity, as Boxer and Cortés-Conde (1997: 283) described, “what makes us part of an in-group is having in common an ‘out-group’.” The second case, where the target of the joking is a co-participant in the interaction, is referred to as teasing (Boxer and CortésConde 1997). Teasing is a risky type of humor because by mocking the behaviors, values, or beliefs of the tease recipient, there is potential for that person to be offended. However, by framing teasing as humorous, the metamessage is that the activity is play and the critique of the tease should not be taken seriously

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(e.g., Dynel 2008; Norrick 1993). Although the evaluative comment made in the tease is sometimes intended as a serious challenge to the target, contextualizing the tease as play mitigates potential threat to face and shows a desire for affiliation (e.g., Holmes 2000; Mills and Babrow 2003; Pichler 2006). As Norrick (1994) described, even if the message is aggressive, the metamessage is affiliative. Due to this inherent ambiguity, however, teasing can cause hurt feelings and create conflict, but this activity can also enhance solidarity and in-group belonging and display closeness (e.g. Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Dynel 2008; Eisenberg 1986; Holmes and Marra 2002). The relationship between the teaser and the teased is crucial. Teasing tends to occur more frequently among intimates (e.g., Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Drew 1987; Dynel 2008; Hay 2000; Pawluck 1989), since those who are close to each other have shared knowledge and “are likely to be better able to deliver teases with playful intent, to understand when teasing is taking place, and to know which topics are less hurtful and which are to be avoided” (Keltner et al. 2001 241). However, teasing can also be found among people who are not close, but who are getting to know one another (e.g., Haugh 2011; Priego-Valverde 2016). Boxer and Cortés-Conde conceptualized teasing on a continuum in which “bonding” teases enhanced solidarity, whereas “nipping” and “biting” teases were progressively more aggressive, critical, negative, and offensive. In everyday conversation, teasing occurs as a “second” in which the tease initiator responds to something a co-participant said in a prior turn (Drew 1987). According to Drew, the environments for teasing are typically those in which the subsequent target of the tease was perceived as having “overdone” an action, such as complaining, self-aggrandizement, or exaggerating. In addition, various authors have pointed out that teasing tends to occur as a reaction to a perceived violation of a social norm or shortcoming on the part of the tease recipient (e.g., Alberts, Kellar-Guenther, and Corman 1996; Drew 1987; Eisenberg 1986; Geyer 2010; Keltner et al. 2001). For example, children may be teased by their parents or other adults in response to a violation of norms concerning behaviors such as showing affection, being selfish, and realizing speech acts appropriately (e.g., Dunn and Brown 1994; Eisenberg 1986; Keltner et al. 2001; Schieffelin 1986). Like other types of humor, teasing can be used for a variety of functions such as amusement, mitigating face threat, enactment or subversion of power, in-group cohesion (e.g., Dynel 2008; Holmes 2000; Pichler 2006; Schnurr 2009) and, as alluded to in the previous example, social influence. In social influence teasing, the tease initiator attempts to compel the target to modify his or her behavior in some way, to be more socially appropriate in accordance with the norms, values, and beliefs displayed by the speaker. Cross-culturally, social influence teasing has been observed to be directed at

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children by adults in positions of power (e.g., parents, teachers), but also among age peers (e.g., Eisenberg 1986; Mills and Babrow 2003; Schieffelin 1986; Schnurr and Chan 2011; Michell and West 1996; Tholander 2002).

2.1 Humor and politeness In analyzing the social context of humor, politeness theory helps ground the discussion in a framework of expectations for behavior and negotiation of face. The earliest studies that examined humor through the lens of politeness applied Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory (e.g., Holmes 2000; Kotthoff 1996). That theory, however, has been criticized on several fronts, first among them is those authors’ a priori determination that some speech acts are inherently face-threatening (e.g., requests), that indirectness is universally more polite, and that social variables (i.e., power, distance, imposition) are given as facts pre-dating a given social interaction (e.g., Aston 1995; Hernández-Flores 1999; Saville-Troike 2003). Various other frameworks for politeness have been proposed which diverge from an a priori categorization of actions and social variables and, instead, examine those features within specific interactional contexts (e.g., Locher and Watts 2005; Watts 2003). Spencer-Oatey’s (2000; 2003; 2005) rapport management theory was adopted here because it integrates the crucial concepts of socially acceptable behavior, face, and individuals’ interactional goals into one conceptual framework which can be applied fruitfully to the analysis of humor in interaction (e.g., Bell 2009). Spencer-Oatey (2005: 96) defined rapport as the “relative harmony and smoothness of relations between people, and rapport management refers to the management (or mismanagement) of relations between people.” This definition of rapport reflects perhaps the one common component of a number of previous definitions of politeness (e.g., Brown and Levinson 1987; Leech 1983; Fraser 1990; Locher 2004; Watts 2003): everyone seems to agree that politeness has to do with maintaining harmonious interpersonal relationships and doing what is socially appropriate (Spencer-Oatey 2005). In this approach, language is a significant part of how people manage rapport in interpersonal relations. However, individual utterances cannot be labeled as “polite” or “impolite” prior to their use in a specific social and discourse context. Despite the fact that rapport is related to harmonious relations, Spencer-Oatey argued that people have different orientations to rapport and proposed four ways to describe these perspectives: in a rapport-enhancement orientation, there is a desire among participants to enhance or strengthen harmonious relations; a rapport-maintenance orientation shows a desire to maintain or protect harmonious relationships; a rapport-neglect orientation indicates a lack

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of concern or interest in rapport on the part of the participants; and finally, a rapport-challenge orientation refers to a desire to damage harmonious relations (Spencer-Oatey 2005: 96). In terms of humor, it is often employed to enhance rapport, but it may also be used aggressively, to challenge rapport. Rapport management consists of three components: (1) behavioral expectations, (2) face sensitivities, and (3) interactional wants. The first aspect, behavioral expectations, is defined as “the subjective judgments that people make about the social appropriateness of verbal and non-verbal behavior” (Spencer-Oatey 2005: 97). Politeness, therefore, has to do with the types of behavior that are expected and considered socially appropriate in particular contexts. For example, teasing one’s boss may be viewed as socially appropriate in some workplace communities of practice, but not others (e.g., Schnurr 2009). In some communities, telling canned jokes may be valued, whereas in others it may seem childish for an adult to do so (Bell 2009). The second component of rapport management is face sensitivity. Spencer-Oatey (2000; 2005) proposes two fundamental categories of face: respectability face and identity face. Respectability face “refers to the prestige, honor, or ‘good name’ that a person or a social group holds and claims within a (broader) community” (2005: 102). The nature of respectability face is related to judgments of an individual or group’s ability to function competently in his or her social position. It also relates to biographical variables such as age and sex, social status such as education and occupation, formal rank or title, personal reputation, and integrity (p. 103). This type of face contrasts with identity face, which Spencer-Oatey defines as situationally-specific and based on Goffman’s (1967: 5) understanding of face as the “positive social value a person effectively claims for himself.” Goffman argued that face can apply both to individuals and to groups of people. Another important point is that identity face is relevant to a specific interactional context and thus more variable across time and space than is respectability face. Spencer-Oatey (2005: 104) suggested that the “positive social values” that people claim for themselves and that are implicated in the enhancement and threatening of face are based on those elements that are important to a person’s self-aspect, including the following areas: (1) bodily features and control (e.g., skin blemishes, burping); (2) possessions and belongings (material and affiliative); (3) performance/skills (e. g., musical performance); (4) social behavior (e.g., gift giving, rude gestures); and (5) verbal behavior (e. g., wording of illocutionary acts, stylistic choice). Spencer-Oatey (2005) divided face sensitivities into those that have more to do with individual fulfillment (independent) and values concerning relationships to other people (interdependent), but the specific values within those two categories vary by culture. Bravo (1996) argued that the specific cultural contents of Peninsular Spanish face in terms of autonomy and affiliation are self-affirmation and confianza,

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respectively. Self-affirmation refers to the individual’s desire to emphasize his or her own positive social qualities in order to stand out in the group (Bravo 1996: 63). Confianza, on the other hand, refers to a closeness or “deep familiarity” between people which is viewed as positive, in the sense of close friendships (Bravo 1996). The lack of confianza means that there is a distance between people which, if describing relationships with family or friends, is evaluated negatively in Spanish society. According to Hernández-Flores (1999: 41), unlike positive face in the Brown and Levinson (1987) approach, confianza (affiliation) “does not refer to the wish of being appreciated and approved of (positive face) but to the wish of achieving closeness, because closeness in the Spanish setting allows the possibility of acting and talking in an open way.” Humorous talk, just as serious talk, can also enhance or threaten face. In business negotiations among Spaniards, for example, joking was employed as a way to soften the force of a refusal and appeal to confianza (Bravo 1996). On the other hand, if a hearer does not appreciate a joke, the speaker’s desired face as someone with a “good” sense of humor—or any other positive social value reflected in the humor—may be threatened. Hearers’ face as intelligent and competent conversationalists may also be threatened in failed humor if they did not get the joke or if the type of humor directed at them was perceived as indexing a negative attribute. For example, if a hearer is told a “stupid group” joke—i.e., a joke in which some ethnicity is targeted as intellectually challenged, such as Poles in American English or gallegos (‘Galicians’) in Spanish (Davies 2008)—that action might suggest that the hearer was thought to be the type of person who liked such jokes, when he or she did not appreciate canned jokes of that nature (Bell 2009). The final element of the rapport management framework is interactional goals. This aspect of Spencer-Oatey’s (2005) politeness approach refers to the objectives that people bring to an interaction and has been formulated in terms of a binary distinction: transactional versus relational goals. Goals can be categorized as “transactional” or task-focused, in which the primary goal is achieving a particular task such as buying a gallon of milk or getting an extension on a homework assignment. On the other hand, the goals of individuals in interactions may be considered “relational,” in that the main purpose of the interaction is to work on a relationship, for example, building a friendship. In sum, by looking at behaviorial expectations, face wants, and interactional goals, rapport management theory provides one framework with which to understand when and with whom certain types of humor would be perceived as appropriate, the types of individual and group face sensitivities that may be negotiated through humor, and the goals that may shape humor in co- constructed interaction.

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3 Humor theory and linguistic analysis of humor Up to this point in the discussion, the focus has been on social and discursive aspects of humor in everyday conversation and little attention has been paid to the linguistic content of humorous utterances. It is helpful, however, to have an understanding of the linguistic resources involved in producing verbal humor. To conceptualize an approach to the linguistic analysis of humorous texts, this section provides a brief overview of humor theories and then a discussion of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (e.g., Attardo 2001). Humor has been analyzed from sociolinguistic, discourse analytic, and cognitive linguistics approaches, although no humor-specific theories have been proposed within those areas (e.g., Brône, Feyaerts, and Veal 2015; Holmes 2000; Norrick 1993; 2003). Similarly, some authors have used Relevance Theory to account for humor, along with other types of pragmatic phenomena (e.g., Curcó 1998; Sperber and Wilson 1986; Yus-Ramos 2000; 2003). However, specialized theories of humor, with long traditions in philosophy and psychology, have also been applied to the linguistic analysis of humor. These theories are generally divided into three categories: superiority/hostility, release, and incongruity (for a detailed review see Attardo 1994; Dynel 2013). Superiority or hostility theories can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle and explain humor through the sense of superiority that people feel when they ridicule and laugh at the misfortunes of others. In this conception, humor involves some degree of aggression. Release theories of humor, on the other hand, emphasize the psychological role of humor as a coping mechanism related to the release of suppressed emotions and desires. Freud was a prominent advocate for release and the theory continues to have relevance in some areas of psychology. Incongruity theories, the final category, is the approach that has predominated in linguistics scholarship (Canestrari and Bianchi 2013). Although definitions vary to some extent, broadly, the notion of incongruity refers to the juxtaposition of elements that diverges from our expectations in some way. Incongruity is “something unexpected, out of context, inappropriate, unreasonable, illogical, exaggerated and so forth” (McGhee 1979: 10) and occurs “when the arrangement of the constituent elements of an event is incompatible with the normal or expected pattern” (McGhee 1979: 6–7). Unlike superiority and release theories, incongruity theories do not focus on the participants, but rather, on the humor stimulus; it is the perception of the incongruity or the resolution of the incongruity that creates the humorous effect. The General Theory of Verbal Humor, which was proposed by Attardo and Raskin (1991) as a revision and extension of Raskin’s (1985) Semantic Script Theory of Humor is generally considered an incongruity theory (Attardo 2008; cf. Raskin 1985) and is the most widely cited and influential theory of humor

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in linguistics. Although this theory was originally applied to jokes, the General Theory of Verbal Humor can also be applied to the analysis of conversational humor (e.g., Attardo 2001; Alvarado Ortega 2012a; 2012b; Archakis and Tsakona 2005). The focus in the General Theory of Verbal Humor is on the semantic and pragmatic properties of the humorous text itself and does not incorporate non-verbal aspects of humor, speaker intention, or audience reaction into the main tenets of the theory (Attardo 2001; Norrick 2003). Through the General Theory of Verbal Humor, the analyst identifies and describes humorous utterances in conversational humor (or other texts involving humor) that involve script opposition, which are termed a jab lines. A jab line is integrated into a text, can occur sequentially in any position in the text, and contrasts with a punch line, which necessarily is placed in final position in a canned joke (Attardo 2001). Further, unlike canned jokes, in conversation, humor occurs as a normal turn in conversation, is not announced ahead of time, is produced spontaneously, and is highly dependent on the context. Humor is understood to violate Grice’s (1989) cooperative principle and each humorous utterance includes the following six knowledge resources in the same hierarchical order as presented below (Attardo 2001: 22-27; Attardo 2008): 1. Script opposition: Script opposition refers to the fact that the humorous text is completely or partially compatible with two different, overlapping, and opposed scripts. 2. Logical mechanism: This aspect is involved in resolving or “explaining away” (Attardo 2008: 108) the incongruity produced by the script opposition. A number of logical mechanisms have been identified, including juxtaposition, analogy, exaggeration, and faulty reasoning (see examples in Attardo [2001] and Attardo, Hempelmann, and Di Maio [2002]). 3. Situation: The objects, people, places, activities, and other information needed to understand the script opposition, but that are not funny in themselves, constitute the situation. 4. Target: The target is the “butt” of the joke, that is, the person or group ridiculed by the humor. Some humor does not have a target, in which case, this parameter has an empty value. 5. Narrative strategy: This resource refers to the genre of the humor, such as a narrative, dialogue, riddle, or, in the example shown at the beginning of this chapter, the organization and structure of the text of three acts jokes in Spanish. 6. Language: This resource refers to the exact wording of the humorous text, including the lexical, morphosyntactic, and phonological choices made at the linguistic level. In many cases, a humorous utterance can be phrased in different ways, but produce the same script opposition.

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As shown above, at the center (or top-level) of a humorous text, is script opposition, which is fundamental in generating humor and is the mechanism that creates the humorous incongruity. Known as a frame or schema by other authors (Ruiz Gurillo and Alvarado Ortega 2013), a script, as defined by Raskin (1985: 81), is a “large chunk of semantic information surrounding the word or evoked by it” (see also Attardo 2001). Raskin described three categories of script oppositions: actual/non-actual, normal/abnormal, and possible/impossible. While these abstract categories are likely universal, the concrete instantiations of script oppositions will be different in each culture (Attardo 2001). The meanings of scripts are considered to be shared in a particular speech community, but since individuals in the same community may have varying experiences with and knowledge about certain topics, some individuals’ knowledge of a script may be more or less extensive or simply different than that of others. For example, for avid road cyclists, the script about spandex biking shorts might involve aspects such as the so-called “diaper” (i.e., the padding inside the shorts) that non-cyclists may be unaware of (I was, before taking up cycling), even though they understand the noun phrase spandex biking shorts. Scripts may vary across cultures as well. Although the word “bar” is a cognate in American English and Peninsular Spanish, for instance, it typically evokes different scripts for speakers of each language. In the US, a bar is generally viewed as an establishment to which adults go, often at night, to drink alcohol. It might also conjure up a dark room with loud music and noisy people. In Spain, some overlap in the script exists, but bars are not only places to drink alcohol, since Spaniards regularly eat meals or drink coffee at a bar, going to a bar is not limited to the nighttime, and one may see small children at bars in Spain late into the evening. Several authors have proposed revisions to the original General Theory of Verbal Humor (e.g., Alba-Juez 2016; Ruiz Gurillo 2012; 2016). Basing her work on various humorous genres as well as everyday conversation in Peninsular Spanish (using the Val.Es.Co corpus published by Briz et al. [2002]), Ruiz Gurillo (2012) proposed several additions. Among other aspects, Ruiz Gurillo puts more emphasis on the language resources, their close connections with the other levels of knowledge resources, and how speakers adapt their lexical, grammatical, and phonological choices to specific contexts to maximize the humorous effect and to mark the humor to facilitate audience inferencing. She expands the language resources level to flesh out greater specifics with relation to how markers of humor (e.g., polysemy, homonymy, ambiguity; see also Gómez Capuz 2002) and inferences are involved in creating the humorous effect. Those inferences, in turn, are derived from infringement of the conversational principles of Informativeness (“Provide the minimum information that is sufficient to achieve your communicative objectives”), Manner (“Indicate a normal situation through unmarked expressions”),

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and Quantity (“Do not provide weaker information than your knowledge of the world; specifically, select the strongest element of the paradigm”), which is based on Gricean pragmatics and specifically Levinson (2000) (quotes are my translations from Ruiz Gurillo 2012: 116). Additional features such as register, genre, and syntagmatic relationships were incorporated into the narrative strategy and logical mechanism levels. Based on this revised General Theory of Verbal Humor, Alba-Juez (2016: 16) proposed a further modification to the theory: stance and evaluation. As she argued, “more often than not, the evaluation made of some situation, thing, or character is a key element to the interpretation of the humorous content of jokes or humorous narrations, and for this reason I propose that the stance/evaluation component of humor be included as an element that permeates through all the knowledge resources of humor.” Irony is well-known to convey a negative evaluation, although it can also express a positive evaluation (e.g., AlbaJuez 2000; Kotthoff 2003). Other forms of humor such as teasing and mocking can be used to criticize, another type of evaluation (Oropeza Escobar 2011) The research that has discussed the General Theory of Verbal Humor in relation to humor in Spanish has largely been theoretical in focus, rather than descriptive (e.g., Alvarado Ortega 2012a; 2012b; Ruiz Gurillo 2012). In addition, the emphasis has been on humorous irony, rather than on other forms of conversational humor. The analysis of irony does not involve the General Theory of Verbal Humor; instead, the aforementioned authors have employed Gricean conversational principles to explain humorous irony and, in some cases, Relevance Theory (e.g., Ruiz Gurillo 2004). While irony and humor share some features, they are distinct. For example, both are creative and figurative uses of language, both involve indirect negation, and both can involve stance-taking (Alba-Juez 2016; Ruiz Gurillo 2012). However, irony can be present without humor (i.e., some irony is not humorous) and humor can be present without irony. In sum, the General Theory of Verbal Humor provides a framework for identifying and analyzing humorous texts that explicitly delineates the knowledge resources involved in humor.

4 Humor in a second language and in intercultural interactions The uses of humor in social interaction and the knowledge resources involved in its creation highlight the multifunctional, multilayered, and collaborative nature of sharing a laugh about something funny. Consequently, it comes as no surprise that L2 speakers regularly report difficulty comprehending and producing humor (e.g., Bell 2002, 2007a; Bell and Attardo 2010). At the same time, research has shown that even speakers with lower levels of L2 proficiency engage in conversational humor, athough the linguistic resources that they have available to exploit

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for humorous purposes may be limited (e.g., Bell 2005; Davies 2003; Shardakova 2016b). For study abroad students who interact with those from L2-land, it is likely that they will have opportunities to participate in humorous exchanges and be exposed to pragmatic norms related to humor that are different from those that they are accustomed to at home. Even though many of the social functions of humor may be the same in the new country (e.g., displaying in-group identity), the specific knowledge resources invoked (e.g., scripts, script oppositions, linguistic choices), the way a play frame is marked, and the targets and topics of humor may be different. Sociolinguistic aspects concerning when and where to use humor, with whom, and in what ways may also vary in the host culture. This section reports on previous research concerning the use and learning of L2 humor and discusses issues relevant to understanding humor in intercultural interactions. Early research that involved L2 humor was often conceptualized within the broader framework of language play, that is, language that is not primarily referential or transactional, but rather, ludic in function, serving to amuse and entertain the speaker and others (e.g., Bell 2005; Broner and Tarone 2001; G. Cook 1997; Tarone 2000; cf. Lantolf 1997). Forman (2011) proposed a nested model in which linguistic creativity is the overarching category, followed by verbal art, language play, and then verbal humor. Linguistic creativity refers to using language for original and imaginative purposes, while verbal art refers to written or spoken texts such as songs, fairy tales, and stories. Following that formulation, verbal humor is a type of language play, which in turn is one instance of verbal art, and, finally, linguistic creativity underpins the other three. Hence, although verbal humor is a common type of language play, not all language play involves humor. As previously discussed, humor refers specifically to a non-serious mode of communication through which a speaker tries to amuse a hearer, as well as pursue other relational goals. Examples of non-humorous language play might include the repetition of a particular L2 word or the use of alliteration because the speaker liked way the language sounded. When I first learned the word poporopo (‘popcorn’ in Guatemalan Spanish), I enjoyed repeating it not so much as a means to commit it to memory, but because I took pleasure in hearing and pronouncing the sounds. An L2 speaker might also creatively change the lyrics to a song in the L2 because it is a fun and pleasurable activity (see also: Belz 2002; Broner and Tarone 1999; G. Cook 1997; Tarone 2000). Bell (2011) argued that language play can further be divided into play with the language, such as punning or repeating sounds, and play in the language, which includes creating alternative realities, imaginary worlds, and playing with semantic and discourse meaning through verbal humor. Scholars have argued that engaging in language play can facilitate L2 learning in various ways. It can create a comfortable atmosphere, reduce anxiety, increase

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interest and engagement, make language forms more salient and memorable, raise metalinguistic awareness, and destabilize the interlanguage system (e.g., Ahn 2016; Bell 2005, 2009, 2011; Bell and Pomerantz 2014; Broner and Tarone 2001; Bushnell 2009; Cekaite and Aronsson 2005; G. Cook 2000; Forman 2011; Lucas 2005; Pomerantz and Bell 2007; Sullivan 2000; Tarone 2000; Tocalli-Beller and Swain 2007). Being able to be creative with language, to use it for playful purposes, and to use verbal humor for all its functions can also be considered a part of L2 speakers’ communicative competence (G. Cook 2000; Tarone 2000). As Cook (p. 150) argued, “knowing a language, and being able to function in communities which use that language, entails being able to understand and produce play with it, making this ability a necessary part of advanced proficiency.” That language play aids L2 acquisition and forms a part of L2 competence led Cook to describe language play as both a means and an end of L2 learning.

4.1 Frameworks for L2 competence with humor The ability to engage in L2 humor has been viewed within various frameworks, including communicative competence, multicompetence, and symbolic competence. With communicative competence as a point of departure, Davies (2003: 1369) proposed that “for participating effectively in conversational joking the key dimension of communicative competence might be characterized as a sensitive awareness of the process of interaction which allows quick perception of a mutual focus of attention and shared context, in effect, a shared culture in a microcosm that the joker may then refer to.” In order to achieve this activity, a speaker must draw on knowledge and skills within different domains (Canale 1983): grammatical competence (lexicon, morphosyntax, semantics), sociolinguistic competence (contextual appropriateness according to setting, participants, goals), discourse competence (produce forms coherently and cohesively in oral or written texts), and strategic competence (communication strategies to overcome difficulties). Looking at these four domains in terms of the production of L2 humor, speakers need to be able to construct a humorous utterance with the appropriate grammatical and lexical choices to express their humorous meanings and to signal their contribution as play. They must pay attention to the social setting and participants, as well as the timing and the context of the discourse in which they place their humor or respond to another’s humor. Finally, L2 speakers may have to troubleshoot and negotiate meaning if their humorous message was not understood initially or if they had difficulty in formulating an utterance. An important critique of how communicative competence has been understood, however, is the assumption that the knowledge and skills deployed in

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interaction are stable and possessed by an individual, rather than being continuously co-constructed by participants in the ongoing talk and in particular social situations (e.g., He and Young 1998). Shea (1994), for example, showed how mediation by different interlocutors gave an L2 speaker greater or fewer opportunities to demonstrate and develop her L2 skills. Bell (2007c: 384) similarly described the ways in which humor comprehension is co-constructed as “a dynamic construct, changing and developing not only as individuals are exposed to new forms of humor, but to new interlocutors with different conversational styles.” L2 humor has also been examined through the lens of multicompetence, the notion that L2 speakers are not deficient communicators, but rather, through the development of L2 knowledge and skills, they move beyond the competence of a monolingual speaker and achieve different cognitive skills, such as greater flexibility and metalinguistic awareness (e.g., Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury 2014; Belz 2002; Belz and Reinhardt 2004; V. Cook 1991). In this framework, learning an L2 is not simply additive, but rather, “a new state of mind brought about by the learning of another language” (Belz 2002: 32). Belz considered instances of multilingual language play as an index of L2 speakers’ growing multicompetence and a reflection not of their approximation to native-speaker norms, but as “richly textured practitioners” in using the L2 and hybridized language forms for their own purposes (Belz and Reinhardt 2004: 330). Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury also employed multicompetence as a framework in their study of longitudinal L2 humor development, observing that, over time, two L2 speakers incorporated new resources based on their experiences in an L2 immersion environment, which for one individual, at least, seemed to result in a “renegotiation of his sense of self” (p. 96) through deploying new ways of speaking for humorous purposes. A third framework for understanding L2 humor is symbolic competence (Kramsch and Whiteside 2008), which has been applied to analyzing L2 humor in the foreign language classroom (e.g., Pomerantz and Bell 2011; Shardakova 2016b). According to Kramsch and Whiteside, symbolic competence in an L2 has four aspects: subjectivity, historicity, performativity, and reframing. Shardakova (2016b) argued that humorous discourse is an important way to demonstrate and develop symbolic competence. Regarding the first element, subjectivity, through humor, L2 speakers can negotiate individual and relational identities, as well as power relations. Shardakova further argues that script opposition is an example of historicity, in that the multiple layers of meaning in humor can reference past and present, as well as various genres and discourses. Performativity, Kramsch and Whiteside (p. 666) argued, involves “the capacity to use the various codes to create alternative realities,” which is a common aspect of language play and humor. Finally, symbolic competence involves “the ability not only to approximate or appropriate for oneself someone else’s language, but to shape the very

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context in which language is learned and use” (p. 400). Humor is a powerful means to reframe interaction, for example, through the shift from a serious to a non-serious interpretive frame and by turning norms and conventions on their head. In her analysis of L2 humor in the Russian as a foreign language classroom, Shardakova observed that students took on new personas, adopted new scripts, and referenced new discourses from the target language, demonstrating symbolic competence through L2 humor. In this way, students negotiated new subject positions within the discourse of the L2, indexing their new personas through linguistic resources such as intonation, lexical choices, grammar, and speech acts. In another classroom-based study, Pomerantz and Bell (2011) argued that humor could function as a “safe house,” that is, a space in which students can critique oppressive practices and go beyond restrictive institutional norms. This “safe house” created by humor allowed students to develop their symbolic competence within the confines of the classroom.

4.2 L2 humor development While previous research indicates that L2 speakers at all proficiency levels can employ humor, there is also evidence that as proficiency increases, the use of humor changes. Naturally, L2 speakers draw on the linguistic and cultural resources at their disposal and for those with limited proficiency, they tend to rely on nonverbal, lexical, prosodic, and formulaic resources in their humor (e.g., Bell 2005; Davies 2003). In a large study based on written production questionnaires intended to elicit speech acts, Shardakova (2010) observed differences in the use of humor based on the proficiency of L2 speakers of Russian who ranged from novice high to superior on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency scale. Among her findings, at the intermediate level of proficiency, learners began in incorporate discursive and lexical devices into their humor, but not until the advanced mid level did they use grammar-based humor. The early stages of using discursive and lexical devices, furthermore, included profanity and slang, as well as imitating child’s language, the latter of which was also observed in Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury (2014). In addition, Russian NSs made use of a variety of “sophisticated and culture-specific” (p. 297) discourses such as bureaucratic language and religious jargon when joking that learners did not reference in their humor (Shardakova 2010). Proficiency was also significant for use of “supportive” compared to “contestive” humor: the higher the proficiency, the more supportive L2 speakers’ humor was, which was a shift in the direction of humor use by the Russian NSs in the study. Having studied abroad was another factor that was statistically

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predictive of increased use of routine formulas in Russian and greater frequency of humor. Similarly, in another study, Shardakova (2013) found that higher proficiency and study abroad influenced the perception of American L2 speakers of Russian as being more polite and having a better sense of humor. However, having studied abroad did not affect the difference in the way that Americans and Russians positioned themselves vis-a-vis humor: whereas Russians focused on the interpersonal dimension of humor, Americans emphasized the personal aspect, which Shardakova attributed to cultural differences. In addition to cross-sectional studies by Shardakova (2010, 2013, 2016), several longitudinal studies also point to ways that L2 speakers’ humor can change over time. Kinginger (2015) observed that, as a result of participating in the teasing practices of his Chinese host family, over time, one high-school-age study abroad student also began to tease family members himself. Kinginger argued that through adopting teasing in L2 Chinese, the student could participate in a practice that allowed him to index intimacy with his host family. A study by Davies (2005) observed a case in which a student from India was explicitly taught by an American age peer how to engage in male humor. The American guided the Indian student in learning to execute the joking activity “shooting the shit” and provided feedback to him about his performance. Davies argued that through practice and expert guidance from his friend, the Indian male increased his sociolinguistic competence with regard to this particular joking interaction. According to Davies, trust and friendship were crucial factors in his success. Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury (2014) also tracked longitudinal shifts in L2 humor use by two college-age L2 speakers of English who were studying in the US. During the study period, which lasted 10-12 months, the two participants were able to expand their repertoire by getting to know their interlocutors, developing shared resources, and acquiring colloquial language. Both students increased their use of aggressive teasing, perhaps due to proficiency or to greater familiarity with their interlocutors. Finally, the authors also found that playing with polysemy appeared 8-10 months into the study, but did not find play based on phonology or grammar. These findings indicate that some types of wordplay may take longer to develop in L2 humor.

4.3 Humor in intercultural interactions When L2 speakers joke with NSs, they are not always positioned as competent humorists (Bell 2006, 2007a, 2007b). That positioning is realized in discourse when, for example, NSs explain and repeat their humor, are overly careful in their use and interpretation of humor, do not acknowledge attempts at humor

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produced by L2 speakers, and initiate a greater proportion of the humor (Bell 2006, 2007b). L2 speakers are routinely oriented to as deficient communicators in serious talk as well and, in part, this positioning may occur because NSs may neither expect nor desire L2 speakers to adopt their sociolinguistic and pragmatic norms (e.g., Iino 2006; Norton 1995). However, humor may be an especially salient case: “Humor plays a particularly important role in the marking of in- and outgroup status, thus participation in L2 humor may be more difficult than in less marked types of linguistic behavior” (Bell 2006: 23). Factors such as gender and race may also contribute to the marginalization of an L2 speaker (Bell 2006, 2007b), related to systemic sexism and racism in society. Not all NSs may orient to L2 speakers in the same way, as deficient in terms of humor. For example, Bell (2006) argued that NSs who did not have experience in intercultural communication were more likely than those who did to position an L2 speaker as incapable of understanding humor. In interactions with NSs who had more intercultural experience, humor between native and nonnative speakers (NNS) was more collaborative and more egalitarian. Similarly, Davies (2003) found that a NS with training in intercultural interaction supported beginning-level L2 speakers’ humor by scaffolding their humorous contributions. Further, several studies (e.g., Ädelsward and Öberg 1998; Cheng 2003) indicate that L2 speakers are not always sidelined by native speakers. Cheng, for example, gave no suggestion that in everyday conversations Hong Kong Chinese L2 speakers of English were positioned as deficient in their use of humor by native speakers of English. The L2 speakers in that study participated in jointly constructing wordplay, banter, and mockery. Indeed, one L2 speaker was more active in creating humor than his native speaker interlocutor. In their analysis of intercultural business negotiations, Ädelsward and Öberg (1998: 426) observed that status as a NS or NNS did not determine who was in a “dominant position” in the interaction; other factors such as knowledge, experience, social hierarchy, and individual dispositions were key in positioning. They further highlighted the fact that, in the business context, L2 speakers’ humor tended to emerge from the ongoing talk, rather than occur in humorous narratives. “Non-work related, funny stories and jokes that could present a problem for a NNS with inadequate language competence, did not constitute the majority of the laughs. On the contrary, the topical field ‘ongoing activity,’ about which the NNS had adequate knowledge, generated a greater number of the laughs” (p. 426). These studies indicate that the interlocutor and the communicative setting can shape the way that L2 speakers are perceived with regard to humor and that NNSs are not always positioned as incapable of producing or comprehending humor. Drawing on Scollon and Scollon’s (2002) notion of interdiscourse communication and Speech Accommodation Theory (e.g., Giles, Taylor, and Bourhis 1973),

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Norrick (2007) argued that interactional adjustments in humor may occur not only in intercultural communication, but also in other contexts in which the participants have different discourse systems. As Norrick (p. 390) described: Interdiscourse communication has a built-in potential for ambiguity and misunderstanding, because of the interaction of two or more discourse systems with their inherent differences… in order to overcome the potential for misunderstanding, participants in interdiscourse communication make adjustments, slowing down, repeating, defining, and explaining: such adjustments fall under the heading of Accommodation. Accommodation is central to interdiscourse communication as a set of procedures for communicating humor across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Although intercultural interaction involves different discourse systems, interdiscourse communication can also occur among different groups who speak the same language and are from the same country, for example, between those who are blind versus sighted, old versus young, and speakers with different regional varieties. Participants may exploit differences in their discourse systems for humorous effect, either by contrasting the two systems or by drawing on both and mixing the languages and cultures, for example, through metalingual puns. Norrick argued that differences in ways of speaking, and contrasts in cultural products and practices such as foods, dress, and interactional norms can also provide a springboard for joking in interdiscourse contexts. While accommodation may make humor more accessible for listeners, Norrick (2007) considered that it also allows speakers to present themselves favorably to the listener and avoids misunderstanding of the humor. Reporting on humorous narratives in intergenerational interaction, for example, Norrick found that older speakers often interrupted their stories to provide definitions, explanations, and background information about references that they thought younger people may have been unaware. There were also instances in those interactions of over-accommodation by the older person, for example, by unnecessarily providing explanations of referents with which younger people were already familiar. For Norrick, “accommodation is a natural consequence of the desire to communicate across linguistic, cultural and generational boundaries. To secure uptake, humorists define words, offer explanations and revise descriptions for listeners from other discourse systems. Particularly in humor, the teller must provide a clear set-up and salient background information in order to assure understanding and appreciation” (p. 409). Hence, making interactional adjustments in humor is not unique to interactions involving L2 speakers, but accommodation may be used more frequently with NNSs, particularly by those NSs who have little experience in intercultural interaction, as Bell (2007b) described. Beyond the production and interpretation of humor by the individual parties to an intercultural interaction, there are also cultural differences in humor styles

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(e.g., Apte 1985; Ervin-Tripp and Lampert 1992; Kuipers 2015). While, to my knowledge there is no existing systematic survey of humor style differences between Americans and Spaniards, the following examples of cultural differences in humor will provide insights into how humor can vary cross-culturally, as well as highlight some of the areas that L2 speakers might learn through interaction with those from an L2-speaking culture. For example, the frequency of humor in particular communicative contexts may vary among cultures. Grindsted (1997) observed that, in simulated business negotiations, Spaniards shifted into the play frame more often (i.e., more frequent use of humor) than did their Danish counterparts. Davies (2004) reported that Americans engaged in joking more often in public than Germans did; humor was a private matter for Germans. Particular forms of humor may also vary by culture. The Spaniards in Grindsted’s study engaged more often in teasing than did the Danish. Clyne (1979, cited in Davies 2004) found that ironic understatement was employed more often by English speakers compared to German speakers. Shardakova (2012) investigated differences in American and Russian humor, finding that the former engaged more often in friendly banter while the latter employed more self-deprecation and funny antics. These examples suggest that, while humor is negotiated locally, in intercultural interactions differences in cultural styles of humor may also be relevant.

5 Language learning as social practice: Language socialization As discussed previously, research on L2 humor suggests that over time L2 speakers may shift in their humor practices as they gain proficiency and experience in the language. In the context of conversational humor, learning to use humor in new ways can be understood as social practice. Rather than conceiving of L2 learning as an individual process “inside the learner’s head” (van Lier 2000: 246), in a socially-oriented view, learning is understood as a process that occurs through engagement in socially organized activities (e.g., Duff 2007; Engeström 2001; Lave and Wenger 1991; Ochs 1991; Ochs and Schieffelin 2014). Specifically, this study examines L2 humor within the framework of language socialization theory, which posits that: Socialization is the process whereby novices gain knowledge and skills relevant to membership in a social group. This process is realized largely through language practices and social interactions that engage novices in a variety of communicative and situational roles. The study of socialization is to a large extent the study of how the social and linguistic organization of such language practices and social interactions bear on the emergence of social and cultural competence (Ochs 1991: 143).

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Through participation in the everyday practices of a group, novices not only acquire communication skills, but also the “preferences for acting, feeling, and knowing” as a member of a social group in the process of “becoming a person in society” (Ochs 2002: 106). In examining interactions between experts and novices, a language socialization perspective focuses on how participants “coordinate modes of communication, actions, bodies, objects, and the built environment to enhance their knowledge and skills” (p. 107). A basic tenet of language socialization theory is that socialization occurs throughout the lifespan as individuals enter into new settings and rely on more knowledgeable people to acquire the interactional practices and ways of thinking and being of that community of practice. Novices learn through participation in social activities by observing how others involved respond to their actions, ideas, stances, and identities. Socialization into new uses of language may take an implicit form, through routine engagement in everyday activities or it may be explicit, when experts evaluate novices’ language use, prompt an action, model a behavior, explain the social meanings that are indexed through language, among other explicit socialization practices. Over time, novices can enhance their repertoire of the linguistic conventions and sociolinguistic and pragmatic norms needed in a particular speech community to perform actions, take stances, and display identities. In this way, language competence goes hand in hand with sociocultural competence and emerges from and is embedded in social practice. Although the expert-novice relationship is asymmetrical, the process of socialization is not assumed to be unidirectional. The theory presumes that novices also have agency and can adopt, modify, hybridize, reject, or subvert community norms, as well as have an influence on the practices of experts (e.g., Duff 2007; 2008; Moore 2008; Ochs 2002; Ochs and Schieffelin 2014). An assumption that underlies language socialization, however, is that novices are accepted into the group as ratified participants, have access to interactions with experts, and are socialized by more knowledge people—which may not always be the case (e.g., Duff 2007; Kinginger 2013). In the study abroad context, for example, there is considerable variation in the extent to which students interact with local people and build local social networks. Study abroad certainly offers opportunities for language socialization through engaging with communities of practice such as host families, education, and out-of-class activities (e.g., gaming, sports), however, access to local communities abroad is not guaranteed (e.g., H. Cook 2008; DuFon 2006; Kinginger 2013). Students may interact primarily with other co-nationals and, for their part, hosts may not invest the time to interact with students. Language ideologies and positioning of study abroad students by members of the host culture may also limit their opportunities for socialization in various ways (e.g., Coleman 2015; Kinginger 2008; Pellegrino Aveni 2005;

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Schmidt-Rinehart and Knight 2004; Wilkinson 1998). In Japan, for example, Iino (2006) found that a Japanese host family did not expect the foreign student to acquire native-like interactional norms and, consequently, did not socialize the student into local practices, but rather, code-switched into foreigner talk. The case of adults who learn an additional language tends to be more complex than that of children learning their first language since linguistic and cultural practices acquired in prior socialization may differ and even come in conflict with those of the target language community (e.g., Duff 2007; 2014; Kinginger 2013). Female study abroad participants in Siegal’s (1996) research, for instance, rejected the use of gendered ways of speaking in Japanese because, from their first culture perspective, they viewed gendered language in Japanese as demeaning to women. Barron (2003) also reported that some Irish L2 learners of German studying in Germany came to recognize that a ritual re-offer to buy someone a drink was inappropriate in German culture, but that they resisted omitting a re-offer in German because they attributed that cultural behavior to their own personality, feeling that making re-offers had to do with being a nice person, rather than a product of cultural norms. Students may also adopt the pragmatic behaviors of the L2 and the host country, but not understand what meanings are indexed through those pragmatic choices. Shively (2011) found that one study abroad student adopted target-like imperative request forms in service encounters over time, but continued to interpret the meanings the imperative indexed through the lens of her first culture, believing that Spaniards were “authoritarian;” Spaniards, in contrast, view direct requests in that context as simply an efficient and straightforward way of managing the transaction. Hence, as they develop competence in the target language and culture, study abroad students may accept, hybridize, or reject L2 norms, but they may not always be aware of how local people interpret such behaviors.

5.1 Revoicing Among the ways that novices learn to act, feel, and know in the L2 is through a pervasive aspect of language socialization: repetition. “Repetition plays a major role in the development of linguistic and sociocultural competence and in the transmission and transformation of cultural and linguistic practices” (Moore 2014: 209). Moore highlights four types of repetition that occur in language socialization: prompting, guided repetition, language play, and revoicing. The latter, revoicing, refers to reproducing the voice of another person or, in Bakhtin’s (1981) terminology, ventriloquizing. In revoicing, however, the reproduction is  not necessarily faithful to the original. The speaker recontextualizes another’s talk,

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animates the other’s voice, and may paraphrase or even invent speech that is attributed to another person. In this way, speakers imbue revoiced speech with their own stances, “reaccent” (Bakhtin 1981) the words, and deploy them for their own purposes. As Bakhtin (1981: 294) argued, “The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention.” For example, a speaker may revoice the words of a co-present participant to playfully mock what was said (Moore 2014). In this view, incorporating other people’s words and ways of speaking is a fundamental part of language learning (Duranti and Black 2014; Moore 2014). Various authors have applied the Bakhtinian concepts of “double-voicing” and “reaccenting” to theorizing and analysis concerning L2 language play (e.g., Belz and Reinhardt 2004; Broner and Tarone 2001; G. Cook 1997; 2000; Pomerantz and Bell 2011; Tarone 2000; Tocalli-Beller 2005). Tarone (2000) and Broner and Tarone (2001: 365), for example, argued that playing with different voices has the potential to facilitate the development of L2 speakers’ sociolinguistic competence: “When the language varieties of others are learned, they are associated in the mind of the learner with the personal characteristics of those other speakers. Thus, the learner internalizes and retains as distinct the language varieties characteristic of different roles and registers and can use them as desired.” Broner and Tarone described an instance of humor in which a young student in Spanish immersion class repeated the words of his teacher, but did so with a change in footing realized by adopting the voice of a villain. Pomerantz and Bell (2011) observed that students in a college-level foreign language classroom humorously reaccented their classmates’ contributions to negatively evaluate the restrictive and repetitive format of activities and subvert their institutional position. In sum, repetition is “at the heart of language socialization” (Moore 2014: 220) and is a potential resource for L2 humor learning and use.

6 Aims and organization of the volume This volume explores the use and learning of humor in L2 Spanish by students who studied for one semester abroad in Spain. It also considers the humor that the students encountered as they interacted with acquaintances during their time abroad. As the discussion in this chapter has highlighted, this topic bridges several areas in applied linguistics and humor studies. Hence, this volume will contribute to understanding humor, generally, and L2 humor, specifically, as well as provide insights into L2 pragmatics, generally, and L2 pragmatics in study abroad, specifically. The volume is organized in the following way: chapter

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two discusses methods in L2 humor research and those employed in this study; chapter three provides a descriptive analysis of students’ humor use in study abroad; chapter four addresses development over time; chapter five examines the humor produced by students’ host families and age peers; and chapter six offers a discussion of the findings from this study, conclusions, programmatic and pedagogical implications, and suggestions for future research.

2 Researching humor in a second language 1 Introduction It is perhaps now rather cliché in the humor scholarship community to admit that the initial purpose of this project was not specifically to investigate humor (see e.g., Raskin 2008). In fact, it was the study abroad students who participated in this project that first brought the importance of humor to my attention. At the end of their semester abroad in Spain, I met individually with my student participants to conduct their final interviews. The participant who I call Kyle was the first to be interviewed. Within the first minute of the interview and in response to my warm-up question “How do you feel about your semester in Toledo?”, he began to tell me about his experiences with humor. In the next interview with a student I call Megan, I had a similar experience. Fortunately, by that point, my interest was piqued and I brought up the issue of humor myself with the final four participants that I interviewed. The data for this project were collected with the aim to research, broadly, second language (L2) learning and social interaction in study abroad. Although an examination of the corpus has led to the analysis of several different aspects of L2 learning and use (Shively 2015, 2016a), it was humor that really captured my interest, both because it was so salient for some participants and because many of the recorded conversations between study abroad students and their host families and Spanish-speaking age peers were filled with episodes of humor and laughter that participants seemed to truly enjoy. The resulting analysis is presented in this book, which examines spontaneous verbal humor produced by US-based study abroad students and their Spanish-speaking host families and age peers. The goals of this chapter are, first, to provide a brief overview of the methods that have been used to investigate L2 humor and, second, to describe the research design of the present study.

2 Research methods in L2 humor Most studies on L2 humor in uninstructed contexts have examined spontaneous verbal humor in face-to-face interactions (e.g., Bell 2005, 2006, 2007; Davies 2003; 2005; Pomerantz and Bell 2011; Shardakova 2016b), although a few have looked at humor through written production or perception questionnaires (Shardakova 2010, 2012, 2013, 2016a; Shively, Menke, and Manzón-Omundson 2008). Settings for investigating L2 humor have included the foreign language https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614518617-002

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classroom (e.g., Ahn 2016; Bell 2011; Pomerantz and Bell 2007; 2011; Shardakova 2016b; Vandergriff and Fuchs 2012; Waring 2013), interviews (Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury 2014), coaching sessions (Davies 2005), peer conversation group interactions (Davies 2003), business negotiations (Adelswärd and Öberg, 1998), and everyday conversation (e.g., Bell 2006; 2007b; Cheng 2003). Previous research on L2 humor has largely been descriptive or cross-sectional, with only a few existing longitudinal and developmental studies (e.g., Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury 2014; Kinginger 2015). And, as is the case more generally in L2 pragmatics research, humor production by L2 speakers has received considerably more attention than humor comprehension (e.g., Bell 2007c; Shardakova 2016a). Unlike other areas of L2 pragmatics (e.g., speech act studies), however, written production questionnaires, such as the well-known discourse completion task (DCT), have not predominated in L2 humor research. Indeed, no published research has employed a DCT intended to collect L2 humor data, although some DCT-based studies have obtained humor in participants’ responses to speech acts such as apologies (e.g., Shardakova 2010, 2013; see also Bell’s [2015b] report on a pilot study using a DCT designed to elicit humor). Roleplays, another common data collection method in L2 pragmatics production studies, have not been employed in L2 humor research. Although elicitation techniques have been used in L1 research on humor to some extent (see discussion in Holmes 2000), the relative absence of DCTs and roleplays in L2 humor research may relate to the fact that, while humor is routinely present in ordinary conversation, exactly when and how humor will be used is fairly unpredictable in any given situation or discourse context. Some patterns of humor use in speech acts have been observed, for example, speakers have been found to regularly respond to compliments with humor in Peninsular Spanish and American English (e.g., Mir and Cots 2017; Lorenzo-Dus 2001) and to give compliments using humorous irony in Peninsular Spanish (Mack and Sykes 2009). Apart from particular speech acts in which humor is a routine feature, unless the participant is specifically prompted to say something funny, as in Bell (2015b), it would be difficult to craft DCT or roleplay scenarios that consistently are perceived as funny and elicit humorous responses from all participants, due to the idiosyncratic nature of humor. These limitations on elicited humor data likely explain the predominance of naturalistic data in existing L2 humor research. Moreover, one of the justifications typically offered for employing elicited data L2 speech act studies is the fact that certain speech acts of interest to researchers are fairly rare in everyday conversation—something that is not generally true of humor. As a result, the literature on L2 humor has a greater proportion of studies that are based on authentic discourse data compared to the broader literature on L2

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pragmatics, despite calls from scholars of the latter to incorporate more research using naturally occurring data (e.g., Kasper 2006; Tarone 2005). Bardovi-Harlig (2005: 67), for example, argued for a recontextualization of L2 pragmatics within the framework of communicative competence, highlighting the need for increased use of authentic data: “The emphasis on social interaction, context, on-line limitations, and communicative outcomes emphasizes the need to study pragmatics in conversation. Even allowing that experimental controls, such as production questionnaires, are sometimes desirable in L2 acquisition, Canale’s (1983) definition of communication warns us away from the exclusively experimental.” Scholars have argued that the advantage of naturally occurring data over elicited data is the ability to observe what L2 speakers actually do in their daily interactions as they emerge in real-time, in which they have their own—rather than researchdetermined—communicative goals and in which there are real-life social consequences of their actions, instead of extrapolating that behavior from contrived measures such as written or oral DCTs, roleplays, interviews, or other tasks (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 2005; Félix-Brasdefer 2007; Geeslin 2010; Speer 2002). Indeed, elicited data reflects participants’ perceptions of use, rather than actual use: “self-report data, interview responses, and answers gleaned from questionnaires involving simulated situations tend to elicit people’s beliefs about how they and others use humor, rather than reliable information on what they actually do” (Holmes 2000: 161). Further, by examining naturally occurring interactions, researchers can observe learning as a social process through which novices are implicitly and explicitly socialized into becoming a “person in society” (e.g., Ochs 2002: 106), as well as the co-constructed experiences that mediate learning. Certainly, the disadvantages of naturalistic data are also well-known: naturalistic data is more time-consuming to collect and transcribe, some communicative settings may be inaccessible to researchers, and it can be difficult to control variables and compare L2 production among participants or over time, since the circumstances in natural settings vary locally. Oral DCTs and roleplays can overcome some of the disadvantages of written DCTs while maintaining efficiency and control, since such instruments assess oral speech in the oral rather than written mode, resulting in interactional features that written questionnaires do not capture (e.g., Félix-Brasdefer 2007; Yuan 2001). Roleplays, in particular, can elicit authentic language use and capture many of the structural elements of naturally occurring speech, as well as being potentially socially consequential for L2 speaker participants (e.g., Huth 2010; Kasper and Dahl, 1991; Kasper and Rose 2002). There is a place in the field for both naturally occurring and elicited data, as well as triangulation of data and mixed-methods approaches, since with a variety of methods, studies can fruitfully address different research questions and offer insights into a variety of language phenomena (e.g., Félix-Brasdefer 2003; Geeslin 2010).

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For those L2 humor studies cited above that examined humor in face-to-face interaction, all involved spontaneous discourse data, but not all may be considered naturally occurring data. What “natural” data means is, to some extent, field specific and contested (e.g., Speer 2002; Lynch 2002). In the conversation analysis (CA) tradition, the term naturally occurring data has been employed to refer to interactions “situated as far as possible in the ordinary unfolding of people’s lives, as opposed to being pre-arranged or set up in laboratories” (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998: 14) and in which participants have “real interests, investments, [and] interactional trajectories” (Schegloff, 1998: 247). Some have further argued that CA data must not have been obtained “for any pre-formulated investigative or research purposes” (Drew, 1989). Using the latter criterion, little to no existing research in L2 humor is based on naturally occurring data (although some L2 humor studies did not provide enough information to make this determination). However, there are many examples in the literature that fit with the former description, in which data were collected during the “unfolding of people’s lives” and represented ongoing, real-life relationships that were consequential for participants. For example, studies by Bell (2006; 2007) and Cheng (2003) described L2 humor found in recorded conversations between L2 speakers and their real-life friends, significant others, and acquaintances, while Adelswärd and Öberg (1998) documented L2 humor practices in international business negotiations in a group of engineers and scientists. Research in the foreign language classroom has also typically involved naturally occurring data of L2 humor use among students as they participated in their routine classroom activities (e.g., Bell and Pomerantz 2007; 2011; Shardakova 2016b; Waring 2013). Whether participants have a relationship with one another is an important consideration for humor research, since relative power and social distance can shape how humor is used (e.g., Boxer and Cortés-Conde, 1997). However, easy distinctions begin to break down when a study involves elicited data, but real-life relationships, such as in the case of the study by Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury (2014), which was based on a series of interviews that were set up for the purposes of research (although not originally humor research), but involved participants who had ongoing relationships with each other. In other cases, spontaneous humor data can be obtained through setting up and recording an interaction between individuals who do not know each other (well) in the laboratory setting (e.g., Attardo, Pickering, and Baker 2013). These methods can yield spontaneous verbal humor, even if those data are not naturally occurring. Further, the degree of naturalness desired—if “natural” versus “nonnatural” is understood as a continuum based on, for example, how much the researcher is involved or whether participants orient to a situation as contrived (e.g., Speer 2002)—will be determined based on the research questions of a particular study,

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whether any aspect that is not “natural” is consequential for the topic under investigation (e.g., Drew, 1989), and, of course, practicality considerations. Recognizing and analyzing the effects of the research procedures on participants is part of the process of selecting a data collection method, taking into account Duranti’s (1997: 114) argument that “any process of documentation is, by definition, partial, that is, it assumes a point of view as it is selective—this implies that we will never have a ‘perfect’ recording device that would reproduce the exact context of the recorded event” (see also Félix-Brasdefer 2007). In addition to the role of the researcher in collecting talk data, the medium is also crucial. Relatively few studies on L2 conversational humor have been collected via video- rather than audio-recordings (e.g., Ahn 2016; Davies 2003; Waring 2013). At least in the past, before digital video-recording devices became more portable and user-friendly, making audio-recordings was usually less intrusive and more practical for participants, a likely reason for their predominance in L2 humor research to the present day. However, research on humor points to the importance of multimodal analyses of humor in order to capture visual cues that speakers and hearers rely on to signal and interpret humor (e.g., Attardo, Wagner, and Urios-Aparisi 2013). While the focus in the past has been on paralinguistic and prosodic markers of humor such as laughter, intonation, pitch, and speech rate, which can be used to mark humor and irony, recent research has called into question previous assumptions. Such studies have shown that non-verbal cues such as smiling, facial expression, eye movements, gestures, and nodding are key markers of humor (e.g., Attardo, Wagner, and Urios Aparisi 2013; Gironzetti, Attardo, and Pickering 2016; Ford and Fox 2010) and that humorous utterances may not be accompanied by significant differences in prosody from serious utterances (Attardo, Pickering, and Baker 2011). Beyond non-verbal markers of humor, video-recordings allow an analysis of the non-verbal actions of participants to better understand the larger context of humor use (e.g., Ahn 2016). This is not to say that studies that employed audio-recordings are invalid, it simply means that such studies (including the present one) are unable to capture some aspects of humor practices. Apart from gathering instances of L2 humor use—either in authentic discourse or through questionnaires—previous studies have also employed methods to determine participants’ own views on humor and to better understand settings in which humor is used through instruments such as interviews, journals, surveys, and field notes (e.g., Bell 2006, 2007c, Bell and Attardo 2010; Belz 2002; Shardakova 2013, 2016a, 2016b). Several studies have employed journals and interviews as a way to gain understanding into how L2 speakers view their own or others’ L2 humor in discourse (e.g., Bell 2006; Shardakova 2016b). Shardakova (2013) asked L2 speakers who employed humor in written tasks to 

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complete  an  additional survey in which they described the identities that they wanted to project through their written communication. In a diary study, Bell and Attardo (2010) asked L2 speakers to record humor that they were exposed to in their daily lives as well as their own attempts at humor during a period of immersion in an L2-speaking country. Bell (2007c) incorporated verbal report, playing back episodes of recorded humor and querying the L2 speaker about what she had understood and found amusing regarding humor in intercultural interactions. Journals, interviews, surveys, and field notes have the potential to provide rich insights into the meanings that humor has for L2 speakers, their interpretations of humor, what aspects of the humor were comprehended, and the desired identities that they negotiate in humor. These measures can also reveal meta-pragmatic awareness about L2 humor that is not evident through observing humor production alone (e.g., Kasper and Rose 2002). In addition to looking at L2 speakers’ own perceptions of humor, it can also be insightful to examine how L2 speakers’ humor is received and viewed by native speakers of the L2, as Shardakova (2013) did in her analysis of Russians’ views on L2 speakers’ humor in Russian. In that study, Shardakova observed a mismatch in how L2 speakers wanted to present themselves through humor and how they were perceived by native speakers. A final approach that various studies have employed is to examine L2 humor use or development using a case study. Case studies can be particularly useful in L2 humor research given that there is considerable individual variation in the use of humor and perception that a particular stimulus is funny (e.g., Ruch 2008). In his review of case studies as a research method, Richards (2011) identified four essential characteristics of a case study: (1) bounded, (2) contextualized, (3) studied in its natural context, and (4) based on multiple data sources. The first characteristic (i.e., bounded) refers to the fact that a case must focus on a bounded unit such as an individual, an organization, or a community. The second feature points to the necessity of interpreting the case in its larger social, cultural, physical, political, and geographic context. At another level of “context,” case study researchers must also consider how to contextualize a case vis-à-vis the larger class of cases to which the single case belongs. With regard to the latter conception of contextualization, Richards argued that cases do not need to be typical or representative; a particular case may be interesting precisely because it raises questions or poses problems due to its uniqueness. A “fundamental tenet” of case study research is to study the phenomenon in question in its natural setting (p. 210). Finally, a well-designed case study draws on multiple data sources “in order to do justice to the complexity of the natural context” (p. 210). Example case studies in the L2 humor literature include Bell’s (2006, 2007a) descriptive case studies of female L2 English speakers and her and her colleagues’ work (Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbury 2014) on developmental case studies of male L2 English speakers.

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 33

This brief discussion of methods in L2 humor research provides an overview of the ways in which humor in an additional language has been approached in the literature, its connections to the broader field of L2 pragmatics, and some directions for research design in future studies. It has also set the stage for describing the methods employed in the present study, the topic which occupies the remainder of this chapter.

3 Research site of the present study The data for this study were collected over the course of 11 weeks in 2007, during the semester abroad in Toledo, Spain, of six US-based university students. Along with about 100 other American students, the six participants took classes at an institute for international studies in Toledo, heretofore referred to as the “Toledo institute.” The town itself is located close to Spain’s capital, Madrid, has a population of approximately 70,000 people, and receives a large number of tourists each year. Classes at the Toledo institute were taught exclusively in Spanish and covered a range of topics related to Spain and Spanish culture including literature, history, politics, economics, marketing, and anthropology. Although the courses were taught in Spanish, they were primarily intended for international students who were L2 learners of Spanish. However, native-Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican international students also took classes at the institute, although they made up only about 10% of the student body during the semester of study. Spanish language classes focusing on grammar, pronunciation, conversation, reading, and writing were also offered to students in this program. The Toledo institute provided students with the opportunity to participate in an intercambio (i.e., conversation partner exchange) with a local young person who was interested in learning English. The institute matched the intercambio partners, but after that, it was the responsibility of the partners to arrange meetings to practice their languages. The intercambio program was one of the only ways that many US-based students at the institute were able to get to know locals from Toledo aside from their host families. Several local inhabitants expressed to me the belief that people were cliquish in Toledo and that it was more difficult than in other Spanish towns for outsiders to develop local social networks and long-lasting relationships with local people. With regard to living situation, all six students chose to live with a Spanish host family, even though they had the option to stay in a student dormitory located at the Toledo institute. Host families were carefully selected by the staff at the institute. With the exception of Kyle’s family, all the Spanish families who hosted the participants of this study had been hosting US students for five or more

34 

 2 Researching humor in a second language

years and were accustomed to US students and their lifestyles. The families were instructed to speak only Spanish with the students and students indicated that they never spoke English with their host families. Furthermore, only one foreign student was placed with each host family, so opportunities to speak English in the home were limited. For the duration of the data collection for this study, I lived in the student dormitory at the Toledo institute and observed participants in their classes as well as in out-of-class interactions that took place at the institute. In addition, but independent from the purposes of the research, I also had the role of visiting instructor in a one-credit class that all students in Toledo were required to take, including the six participants in this study. Coleman (2015) rightly points out that research on language learning in study abroad does not always take into account the moment in time that data collection occurred and how the social and political landscape shapes student experiences. Coleman wrote that, “social and technological changes have impacted on residence abroad to such an extent that “abroad” today is not the “abroad” of even five or ten years ago, and it is invalid to cite older studies as if they addressed the same residence abroad phenomenon” (p. 36). In this vein, a few relevant social and technological points are provided. The reader will recall that in 2007, Republican George W. Bush was in his last year as president in the US and that Spain remained under the political leadership of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The global financial crisis had not yet been unleashed, the US dollar was historically weak against the euro, and tuition at the participants’ home university in the US was almost half the cost it was ten years later in 2017. Technology-wise, all participants in the study regularly used cell phones to call or send text messages while in Spain, although none had a smart phone. They all kept in regular contact with friends and family back home by using Skype and Facebook on their laptop computers. The Toledo institute and all host families offered students wireless internet access. None of the participants reported using Twitter, which debuted only the year before the study, no one kept a blog, and Instagram and Snapchat were not yet publically available. These social, political, economic, and technological aspects provide the larger context for that moment in time.

4 Participants The primary participants in this study were six undergraduate students from the same large public university in the Midwest US. Four students identified their gender as female and two as male, and all identified their race as white—demographics

4 Participants 

 35

that reflect the numerical predominance of white female students in the US study abroad student population (Institute of International Education 2016). Students chose to study abroad in Toledo, Spain, for one semester. Selected characteristics of the participants are found in Table 1, where each is also given a pseudonym. As shown in Table 1, the participants were 20–21 years of age, were in their second or third year in college, and had chosen to major or minor in Spanish. With the exception of Jared, participants had begun their study of Spanish in high school. Jared, in contrast, had attended a one-way Spanish immersion program from kindergarten to fifth grade. For that reason, Jared had studied Spanish formally for more years than any other participant. All six students had completed the equivalent of at least five semesters of college-level coursework at the time that they studied abroad. Although several students had previously visited a Spanish-speaking country on vacation, no one had lived abroad before their residence in Toledo. None of the participants reported growing up in a multilingual home, except for Megan whose father was German. The final element in Table 1 is the assessment from the Toledo institute. Students were given a grammar test and an informal oral interview at the start of the semester for the purposes of advising about the types of classes (intermediate-level or advanced-level) that would be appropriate for them to take, based on the Spanish language proficiency expected to do well in those classes. Students who scored low on the grammar test were advised to take grammar and conversation classes in addition to lower-level content classes, although students could opt not to follow that advice. Four students (Chloe, Megan, Miranda, Samantha) were advised to take the lower-level classes and language classes (i.e., “intermediate track”) and two students (Jared and Kyle) were advised to take the upperlevel content classes (i.e., “advanced track”). Although the in-house placement test employed was not a standardized assessment, for students to test into the advanced track, they were expected to receive what was equivalent to a score of B2 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) or Advanced Low (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages framework). In addition to the six student participants, 17 native Spanish speakers also participated in the study through their conversations with students. As will be discussed in depth below, students chose someone from their host family and a native-Spanish-speaking age peer with whom to record conversations. Table 2 provides a list of the family members and age peers with whom each student conversed in their recordings, each given a pseudonym. All host families were Spanish nationals and had lived in Toledo for either their entire life or for many years at the time of the study. While several of the host parents knew some English, brief code-switching into English by host families only occurred a couple of times in the recordings. Chloe, Jared, and Samantha recorded only with their

Major/Minor Age study of Spanish began Years studying Spanish Semesters studying Spanish at university Highest level Spanish class taken at the university Time spent in Spanish-speaking countries prior to study abroad Toledo institute assessment level

Year in university

Age

Third Spanish major 6 years 12.5 years 5 semesters Four upperdivision Spanish courses 2 weeks Advanced track

Spanish major 15 years

4 years 4 semesters

Fifth semester composition course No previous trips

Intermediate track

21

20

Third

Jared

Chloe

Table 1: Summary of selected background characteristics of the participants.

Advanced track

Two upperdivision Spanish courses 3 weeks

6 years 3 semesters

Spanish major 15 years

Third

21

Kyle

Intermediate track

Fifth semester composition course No previous trips

7 years 3 semesters

Spanish minor 13 years

Second

20

Megan

Intermediate track

Fifth semester composition course 3 weeks

7 years 3 semesters

Spanish minor 13 years

Second

20

Miranda

Intermediate track

Fifth semester composition course 1 week

3.5 years 3 semesters

Spanish major 14 years

Second

20

Samantha

36   2 Researching humor in a second language

5 Data collection 

 37

Table 2: Spanish host families and age peers. Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Host family member(s)

Eugenia

Carmen

Verónica

Laura Luis

Isabel Manuel Camila Lucía

Concepción Rafael Marta

María Teresa

Age peer(s)

Pilar Andrés Paola

Ana Luis

host mothers, whereas Kyle recorded with his host father or with both parents and Megan and Miranda recorded two times with each parent. Regarding the age peers, all listed in Table 2 were Spaniards from Toledo or nearby towns except for Luis, Camila, and Paola, who were native-Spanish-speaking international students at the Toledo institute from Puerto Rico. The ages of students’ host parents ranged from forties (Kyle, Megan, Samantha), to fifties (Jared), and sixties (Chloe, Miranda). The age peers were all university students and within a few years of the US-based students’ ages. Over time, the six US-based students and their interlocutors developed relationships with each other. In the case of the host families, students lived in the same apartment or house and interacted with them on a regular basis. In the case of the age peers, students generally saw them regularly, but less frequently than their families. Peers of Chloe, Miranda, and Samantha were their language partners and each dyad met just about every week to practice English and Spanish. Jared’s Puerto Rican age peer, Luis, was another student at the Toledo institute and they saw each other in class, in the hallways, and sometimes hung out together outside of class. Kyle and his Puerto Rican age peer, Paola, spent a substantial amount of time together each week, studying and hanging out. Megan reported knowing her language partner (Lucía) better than her Puerto Rican age peer (Camila), and said that she regularly spent time on the weekends with Lucía and her Spanish friends, in addition to their English-Spanish exchange meetings. All the age peers knew at least some English, but they rarely code-switched into English in the recorded conversations.

5 Data collection The data for this study consist of audio-recorded conversations, journals, interviews, and field notes. Each type of data and the data collection procedures are described below.

38 

 2 Researching humor in a second language

5.1 Discourse data Audio-recording was chosen as the method for obtaining discourse data rather than video-recording due to its less intrusive nature (e.g., Márquez Reiter and Placencia 2005), the high sound quality of the audio-recorder (Marantz PMD660), and the fact that the audio-recorder was more user-friendly for students than available video-recorders at the time. Each student was provided with a digital audio-recorder and asked to record a total of eight conversations, four with the host family and four with an age peer. The resulting corpus totaled 24 hours of talk data, with four hours per student, spread out evenly during the semester in Toledo. Students were asked to record each conversation for 30 minutes and to speak in Spanish, however, they were not told what to talk about and I was not present during any of the recordings. A recording schedule was given to participants, directing them to start recording in the third week of the semester and to record at regular intervals during the semester abroad. Participants alternated with whom they recorded, beginning with the host family, then the age peer, the host family again, and so forth. Hence, conversations at Times 1, 3, 5, and 7 were with host families and Times 2, 4, 6, and 8 were with age peers. Note, however, that there were two recordings that were unanalyzable (Chloe’s Time 7 recording and Kyle’s Time 8 recording) due to inaudibility or a damaged audio file. Hence, the talk data analyzed here constitute 23 hours of the 24 hours originally recorded. Table 3 provides the recording schedule and the person with whom students recorded each week. Students were told that they could record with one or both host parents and with their language partner or another Spanish native speaker age peer of their choice. While participants were asked to record with the same peer during the entire semester, scheduling problems sometimes arose that precluded that procedure from being followed in a few cases. For example, Jared’s first language partner did not return his messages after their first few meetings, so, although he recorded with her in Time 2, he recorded with another age peer in the subsequent recordings. Due to similar difficulties, Jared, Megan, and Samantha recorded with two different peers, as indicated in Table 3. Although the recordings of the talk were made for the purposes of research, students did regularly talk with their host families and age peers without the presence of the recorder and developed relationships with those individuals. Further, all students reported that the recorded conversations were an accurate reflection of the type of interactions that they typically had with each interlocutor when not being recorded. There were only a couple of times in the corpus when participants oriented to the presence of the audio-recorder. Although the recordings were made for the sole purpose of research, participants were engaged in

Host mother Eugenia

Spanish peer Verónica

Host mother Eugenia

Spanish peer Verónica

Host mother Eugenia

Spanish peer Verónica

(recording corrupted)

Spanish peer Verónica

Time 1 (Week 3)

Time 2 (Week 5)

Time 3 (Week 6)

Time 4 (Week 7)

Time 5 (Week 9)

Time 6 (Week 10)

Time 7 (Week 11)

Time 8 (Week 12)

Chloe

Puerto Rican peer Luis

Host family Carmen

Puerto Rican peer Luis

Host family Carmen

Puerto Rican peer Luis

Host mother Carmen

Spanish peer Laura

Host mother Carmen

Jared

(recording inaudible)

Host father Andrés

Puerto Rican peer Paola

Host family Andrés and Pilar

Puerto Rican peer Paola

Host parents Andrés and Pilar

Puerto Rican peer Paola

Host parents Andrés and Pilar

Kyle

Table 3: Host family member(s) and age peer with whom students recorded each week.

Spanish peer Lucía

Host father Manuel

Puerto Rican peer Camila

Host father Manuel

Puerto Rican peer Camila

Host mother Isabel

Puerto Rican peer Camila

Host mother Isabel

Megan

Spanish peer Marta

Host father Rafael

Spanish peer Marta

Host mother Concepción

Spanish peer Marta

Host father Rafael

Spanish peer Marta

Host mother Concepción

Miranda

Puerto Rican peer Luis

Host mother María Teresa

Puerto Rican peer Luis

Host mother María Teresa

Spanish peer Ana

Host mother María Teresa

Spanish peer Ana

Host mother María Teresa

Samantha

5 Data collection   39

40 

 2 Researching humor in a second language

activities that they routinely organized themselves, for their own non-research purposes, namely, having conversations with their host families and age peers.

5.2 Student journals A second instrument in the study were student journals. Each week for 11 weeks, students wrote a journal in which they reflected on questions that I provided. In those questions, they were asked to think about who they had interacted with in Spanish that week, which interactions were significant and why, and which interactions helped them learn Spanish and, more specifically, what they had learned about the appropriate use of Spanish in context (i.e., pragmatics). They were also asked about their relationships with those people, how they felt about the recorded interaction from that week, and how the conversation reflected their relationship with that person. Before being asked to talk about Spanish pragmatics in their journals, students were provided with a definition and examples of what pragmatics referred to in the field of linguistics during their initial orientation to participating in the study. Finally, students were given the option to write their journals in either Spanish or English; Miranda was the only participant to choose to write in Spanish, the other five students wrote in English. From a pedagogical perspective, Plews and Misfeldt (2017) have argued convincingly for the benefit to study abroad students by writing journals in the L2, among other reasons, because doing so enhances their sense of ownership of the language. From the researcher perspective, however, the student journals written in English seemed to provide more precision and depth in their responses.

5.3 Student questionnaires Two survey questionnaires were given to student participants, a background questionnaire at the beginning of the study and a language contact questionnaire at the end of the semester. The former queried students about their demographic information, language background, foreign language education, and foreign travel. The final questionnaire asked students to reflect back on their language contact during study abroad and discuss the average amount of time spent with host families and age peers (friends, classmates, significant others, language partner), the settings in which they interacted in Spanish, the out-of-class activities in which they engaged, and the courses they took at the Toledo institute. Students were also asked how they felt about those interactions in terms of their interpersonal relationships and L2 learning.

5 Data collection 

 41

5.4 Field notes In order to document observations as a participant in the lives of the students at the institute and in Toledo in general, I carried a notebook and took notes whenever possible. At the end of each day, if I had notes, I then expanded on the basic field notes by writing more formal field note entries.

5.5 Student interviews After all the aforementioned data had been collected, I conducted semi-structured interviews first with students, then with their respective host families, and finally, with staff members at the Toledo institute. Interviews with students and families were audio-recorded; interviews with staff were not recorded, but I took notes. I interviewed each student individually for approximately 45–60 minutes to discuss their experiences during study abroad. A list of questions was created as a guide for the interview, which included topics such as if they felt that their pragmatic abilities in Spanish improved, in what situations and with which individuals they felt most comfortable speaking Spanish, in what ways social interaction helped them learn Spanish, and to what extent they integrated into the Toledo community, among others. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, each student was also asked about their experiences with humor in Spanish during study abroad.

5.6 Host family and staff interviews In addition to student interviews, I also interviewed students’ host parents and three staff people at the Toledo institute. Although the study had a primary focus on students’ learning, the goal of the interviews with the families and staff was to go beyond students’ views on social interaction to obtain the perspectives of local people who interacted with students on a regular basis—something that has been called for in the study abroad literature (e.g., Kinginger 2009). Regarding families, in four out of six cases, both host parents were interviewed and in the two other cases only the host mother was interviewed (Jared’s and Megan’s host mothers). Interviews with families were arranged by staff at the Toledo institute. Families were asked about their impressions of their host students with regard to their degree of appropriateness speaking Spanish and the progress that they felt that the students had made during the semester, in addition to specific questions about issues that came up in the recordings. Host families were also asked specifically about

42 

 2 Researching humor in a second language

their use of humor and irony with students. Interviews with families were audiorecorded and lasted approximately 40–45 minutes. The researcher also asked three staff members from the Toledo institute to participate in an hour-long group interview. The three staff members were the student coordinators at the institute and, as a result of the duties of their job, they had regular contact with all students in the program, including the participants in this study. I conducted an open-ended interview with those staff members to find out their impressions of how polite and appropriate the participants were in speaking Spanish.

6 Data analysis Data analysis for the study was conducted by the researcher. The procedures for analyzing each source of data are discussed below.

6.1 Discourse data The 23 hours of usable audio-recordings made by students as they conversed with their host families and peers were listened to multiple times and transcribed carefully by myself using the conventions listed in section 7 below. After a full transcript of each conversation was finished, I identified and coded all instances of spontaneous verbal humor as well as the one canned joke in the corpus. In analyzing humor in the corpus, I listened to the audio-recordings and referenced the corresponding transcripts numerous times. The analysis of humor was primarily qualitative, however, the distribution of specific features of humor was also quantified. Only intentional verbal humor was included, that is, when the speaker intended to be funny (e.g., Attardo 2013). That criterion excluded cases when a participant did something unintentional or nonverbal that made another laugh, such as when Samantha made a funny-sounding slip of the tongue or Kyle stained his shirt during dinner with his family. There were also cases when participants laughed mirthfully, but the audio-recordings did not reveal any verbal stimulus; such instances were also excluded from the analysis. While there is no fail-safe procedure for an analyst to identify humor in discourse (Attardo, 1994; Holmes 2000), humorous utterances produced by all participants in the talk were identified through a close analysis of the discourse. Both the speaker’s apparent intent at using humor as well as the hearer’s reaction to the humor attempt were taken into account (e.g., Holmes and Hay, 1997; Holmes 2000). Linguistic, prosodic, and paralinguistic markers of humor such as laughter, smile voice,

6 Data analysis 

 43

exaggerated intonation, and marked lexical or morphosyntactic choices were all cues used to identifying humor. The hearer’s reaction to a candidate humorous utterance was also examined. The hearer could laugh or provide other types of humor support such as joining in the joking and contributing more humor, repeating all or part of the humorous utterance, showing excitement and increased involvement in the conversation, and playing along with the gag (Hay 2001). However, laughter alone was not employed to identify humor. As has been long discussed in the literature, laughter is not always a reliable marker for humor since participants may laugh in the absence of humor for a variety of reasons, such as during troubles talk, as a means of stalling, in reaction to complaints, and for physical reasons, such as being tickled (e.g., Attardo, 1994; Holt 2012; Jefferson, 1984; Keyton and Beck 2010). In addition to the aforementioned aspects of the discourse context, each candidate humorous utterance was examined to determine whether there was script opposition, following the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH; Attardo, Pickering, and Baker 2013). Hence, the term humorous utterance was used here in the sense of a jab line, as described in the GTVH (see chapter 1 for more detail). As Archakis and Tsakona (2005: 47) argued, identifying script opposition is a more etic, “analyst oriented” criterion while laughter and humor support is a more emic and “participant oriented” criterion for identifying humor. After identifying humorous utterances produced by the students, host families, and age peers, each was coded for a variety of features: success/failure, target, functions, linguistic, prosodic, and paralinguistic resources involved in creating or marking the humor, initiation/support, and topic or theme. Regarding the first characteristic, failed humor is a notoriously difficult aspect to determine (e.g., Bell 2015). Failed humor refers to one type of miscommunication in which an attempt at humor fails to amuse the hearer. Humor can fail because some aspect of the humor (e.g., linguistic form, pragmatic force, ambiguity, meta-message) was not perceived, understood, or appreciated by the hearer (e.g., Bell and Attardo 2010; Bell 2015). In order to detect failed humor in this study, the researcher examined the speakers’ and hearers’ subsequent reactions to an attempt at humor. Examples of indicators of failed humor included the following: after an attempt at humor, the hearer did not laugh or otherwise provide humor support (Hay 2001); the speaker named a previous turn as a joke; and the hearer indicated explicitly a lack of understanding, resulting in a negotiation of meaning about the humorous utterance. As Bell (2015) describes, however, identifying humor is not always straightforward and sometimes additional ethnographic information (e.g., interviews with participants) is needed. Using the student journal and interview data, the researcher could triangulate, to some extent, the presence of failed humor in a conversation generally and in a few specific cases. However, only those instances in which failure was reasonably certain were included in the analysis, meaning that some failed humor may have been disregarded.

44 

 2 Researching humor in a second language

The target of the humor, also called the “butt” of the joke, included the following categories: joking about oneself, joking about an inanimate entity (e.g., place, object, institution), joking about someone not present, and joking about a co-present participant (i.e., teasing). Humor about oneself was divided into two categories, one with a more positive characterization (“self-praise”) and the other with a more negative tone (“self-deprecatory”). There were also a few instances of wordplay for which there was no target. The functions of humor were examined using the discourse context and triangulated, when possible, with the description of participants’ experiences and relationships in the journals and interviews. Each humorous utterance was also examined with regard to the linguistic, prosodic, and paralinguistic resources employed. Those resources (lexical, morphosyntactic, phonological, and pragmatic choices) that were employed to mark the utterance as humorous or which were involved in creating the humor were noted. Prosodic and paralinguistic resources referred to features such as laughter, smile voice, intonation (e.g., exaggerated, sing song), speed of delivery, sound lengthening, pitch, contrastive stress, and volume (e.g., Eisenberg, 1986). Another category examined was that of revoicing, which refers to reproducing the words or ways of speaking of another, and included four types: direct speech, pinning (i.e., incorporating a word or expression that a co-participant had produced in the immediately previous talk in order to tease that person; see Norrick, 1993; Priego-Valverde 2016; Tannen, 1989), imitation of a regional dialect of Spanish, and imitation of a register. Instances when students played with the semantic, syntactic, or phonological properties of words was also coded. Turning to initiating humor, whether the utterance represented humor initiation or humor support was also coded. Humor initiation referred to instances in which the speaker was the one to introduce a humorous perspective on a topic and shift from a serious to a play frame. Humor initiation contrasted with humor support (Hay 2001), the latter referring to cases in which the speaker produced a humorous utterance immediately after a humorous turn initiated by another participant as a means to support the other’s humor and extend the joking frame. A final aspect that was coded was the topic or theme of the humor, which typically emerged from the ongoing topic of the conversation. Note that a number of the aforementioned categories would apply to each humorous utterance.

6.2 Journals, interviews, questionnaires, and field notes I transcribed all of the interviews with students and host families. Along with the journals, the interviews were analyzed qualitatively to discover participants’

7 Transcription notes 

 45

emic perspectives on social interaction, relationships, L2 learning, identities, goals, and humor. As mentioned previously, when possible, information from the journals and interviews was triangulated with what was observed in the talk data. Those data also provided context and background information relevant to the talk data. The survey questionnaires offered basic demographic and language history information about the student participants, as well as an overview of their language contact during study abroad. Field notes kept by the researcher were useful in providing a context for understanding the study abroad program and participants, the larger Toledo community, and the role of the host families.

7 Transcription notes The following is a list of the conventions employed in the transcripts provided in this volume, which are a combination of transcription systems developed by DuBois (1991) and Jefferson (2002). The transcripts provide both the original Spanish, as well as an English translation. The English translations of the talk are based on the meanings communicated by students and, unless students’ grammatical or lexical errors in Spanish were relevant to the analysis, those errors are not identified in the English translation. : , . ↑

hh @ wo@rd tch (.) (1.2) = [ (( )) (...) but

lengthening of a consonant or vowel truncated/cut off word continuing intonation final intonation rising intonation breath in or exhale laugh pulse laughing word speaker makes a clicking noise with the tongue micropause pause length very brief overlap overlap additional information provided by the researcher missing talk (skipped or inaudible) particularly prominent stress

3 Second language humor use in study abroad 1 Introduction As discussed in chapter one, previous research on humor in a second language (L2) has revealed that L2 speakers do, indeed, use and comprehend spontaneous verbal humor in everyday conversation (e.g., Bell 2006; Davies 2003). Given the ubiquity of humor cross-culturally, as well as its important role in social interaction, this finding is not surprising. However, both production and comprehension of humor can represent a considerable challenge for even the most advanced L2 speakers (e.g., Bell 2005, 2007a; Shardakova 2010, 2016). Although study abroad researchers have long been interested in the qualities of social interaction during study abroad (see e.g., Kinginger 2009), thus far, little attention has been paid to humor. Consequently, this chapter addresses the question of the extent to which study abroad students produced humor with their host families and Spanish-speaking age peers during their sojourn in Spain, the characteristics of that humor, and its functions in the context of the relationships between students and their families and peers. The analysis in this chapter reveals that spontaneous verbal humor was a regular occurrence in the conversations. Throughout their semester abroad, students told humorous narratives and anecdotes, teased, and joked around about their daily experiences in Spain, their own and others’ foibles, and the people, places, and objects that populated their lifeworlds. Some students employed humor more than others, but every conversation in the corpus had at least one bit of humor. These humorous exchanges served to create amusement and mutual enjoyment, but also to develop rapport, to construct identities, to soften a negative stance, among other functions. This chapter will explore the humor produced by the six US-based study abroad student participants: Chloe, Jared, Kyle, Megan, Miranda, and Samantha.

2 Humor use by students The descriptive characteristics that will be explored in this section include humor frequency, success, target, resources, topics, initiation, and functions. The analysis includes an examination of humor use by students in the entire corpus, humor use with host families compared to age peers, and variation in the frequency and characteristics of humor among individual students. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614518617-003

2 Humor use by students 

 47

2.1 Humor frequency In the full corpus of interactions with both host families and age peers (i.e., 23 hours of conversations), Table 4 indicates that students produced a total of 422 humorous utterances, some of which were single instances of humor and others that occurred in sequences of two or more humorous utterances. Table 4 also shows that there was considerable variation among individual students with regard to how often they engaged in humorous talk. Kyle and Megan joked roughly two or three times more than any of the other four students, the former producing 85 humorous utterances and the latter 148, compared to a range of 40–56 humorous utterances for Chloe, Jared, Miranda, and Samantha. This finding is consistent with the fact that both Kyle and Megan indicated in their journals, interviews, or recorded conversations that using humor was a central aspect of their identities, whereas none of the other students made a similar claim. This difference among students is not surprising, given that the proclivity to interpret “the incongruities, absurdities, and ironies of life” in a humorous rather than serious frame and to habitually joke around has been found to vary considerably among individuals (Ruch 2008: 36; Raskin 2007). Looking at the frequency of humor with the host family compared to the age peer interactions, Table 4 shows that three students (Chloe, Kyle, Samantha) produced humor considerably more often with their age peers, two students (Jared, Megan) employed humor fairly equally with each interlocutor group, while one student (Miranda) used humor considerably more frequently with her host family. Given the co-constructed nature of interaction, factors that influenced the amount of humor that students employed with their interlocutors included the specific relationships that they developed with each individual, the dispositions of those individuals, and the goals, topics, and tenor of each conversation.

2.2 Successful and failed humor Table 5 shows that the majority of the humor that students produced (N = 378, 90%) was successful in amusing their family members or age peers, as evidenced Table 4: Total amount of humor produced by students in host family and age peer conversations.

Host family Age peer Total

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

11 31 42

21 19 40

19 66 85

72 76 148

39 12 51

20 36 56

182 240 422

48 

 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

Table 5: Successful and failed humor produced by students in host family and age peer conversations. Chloe

Jared

Host family Successful 9 (82%) 19 (90%) Failed 2 (18%) 2 (10%) Age peer Successful 31 (100%) 17 (89%) Failed 2 (11%) Total Successful 40 (95%) 36 (90%) Failed 2 (5%) 4 (10%)

Kyle

Megan

Miranda Samantha

Total

18 (95%) 1 (5%)

62 (86%) 30 (77%) 19 (95%) 10 (14%) 9 (23%) 1 (5%)

157 (86%) 25 (14%)

54 (82%) 12 (18%)

74 (97%) 11 (92%) 34 (94%) 2 (3%) 1 (8%) 2 (6%)

221 (92%) 19 (8%)

72 (85%) 136 (92%) 41 (80%) 53 (95%) 13 (15%) 12 (8%) 10 (20%) 3 (5%)

378 (90%) 44 (10%)

in the discourse by cues on the part of the hearer such as laughter, the production of more humor, echoing, playing along with the gag, among other humor support strategies (e.g., Hay 2001). When family members’ or peers’ responses were simply laughter, it was possible that, in some instances, they laughed when they had not actually understood or appreciated the student’s humor. Families and peers may have not wanted to display misunderstanding for reasons of politeness, since failed humor can threaten both the speaker’s and the hearer’s face. However, the families and peers usually demonstrated a desire to understand what students were saying, in both serious and playful talk, and regularly asked for clarification when needed. While the majority of students’ humor was successful, there were also cases in the corpus in which students’ attempt at humor clearly failed to amuse the hearer (N = 44, 10%). Students’ humor failed for a variety of reasons, all of which have parallels with findings reported previously in the literature on failed humor and include examples in which interlocutors did not recognize, understand, or appreciate the humor (e.g., Alvarado Ortega 2013; Bell and Attardo 2010; Bell 2015a). In a few cases, the hearer was simply not amused by the proposition or topic of the humor, such as when Kyle joked about seeing a dead horse on the side of the road during a trip to Puerto Rico, which his age peer, Paola, did not find funny. Humor also failed at times due to lack of shared knowledge about the specific reference alluded to in the humor. For example, students occasionally joked about cultural references from the US or the English-speaking world with which Spanish speakers were unfamiliar. In an interaction with her host mother, Megan tried to joke about her mother’s brown eye color by making a playful reference to the song Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison, a song that Megan’s host mother did not recognize.

2 Humor use by students 

 49

A few instances of failed humor occurred due to a lack of cues marking the utterance as playful, resulting in the hearer being unaware that an attempt at humor had been made by the student. Kyle, for instance, used deadpan humor (i.e., humor not accompanied by contextualization cues) to playfully pretend that he had not understood what his age peer had just said. The lack of playful cuing resulted in Paola not interpreting Kyle’s utterance as humorous, but rather, as a genuine and serious assertion of his difficulty with L2 listening comprehension, showing lack of detection of the pragmatic force of the utterance (e.g., Alvarado Ortega 2013; Bell 2015a). At times, humor appeared to fail because the interlocutor wanted to maintain a serious frame in the conversation and was unwilling to adopt the humorous mode, for example, when Megan and her host father were arguing about politics and the father did not ratify a humor attempt by Megan. Occasionally, humor also failed when a student’s humorous utterance was incomprehensible or confusing to the hearer due to problems with L2 pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. Most of the time, though, the non-native-like characteristics of students’ talk did not impede communication of the humorous message. An example of a student’s failed humor is shown in excerpt (1) below, which comes from a conversation between Miranda and her host father. In this segment, Miranda tried to make a joke about the appearance of a friend’s boyfriend by comparing him to the white, muscular bald man who is the mascot of the cleaning product known in the US as Mr. Clean and in many European countries as Mr. Proper. Prior to line 1 in excerpt (1), Miranda had been telling her host father, Rafael, about her recent travels with a female American friend who was also studying in Spain that semester. Miranda had described various characteristics of that friend, one of which was having many different boyfriends. In lines 8–9, Miranda and tried to joke about the appearance of one of those boyfriends, saying that he looked like Don Limpieza (literally, ‘Mr. Cleaning’). Miranda cued the utterance as playful by using a smile voice and laughing after saying Don Limpieza. (1) “Mr. Clean”: Miranda (M), host father Rafael (R), and host mother Concepción (C) in Time 5 (week 9) 1  M: sí todo el tiempo yeah all the time 2 3

en um (.) los discote- en las discotecas↑ in um (.) clu- in dance clubs↑

R: en discotecas =  in dance clubs = 

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

4

M:  = ella ti- um (.) tenía un hombre  = she hi- um (.) had a man

5

R: a su lado at her side

6

M: sí yeah

7

(2.3)

8

9 10 11 12

M: um (1.0) su primer hombre um (.) miré como um (1.0) el (.) um (1.0) her first man um (.) I looked like um (1.0) the (.) personaje de dibujo, character of drawing↑ Don Limpieza @ @ Mr. Cleaning @ @

(1.5) R: ¿cómo? what? (1.6)

13  M: ¿sabes Don Limpieza? do you know Mr. Cleaning? 14

es una marca de (.) productos de limpieza it’s a brand of (.) cleaning products

15  R: sí yes 16  M: para baño: ofor bathroom or17

y um (0.5) ella o- él (.) fue de Alemania and um (0.5) she or- he (.) was from Germany

18 

y: u:m (0.7) ti- no tiene pelo↑ a:nd u:m (0.7) ha- he doesn’t have hair↑

19

y entonces um (.) todas- todos los- estudiantes del [Instituto] and so um (.) all- all the- students from the Toledo Institute

2 Humor use by students 

20

 51

se llama: Don Limpieza he’s ca:lled Mr. Cleaning

21 R: Don Limpieza Mr. Cleaning 22 M: @ @ 23 C:

Mr. Proper Mr. Proper

24 R: ah, sí =  oh, right =  25 M:  = ¿qué?  = what? 26 C:

Mr. Proper Mr. Proper

27 M: ¿Mr. Proper? Mr. Proper? 28 C:

[es un hombre (.) que está e:n (.) m::: (1.0) el bote de limpieza [it’s a man (.) that’s on (.) m::: (1.0) the cleaning bottle

29 M: [oh, es[oh, it’s30 

sí yeah

31

(1.2)

32 R: sí, un producto yeah, a product A pause of 1.5 seconds immediately followed Miranda’s joke in line 9 and, together with Rafael’s question ¿cómo? (‘what?’) in line 11, it is clear that he did not understand the joke. They then briefly negotiated the meaning of the term Don Limpieza in lines 13–16. Subsequently, in lines 18–20, Miranda repeated that the boyfriend did not have hair, leading her classmates and her to call him Don Limpieza, alluding to the mascot of the cleaning product. Miranda laughed again in line 22 signaling the humor, but neither of the host parents ratified the playful key in their subsequent contributions to the talk. Although Rafael provided the acknowledgement token sí (‘yes’) in line 15 and produced an allo-repetition of Don Limpieza in line 21, both utterances were produced in a serious key and Rafael did not

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

join Miranda in laughing at any point or otherwise indicate that he understood or appreciated the humor. Miranda’s host mother—who had been listening in on the conversation from an adjacent room—did, evidently, understand what Miranda meant, because she intervened in line 23, in a serious key, to provide the name of the cleaning product with which Spaniards were familiar: Mr. Proper. Rafael’s ah, sí (‘oh, right’) immediately afterwards in line 24, also keyed as serious, suggests a change of state such that he finally understood the meaning of the referent. While the product in question was, at the time of this interaction, being marketed as Don Limpio (‘Mr. Clean’) in Spain, for many years prior it had been sold in that country under the name Mr. Proper. It is unclear if Miranda had translated Don Limpieza literally from the English brand name or if she had seen the term Don Limpio and had misremembered it as Don Limpieza. The failure of Miranda’s humor in this case does not seem to lie in the lack of a shared cultural reference, since many Spaniards are familiar with the mascot of Mr. Proper/Don Limpio. Indeed, as soon as the host parents understood what Miranda meant by Don Limpieza, they were able to identify the referent. Further, one Spaniard that I consulted reported that jokingly comparing a bald person to Mr. Clean would be easily understood by most Spaniards and, in fact, my consultant believed that the comparison “estás tan calvo como Mr. Proper” (‘you’re as bald as Mr. Proper’) was well known in Spain. Gómez Capuz (2002) also provides various examples of comparison in Spanish humor, such as has trabajado menos que el sastre de Tarzán (‘you’ve worked less than Tarzan’s tailor’). In this case, perhaps the host parents did not find the comparison with Mr. Clean funny or by the time the meaning of the joke was clarified, the moment may have passed and they continued the conversation in a serious key. Returning to Table 5, while all students had at least one instance of failed humor, some students had relatively more than others. For Miranda and Kyle, for example, a higher proportion of their humor failed compared to the other four students (Miranda: N = 10, 20%; Kyle: N = 13, 15%). Apart from the overall amount of failed humor, however, students varied with regard to the frequency with which humor failed with each interlocutor. For two students, Jared and Samantha, the amount of failed humor was similar with both families and peers, whereas for Chloe, Megan, and Miranda, a considerably greater amount of humor failed in conversations with their families. Conversely, Kyle’s humor failed more often with his peer. A possible reason why humor failed more often for Chloe, Megan, and Miranda with their host families than with their peers emerged from their journals and interviews: all three students described identifying more closely with their age peers, having more in common with them, feeling more comfortable interacting with them, and perceiving that their age peers understood them better

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 53

and were more patient with them than their families. Megan, for example, discussed these relationships in her final interview. [My host dad] didn’t understand my point of view. And he didn’t like- some conversations that we had that haven’t been recorded, he’s not listening to me at all. And I just- I was like, “OK, you’re not listening to me. I’m getting more frustrated, there’s no point.” (Megan, interview) I could ask [my age peer, Lucía,] anything. We talked about everything that you could possibly talk about…with Lucía, I love speaking to her…she has like the same sense of humor as I do. And like, it’s really funny because she has the same sarcasm thing so we can be like, “Oh, I so hate you.” Then start laughing at it the next second. Like we understand each other and it’s really cool. I’m very glad that I met her because I can ask her anything. I can talk to her about anything. It’s made it a lot easier to understand the culture to have her there, because she lets me ask like anything. And she asks anything in return. (Megan, interview)

Similarly, Chloe and Miranda contrasted their relationships with their host parents’ and age peers in their journals: With my [host] mom we spoke the most [this semester] and it was good, but still sometimes I was like scared and sometimes she’d get like frustrated and so I’d be like, “uhhh OK.” So then I would be way less willing to- I didn’t want to speak to her because I just think she’d get frustrated…I get really nervous around her. She’d just make those noises like [sighing loudly]. Or she’ll be like “uhhh” [frustrated sound], “no me entiendes” [‘you don’t understand me’]. Or stuff like that. Or when I’m like “¿Cómo?” [‘what?’] and then she’s like [sighing]. (Chloe, interview) My [age peer, Verónica,] knows my level of language, and I can ask her anything, such as words that I don’t know, etc., and it’s very comfortable. There is no fear on my part that she will make fun of me! It is more like speaking with a friend and I don’t have to worry as much when trying to communicate. (Chloe, week 9 journal) With my family, I had to come up with things to talk about and that was so hard. And I think they thought it was because my Spanish was bad, and it was- really I couldn’t think of anything to talk about…we usually didn’t talk a lot about really deep kind of things. It was more just like TV or “Oh, the food-” like the food and you know. I had like one conversation about the environment and stuff like that. But usually it was just basic kind of conversation. (Miranda, interview) [Marta, my age peer,] was really nice and she just made me feel comfortable right away. And for me comfort’s like a big thing. And um, I was able to talk to her about a lot of things and just the fact that I knew she struggles with her English and I struggle with my Spanish, that kind of helped. And that it’s OK to make mistakes and learn from them…whereas with the family they don’t speak English so I never see them struggle so it’s just me struggling all the time and it’s just kind of- it gets frustrating. (Miranda, interview)

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

Sharing similarities in age (i.e., young adults) and social roles (i.e., being a university student), common interests, participating together in an English-Spanish language partner exchange, as well as a relationship of relatively equal power likely influenced students’ comfortability and identification with their peers. It was evident from the talk data that these peers were often on the same wavelength with students in terms of humor, laughing about the same things. Consequently, the greater proportion of successful humor on the part Chloe, Megan, and Miranda in their interactions with their age peers may reflect the greater degree of mutual understanding, rapport, and solidarity with peers that those students reported (e.g., Norrick 1993). As Flamson and Bryant (2013: 62–3) describe: Successful humor makes the fact of that shared information mutually manifest…humor works, in a sense, as a similarity spot-check, allowing people to “ping” the cognitive environments of their group members and discover which evince the greatest amount of overlap. The relative success rate of matching these “cognitive flashes” will provide agents with a reliable index of the relative degree of shared cognitive environments, styles, and backgrounds.

In contrast, for Kyle, a greater proportion of failed humor was found in conversations with his age peer (N = 12, 18%) than with his host family (N = 1, 5%). At the same time, he expressed in his journals and interview that he felt more comfortable speaking with his age peer Paola compared to his host family. For example, he wrote in his first journal, “I have a difficult time talking with my [host] dad. He talks a lot and it’s hard for me to find times to chirp in. Whenever I do chirp in and say something it always seems like they are impatient and can’t wait for me to spit everything out.” Regarding his age peer and their Puerto Rican friends at the Toledo institute, Kyle said in his interview: I think there’s probably times where there’s a lot of grace going on. Especially with the Puerto Rican girls [which include Paola]- they did such a good job listening too. I think that was a big contrast between them and my dad. If I wanted to explain something, I would just explain as many ways as possible, that I thought would be necessary. And [the Puerto Ricans] would just sit there and listen…they were much more patient and willing to listen to me. So, that’s another reason why I enjoyed talking to them so much…[With my host dad] I felt really rushed where I had to explain whatever I had to quick before he interrupted me or he just felt like annoyed.

Kyle trusted his age peer to be patient and understanding and, for that reason, he may have felt more comfortable taking risks with the humor that he employed with Paola and his other Puerto Rican friends. He described in his interview that

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 55

he routinely tested the waters to find out what his peers would find funny in Spanish (e.g., imitating various accents, engaging in word play, sarcasm). I was imitating an [L2 learner] with bad Spanish. And I was like “Hola, ¿cómo te lamas?” and apparently in Puerto Rico when you say lamas it’s like a really strong sexual innuendo. So then they were all like, “Kyle, don’t say that.” But then they laughed about it (…) I think there’s another one that I said one time (…) oh, mamichula [‘hotty’]. Cause they call a guy a papichulo [‘hotty’]. And then I called Tania mamichula one time and she said that’s what all the PR guys who like whistle, they’re like, “¡Oye, mamichula!” And then she’s like, “Really bad connotations. Please don’t call me that.” So I was like, “OK.” (…) I was- yeah, just being sarcastic.

In the quote above, Kyle described interactions with his Puerto Rican friends in which he played with linguistic humor by pretending to have a bad L2 Spanish accent and mispronouncing the verb llamar (‘to call’) as lamer (‘to lick’) in the phrase ¿cómo te llamas? (‘what’s your name?’). He also explained that he had jokingly called his female Puerto Rican friend mamichula (‘hotty’), which he had apparently figured out by analogy with the masculine form papichulo. In both cases, Kyle described that his friends reacted negatively to these forms of humor. This creative experimentation may help account for the greater degree of failed humor with his peer. With his host family, in contrast, Kyle was more cautious and tended to joke about topics that he had observed his host parents joke about in the past, which would logically increase the likelihood of successful humor. For example, at various times in the recorded interactions with his host family, Kyle alluded to inside humor to which he had been exposed previously with his host parents (e.g., Kyle’s dislike of seafood, his host father’s dislike of the leftist political party in power). Further, Kyle produced fewer than a third as many humor utterances with his host family (N = 19) than with Paola (N = 66), giving him many more opportunities to fail in amusing the latter.

2.3 Humor target The targets to which students directed their humor (i.e., the “butt” of the joke) included joking about oneself, either with a more negative (self-deprecating) or more positive characterization (self-praise), joking about a person who was not present, joking about an inanimate entity (e.g., place, object, institution), and finally, joking about a co-present participant (i.e., teasing). There were also three cases of wordplay (two by Kyle and one by Megan) that did not have a target. Figure 1 shows the relative frequency (i.e., percentage) for the targets in each of the student’s humor and for the group as a whole in all of the conversations in

56 

 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

Joking (self-deprecating)

Joking (self-praise)

Joking (absent-other)

Joking (thing)

Teasing

No target

Figure 1: Relative frequency of targets in students’ humor (all conversations).

the corpus. Looking first at results for the entire group, the data indicate that students most often joked about someone who was not present in the conversation, at 36% (N = 150) overall. For five of the six students, with the exception of Kyle, joking about an absent other was also the most frequent humor target. After joking about an absent other, self-deprecating humor was the second most common type for the group, with a relative frequency of 23% (N = 97), as well as for four of the students (Chloe, Jared, Megan, Samantha). Teasing, joking about a thing or situation, and humorous self-praise were the least used by the group, with overall relative frequencies of 19% (N = 79), 15% (N = 63), and 7% (N = 30), respectively. All six students employed self-praise fairly infrequently, but the relative frequency of the other humor targets varied by individual. Miranda more frequently joked about inanimate entities (e.g., movies, places) than other students (N = 15, 29%), Chloe was the student who used self-deprecating humor most frequently (N = 13, 31%), and Kyle was an outlier due to his apparent zeal for teasing his age peer (N = 31, 37%). Figures 2 and 3 below show the targets of humor in the host family and age peer interactions separately. Two notable trends are observable for the entire group: self-deprecating humor was more frequent overall in the host family interactions (N = 53, 29%) compared to the age peer conversations (N = 44, 18%) and teasing was considerably less frequent with host families (N = 20, 11%) than with age peers (N = 59, 25%). Samantha was the only participant whose self-deprecating

 57

2 Humor use by students 

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

Joking (self-deprecating)

Joking (self-praise)

Joking (absent-other)

Joking (thing)

Teasing

No target

Figure 2: Relative frequency of targets of students’ humor in host family conversations.

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

Joking (self-deprecating)

Joking (self-praise)

Joking (absent-other)

Joking (thing)

Teasing

No target

Figure 3: Relative frequency of targets of students’ humor in age peer conversations.

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

humor was more frequent with her peer (N = 11, 31%) than with her family (N = 4, 20%). Further, while all six students employed self-deprecating humor with both groups of interlocutors, not all students used teasing with both families and peers. All students teased their age peer at least once and four students (Chloe, Jared, Kyle, Megan) did so with some frequency. In the case of the host families, however, three students (Chloe, Miranda, Samantha) never teased their families and Megan was the only student who teased her host family with relative frequency. Indeed, Megan was the only student of the six to employ teasing more often with her family (N = 16, 22%) than with her peer (N = 13, 17%), a topic that will be explored in Megan’s case study in chapter four. The following sections take a more in-depth look at three of the humor targets: joking about oneself, joking about an absent other, and teasing.

2.3.1 Joking about oneself Humor in the corpus in which students joked about their own shortcomings or problems was labeled self-deprecating. Self-disclosures about students’ own ineptitudes occurred in their humorous narratives, as well as a contribution to an ongoing topic (e.g., Ervin-Tripp and Lampert 2009). Self-deprecating humor typically served to display a good sense of humor and to present a positive image of self as someone who does not take problems too seriously and has the ability to laugh at and overcome one’s own foibles (e.g., Kotthoff 1999; Lytra 2009; Norrick 1993). Other functions of this humor type included putting the hearer at ease and building solidarity and common ground with their interlocutor through the exchange of amusing shortcomings (e.g., Ervin-Tripp and Lampert 2009; Ruch 2008). While excessively self-defeating or self-disparaging humor may indicate low self-esteem, self-deprecation in humor does not necessarily mean that the speaker experiences low self-worth. In fact, it can be quite the opposite: using self-deprecating humor “end[s] up presenting a positive self-image rather than a negative one” (Norrick 1993: 47) and can show that the speaker “feels good about himself[/herself] at a fundamental level that this or that setback is not threatening” (Morreall 1983: 106). The shortcomings highlighted in students’ self-deprecating humor were not framed by students themselves as major character flaws, but rather, as minor issues caused by, for example, something that they had overlooked, that they had been unware of, that had happened by accident or through bad luck, or that required them to improve their skills (e.g., practice speaking the L2), increase their effort (e.g., work harder on homework), or change their behavior. In the talk, self-deprecating humor tended to occur in an environment in which a perceived problem or shortcoming was introduced in the talk (or, rarely, the physical

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 59

environment), either by the speaker or by a co-participant, and usually emerged out of the ongoing topic of conversation. For example, after describing how all her female friends had romantic partners, but she did not—which could be perceived as a shortcoming—Miranda joked that it was better that she remained single because she would not be a good girlfriend, since she was dedicated to her studies and future career. Megan, after being asked by her host mother how her classes at the Toledo institute were going, joked about her difficulty comprehending her professor’s Spanish. In an unusual incident, Chloe spilled a beverage during her conversation with her age peer and in response, made a self-deprecating joke about her clumsiness. An example of Chloe’s self-deprecating humor in an interaction with her host mother, Eugenia, is provided in excerpt (2) below. Prior to the talk in (2), Chloe had been describing her plans to travel to Seville with other American students during Holy Week and mentioned that she and her friends had still not purchased their bus tickets to return to Toledo, even though their trip was only a few weeks away. In lines 1–5, Eugenia questioned Chloe about her travel plans, showing surprise that even though Chloe was planning to return on Easter Sunday, a busy travel day in Spain, she had not yet purchased tickets. In line 7, Eugenia advised Chloe to reserve tickets immediately. In response, Chloe joked in line 8 that she and her friends might end up stuck in Seville, an utterance marked as playful through laughter at the beginning and end. This utterance is an example of self-deprecating humor since Chloe highlighted the potential negative or undesirable outcome that her lack of planning might cause (i.e., not making it back to Toledo in time for classes on the Monday after Easter). The self-deprecating humor served to show that Chloe was able to demonstrate a good sense of humor about her lack of knowledge regarding holiday travel in Spain, yet confident that everything would work out. It also mitigated a potential threat to face created by her ignorance, which Eugenia had pointed out. Further, Chloe may have wanted to put Eugenia at ease by displaying that she was not too concerned about the problem and would not let it derail her trip.

(2) “Last minute tickets”: Chloe (C) and host mother Eugenia (M) in Time 3 (week 6) 1

M: ¿qué día [regresáis? what day [are you guys getting back?

2

C:

[oh um s- el (.) domingo de Pascua [oh um s- the (.) Sunday of Easter

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

3

M: sí yeah

4

C:

5

M: ¿y no habéis sacado los billetes? and you guys haven’t gotten bus tickets?

6

C:

7

M: ya tenéis que sacarlos you guys need to get them right away

8

C:

9

M: en Sevilla @ @ in Seville @ @

10 

so like-

no:: no::

sí (.) por@que @ (.) m (.) posible↑ (.) uh quedamos en- Sevilla @@ yeah (.) be@cause @ (.) m (.) possible↑ (.) uh we stay in- Seville @@

sí porque tienes que pensar que: hay u:n- se desplazan muchas personas yeah because you have to realize tha:t there’s a:- a lot of people are traveling

The data in Figures 2 and 3 above indicate that five students (Chloe, Jared, Kyle, Megan, Miranda) employed self-deprecating humor somewhat more frequently with their host families compared with their peers. This observed tendency may simply be due to differences among the participants involved and local contingencies in their interactions. However, it is also possible that the parent-child relationship can help explain this trend. It was clear from the talk data that all host families regularly oriented to the role of caregiver, that is, they showed concern for their host student’s success, well-being, and learning while in Spain. In (2) above, for example, Chloe’s host mother took an interest in helping Chloe plan her trip to Seville. Similarly, compared to age peers, host families more often gave advice to students about learning Spanish, doing well in their studies, and planning excursions, and, in addition, families engaged in considerably more error correction than peers. It was in those contexts that some barrier, difficulty, or lack of knowledge was brought to light and to which students sometimes responded with self-deprecating humor. Recognizing their own shortcomings could demonstrate agency and awareness, while, at the same time, laughing at their own problems conveyed confidence and a sense of humor. In contrast, there were also instances in which students engaged in joking self-praise, highlighting playfully a positive characteristic about themselves

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and positioning themselves as superior in some way. Positive humor about the self was considerably less common in the corpus than self-deprecating humor, likely due to social norms in which bragging and self-aggrandizing are viewed negatively. Contextualizing self-praise as play, however, communicates that the self-promotion is only playful and therefore should not be taken seriously or be judged negatively. On the other hand, although students contextualized joking self-praise as playful through intonation and exaggeration, there was sometimes a grain of truth to the proposition. For example, Jared joked about being better than his biological sister in speaking Spanish; although he cast his superiority as playful and non-serious, from his journals and interview it was clear that he was, in reality, very competitive with his sister and being perceived as a more competent Spanish speaker than her was a genuine face sensitivity for him. In other cases, the self-praise humor was hyperbolic and mostly just for fun. For example, in an extension of the play frame initiated by her host mother, Megan defended herself against playful teasing by exaggerating what a good person she was, calling herself an ángel (‘angel’) and saying ¿no puedes ver mis alas? (‘Can’t you see my wings?’).

2.3.2 Joking about an absent other When students joked about people who weren’t present, they poked fun at the characteristics and behavior of friends, family, professors, casual acquaintances, and strangers. Most of the time, the absent others who were targeted by students’ humor were unknown to the hearer, since students and their host families and Spanish age peers typically had few acquaintances in common. Students who had Puerto Rican age peers (Jared, Kyle, Megan), however, did have overlapping social networks tied to the Toledo institute, such as other international students, institute staff, and professors. In some cases, students also provided humor support when their interlocutors joked about someone that they did not personally know, such as when Miranda’s Spanish age peer joked about her co-workers and Miranda joined in the joking about those people, even though she had never met them. Humor about an absent other functioned to amuse, but other functions were observed as well. In some cases, joking together about an absent other was a way that participants bonded by showing alignment and framing themselves as an in-group in contrast with an out-group that was being mocked. For example, Jared and his age peer joked about their professor’s unfair exams, emphasizing their common ground and shared experience as students, and Samantha and her host mother humorously mocked the sexist attitude of male neighbor, bonding

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as women against male chauvinism. Humor about an absent other also served, at times, for the student to display his or her identity, as in the excerpt from Kyle’s interaction with his age peer, Paola, shown in (3).

(3) “Bad accent”: Kyle (K) and age peer Paola (P) in Time 6 (week 10) 1

K: fui a un::: iglesia: uh (.) protestante↑ I went to a::: Protestant (.) chu:rch↑

2

P: ¿ya? really?

3

K: ¿bautista? baptist?

4

P: ¿cuándo? when?

5

K: um (.) [hace tres semanas um (.)  [three weeks ago

6

P:

7

K: no:, hace tres semanas más o menos no:, three weeks ago more or less

8 9 10

[oh eres- (.) OK [oh you’re- (.) OK

y:: el sacerdote es de Minnesota↑ a::n the priest is from Minnesota↑

pero: (.) él (.) ha vivido aquí (.) hace veinte años↑ bu:t (.) he (.) has lived here (.) for twenty years↑ pero su acento es ta:n minesotano but his accent is so: Minnesotan

11

como- “vamos a terminar::::” @ @ ((exaggerated imitation of English-accented Spanish)) like- “we’re going to finish::::” @ @

12

yo como- “oh” @ @ @ [@ I as- “oh” @ @ @ [@

13 P:

[@ @

2 Humor use by students 

 63

14 K: ay Dios @ @ @ [@ my God @ @ @ [@ 15 P:

[jolí:n [gee:z

16 K: es muy chistoso it’s really funny 17

pero- él es fluyente but- he is fluent

18

bilingüe pero (.) su acento bilingual but (.) his accent

19

hhh mu:y muy mal hhh ve:ry very bad

20 P:  uh huh uh huh 21 K: uh huh @ @ @ uh huh @ @ @ In excerpt (3), Kyle told Paola about visiting a Protestant church in Toledo and meeting the priest, an American immigrant from Kyle’s home state of Minnesota who had spent many years living in Spain. Kyle mocked the priest’s Spanish accent in line 11 by using direct speech which was realized through an exaggerated imitation of heavily English-accented Spanish. Kyle’s switch into a heavy accent in line 11 allowed him to juxtapose the priest’s Spanish accent with his own, less English-influenced Spanish. Further, in lines 16 and 19, Kyle explicitly evaluated the priest’s accent by saying that it was chistoso (‘funny’) and muy mal (‘very bad’). Kyle’s humorous framing highlighted the incongruity between the priest having a heavy foreign accent and the expectation that the priest would have achieved native-like pronunciation after living in Spain for many years. Further, by imitating a bad L2 Spanish accent and offering his negative evaluation about it, Kyle could demonstrate his awareness about what “bad” foreign pronunciation in Spanish sounded like. Mocking the Spanish of another English speaker was a means by which Kyle could project his own identity as a competent Spanish speaker. This particular instance of humor also reflects the notion of superiority, which has long been thought to underlie much humor: “When we find humor in something, we laugh at the misfortune, stupidity,

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

clumsiness, moral or cultural defect, suddenly revealed in someone else, to whom we instantly and momentarily feel “superior” since we are not, at that moment, unfortunate, stupid, clumsy, morally or culturally defective, and so on” (Gruner 1997: 13).

2.3.3 Teasing Turning now to instances when a co-participant was the target of students’ humor, teasing was present in the recorded interactions from the early part of the semester in the four students who regularly employed this form of humor. All of students’ teases were contextualized as playful and the majority were toward the “bonding” end of Boxer and Cortés-Conde’s (1997) continuum of teasing, meaning that they largely served to enhance solidarity and were affiliative in nature. There were relatively few “nipping” or “biting” teases, which represent more aggressive, negative, and critical forms of teasing, with greater potential to offend the target of the teasing. The only student who regularly teased on the “nipping/biting” end of the continuum was Megan, although Kyle also had a couple of “nipping” teases with his peer. Further, most teases produced by students were single utterances (N = 59, 75%), although some teases (N = 20, 25%) occurred in teasing sequences consisting of two or more teases “unified by theme or content” (Holmes and Marra 2002: 1693). In excerpt (4) below, for example, Jared playfully teased his host mother, Carmen, about her old age. (4) “Your back goes out”: Jared (J) and his host mother Carmen (C) in Time 7 (week 11) 1 2

C: cuando se hace uno mayor↑ when one gets older↑ J:

@@

3

C: pierde la vista you lose your sight

4

pierde los dientes you lose your teeth

5

pierde el oí@do you lose your hear@ing

6

J:

y la espalda and your back

2 Humor use by students 

7

C: @ [la@ espa@lda mu@cho @ [your@ ba@ck a lo@t

8

J:

9

C: la@ espa@lda mu@cho your@ ba@ck a lo@t

10 J:

 65

[@@

@

Prior to the talk in line 1, Carmen had been mending an item of clothing using a needle and thread while she conversed with Jared. Upon finishing her mending, she commented that she had not noticed that the thread was blue rather than black, the latter of which was the intended color. This realization prompted Carmen to jokingly attribute her mistake to old age, listing in lines 1–5 all the physical problems that one begins to suffer due to aging (e.g., losing your sight, your hearing, and your teeth). In making her list, she repeated the same syntactic frame pierde X (‘you lose your X’) three times, which served to highlight each new item and emphasize the loss. After Carmen uttered her third problem on the list in line 5, which was accompanied by laughter, Jared jumped in without pause to add one more item to the list (i.e., losing your back) using the connector y (‘and’) to link his contribution syntactically to Carmen’s prior utterance and extending the play frame with a smile voice. Jared’s reference to back problems was shared knowledge between the two participants; in a previous recording Carmen had talked about having back problems. Although Carmen used an impersonal verb to talk about the physical ailments of old age, it was clear from the context that she included herself with those facing such problems, initially because she had mistaken blue for black, but also, alluding to information presented in previous conversations with Jared in which she had discussed health issues that she faced with her teeth and her back. Hence, Jared’s contribution in line 6 playfully teased Carmen about the trouble that she had experienced with her back. Carmen responded by repeating and upgrading Jared’s contribution in lines 7 and 9, saying “la espalda mucho” (‘your back a lot’) while laughing with obvious amusement. Carmen’s and Jared’s joint laughter at the tease, along with Jared’s playful framing, demonstration of alignment with Carmen’s perspective, and referencing familiarity with her health troubles place this instance of teasing on the “bonding” side of the continuum and as clearly affiliative with the person being teased. Linguistically, Jared’s tease did not require sophisticated grammar or lexis, but his ability to seamlessly link his utterance in line 6 with the syntax of Carmen’s turn in line 5 indicates that, as a listener, he had been closely tracking what his interlocutor was saying.

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

The interactions between students and their host families contained 20 instances of teasing, representing 11% of students’ humor with their families. However, 80% (N = 16) of the teases directed at host parents were produced by just one student: Megan. Jared and Kyle teased their host parents two times each, while Chloe, Miranda, and Samantha never teased their families. Hence, apart from Megan, the other five students rarely teased their families. Notably, those students who teased their families most were also those who were teased most often by their host families (Jared, Kyle, Megan). On the other hand, 59 instances of teasing were found in the age peer interactions, which represented 25% of the total humor that students produced with that group. Individual variation in propensity to tease was again observed, with four students (Chloe, Jared, Kyle, Megan) teasing relatively frequently (23% [N = 7], 42% [N = 8], 44% [N = 29], and 17% [N = 13], respectively) and Miranda and Samantha infrequently (8% [N = 1] and 3% [N = 1], respectively). These data suggest that most students were more likely to tease their peers rather than their host families, which may reflect an orientation to politeness norms. That is, students may have been sensitive to host parents as older adults in a position of respect and authority due to their age and social role as parents. Consequently, they may have largely avoided teasing their host parents due to the potential threat to face to someone of higher social status and greater power in the relationship. Even though students’ teases were always contextualized as playful, in teasing another, the speaker pokes fun at and says something negative about the hearer, which is an aggressive form of humor with the potential to threaten the hearer’s face sensitivities. Marking the tease as play signals to the hearer that the tease should not be taken seriously, nevertheless, the potential to offend remains in the message of the tease. Indeed, as will be discussed in chapter four, some of Megan’s more aggressive and disaffiliative teases did appear to offend her host family. Regarding the sequential environments for teasing, teasing occurred in response to something previously said. As described by Drew (1987), in a number of cases, students teased their interlocutors after they said something perceived as “overdone,” such as being dramatic or complaining excessively, but also in response to violation of a social or linguistic norm, and in response to being teased. Examples included Chloe teasing her peer for melodramatically complaining about a difficult exam that she had to study for, Megan teased her peer for focusing too much on her boyfriend, and Kyle teased his peer for forgetting to add the Spanish accent marks in her written homework. Students teased about aspects of their interlocutors’ lifeworlds that arose topically in their interactions, such as their daily activities, their interests, their friends, as well as occasionally something that occurred in the immediate physical environment. Additional

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topics that students teased their age peers about included participating in “nerdy” role play games (Chloe), not understanding soccer (Kyle), a mystery guy that liked her peer (Megan), not being able to hold one’s alcohol (Jared), and teasing about a peer’s stomach rumbling loudly (Miranda). While relatively little teasing was directed at host families, except in the case of Megan, several examples of those tease themes were: Kyle teased his host parents by joking using his host father’s pet name for his wife (i.e., guapetona ‘cutie’) after the father had given her a compliment; Megan teased her host father that he never agreed with her and, in another conversation, she teased him that his household chores were not as onerous as he had claimed. Most of the teases that students directed at their families and peers were “bonding,” and affiliative in nature, that is, they indexed their shared knowledge and growing relationship, and were not intended to hurt the tease recipient or show displeasure (Bell and Pomerantz 2015). As mentioned earlier, the only student who regularly engaged in more aggressive “nipping/biting” teasing was Megan. An example of a sequence of mutual teasing between Megan and her age peer, Lucía, is shown in excerpt (5). According to Megan, the two young women had developed a close friendship which was characterized by mutually aggressive humor. Excerpt (5) begins with Megan’s turn in line 1, in which she announced that she loved history, which was an attempt to get a topic started shortly after the audio-recorder had been turned on. This comment in line 1, which Megan contextualized as serious, initiated a playful mock competition between the two young women about whose country was better. Megan asserted, again in a serious key, that US history was interesting because there were a lot of problems (line 11), to which Lucía responded with playful teasing, first jokingly belittling Megan’s assertion by saying “bla bla bla bla” (‘blah blah blah blah’) and then suggesting that there could not be many problems in a country that did not have a long history (lines 12 and 16). What may have inspired Lucía to tease in response to Megan’s turn in line 11 was the “overdone” nature of Megan’s proposition that US history was “very interesting” and had “many problems.” From that point on, the two engaged in a mock battle trying to playfully one-up the other regarding whose country was more important. In lines 24 and 26, Lucía said that “España fue un imperio donde no se ponía el sol” (‘Spain was an empire where the sun never set’), which is a historical reference to a famous phrase in Spanish dating back to the sixteenth century. The phrase was later used to describe other colonial empires of the same period, such as that of the British, and is also known in the US. In response, Megan nipped back by saying “¿y ahora qué es?” (‘and now what is it?’), diminishing Lucía’s assertion by alluding to the loss of the empire (line 29). Megan further tried to elevate the US by referencing the Franco dictatorship in Spain (which ended in 1976), saying that the US did not have a dictatorship (line 32). Megan’s use of the present tense

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

in line 32, however, gave an opening to Lucía to come back with her comment in line 34, saying that Spain did not (currently) have a dictator either. Finally, Lucía indexed her knowledge of Megan’s dislike of then US president George W. Bush by taking a last jab and saying that the US had Bush, likening him to a dictator. The symbolic battle ended in line 40 with Megan’s rejection of Bush being a dictator, saying that, actually, he was an idiot. (5) “Spanish empire”: Megan (M) and age peer Lucía (L) in Time 8 (week 12) 1

M: me encanta historia I love history

2

L:

3

M: pff pff

4

L:

5

M:

6

L:

7

M: en comparación para ti in comparason for you

8

pero- uh para ti no but- uh for you no

9

uh para u- uh España pero:- uh uh for u- uh Spain bu:t- uh

10

(1.5)

pero en EEUU es muy corta but in the US it’s really short

@ [@ @ @ @ [(…) pero intensa but intense

11

M: la historia de los EEUU es muy interesante porque hh hay mucha:s the history of the US is very interesting because hh there’re many: [problemas [problems

12

L:

13  M: cállate, chica shut up, girl

[bla bla bla bla [blah blah blah blah

2 Humor use by students 

14 L: 15

M: tch hay muchas problemas en los EEUU tch there’re many problems in the US

16 L: 17

era broma it was a joke

en cuántos años blafaghah no:: in how many years blafaghah no::

M: en cuántos años sí:: tenemos muchas problemas para u::n país muy in how many years ye::s we have many problems for a:: very young joven @ @ country @ @

18 L:

@@

19 M: y fuerte ((joking tone)) and strong 20 L: 21

@@@@

M: @ @ @

22 L:

((clearing throat in mock questioning of Megan’s statement))

23 M: ((coughing and laughing)) 24 L:

España fue un imperio Spain was an empire

25 M: sí, yo sé pero ahora =  yes, I know but now =  26 L:

= do:nde no se ponía el sol = whe:re the sun didn’t set

27

era muy gra:nde it was very bi:g

28 M: ¿sí? yeah? 29

¿y ahora qué es? and now what is it?

30 L:  más pequeño smaller 31 M: @ @ @ @ @ @ @

 69

70 

 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

32

pero tenemos más derechos y no tenemos un dictador but we have more rights and we don’t have a dictator

33

(1.5)

34 L:

nosotros tampoco we don’t either

35 M: ahora no now you don’t 36 L:

tienes a Bush [@ @ @ you have Bush [@ @ @

37 M:

[@ @ @

38 L:

es lo mismo it’s the same thing

39 M: Bush Bush 40

no, Bush es un- idioto no, Bush is an- idiot

The teasing in which Megan and Lucía engaged in excerpt (5) was considerably more aggressive than most of the teasing observed in the other interactions in the corpus. As will be discussed in Megan’s case study in chapter four, aggressive teasing was part of Megan’s overall humor style. In her interview quote provided in section 2.2 of this chapter, Megan alluded to her perception of her relationship with Lucía as one characterized by mutually aggressive humor. Aggressive teasing is more likely to occur in situations in which participants are comfortable with one another and know each other well and, indeed, can index intimacy and solidarity (e.g., Drew 1987; Dynel 2008; Holmes 2000; Norrick 1993). As Dynel (2008: 252) described, “In solidarity-based relationships, humor of seemingly aggressive potential, usually associated with impoliteness, is essentially polite, being the manifestation of mock impoliteness…Therefore, even the aggressive type of teasing, seemingly exploiting politeness norms serves as a strategy of asserting solidarity politeness.” Although the two young women generally seemed to enjoy their mutual aggressive teasing, it is still risky in terms of the greater potential for miscommunication and causing offense. For example, even though Megan used paralinguistic cues to mark her contributions as play, she seemed not to be aware of the perlocutionary force of certain expressions in Spanish, such as when she said cállate, chica (‘shut up, girl’) in line 13, an expression that is quite hostile in

2 Humor use by students 

 71

Spanish. Adding the person pronoun –te to the verb calla (‘be quiet’) upgrades the disaffiliative attitude and including the term of address chica, according to a Spaniard consulted, sounds condescending. It was likely the hostility of this utterance that led Lucía to clarify in line 14 that what she had previously said was a joke (era broma). Lucía likely perceived a potential misunderstanding of her prior teasing based on Megan’s antagonistic cállate, chica response. Megan may have transferred from English the phrase “shut-up, girl” and may not have realized its force in Spanish.

2.4 Irony Relatively little humorous irony was produced by students in the corpus. As Table  6 shows, only 9 instances (2% of total humor) were found. All instances were produced by four students (Chloe, Jared, Kyle, Megan) with their age peers. Four ironic utterances failed, two each in Kyle’s and Megan’s interactions with their respective age peers. A possible reason for the low frequency of irony in the corpus is student avoidance of this type of humor. By the end of their semester abroad, four students (Kyle, Megan, Miranda, Samantha) came to believe that Spaniards did not understand or use sarcasm (used synonymously with irony here) and, as a result, those students reported avoiding sarcasm. For example, Miranda described the following in her interview: “I’ve noticed [my host parents] don’t really understand sarcasm all that much. Like a little bit, but I have to be obvious with the sarcasm. They don’t really understand slight sarcasm. You have to make sure your voice is really different…my [host] family doesn’t really get my sarcasm. So I’ve tried not to use it…it usually doesn’t go over.” Similarly, Samantha said in her interview that: I didn’t feel like there was any sarcasm [in Spain]- I didn’t pick up on it. ‘Cause I use it a lot and so and I never used it at home [with my host family] and I don’t know if that’s ‘cause it would be hard for me to relay- because it’s harder to relay in another language. Because you have to change your tone of voice when you’re saying it. So it’s hard to know how to change that exactly to like show that it’s sarcasm.

Table 6: Students’ use of irony in all conversations (instances and relative frequency).

Host family Age peer Total

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

3 (10%) 3 (7%)

1 (5%) 1 (3%)

3 (5%) 3 (4%)

2 (3%) 2 (1%)

Miranda

Samantha

Total 9 (4%) 9 (2%)

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

In her comments, Samantha claimed to avoid sarcasm, at least in part, because she was unsure of how to prosodically mark an utterance to communicate the ironic intent. Indeed, as will be discussed in Kyle’s and Megan’s case studies in chapter four, lack of cues marking an utterance as ironic appeared to result in lack of comprehension of the irony by students’ interlocutors. In addition to prosodic markers of irony, students may have been unaware of the typical lexical and morphosyntactic resources used by Spanish speakers to mark irony in conversation (e.g., Ruiz Gurillo 2012). What may also have been lacking in the cases in which sarcasm/irony failed for students was a lack of the necessary shared knowledge with which the students’ interlocutors could make the appropriate inferences to interpret the ironic rather than the literal meaning (e.g., Torres Sánchez 1996). A final aspect observed is that some of the ironic utterances that failed were not prototypical instances of irony in which what is meant is the opposite of what is literally said, making its interpretation more difficult in the absence of shared knowledge. However, some students did have success in using irony; those cases were ones in which the interlocutor could easily interpret the ironic intent based on the discourse context and the paralinguistic markers employed in the ironic utterance. Chloe produced one such example of irony in an interaction with her age peer, Verónica, provided in excerpt (6). (6) “McDonald’s photo”: Chloe (C) and age peer Verónica (V) in Time 6 (week 10) 1

V: y no tengo fotos de París @ and I don’t have photos from Paris @

2

J:

3

V: sólo tengo una:: que no sé quién hizo↑ I only have o::ne that I don’t know who took↑

4

hhh::: ((showing sympathy))

en blanco y negro:↑ in black and whi:te↑

que salgo yo dentro de un McDonald’s↑ ((playful intonation)) that I’m in inside a McDonald’s↑

5 6

C: @ @ @ @ [@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

7

V:

8

[hablando por teléfono (.) de espaldas @ @ @ @  [talking on the phone (.) with my back to the camera @ @ @ @ sí @ @

2 Humor use by students 

9

 73

C: un foto @ boni:to [@ @ @ @ @ @ a beau:tiful @ photo [@ @ @ @ @ @

10 V:

[preciosa @ @ @ @ [lovely @ @ @ @

Prior to excerpt (6), Verónica told Chloe that she had lost her digital photos from a trip to France that she took with her class during high school, because a friend had unwittingly deleted them. While this incident was an unfortunate situation, it was not framed as troubles talk by Verónica, but rather, she keyed it as a funny anecdote, shown in (6). The playful frame is clear in lines 1–5, in which Verónica joked about the only surviving photo of her from that trip, a photo in which Verónica appeared with her back turned to the camera in a McDonald’s restaurant. In response, Chloe adopted and extended the play frame, ironically quipping in line 9 that it was “un foto bonito” (‘a beautiful photo’), an utterance marked with laughter and playful intonation. Chloe’s ironic utterance pointed verbally to the situational irony of traveling to another country and coming home with only a photo in which one’s back was to the camera and, to top it off, the photo was taken in McDonald’s, an unsophisticated fast-food chain to which one can go in one’s own country. The two participants seemed to have shared scripts related to the elements of the story. For example, the two young women may have both believed that when traveling to another country, one ideally tries the food of that country, not that of a fast-food chain; they may have both had a view of Paris being cosmopolitan and having a world-renowned food culture, such that eating at McDonald’s was incongruent with expectations for a visit to Paris; and they may have shared the idea that travel photos should include unique and important moments from the trip, such as a visit to a monument. In any case, Verónica displayed no trouble in interpreting the ironic meaning of Chloe’s comment, since without hesitation she aligned to Chloe’s framing by adding irony of her own, saying in line 16 preciosa (‘lovely [photo]’) in reference to her photo. The playful intonation, the prototypical use of irony here (i.e., say the opposite of what is meant), and the evaluative adjective bonito in the discourse context likely made Chloe’s irony accessible to Verónica. Note that Verónica oriented only to the humorous ironic intent of Chloe’s utterance; she did not orient to the incorrect gender morphology of Chloe’s utterance in line 9, which would be correctly marked as una foto bonita. Research on irony in Peninsular Spanish (e.g., Alba-Juez 2000; Baena 2005; Gómez Capuz 2002; Haiman 1990; Ruiz Gurillo 2012; Torres Sánchez 1994) indicates that Spaniards do regularly employ this figure of speech humorously. However, humorous irony was fairly infrequent in the talk of host families and

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age peers in this corpus, with a total of 14 instances constituting 4% of the humor students’ interlocutors produced, including the example produced by Chloe’s age peer in (6) above. A possible explanation for several students’ perceptions about the relative absence of sarcasm/irony in Spanish is that their families and peers consciously avoided its use. As Davies (2004: 224) argued, “irony assumes extensive shared knowledge, including concerning participants’ attitudes, and for that reason might be considered too risky for sociable conversation among strangers.” Jared’s host mother, in her interview, stated explicitly that the family did not use sarcasm with their foreign students because they believed that the student would not understand, and indeed, she did not use sarcasm/irony in her recorded conversations with Jared. Kyle’s age peer echoed a similar sentiment in a recorded conversation, saying that she used sarcasm regularly at home in Puerto Rico, but avoided it with foreign students in Toledo to prevent misunderstandings. On the other hand, Kyle’s host father and Samantha’s host mother, in their interviews, indicated that they did not necessarily avoid sarcasm, but that their host students oftentimes did not understand the meaning. Regardless, some students may have developed the perception that humorous sarcasm/irony was uncommon in Spain due to some interlocutors’ strategic choice not to employ this figure of speech.

2.5 Exaggeration Previous research has reported that exaggeration is a common feature of L2 humor that is employed to both create and signal humor (Bell, Stalicky, and Salsbury 2014). It was also quite common in this corpus, having been employed in a total of 19% (N = 80) of all humorous utterances produced by students, as shown in Table 7. One example of exaggeration was Megan who, in Time 1, said “soy un ángel, soy una santa” (‘I’m an angel, I’m a saint’) to jokingly emphasize what a good person she was in a teasing sequence with her host mother. Another example of the use of exaggeration to be funny is shown in the excerpt in (7) below. Prior to

Table 7: Frequency of exaggeration produced by students in all conversations.

Exaggeration Total humorous utterances

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

6 (14%) 42

10 (25%) 40

13 (15%) 85

18 (12%) 148

17 (33%) 51

16 (29%) 56

80 (19%) 422

2 Humor use by students 

 75

the talk shown, Samantha and her peer Ana had been comparing the weather in Toledo and in Samantha’s home state of Wisconsin, where, Samantha had mentioned, it had been extremely cold in the past few weeks. Related to that topic, Samantha told her age peer an anecdote about an incident on the bus in Toledo in which she imagined that all the locals were looking at her and shocked by her not wearing a jacket in February. In (7), Samantha constructed her identity as someone from a cold climate and in opposition to Spaniards in terms of her greater tolerance for cold. In lines 10 and 16, Samantha used exaggeration, saying that everyone on the bus was looking at her and they were all thinking that she was crazy. Exaggeration was realized through toda la gente (‘everyone’), repetition of the phrase ella está loca (‘she’s crazy’), the adjective loca (‘crazy’), and the heightened emotion with which she delivered those lines. As in the excerpt below, lexical exaggeration in the corpus was typically accompanied by exaggerated prosody. Of note is that linguistic and paralinguistic aspects of exaggeration are relatively easy to realize in Spanish, even for a lower proficiency speaker. For example, lexical items regularly employed in students’ exaggeration, such as mucho (‘many, much’), muy (‘very’), and todo (‘all’), are typically learned at an early stage. Repetition of the same word or phrase was also observed regularly in exaggeration, another linguistically simple strategy (e.g., muy muy muy ‘very very very’). As has been described previously, “exaggeration is a simple humorous mechanism and one that is unlikely to be misconstrued, as the absurd content serves as a contextualization cue” (Bell, Skalicky, and Salsbuy 2014: 81). (7) “She’s crazy”: Samantha (S) and age peer Ana (A) in Time 2 (week 5) 1 2

S: el otro día↑ the other day↑

yo fui a- (1.4) yo::: monté↑ por autobús↑ I went to- (1.4) I::: got on↑ by bus↑

3

A: mhm mhm

4

S: y @ @ y no: um llevé mi chaqueta porque para mí hace mucho and @ @ and I didn’t um bring my jacket because for me it’s very [frío [cold

5

A:

6

S: hace mucho calor, creo it’s very hot, I think

[hace mucho[it very-

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 3 Second language humor use in study abroad

7

claro right

8

A: hm hm

9

S: y um @ @ and um @ @

10

y toda la gente:: estaba mirando:: (.) a mí and all the people:: were loo::king (.) at me

11

[y- porque no es- you know por[and- because it’s not- you know for-

12 A: [@ @ @ 13 S: no- no dice- no dicen- dijeron nada perohe don’t- don’t say- they don’t say- they didn’t say anything but14 A: tú lo pens [@ @ @ you thought it- [@ @ @ 16 S: 

 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@@@

   [estaban pensando “por qué es- ella está loca ella está loca”   [they were thinking “why is- she’s crazy she’s crazy

2.6 Revoicing Revoicing referred to reproducing another’s words or ways of speaking for humorous purposes. Four types of revoicing are discussed here: direct speech, pinning, imitation of a regional dialect of Spanish, and imitation of a register. Table 8 indicates the frequency of revoicing in the corpus, both overall and in terms of each category. Revoicing was fairly frequent, occurring in 18% (N = 76) of students’ humorous utterances overall, although its use varied considerably from student to student. As can be seen, all six students employed direct speech in humor, whereas the other four types of revoicing varied by student. Furthermore, direct speech was employed considerably more often than the other three types of revoicing. Three students employed pinning, although Megan made use of this resource more than Chloe and Jared. Kyle was the only student to imitate a Spanish dialect with some frequency; Chloe and Megan employed that technique only once each. Kyle was also the student who employed imitation of a register more than once. Comparing the two interlocutor groups, Table 9 shows how often the four types of revoicing were employed with host families and age peers. Those data indicate that, overall, revoicing occurred more often with peers (22%, N = 54)

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 77

Table 8: Frequency of revoicing types by students in all conversations.

Revoicing Direct speech Pinning Dialect imitation Register imitation Total humorous utterances

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha Total

4 (10%) 2 (5%) 1 (2%) 1 (2%)

7 (18%) 4 (10%) 3 (8%)

20 (24%) 5 (6%)

2 (4%) 2 (4%)

8 (14%) 8 (14%)

42

40

35 (24%) 26 (18%) 7 (5%) 1 (1%) 1 (1%) 148

51

56

11 (13%) 4 (5%) 85

76 (18%) 47 (11%) 11 (3%) 13 (3%) 5 (1%) 422

Table 9: Frequency of revoicing with host families compared to age peers.

Direct speech Pinning Dialect imitation Register imitation Total revoicing Total humorous utterances

Host families

Age peers

Total

19 (10%) 3 (2%) 1 ( 14% > 40%) and then decreases in Time 7 (11%). The pattern of decrease from Time 5 to 7 seems to mirror Megan’s report that her relationship with her host father grew increasingly tense over the course of the semester, but then by the end of the semester, they began to get along more easily. In terms of why Megan’s humor failed with her host mother and father, unlike in the interactions with Camila, there were no instances of lack of recognition of Megan’s attempt at humor. Megan’s humor appeared to fail with her host parents for various reasons. There were several instances in which they did not understand her humor at the linguistic level, because Megan had difficulty expressing herself. In another case, Megan employed a US cultural referent that her host mother did not understand. There were also times in which a host parent did not seem to appreciate Megan’s humor, such as when she made fun of how one professor at the Toledo institute pronounced an English surname, which her host mother did not seem to find funny. There were also cases when a host parent seemed unwilling to adopt the humorous frame. There was only one clear change over time in terms of the types of Megan’s failed humor: after Isabel’s lack of understanding of a reference to an English-language song in one humor attempt, Megan never again joked about that type of unknown referent with her host parents. But from Time 5 and Time 7, there was also an obvious improvement in the tone of the conversations between Megan and her host father. Whereas the Time 5 conversation with Manuel involved an argument about US and world politics with relatively few attempts at humor on either Megan’s or Manuel’s part, the Time 7 interaction was lighthearted and full of humor by both parties, with a greater proportion of that humor being successful. What seemed to have changed in Time 7 was that Megan avoided difficult topics and produced humor that her host father would appreciate. In her journal entry from the week of the Time 7 recording, she wrote the following about that week’s conversation: I think this [conversation] is the most comfortable I’ve been talking to my host dad. It was interesting because for once he was asking questions and listening. I think it helped that I started out with photos of my family and made sure it was casual. I know him pretty well, however, I’m never really sure what he’s thinking because he’s always joking around. I think he finally felt comfortable talking to me because I didn’t feel like arguing. We actually didn’t have anything to argue about this time. This conversation reflects a final understanding between my host father and me. We usually clash, but we were finally able to just

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talk. Usually we are arguing over something that has happened in the news or chores. My problem is that I feel that they complain way too much because they have a good life. His problem is that he doesn’t listen when I’m trying to talk to him.

As she described in her journal, in the Time 7 recording, Megan did not mention politics, did not argue, and joked about more mundane and uncontroversial topics such as her family members and pets back home and her plans for when she returned to the US. Although her quote suggests that she still placed most of the blame for the interpersonal difficulties on her host father, she seemed to recognize that her proclivity to argue and debate was part of the problem and had made an effort to create more harmony in their relationship.

5.1.2 Teasing Megan was the student who produced the most teasing of the six participants. She teased members of her host family a total of 16 times and her age peers 13 times over the course of the semester. An observable shift over time with regard to teasing was the stance that Megan took in teasing members of her host family. In the beginning of the semester, a sizable proportion of Megan’s teases were fairly aggressive and antagonistic with the commentary of the tease focused largely on negative, controversial, or provocative characteristics of the target. There was a qualitative shift in the tone and stance that Megan took in her teases in Times 1, 3, and 5, compared to the teasing that she produced in Time 7. The discourse in (27) below provides an example of an aggressive tease in the first recorded interaction, which took place during the third week of Megan’s stay with her host family. (27) “What’s your problem?”: Megan (M), Isabel (I), and host brother, Santi (S), in Time 1 (week 3) 1

I:

me preguntas- Santi you ask me- Santi

2

M: @ @ @ @

3

I:

no te lo repito, ¿eh? I’m not going to repeat it, eh?

4

a ver si vamos ahora a tener let’s see if we’re now going to have

5

una discusión o una conversación an argument or a conversation

6

pon [te en el otro lado go [to the other side

5 Case study 4: Megan 

7

M:

[n- no es importante @ @ @ [i- it’s not important @ @ @

8

¿qué es tú problema? what’s your problem?

9

(1.0)

10

 159

M: @ @ @

11

no, sí es- (.) hh no:: um no preocupno, yes it- (.) hh no:: um don’t worr-

12

¿preocupés? ((slowly)) worry?

13

¿sí? yes?

14

S:

te preocupes don’t worry

15

M: hum hum

This segment occurred towards the beginning of the recording and started with the host mother interrupting her conversation with Megan to scold her teenage son, Santi, for goofing around and distracting Isabel and Megan while they were conversing. The mother’s scolding is in a serious frame, but it was not tense or angry. Megan’s laughter at the mother and son interaction in lines 2 and 7 may or may not have been appropriate from the mother’s and son’s perspectives. In line 7, Megan attempted to intervene in the scolding by minimizing the problem, saying “No es importante” (‘It’s not important’). Immediately in the following line, however, Megan seemed to try to foster conflict by teasing her host brother with “¿qué es tu problema?” (‘What’s your problem?’). Although the preceding laughter in line 7 and Megan’s tone of voice when producing the tease both served to contextualize the utterance as playful, Megan’s stance in this tease would still be interpreted as fairly aggressive. In her tease, Megan adopted the same stance as the mother in scolding her son in the previous lines, but rather than mitigating the scolding with markers of indirectness (e.g., ¿eh? ‘eh?’, a ver si ‘let’s see if’), as Isabel did, Megan stated directly in her tease that Santi was causing a problem. Megan further positioned herself in a class of adults who, like the mother, had the right to scold, comment on, and try to control a child’s behavior. The topic of the tease provided negative commentary on Santi’s behavior and had the potential to inflame the minor conflict between mother and son. Since Santi had just been scolded by his mother, the content of the tease was highly

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relevant to the situation in which the target found himself at that moment. Santi reacted to the tease with silence, although he may have communicated non-verbally during the pause in speech in line 9. Perhaps realizing the possible offensive tone of her tease, Megan responded in line 10 with laughter to emphasize the playful nature of the tease and then in lines 11 and 12, Megan further attempted to mitigate the force of the tease by minimizing Santi’s presumed offence, offering the grammatically incorrect “no preocupés” (i.e., no te preocupes, ‘don’t worry’). Finally, in response to Megan’s question “¿sí?” (‘yes?’) in line 13 to confirm the correctness of her previous utterance, Santi provided the grammatically correct form of Megan’s utterance in a matter-of-fact way. The segment in (26) was followed by another pause and then the participants shifted to a new topic of conversation. In contrast to the interaction in (27), the majority of Megan’s teases in Time 7 reflected a less aggressive and antagonistic stance. In the example in (28) below, Megan’s host father pointed out a magazine showing women’s clothing and playfully asked Megan “¿te gusta para mí?” (‘Do you like this for me?’). Megan adopted the play frame by laughing in line 2 and then teasing in line 5 with “¿qué vas a comprar?” (‘What are you going to buy?’), referring to the women’s clothes. The father responded playfully that he was not sure, eliciting more laughter from Megan. The sequence continued in a lighthearted tone, with playful teasing and joking between the two interspersed with dialogue in a serious key. Megan’s tease in (28) is less aggressive in tone, but also in content. In her tease, Megan implied that the host father would buy women’s clothing—a potential affront to his masculinity. However, in teasing about this topic, Megan took her cue from the host father’s initial joke. In addition, the proposition of the tease was obviously absurd; both parties knew that the host father did not buy or wear women’s clothing. The disconnect from real life in the absurdity of the tease made it less face threatening to the host father. (28) “Women’s clothing”: Megan (M) and Manuel (F) in Time 7 (week 11) 1

F:

¿te gusta para mí? do you like this for me?

2

M: uh @ @ @ @ @

3

es para una mujer it’s for a woman

4

(1.2)

5 6

M: ¿qué- qué vas a- comprar? what- what are you going to- buy? @@@@@

5 Case study 4: Megan 

7

F:

8

M: @ @

9

F:

 161

no sé- no sé qué comprarme I don’t know- I don’t know what to buy esta es una revista this is a magazine

10

donde puedes ver cosas where you can look at things

11

y te lo mandan a casa and they mail it to your home

As mentioned previously, the tone of Megan’s teasing throughout the conversation in Time 7 was considerably less aggressive than in recorded interactions earlier in the semester. In her interview, Megan herself reflected how she shifted in the topics that she chose to tease about and the level of aggression from earlier to later in the semester: In my [real] family we respect our parents, they know that, but we also like criticize, tease, joke, and everything else. And [now] I only borderline that, I won’t cross that line [with my host parents]. My host dad will tease me and everything else, and I’ll just tease him like little things like, he had his hair cut and I noticed his grey hair and I was teasing him about [it] … He laughs, but I just don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t want to get them mad.

Megan observed that earlier in the semester, her host father had not responded well to her teasing and that their relationship had been strained. Megan’s solution by Time 7 was to tease her host father only about “little things,” so that he would not be offended. These comments parallel the development of Megan’s teasing observed in the talk data, that is, her teasing became less aggressive over time. Further, the comparison that Megan made in her interview between her biological family and her host family in terms of teasing suggests that Megan learned over time that aggressive teasing could be viewed as sociopragmatically inappropriate in relationships characterized by greater social distance. Although Megan interacted with her host family on a regular basis and lived with them in their home, the relative brevity of their acquaintance (i.e., 14 weeks) means that the participants most likely did not perceive their relationship as very close. Early in the semester, Megan may have misjudged the level of intimacy with her host family and transferred her own family’s pragmatic norms for teasing to this new environment, teasing aggressively as she would with her own family. Alternatively, Megan may have been unaware of the connection between teasing and

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 4 Case studies of second language humor development

social distance, not realizing that teasing non-intimates aggressively could be perceived as inappropriate by her host family. As Dynel (2008: 248) argued, “Intimates, more likely than strangers, can judge whether teases are devoid of truly abusive or downgrading potential … teasing hence symbolizes and enhances intimacy.” Thus, over time, Megan became aware of and acted on sociopragmatic norms regarding teasing and social distance, shifting her teasing behavior with her host family toward a less aggressive stance. Although Megan’s Time 7 conversation with her host family displayed a milder style of teasing, the Time 8 interaction between Megan and her language partner Lucía contained negative, provocative, and critical teasing by both parties. Megan and Lucía had seemingly established a joking relationship in which mutually aggressive teasing was expected and part of their routine (e.g., Norrick 1993). Megan commented on her relationship with Lucía in her interview: With Lucía, I love speaking to her. Because- … like we can joke. Like she has like the same sense of humor as I do. And like, it’s really funny because she has the same sarcasm thing so we can be like, “Oh, I so hate you,” then start laughing at it the next second. Like we understand each other and it’s really cool.

From Megan’s perspective, using hostile humor such as “I so hate you” was one of the aspects that she enjoyed in her interactions with Lucía. Being able to share a similar proclivity for aggressive humor was something that, according to Megan, bonded the two together and enhanced their intersubjectivity, or ability to understand each other’s point of view. An example of aggressive teasing between Megan and Lucía in Time 8 can be observed in example (29) below. Prior to line 1, Megan and Lucía had engaged in a mock argument about whose country was better (see excerpt [5] [“Spanish empire”] in chapter three). One of the playful insults that Lucía had mentioned in her mock disparagement of the US, was that George W. Bush was currently president, someone she knew that Megan despised. Topically relevant to the mention of former President Bush, Lucía remarked in line 1 of excerpt (29) that Bush’s Democratic rival in the 2000 election, Al Gore, had recently visited Spain. However, Lucía pronounced the name Al Gore with a Spanish accent, saying [al. ɣoɾ]. Megan’s clarification question in line 3 and her statement of lack of understanding in line 7—both framed as serious—as well as the pauses in lines 2 and 6, indicate that Megan had not understood the person mentioned by Lucía. After further negotiation in lines 8 and 9, Megan finally comprehended the referent and without hesitation began to tease Lucía about her Spanish pronunciation of the name Al Gore. In line 10, she provided the correct English pronunciation in an exaggerated fashion, lengthening the vowels. This utterance was followed in line 11 by mocking repetition of Lucía’s Spanish-accented pronunciation, marked

5 Case study 4: Megan 

 163

as playful through laughter and intonation. Then Megan briefly switched footing and took on a teacher role in lines 13 and 15, initiating a “repeat after me” routine, after which, the participants laughed together. Finally, Lucía code-switched to English saying “excuse me” in line 19, maintaining the playful frame while sarcastically apologizing for her error. Megan continued teasing in lines 21–23, at which point Lucía made a wordplay with the sound of two English names: Al and Alf (line 24). Megan laughed and repeated Lucía’s utterance, savoring the humor. Lucía’s wordplay shifted the topic at that point and the two began talking in a serious key about the television program Alf. While Lucía may have been insulted by Megan’s teasing about her accent, she did not display offense in the talk and at other times in the recorded conversation, as shown in excerpt (5) (“Spanish empire”) in chapter three, Lucía teased Megan with a similar level of aggression. Taking into account both the talk and Megan’s interview comment indicating that the two had a relationship in which aggressive humor was a routine part of their interaction, Megan’s mock impoliteness in excerpt (29) can be interpreted as a display of solidarity and intimacy between the two women. (29) “Al Gore”: Megan (M) and age peer Lucía (L) in Time 8 (week 12) 1

L:

2

um- vino:: Al Gore a España um- Al Gore came to Spain (1.5)

3

M: ¿qué? what?

4

L:

que ha venido Al Gore a España Al Gore came to Spain

5

¿te has enterado? did you hear?

6

(1.0)

7

M: yo no entiendo I don’t understand

8

L:

9

M: Al Gore? ((English pronunciation))

¿Al Gore? ((Spanish-accented pronunciation)) Al Gore?

10

A::l Go::re =  ((English pronunciation))

11

 = not Al Gore [@ @ ((Spanish-accented pronunciation))

12

L:

13

M: A::l = 

[@ oh @ @

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 4 Case studies of second language humor development

14

L:

15

M: Gore = 

16

L:

17

M: [@ @ @ @

18

L:

19 20

 = A::l ((repeating after Megan))  = Gore [@ @ @ excu[:::se me:: ((playfully))

M:

[es dos nombres [it’s two names

21

no es @ un @ nombre @ AlGore hhh it’s not @ one @ name @ AlGore hhh

22

A::l Gore

23

espacio (.) Al (.) espacio (.) Gore @ @ @ space (.) Al (.) space (.) Gore @ @ @

24

L:

25

M:

26

como Alf @ [@ @ like Alf @ [@ @ [@ @ @ como Alf, no @ [@ @ @ like Alf, no @ a::::[::h @ @ @ @ @ @ a:::: [::h @ @ @ @ @ @

27

L:

28

M: ¿recuerdas Alf? do you remember Alf?

29

[( … )

porque yo- también sí because I- also do

30

L:

31

M:

no @ [@ @ @ @ no @ [@ @ @ @ [sí:::: @ @ @ @ hh [yes:::: @ @ @ @ hh

32

me encanta Alf I love Alf

33

yo no sé dónde él está- (0.5) ahora I don’t know where he is- (0.5) now

34

L:

la Fox on Fox

5 Case study 4: Megan 

 165

Megan’s interview excerpt above and the talk data in Time 8 suggest that while Megan had reduced the level of hostility when teasing her host family by the end of the semester, she maintained an aggressive stance when teasing her age peer Lucía. This difference suggests that Megan had developed the ability to differentiate between a situation in which aggressive teasing was appropriate (i.e., with Lucía) and one in which it was not (i.e., with her host family), based on how each interlocutor reacted over time and the relationship that she developed with each person. This insight came about as a result of having the opportunity to socially interact with individuals of different ages and with different relationships to Megan, that is, her host family and a particular age peer with whom Megan felt that she shared a common style of humor. It is unclear from her journal and interview data whether Megan viewed the variation in appropriateness of aggressive teasing as negotiated locally, within each relationship, or whether she made broader generalizations about sociopragmatic variation, that is, that aggressive teasing may be more appropriate in relationships of lesser social distance or between age peers.

5.1.3 Revoicing Two final developments in Megan’s humor related to revoicing. As Table 18 indicates, Megan began the semester more frequently employing direct speech translated from English in her humor. The proportion of direct speech translated from English decreased over time from 22% to 7% with the host family and from 19% to 10% with Megan’s age peers and, concurrently, the proportion of direct speech revoiced from native speakers of Spanish generally increased over time from 4% to 11% with the host family and 4% to 10% with her age peers. Typically, direct speech from either language was used to jokingly ridicule the person who had presumably uttered the speech being revoiced by Megan, as shown in excerpt (8) (“I can’t promise”) in chapter three. This development is a reflection of Megan having come into contact with native speakers of Spanish during her stay in Toledo. At the beginning of the semester, having only had a few interactions with Spaniards and Spanish-speaking peers, most direct speech in Megan’s humor reproduced utterances attributed to family and friends back home in the US. By the end of the semester, Megan more frequently targeted native speakers of Spanish to joke about through direct speech such as a rude bus driver in Toledo, her host father, her Spanish boyfriend, and a professor at the Toledo institute. Finally, over time, Megan increased her use of pinning, which referred to incorporating a word or expression that a co-participant had produced in the immediately previous talk in order to tease that person (Priego-Valverde 2016). As shown in Table 18, this type of revoicing only appeared from Time 5 onward. The

Time 7 (Manuel)

Total

23

Total humor

17

1 4% 5 22%

Direct speech from Spanish speakers Direct speech translated from English Pinning 1 20% 1 20% 5

3 11% 2 7% 2 7% 27

4 6% 8 10% 3 4% 72 26

1 4% 5 19%

21

4 19% 2 10%

Time 4 (Camila)

Time 2 (Camila)

Time 5 (Manuel)

Time 1 (Isabel)

Time 3 (Isabel)

Age peer conversations

Host family conversations

Table 18: Revoicing in Megan’s interactions.

1 13% 8

Time 6 (Camila)

3 10% 21

2 10%

Time 8 (Lucía)

7 9% 7 9% 4 5% 76

Total

166   4 Case studies of second language humor development

5 Case study 4: Megan 

 167

excerpt in (30), taken from the Time 7 conversation between Megan and her host father, shows one example of pinning by Megan with her host father. Prior to line 1, the host father had been talking about different stages of life—childhood, adolescence, adulthood—and in (30), he employed the word época (‘period’) twice in lines 1 and 3. Throughout this segment, the host father was speaking in a serious key. In Megan’s tease in line 7, she strategically repeated the lexical item época in order to tease her host father about his grey hair, saying that now he was in la época de pelo blanco (‘the period of white hair’). Note that, although Manuel seemed to understand Megan’s joke, the word cana is used in Spanish for a gray hair. (30) “White hair”: Megan (M) and host father, Manuel (F), in Time 7 (week 11) hay que disfrutar (.) de cada época you have to enjoy (.) each period

1

F:

2

M: sí yes

3

F:

cada época tiene sus cosas divertidas each period has its fun things

4

de tal manera peroin such a way but-

5

hay que disfrutar de la vida you have to enjoy life

6

siempre- (.) lo mejor que se pueda always- (.) the best that you can

7

M: y ahora::: la época de pelo:: @ @ @ blanco @ and now::: the period of whi::te @ @ @ hair @

8

F:

@@

Through Megan’s use of the lexical item época, which repeats what had previously been spoken by the host father in a serious key, she turned that word around in play to tease him. Her use of pinning indicates that Megan not only incorporated the voices of people with whom she had interacted in Toledo, but that she also began to adopt linguistic resources from the immediate, local conversational environment and put them to use in her L2 humor. Humorously repeating the words or structures from another participant occurs in native speaker conversation as well (e.g., Priego-Valverde 2016), including Peninsular Spanish (e.g., Ruiz Gurillo 2012), but for L2 speakers in particular, repetition of prior discourse may provide a type of scaffolding, as the learner can build his or her humorous

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 4 Case studies of second language humor development

utterance on a word or structure that has already been provided (e.g., Davies 2003). Interestingly, few humorous utterances in either Megan’s or the other participants’ humor involved this type of revoicing, but the data suggest that Megan may have begun to make greater use of this resource for humor towards the end of her semester abroad. One possible reason for this development may be an increase in listening comprehension; to be able to repeat what was previously said, students had to be able to first understand and then hold in short-term memory a specific word or phrase from the prior talk. 5.2 Language socialization There was no evidence in the data—either in the talk data or in Megan’s journals or interview—that Megan was explicitly socialized regarding her use of humor. However, through participation in everyday conversation with her host family and her age peers, Megan was able to observe how her interlocutors reacted to her use of humor and make adjustments to her humor so as to avoid offense, in the case of teasing her host family. In that regard, there is evidence of implicit socialization with respect to Megan’s use of teasing. Aggressive teasing on Megan’s part was perceived by Megan as not well received by her host family and, as a result, she shifted in how she teased, to avoid causing additional tensions with her host family. In addition, her participation in social interactions during study abroad was key in the increase of direct speech from local Spaniards.

6 L2 humor development: Summary The analysis in this chapter provided a glimpse into ways in which four students adjusted their humor over time in the context of their relationships with their host families and age peers. Although there were some similarities among students, each participant largely followed his or her own developmental path. Chloe initiated humor more frequently over time, incorporated more cultural references from Spain into her humor, and decreased her use of US cultural references. Jared, on the other hand, teased his age peer and indexed shared knowledge in his teases with greater frequency by the end of the semester abroad. For both Kyle and Megan, humor was a central part of their identities and both joked around routinely. In Kyle’s data, failed humor decreased over time, as did the number of US cultural references, deadpan humor and interlingual wordplay were eliminated from Kyle’s repertoire, and the revoicing of Spanish dialects increased. For her part, Megan became less aggressive in teasing her host family, she increased

6 L2 humor development: Summary 

 169

her use of direct speech from Spanish speakers in her humor, and began to exploit the prior talk for humorous purposes through greater use of pinning. Key to understanding these changes over time were opportunities that the four students had to participate in everyday conversations in Spanish, to use humor in Spanish, to observe how their humor was received by their families and age peers, and to negotiate relationships with their interlocutors. Explicit socialization about humor was rare and found only in the case of one student (Kyle). With regard to the interpretation of these shifts over time in light of the theoretical framework of the study, the implications of these findings will be addressed in chapter six. Finally, in this chapter and the previous one, the focus was on the study abroad students. In the following chapter, however, attention will turn to the humor produced by students’ Spanish host families and age peers.

5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers 1 Introduction While the previous chapters focused on the humor produced by study abroad students, this chapter turns to the spontaneous verbal humor to which students were exposed in everyday conversations, that is, the humor produced by their host families and age peers. While the nature of the L2 input that learners receive during study abroad has been a central concern in the literature (e.g., DuFon and Churchill 2006; Kinginger 2009), no previous studies have considered the humor to which learners are exposed in that environment. This chapter addresses this issue by examining humorous utterances produced by the Spanish-speaking host families and age peers who engaged in everyday conversations with student participants. The following questions guide the analysis: How much and what types of humor did host families and age peers employ with students? In what ways were those humor types similar to those employed by students? Was their humor comprehensible to students? How did interlocutors position themselves and students through humor?

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers This section describes the frequency, success, targets, and the linguistic and paralinguistic resources of humor produced by students’ host families and age peers. Within the analysis, comparisons will be made between families and peers, as well as noting similarities and differences with the characteristics of students’ humor.

2.1  Humor frequency Just as students regularly used humor with their families and peers, families and peers also joked with students: host families produced 163 humorous utterances and age peers 222 for a total of 385 humorous utterances in 23 hours of talk data, as shown in Table 19. The amount of humor produced by each interlocutor varied, which could be due to various reasons. Some individuals were likely simply less disposed to joke around, but how they viewed the student, their relationship https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614518617-005

 171

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

Table 19: Total amount of humor produced by host families and age peers with each student.

Host family Age peer Total

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

4 83 87

30 55 85

62 28 90

55 29 84

3 17 20

Samantha

Total

9 10 19

163 222 385

with the student, and the student’s orientation to humor would also have been factors affecting each interlocutor’s use of humor. In the case of Chloe, Miranda, and Samantha, their host parents used humor infrequently, Jared’s host mother joked a moderate amount, whereas Kyle’s host family often joked around in their conversations, as did Megan’s host parents. Except for Kyle and Megan, the age peers of the other four students joked more frequently than did those students’ host families. Table  19 also indicates a considerable difference in the frequency of total humor used with Miranda (N = 20) and Samantha (N = 19) compared to the other four students, the latter of whom were exposed to approximately four times more humor than the former. For their part, Miranda and Samantha each joked with their interlocutors more than twice as frequently than the interlocutors joked with them. What may account for the low rate of humor by Miranda’s and Samantha’s interlocutors is that those two students were generally more talkative than their interlocutors and held the floor for extended turns. Finally, the majority of family members’ and peers’ humor functioned as a “bonding agent” (Chiaro 2013), that is, to show solidarity, affiliation, and an orientation to creating a harmonious and positive relationship with students. Comparing the total amount of humor produced by both parties (student and interlocutor) in the host family and age peer interactions, Table 20 indicates Table 20: Total humor produced by all participants (students and interlocutors). Chloe Host family conversations Student Family Total Age peer conversations Student Peer Total

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha Total

 11 (73%) 21 (41%)   4 (27%) 30 (59%)  15 51

19 (23%) 62 (77%) 81

 72 (57%) 39 (93%) 20 (69%)  55 (43%)  3 (7%)  9 (31%) 127 42 29

182 (53%) 163 (47%) 345

 31 (27%) 19 (26%)  83 (73%) 55 (74%) 114 74

66 (70%) 28 (30%) 94

 76 (72%) 12 (41%) 36 (78%)  29 (28%) 17 (59%) 10 (22%) 105 29 46

240 (52%) 222 (48%) 462

172 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

that, overall, students used humor slightly more frequently than their interlocutors. In the family conversations, a total of 345 humorous utterances were found and students were the source of 53% (N = 182); in the age peer interactions, there were 462 humorous utterances, 52% (N = 240) of which were created by students. Individually, however, there was wide variation in the comparative amount of humor. Some students employed humor considerably more than their interlocutors, such as Chloe and Miranda with their respective host families, Kyle with his age peer, and Samantha with both her family and her peer. In some cases, the amount of humor from each party was fairly equal, such as Jared and Megan with their families and Miranda and her age peer. The reverse was also true for some groups, that is, where the student used humor considerably less often: Chloe and Jared with their peers and Kyle with his host family. In Kyle’s case, his host father tended to dominate their conversations and,  consequently, he produced three times more humor than Kyle did with his family. Finally, the figures in Table 20 indicate that, overall, students and age peers produced more humor together than did students and their families, although that trend only held for four individuals (Chloe, Jared, Kyle, Samantha).

2.2  Successful and failed humor The majority of host families’ and age peers’ humor was successful at 96% overall (Table  21). In response to humor, students routinely laughed and sometimes extended the play by producing more humor. Excerpt (31) provides an example of a humor sequence in which both Samantha and her age peer, Luis, joked. Samantha had been recounting to Luis aspects of her trip to Amsterdam, one of which was that the night that she arrived in that city, she did not have a reservation at a youth hostel and, as a result, she decided to sleep on the floor at the airport. Samantha was the one to initiate the play frame, but Luis added humor Table 21: Successful and failed humor produced by host familis and age peers. Chloe Host family Successful Failed Age peer Successful Failed Total Successful Failed

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha Total

 4 (100%) 30 (100%) 56 (90%) 51 (93%)  3 (100%)  9 (100%) 153 (94%)  0  0  6 (10%)  4 (7%)  0  0  10 (6%) 83 (100%) 54 (98%)  0  1 (2%)

27 (96%) 26 (90%) 17 (100%) 10 (100%) 217 (98%)  1 (4%)  3 (10%)  0  0   5 (2%)

87 (100%) 84 (99%)  0  1 (1%)

81 (92%) 77 (92%) 20 (100%) 19 (100%) 368 (96%)  7 (8%)  7 (8%)  0  0  15 (4%)

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 173

in lines 19, 23, 25, and 26, joking about the uncomfortability of sleeping on the floor and using a high-pitched voice to perform what Samantha might have said upon waking up. In response to Luis’s humorous turns, Samantha laughed and commented on her situation in lines 20 and 22. (31) “Sleeping on the floor”: Samantha (S) and age peer Luis (L) in Time 8 (week 12) 1

S:

2

um llegó el avión a las once y media um the plane arrived at eleven thirty (...)

3

S:

y:: entonces eh- (.) y- yo @ @ exité @ a::l- a::l estación central de Ámsterdam a::nd then eh- (.) and- I @ @ exited @ to::- to:: the central station of Amsterdam

4

L:

sí yeah

5

S:

y:: y:: después de un minute- uno minuto↑ a::nd a::nd after one minute- one minute↑

6

mirando mirando mirando looking looking looking

7

y @ @ después hh um regresé al aeropuerto para dormir al suelo and @ @ after hh um I returned to the airport to sleep on the floor

8

L:

[@ @ @ @ @

9

S:

[@ @ @ @ @ @ (...)

10

L:

¿dormiste algo? did you get any sleep?

11

S:

encontré algunos (.) u:::::h algunos de- um personas I found some (.) u:::::h some of- um people

12

L:

@ @ [@ @ @

13

S:

[@ en- en un ba:::r @ [@ in- in a ba:::r @

14

en- en- e:n el aeropuerto in- in- i:n the airport

15

y:: bebí con- con ellos hasta las tres a::nd I drank with- with them until three

174 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

16

L:

@@@

17

S:

y después (...) @ @ @ and after (...) @ @ @

18

dormí al suelo @ @ @ I slept on the floor @ @ @

19

L:

¿dormiste bien? did you sleep well?

20

S:

sí [@ @ @ @ @ @ mu- mucho mejor @ yes [@ @ @ @ @ @ mu- much better @

21

L:

22

S:

@ ay, sí mu:cho mejor @ @ @ @ oh, yes mu:ch better @ @ @

23

L:

@ te levantaste @ así @ you woke up @ like this

24

S:

sí @ [@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yeah @ [

25

L:

[“buenos días” ((high-pitched voice)) [“good morning” [“buenos días, ¿qué tal?” ((high-pitched voice)) [“good morning, what’s up?”

26 27

[@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

S:

[@ sí, sí, sí @ @ @ @ @ @ [@ yes, yes, yes @ @ @ @ @ @

There were relatively few instances in the corpus where it was clear that host families’ and age peers’ humor had failed. As shown in Table 21, overall humor failed 4% of the time (N = 15), although the rate was higher for families (6%, N = 10) than for peers (2%, N = 5). Table 21 indicates, however, that most of the failed humor occurred in the interactions between Kyle and Megan and their respective families. For Kyle, five out of the six instances of failed humor produced by his host father and the one with his age peer were due to Kyle’s difficulties in understanding the talk. The sixth was the result of not understanding why what was said was funny. Lack of comprehension of the talk was the reason for all instances of failed humor for both Jared and Megan. Excerpt (32) provides an example of failed humor from Kyle’s interactions with his host father. The talk in (32) occurred while the participants were eating a meal and the beginning of this segment is a continuation of an exchange about the tenderness of the meat that they were eating. Kyle’s host father, Andrés, in

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

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typical fashion, positioned himself in the role of expert about Spanish language and culture, and in lines 1–4 and line 6 explained that the meat was veal, not beef, and that beef came from the cow, which is the mother of the calf. The smile intonation accompanying Andrés’ utterance in line 8 indicated that Andrés was being funny by saying la vaca para los leones (‘the cow to the lions’). It is possible that Kyle did not recognize Andrés’ turn as a humor attempt, since Kyle did not laugh or otherwise acknowledge the humor of line 8, producing only the continuer mhm. Since they were eating, Kyle may have not been looking at Andrés and, consequently, missed a non-verbal cue like smiling. As a result, Andrés gave a slightly more extended repetition in lines 9 and 11, again using a smile voice to signal a play frame. Upon continued lack of recognition by Kyle, Andrés explained once again in line 13 that an old cow no longer produces milk. In the following turn, Kyle’s misunderstanding becomes clear: he does not know the lexical item leones (‘lions’), asking about it in line 14 and saying ¿cómo? (‘what?’) in line 20 when his lack of comprehension was evident. Andrés went on to explain again and, apparently sensing that Kyle still did not understand, he used the English equivalent in line 32—one of the few instances of code-switching to English by a host parent in the corpus. Kyle seemed to then understand the lexical item leones, but at no point did he laugh or adopt the play frame and, after the last line of this excerpt, the participants moved on to another topic. Kyle’s host father regularly employed the sequence of a comprehension check and repetition for didactic purposes in both serious and playful talk, and the presence of this sequence in excerpt (32) is recognizable as an instance of that practice. However, in both serious and playful contexts, repetition by Kyle’s host father was not always successful in enhancing understanding and appeared to be based on habit, rather than on an ongoing assessment of Kyle’s listening comprehension at any given moment. Interestingly, while Andrés provided assistance to Kyle in understanding the lexical items of various instances of failed humor, he never provided support by explaining why the humor was funny or what the incongruity of the joke involved. (32) “Throw it to the lions”: Kyle (K) and host father Andrés (A) and host mother Pilar (P) in Time 1 (week 3) 1

A:

es lomo: y está:: blandito it’s loi:n and it’s:: tender

2

es lomo de:: de:: de ternera it’s loin o::f o::f of veal

3

el lomo lo llamáis vaca, ¿no? you guys call loin cow, right?

176 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

4

no, no, eso no se llama vaca porque es un ternero no, no, that’s not called cow because it’s a calf

5

K:

mhm mhm

6

A:

la vaca es la madre the cow is the mother

7

K:

@ @ sí @ @ yeah

8

F:

la vaca para los leones ((smile voice)) the cow to the lions cuando es vieja↑ when it’s old↑

9 10

K:

mhm mhm

11

A:

se la echa a los leones ((smile voice)) it’s thrown to the liones

12

K:

mhm mhm

13

A:

cuando es vieja ya no da leche ni da:: eso when it’s old it doesn’t produce milk nor gi::ves that

14

K:

¿se llaman *liones? they’re called *liones?

15

A:

@ @ no-

16

@ @ no-

17

K:

¿los hijos? the children?

18

A:

[no::: [no:::

19

P:

[no:: [no::

20

K:

¿cómo? what?

21

A:

se llaman terneros they’re called calves

22

K:

hm hm

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

23

P:

la vaca the cow

24

A:

la va:ca: que van a echar a los leones cuando es vieja the cow:: that they’re going to throw to the lions when it’s old

25

K:

hm hm

26

P:

@@@

27

A:

28

K:

cuando es vieja↑ when it’s old↑

29

A:

30

 177

ah: oh:

ya no vale ni para dar leche ni nada it’s no longer good for milking or anything la matan y la echan a los leones del circo they kill it and they throw it to the lions in the circus

31

K:

hm hm

32

A:

a lion

33

K:

mhm mhm

30

A:

león lion

31

K:

¿león? lion?

In (32), Kyle’s host father made an effort to scaffold his humor for Kyle by repeating the humor and negotiating the meaning of the trouble item, once he perceived that Kyle had not understood the humorous meaning. In some cases in the corpus, repetition of an element of the humorous utterance functioned as a way to “savor” the humor and prolong the amusement or to emphasize a humorous aspect. When humor failed, however, repetition had didactic intent, that is, the repetition was designed to enhance the comprehensibility of the humor for the benefit of the student. Both goals were likely operative in some instances. Another example in which it was clear that humor failed and in which repetition was used strategically by a host parent to make the talk comprehensible for the student came from an interaction between Megan and her host father in Time 7, shown in excerpt (33).

178 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

(33) “You do the work”: Megan (M) and host father Manuel (F) in Time 7 (week 11) 1

M:

no es mucho trabajo it’s not a lot of work

2

F:

ah como tú no lo tienes que hacer↑ ah since you don’t have to do it↑

3

te parece poco it seems like a little

4

M:

5

F:

6

hh he- (.) he dicho que yo puedo hacerlo pero [yo no sé cómo hh I- (.) I said that I can do it but [I don’t know how [@ @ @ ((exaggerated, false laughter)) @@@

7

M:

porque hay un sistema because there’s a system

8

F:

o sea que a partir de hoy↑ so that means that from today on↑

9

¿tú vas a hacer mi trabajo? you’re going to do my work?

10

(2.0)

11

M:

[sí [yeah

12

F:

[a ver [let’s see

13

¿cuánto dinero pides por hacerlo? how much money do you ask to do it? (...)

14

F:

15

y si a ti te sobra el tiempo (.) después de hacer lo de aquí and if you have extra time (.) after doing the stuff here vamos a casa de Cristina we’ll go to Cristina’s house

16

M:

sí yeah

17

F:

ella me paga a mí she pays me

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

18

@ @ tú haces el trabajo @ @ you do the work

19

¿vale? OK?

20

(1.0)

21

M:

¿qué? what?

22

F:

tch cuando tú termines de hacer mis cosa:s tch when you finish doing my thi:ngs

23

M:

sí yes

24

F:

lo que yo aquí lo haces tú, ¿vale? what I’m doing here you’ll do, OK?

25

M:

¿sí? yes?

26

F:

luego vamos a casa de Cristina then we go to Cristina’s house

27

M:

¿sí? yes?

28

F:

y tú haces más cosas ahí and you do more things there

29

M:

@ @ vale= @ @ OK=

30

F:

y Cristina me paga a mí and Cristina pays me

31

me paga dinero she pays me money

32

M:

¿paga: yo? she pay:s I?

33

F:

sí, pero tú trabajas yes, but you work

34

M:

@@@@

35

F:

¿vale? OK?

36

M:

vale OK

 179

180 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

The excerpt in (33) occurred in the kitchen after dinner and while Megan’s host father, Manuel, was tidying up and washing dishes. Manuel had indicated that he was almost finished with his chores, to which Megan responded in a serious key in line  1 that it wasn’t much work that he had had to complete. Later, in line 4, she flippantly said that she had offered to do the work herself, but did not know how. Manuel first responded with fake laughter to reject that Megan’s offer was sincere, but then shifted to a play frame in line 6 and initiated an extended sequence of teasing in which he pretended to be interested in hiring Megan to do his chores. Starting in line 15, Manuel jokingly offered Megan a deal in which she would do the cleaning for himself and a neighbor and his neighbor would pay him for Megan’s labor. It was clear in line  21 with Megan’s question ¿qué? (‘what?’) that Megan did not understand his humor. The host father then began to speak more slowly and repeated his joke. In was unclear whether, in the end, Megan understood, since her grammatically inaccurate clarification question in line 32 left the matter somewhat vague. In (32) and (33) the failure of the humor was clear from the ensuing discourse. However, there may have been instances in the corpus that were not analyzed as failed humor, but in which the humor had, indeed, failed. Successful humor was clear when the student either provided humor support or subsequently made a comment that demonstrated an understanding of the humorous prior talk. In cases in which students simply laughed at an interlocutor’s humor at the right moment—which was a perfectly appropriate move, interactionally speaking—it was not always possible to determine to what extent the humor had been comprehended and appreciated, even though the student had recognized that an attempt at humor had been made. Conducting retrospective interviews with students about their interpretation of humor may have provided additional insights (Bell 2015). Another episode of failed humor from Kyle’s host family interactions illustrates this point. At one point, Kyle’s host father told a canned joke—the only one in the corpus—and after the punchline, Kyle laughed, suggesting that he understood and appreciated the joke. Subsequently, his host mother said “no lo entiende” (‘he doesn’t understand it’), referring to Kyle, to which Kyle agreed by admitting that he did not understand the joke. However, had his host mother not questioned Kyle’s comprehension, Kyle’s laughter would have suggested that he got the joke. Kyle may have been motivated to laugh in a self-directed face-saving move to not admit his difficulty with listening comprehension or in an other-directed move to show appreciation of Andrés’s joke; he may have also been amused by Andrés’s spirited performance of the joke, even if he did not fully understand the meaning. While Kyle’s host father regularly positioned Kyle as needing assistance with his listening comprehension, both in playful and serious talk, the other

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 181

host families and age peers did not tend to over-explain their humor to students. Explanation of humor in other interactions tended to only occur when, as in excerpt (33) above, the student signaled a lack of understanding. With such explanations, however, speakers usually only explained the meanings of lexical items and in only a few cases did they provide an explanation of the scripts involved in creating the humor (see excerpt [51] below).

2.3  Humor target The targets toward which host families and age peers directed their humor included: joking about oneself (self-deprecating, self-praise), joking about an absent person, joking about an inanimate entity (e.g., object, situation, institution), and a co-participant (i.e., teasing). Two instances of wordplay with no target occurred in the corpus. Figure  7 shows the relative frequency with which each student’s interlocutors directed their humor at a particular target. Teasing was the most frequent genre, making up 37% (N = 143) of the total. Teasing was followed by joking about an absent other (22%, N = 84), joking about a thing (19%, N = 72), and, finally, self-deprecating joking (14%, N = 52), and joking self-praise (8%, N = 31). There was wide variation in the degree to which students’ interlocutors employed each target. For example, whereas 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Chloe’s Jared’s Kyle’s Megan’s Miranda’s Samantha’s interlocutors interlocutors interlocutors interlocutors interlocutors interlocutors

Total

Joking (self-deprecating)

Joking (self-praise)

Joking (absent-other)

Joking (thing)

Teasing

No target

Figure 7: Relative frequency of all interlocutors’ use of humor targets.

182 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

Megan’s interlocutors engaged in a considerable amount of teasing, Chloe’s and Miranda’s did not. Similarly, Kyle’s interlocutors produced the greatest proportion of joking self-praise, while Miranda’s interlocutors used self-deprecating humor more often than the others. Looking at each interlocutor group separately, Figures 8 and 9, respectively, provide the relative frequencies of humor targets for students’ host families and age peers. One aspect that stands out is the relative amount of teasing that was produced by the host families compared to the age peers. Overall, teasing made up 56% (N = 91) of the families’ humor, but some families teased considerably more than others. Kyle’s family (48%, N = 30) and Megan’s family (78%, N = 43) in particular, teased regularly. While teasing represented a minimum relative frequency of 33% in all host families’ humor, the actual number of teases in Chloe’s (N = 2), Miranda’s (N = 1), and Samantha’s (N = 3) families were low because those families employed humor infrequently with students. Regarding age peers, the overall amount of teasing was half that of the families (24%, N = 52). Some peers teased relatively little, such as Chloe’s (8%, N = 7), Kyle’s (11%, N = 3), and Miranda’s (12%, N = 2) peers, whereas some displayed a greater relative frequency of teasing: Jared’s peers (35%, N = 19), Megan’s peers (55%, N = 16), and Samantha’s peer (50%, N = 5). Although there was individual variation, teasing was generally more prevalent in host families’ humor, compared to age peers. Whereas teasing made 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Chloe’s family

Jared’s family

Kyle’s family

Megan’s family

Miranda’s family

Samantha’s family

Total

Joking (self-deprecating)

Joking (self-praise)

Joking (absent-other)

Joking (thing)

Teasing

No target

Figure 8: Relative frequency of host families’ use of humor targets.

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 183

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Chloe’s peer

Jared’s peer

Kyle’s peer

Megan’s peer

Miranda’s peer

Samantha’s peer

Total

Joking (self-deprecating)

Joking (self-praise)

Joking (absent-other)

Joking (thing)

Teasing

No target

Figure 9: Relative frequency of age peers’ use of humor targets.

up 33–78% of each family’s humor, the range of relative frequency of teasing was considerably lower in age peers (8–55%). Apart from teasing, the other humor targets were more or less frequent depending on the person, but overall, self-deprecating humor was employed more than twice as much by the age peers (18%, N = 40) compared to the families (7%, N = 12). Further, peers of four of the students employed self-deprecating humor relatively more often than the respective families of those students. The following sections will take a closer look at joking about oneself, an absent other, and teasing. This analysis has the goal of revealing how students’ interlocutors used these types of humor, in what discursive environments they occurred, the functions that humor served, and how interlocutors positioned themselves and students.

2.3.1 Joking about oneself Host families and age peers joked about themselves in both a more negative and a more positive light. When participants used self-deprecating humor, however, they did not engage in self-disparagement reflective of low self-esteem, but rather, they poked fun at themselves for perceived shortcomings that were, in the end, presented by speakers as only minor problems. As discussed in chapter three,

184 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

Table 22: Topics of self-deprecatory humor produced by host families and age peers. Host families

Age peers

– Having a bad week (María Teresa) – Sometimes has a bad temper (Andrés) – Never learned to ride a bike (Andrés) – Getting old (Carmen) – Has a bad memory (Carmen) – Was a naughty kid (Isabel) – Getting fat (Manuel)

– Bad L2 pronunciation (Marta) – Too lazy to do many sports (Marta) – Picked a bad boyfriend (Verónica) – Did poorly on a test (Verónica) – She was short and young for her grade (Paola) – Did not plan ahead for a trip (Luis) – Does very little work at his job (Luis) – Has a bad memory (Camila)

self-deprecating humor can be a means for speakers to present a positive image of self, as individuals who have a good sense of humor and do not take themselves and their own problems too seriously (e.g., Kotthoff 1999). Table  22 provides a sampling of the topics of self-deprecatory humor produced by families and peers. As suggested by Table 22, host families and age peers highlighted aspects about themselves that were relatively minor and some of which were out of their control (e.g., getting old, being short). The discursive environment for self-deprecating humor was typically after a perceived problem, shortcoming, hurdle, or negative characteristic about oneself came to light in the talk, either introduced by the speaker or by a co-participant. This context included misspeaking, such as when Samantha’s host mother thought it was Thursday instead of Tuesday, she joked that she was having a bad week and was ready for it to end. Another environment was providing an excuse for an opinion or past behavior, as when Miranda asked Marta if she liked to ski, to which the latter replied that she did not and joked that she was too lazy to participate in sports that required a lot of specialized equipment. The following excerpt in (34) shows an example of self-deprecatory humor produced by Marta, Miranda’s age peer, who was, in fact, the most frequent speaker to use this type of humor. Prior to line  1, Marta had told Miranda that later that day she would go shopping for a car, but was not sure which make and model to purchase. The two were discussing different car companies and, in line 1, Marta asserted that people always said that German and Japanese cars were the best. Miranda agreed and added that Volvos were also good. Marta revealed that she had wanted to buy a Volvo, but joked in line 15 that she could not afford it. In joking about the brand that she wanted being financially out of reach, Marta presented the problem of the lack of funds as something that she did not take very seriously.

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 185

(34) “I wanted a Volvo”: Miranda (M) and age peer Marta (T) in Time 6 (week 10) 1

T:

siempre decimos que los mejores son- los alemanes y los japoneses we always say that the best are- the German and the Japanese

2

M:

sí yes

3

T:

@@

4

M:

los um Volvos también [sonthe um Volvos also [are-

5

T:

6

M:

7

T:

8

M:

duración larga long time

9

T:

sí: y una carrocería muy: resistente yea:h and a very: resistent frame

10

M:

sí yes

11

T:

los Volvos son alemanes, ¿no? Volvos are German, right?

12

M:

sí, pienso que sí= yeah, I think so=

13

T:

=sí =yes

[ay, sí: [oh, ye:s es un buen coche con [unait’s a good car with [a[es:: una carrocería:: [it’s:: a fra::me

14

me quería- un Volvo me quería comprar I wanted- I wanted to buy a Volvo

15

son muy caros @ @ [@ no- no puedo @ @ @ @ they’re really expensive @ @ [@ I can’t- I can’t @ @ @ @

16

M:

[sí @ @ [yeah @ @

186 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

Table 23: Topics of self-praise humor produced by host families and age peers. Host families

Age peers

– Looked beautiful (María Teresa) – Was good at camping (María Teresa) – Knew more Spanish history than many professors (Andrés) – Was a good cook (Andrés) – Was learning English quickly (Carmen)

– Able to talk really fast (Paola) – Good student (Paola) – Looked beautiful (Lucía) – Braved the rain to go clubbing (Verónica) – Could handle alcohol well (Laura)

Conversely, humor about oneself that highlighted a positive characteristic was termed joking self-praise. As mentioned previously, self-praise humor was fairly infrequent and not all family members and peers employed it. In total, three host parents and four age peers used humorous self-praise, but only three of those individuals employed this type of humor with some frequency: Kyle’s age peer, Paola (43%, N = 12), Kyle’s host father, Andrés (11%, N = 7), and Samantha’s host mother, María Teresa (33%, N = 3). In terms of self-praise topics, Table  23 provides examples from the corpus from various people. As shown, families and peers made jokes about their skills, their knowledge, their fortitude, and, in the case of two female participants, their physical appearance, among other topics. There were various discursive environments and functions for humorous self-praise. First, there were two instances when joking self-praise appeared to be a means to elicit a compliment from the hearer, both of which were produced by host mothers (Carmen, María Teresa). Carmen’s joking self-praise is shown in excerpt (35). The audio-recorder had just been turned on and line 1 was the opening of the recorded conversation. Jared and Carmen were beginning to eat their dinner, which had been cooked by Carmen. Carmen joked in line 2, with playfully dramatic intonation, that it was a shame that the audio-recorder could not smell the dinner. At first Jared did not understand, but after Carmen repeated her previous turn, he aligned with her by producing an agreement expression (estoy de acuerdo, ‘I agree’), laughing, and then saying that the audio-recorder should smell the meal. After negotiating the words oler (‘to smell’) and olor (‘smell’), Jared complimented the good smell of dinner in line 14. In joking about the pleasant aroma, Carmen was highlighting a positive aspect of herself, namely, being a good cook. But rather than directly asking if Jared liked the food, she employed humor as a more witty and off-the-record means to elicit his opinion of her cooking.

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 187

(35) “Machines that can smell”: Jared (J) and host mother Carmen (C) in Time 1 (week 3) 1

J:

@ voy a hablar con la boca llena @ I’m going to talk with my mouth full

2

C:

es una pena que no tenga- (.) para oler la cena it’s a shame that it doesn’t have- (.) anything to smell the dinner

3

J:

¿para qué? for what?

4

C:

que no tenga para poder olerla= that it doesn’t have anything to be able to smell it=

5

J:

=oh sí, sí =oh yes, yes

6

estoy de acuerdo I agree

7

T:

este grabador debe- (.) @ @ debe (.) oler (.) estethis recorder should- (.) @ @ should (.) smell (.) this-

8

C:

tiene quelong time

9

J:

¿este ole? this *ole?

10

C:

oler to smell

11

J:

oh- [no- nooh- [no- no

12

C:

13

J:

14

[este olor [this smell o- olor s- smell muy bueno very good

Another environment for joking self-praise was upgrading a compliment, which was observed in two female speakers, Jared’s host mother (Carmen) and Megan’s age peer (Lucía). The latter is shown in excerpt (36) below. Megan and Lucía were chatting and it seems that Lucía was fixing her make-up or checking her appearance in a mirror, because Megan said qué guapa eres (‘you’re so pretty’),

188 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

in a genuine, not a mocking way, to which Lucía responded sí, es verdad (‘yes, it’s true’) in a playful but not an ironic tone, humorously upgrading Megan’s compliment. (36) “You’re so pretty”: Megan (M) and age peer Lucía (L) in Time 8 (week 12) 1

M:

ah::: qué guapa eres oh::: you’re so pretty

2

L:

sí, es verdad @ @ yes, it’s true @ @

3

M:

sí, verdad yes, true

Finally, the most common use of joking self-praise was to present oneself as superior to others. In some cases, joking self-praise occurred sequentially after someone else’s shortcoming was mentioned, such that the self-praise positioned the speaker in contrast to another. Joking self-praise was in every instance contextualized as playful through intonation and, in some cases, also through exaggeration of the personal qualities being praised. In (37), Kyle’s host father, Andrés, had been describing aspects of the history of Spain going back to the Middle Ages. When Kyle asked about the location of an historically important city, the topic shifted to the geography of Spain. Andrés asserted that Spaniards’ knowledge of geography declined after the Franco dictatorship, when democracy was restored in Spain (lines 1–10). Kyle aligned, in part, with Andrés’ perspective by commenting in lines 13, 15, 18, and 23 that many US Americans were also deficient in knowledge of geography. In his immediately subsequent turn (lines 24–25), Andrés joked that he knew more than some professors, using playful intonation and hyperbole to position himself as superior to professors, a presumably erudite group. Given Andrés’ strong association with rightwing politics, this positioning may have had ideological overtones related to a rejection of professors who were considered part of the liberal elite. (37) “They don’t know as much as me”: Kyle (K) and host father Andrés (A) in Time 7 (week 11) 1

A:

y hoy- actualmente los niños no saben and today- currently children don’t know

2

K:

¿sí? really?

3

A:

ni los límites de España no los saben not the borders of Spain they don’t know them

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

4

ni los ríos de España tampoco los [saben mis hijos not the rivers of Spain my chilren also don’t [know them

5

K:

6

A:

7

[¿sí? [really? nosotros↑ we↑

en tiempo de franquismo in Franco’s time

8

e:: los sabíamos todos eh:: we knew them all

9

K:

¿sí? really?

10

A:

eso, todo that, everything

11

K:

12

A:

pues la:: (.) la geografía↑ well the:: (.) geography↑

13

K:

es @ @ (.) es una cosa que los estadounidenses no saben it’s @ @ (.) it’s a thing that Americans don’t know almost casi nada anything about

14

A:

claro right

15

K:

creo que hay mu::chos muchos mexica- uh perdón I think that there are ma::ny many Mexica- uh sorry

16

hh mericanos [quehh ‘mericans [that-

17

A:

18

K:

19

hm hm

[americanos [Americans americanos- estadounidenses que no se pueden nombrar los (.) Americans- Americans that cannot name the (.) cincuenta estados fifty states de lo [EEUU of the [US

 189

190 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

20

A:

[no los saben [they don’t know them

21

K:

sí yes

22

A:

hh nohh no-

23

K:

seguramente hay (.) [un montón surely there are (.) [a ton

24

A:

[aquí↑ [here↑

aquí hay profesores que no saben lo que yo here there are professors that don’t know what I know

25 26

K:

27

A:

28

K:

¿sí? @ [@ really? @ [@ [@ @ @ sí yes

Similarly, Paola employed joking self-praise several times in relation to an incident in class in which she had spoken extremely fast in Spanish. In their Time 4 interaction, Kyle and Paola discussed presentations for a class in which both were enrolled. Paola had explained to Kyle that, because time was running out, the professor had asked her to give her presentation quickly. But, as a result, the other students had a difficult time understanding what she said, as Paola described in line 1. Kyle confirmed in lines 3–6 that the only reason that he understood was because he was reading her presentation notes on the screen. Paola attributed her fast speech to being Puerto Rican. In line 15, Kyle contrasted himself with Paola, saying he would not be able to speak so fast in his native language, English. After that, in lines 19 and 23, Paola joked that it was an ability and a virtue that she possessed. The sequence shown in (38) is just a portion of the talk about this topic, from which it was evident that Paola viewed speaking fast as something positive, perhaps demonstrating how quickly she could think as well as representing an outward sign of her identity as Puerto Rican, of which she was clearly proud. (38) “It’s an ability that I have”: Kyle (K) and age peer Paola (P) in Time 4 (week 7) 1

P:

nadie pudo entender lo que yo dije nobody could understand what I said

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

2 3

¿tú lo entendiste? did you understand it? K:

más @ o @ menos more @ or @ less

4

yo porque: yo estaba leyendo me becau:se I was reading

5

sí no, no podía if not, I couldn’t

6

[de verdad (.) de verdad que no [true (.) true that I couldn’t

7

P:

8 9

[@ @ así hablamos en Puerto Rico we talk like that in Puerto Rico

K:

@ (.) chacha hhh @ (.) girl hhh (...)

10

P:

11 12

pues sí pues sí hablo así well yes well yes I talk like that K:

13 14

pero así yo hablo but that’s how I talk

pues- creo que tú no puedes hablar despacio well- I think that you can’t speak slowly es imposible it’s impossible

P:

mhm mhm (...)

15

K:

yo creo que no puedo hablar en inglés tan rápido I think that I can’t speak in English so quickly

16

P:

¿uh huh? uh huh?

17

K:

no, creo que no no, I don’t think so

18

no puedo I can’t

 191

192 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

19

P:

es una habilidad que yo tengo ((playfully)) it’s an ability that I have

20

K:

@ @ @ hh ¿sí? @ @ @ hh yes?

21

P:

sí yes

22

K:

un regalo @ @ a gift @ @

23

P:

es una virtud @ @ @ @ it’s a virtue @ @ @ @

24

K:

@@@@

25

pues (.) me alegro de que las presentaciones están acabadas well (.) I’m happy that the presentations are finished

2.3.2 Joking about an absent other Poking fun at a person who was not present in the interaction was the second most frequent humor target, representing 22% of the total humor (N = 84) and showed a similar proportion in both the family and peer interactions. Host families and age peers joked about people from their own lives, such as family, friends, and co-workers, but also, as a form of humor support, they joked about people who were unknown to them personally, but who had been described by students. Samantha’s age peer, Ana, for instance, used humor to align with Samantha when the latter joked about her teenage Spanish host sister being a little difficult to approach. In (39), Samantha had been telling her age peer about both her biological and her host family and, in line 1, mentioned her teenage host sister. After negotiating whether this was the real or host sister, Ana asked how things were going in line 5. Samantha responded that her host sister was nice, but that because of her age she was always fighting with her parents and she did not usually seem to want to talk to Samantha. Ana agreed that being a teenager probably explained the sister’s behavior. Samantha seemed to have difficulty expressing how she perceived her host sister (lines  17, 19, and 22) and so used direct speech to reproduce things that her host sister might have said such as “no me gusta el mundo” (‘I don’t like the world’) in line 27. Although Ana did not know the teenager personally, she joked about Samantha’s host sister in line 28 to show alignment with Samantha, producing a similar locution “el mundo es una mierda” (‘the world sucks’) and also employing direct speech. Through this shared humor, Ana cast herself and Samantha as an in-group of young women

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 193

who had already left their teenage years behind and could comment and poke fun about what teenagers are like. The establishment of an in-group through mocking another is one way that participants can bond (e.g., Boxer and CortésConde 1997). (39) “It’s the age”: Samantha (S) and age peer Ana (A) in Time 2 (week 5) 1

S:

tengo una- hermana también que tiene quince años I have a- sister too that is fifteen years old

2

A:

¿aquí o ahí? here or there?

3

S:

aquí here

4

(…)

5

A:

[¿y qué tal? [and how is it?

6

S:

um um

7

(0.5

8

A:

¿bien? good?

9

S:

muy simpática very friendly

10

pero: (0.5) um (.) creo que (0.6) es el edad (.) el- el edad cuandobu:t (0.5) um (.) I think that (0.6) it’s the age (.) the- the age when-

11

A:

un poco complicada un little complicated

12

S:

sí:: yeah::

13

A:

sí= yes=

14

S:

=y: y todo- todo el tiempo está- está gritando con:: las padre::s =a:nd and all- all the time she’s- she’s yelling wi::th the pare::nts y:: a::nd

15

A:

[es la edad [it’s her age

194 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

16

S:

[entonces[so(...)

17

S:

pero en pocos ve:ce::s um yo:: me- me siento que um but in few ti:mes:: um I:: I- I feel that um

18

(0.5)

19

tch (.) [que:::: no:: uh- no debe::: hablar con ella tch (.) [tha::::t I should no::t uh- I shou:::dn’t talk with her

20

A:

21

[que ya[that alreadyhm hm

22

S:

porque (.) es un poquito because (.) it’s a little

23

A:

hm @ @ @ @ hm @ @ @ @

24

S:

¿sabes? @ @ you know? @ @

25

A:

es la edad yo creo= it’s her age I think=

26

S:

=“no quiero hablar- con nadie” @ @ ((high-pitched, angry teenage voice)) =“I don’t want to talk- to anyone” @ @

27

“no me gusta el mundo” ¿sabes? @ [@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “I don’t like the world” you know? @ [@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

28

A:

29

S:

[“el mundo es una mierda” @ @ [“the world sucks” @ @ @ sí @ @ @ @ @

Joking about an absent other also served to criticize another person and, through that negative evaluation, express one’s own attitudes and values. An example was discussed in chapter four, in which Kyle’s host father made fun of the Mexican Spanish spoken by an acquaintance of Kyle’s, presenting that dialect as inferior or invalid compared to Peninsular Spanish. That episode likely also served a didactic purpose from the host father’s perspective, namely, to reveal to Kyle an ideology about which Spanish varieties were valued and which were not. In another instance, Jared’s host mother gave a lengthy description of how little time her daughter used to have during a certain period when she was both studying and

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 195

working at the same time, however, Carmen joked that despite her busy schedule, somehow her daughter did find time to go to clubs: “pero iba a discotecas, para eso sí tenía tiempo” (‘but she went to dance clubs, for that she had time’).

2.3.3 Teasing Regarding humor in which the target was a co-participant, namely, the student, a total of 143 teases were found, which made up 37% of the total humor produced by host families and peers. In some cases, teasing involved just a single utterance, whereas in others, teasing occurred in sequences of two or more teases related to the same theme. Table 24 shows the total number of teases that were directed at each student. The data in Table 24 indicate that there was wide variation in the amount of teasing in which host families and age peers engaged: Chloe, Miranda, and Samantha were teased fairly infrequently by their families and peers, compared to the other three students. Two students were teased more often by their host families, while four were more often teased by their peers. Although the total amount of teasing was considerably higher for the host families (N = 91) than the peers (N = 52), the majority of the host family teasing was produced by just Kyle’s and Megan’s host parents, where teasing was a routine activity. Another characteristic of families’ and peers’ teasing is that, while it increased over time for several individuals, it did not increase in the group as a whole. Moreover, two peers and three host parents produced 37 teases (26% of the total teases) in the first two recordings (Times 1 and 2), meaning that teasing was found early in their relationship with the student for some individuals. As Drew (1987) described, teasing is a response to a prior utterance. In the corpus, host families and age peers teased students for something in the prior talk. Similar to what Drew found, many teases in the data were in reaction to a student’s action or assertion that was perceived as “overdone” in some way; examples included students engaged in excessive complaining, overly dramatic assertions, bragging, and being too serious, among others. Additional environments in which teasing occurred include learners’ slips of the tongue, illogical assertions, and violations of social or linguistic norms. More broadly, teasing Table 24: Frequency of teasing in which the student was the target of the tease.

Host family Age peer Total

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

2 7 9

12 19 31

30 3 33

43 16 59

1 2 3

3 5 8

91 52 143

196 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

occurred after some shortcoming was revealed, as shown in excerpt (40) below, which was taken from a conversation between Jared and his host mother, Carmen, in Time 3. Jared had been discussing the upcoming visit of his biological mother and sister with Carmen in this part of the conversation. Upon asking Jared what time they would arrive in Madrid (line 1), Jared began to respond and realized that he could not remember, laughing at himself at the end of his turn in line 2. This turn was followed by an error correction by Carmen in line 3 that Jared did not address. Carmen continued to prompt him to remember the time (lines 6, 7, 9), but all that Jared could remember was that it was on a Friday. In response to this perceived shortcoming on Jared’s part, Carmen playfully teased him in lines 14 and 17 about not being able to remember and having “una cabeza peor que yo” (‘a worse head than I do’). (40) “They come on Friday”: Jared (J) and host mother Carmen (C) in Time 3 (week 6) 1

C:

¿a qué hora llegan? what time do they arrive?

2

J:

u::m tch (.) e::n la:: no- no recuerdo @ @ @ u::m tch (.) i::n the:: no- I don’t remember @ @ @

3

C:

‘en’ no, ‘a’ ((error correction)) ‘en’ no, ‘a’

4

(1.3)

5

J:

yo no recuerdoI don’t remember-

6

C:

no lo recuerdas pero pueden llegar a las diezyou don’t remember but they can arrive at ten-

7

¿llegan por la mañana por la tarde por la noche? do they arrive in the morning in the afternoon in the evening?

8

J:

no, no- no recuerdo @ @ no, I don’t- I don’t remember @ @

9

C:

¿no recuerdas? you don’t remember?

10

J:

@@

11

pero es viernes but it’s Friday

12

C:

@@

13

J:

@

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

14

C:

¿sólo recuerdas que vienen el viernes? you only remember that they come on Friday?

15

J:

sí sí

16

 197

yes yes

17

C:

tienes una cabeza peor que yo you have a head worse than I do

18

J:

sí: yeah:

19

tengo el horario e::n eh es que yo- yo creo que nunca heI have the schedule i::n eh it’s that I- I think that I never have(1.2) ¿he: sabido? (1.2) have known?

There were a variety of topics about which students were teased including food preferences and eating habits (Kyle), study skills and grades (Jared, Kyle, Megan), not speaking enough Spanish (Megan), having to stay in an airport overnight (Samantha), sleeping too much (Jared), gaining weight (Kyle), asking a silly question (Chloe), not making time to meet more with her language partner (Miranda), among others. While the teasing generally targeted characteristics unique to each individual student, one particular teasing topic was found in five of the six students’ data: teases in which the topic was learners’ L2 non-target-like use, L2 misunderstanding, or L2 abilities occurred in a total of 27 individual teases in the corpus (19%). As will be evident in the examples below, some of those teases occurred in sequences. Table 25 shows the distribution of these individual teases by student and interlocutor. As with the overall amount of teasing that each participant received, the total number of teases concerning L2 non-target-like use, misunderstanding, or ability Table 25: Frequency of individual teases about L2 non-target-like use, L2 misunderstanding, or L2 ability. Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Host family

1/2 (50%)

4/12 (33%)

8/30 (27%)

8/43 (19%)

Age peer

3/7 (43%)

1/19 (5%)

Total number of teases

4/9 (44%)

5/31 (16%)

8/33 (24%)

8/59 (14%)

Miranda

0/3 (0%)

Samantha

Total

1/3 (33%)

22/91 (24%)

1/5 (20%)

5/52 (10%)

2/8 (25%)

27/143 (19%)

198 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

varied according to the individual, making up a range of 0–44% of each learner’s total amount of teasing. As the totals in Table 25 indicate, there was twice as much L2-related teasing, relatively speaking, in the host family interactions compared to the age peer interactions. Further, the host families produced a relatively greater amount of L2-related teasing in the case of five students (although the raw numbers were higher for only Jared, Kyle, and Megan). Overall, L2-related teasing was found more than twice as often, in terms of relative frequency, in the family interactions (24%, N = 22) compared to peers (10%, N = 5). Hence, these data suggest that students’ status and behavior as L2 speakers was a relevant teasing topic for both host families and age peers, but was more often oriented to through teasing on the part of families. There were two primary environments for L2-related teasing: (1) L2 non-targetlike use or L2 misunderstanding in an immediately prior utterance and (2) some aspect of the student’s L2 ability was perceived as relevant to the content in previous talk. One example of a third environment for also occurred: Kyle was teased because his host father employed a perceived non-target-like L2 form, which was attributed to Kyle’s non-target-like use in previous interactions rubbing off on his father. Examples of the first environment for teasing included the following: Samantha produced a metathesis involving the noun phrase Semana Santa (‘Holy Week’), saying Semanta Sana by accident, for which she was teased by her host mother; Kyle mistakingly heard the phrase la elección nacional (‘the national election’) instead of la selección nacional (‘The national [soccer] team’), for which his host father teased him; and, finally, Jared made an error concerning the grammatical gender of the indefinite article, saying un clase (‘a class’) instead of una clase, for which his host mother teased him because they had just discussed the issue of Jared making gender morphology errors and he made an error again. An additional example of the first environment is provided in excerpt (41) below. (41) “I eat I ate”: Chloe (C) and host mother Eugenia (E) in Time 1 (week 3) 1

C:

2

3

E:

queremos comer paella pero- no podemos um encontrar lawe want to eat paella but- we can’t um find theel restaurante↑ the restaurant↑ y tene- y comemos (.) comimos en un restaurante: que and we hav- and we eat (.) we ate in a restaura:nt that (.) más o menos tenía tapas↑ (.) more or less had tapas↑

m: m:

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

4

C:

y no recuerdo qué comer qué como- comí ((in rapid succession)) and I don’t remember what to eat @ what I eat- I ate

5

E:

es- es comí ((amused tone)) it’s- it’s I ate

6

C:

comí [@ @ @ I ate [@ @ @

7

E:

[@ @ @ @ @ comí @ @ @ I ate @ @ @

8 9

 199

C:

y este fin de semana um

Chloe was telling her host mother about an excursion to Madrid in (41) and in lines  1, 2, and 4, she repeatedly made grammatical errors and self-corrected several of them. In line 1, Chloe self-corrected her use of the definite article la, changing it to the correct form, el. Further, Chloe was talking in the past time frame in line  1, but did not mark her verbs with past tense morphology, using the present tense instead (i.e., queremos [‘we want’], no podemos [‘we can’t’]). She continued doing the same in line 2, but after saying comemos (‘we eat’), she did a self-correction and produced the correct form comimos (‘we ate’). In line 4, Chloe’s turn immediately prior to Eugenia’s tease, Chloe again self-corrected her verb usage, but this time she did two corrections in rapid succession, saying qué comer qué como- comí (‘what to eat what I eat- I ate’). It was likely this sequence of self-corrections and the rapid-fire verb forms in line 4 that prompted Eugenia to say in an amused tone in line  5 es comí (‘it’s I ate’), playfully teasing Chloe about her L2 verb difficulties. Most of the time, host families and age peers oriented to L2 errors or difficulties in a serious rather than playful frame. It was only in times like (41) when there was something particularly funny about the L2 non-native-like use or L2 misunderstanding that teasing occurred in response. In (41), it was Chloe’s use of one verb after another to try to find the correct one, while in Samantha’s Semanta Sana mistake, the resulting metathesis was perceived as funny sounding. Teasing about linguistic errors or slips of the tongue is not limited to L2 speakers and also occurs in native speaker interaction (e.g., Norrick 1993; Ruiz Gurillo 2012). With regard to the second environment, the content of the previous talk was viewed by the family or peer as relevant to L2 ability. In some cases, L2 learning or use was the topic of the conversation prior to the teasing, but in others it was not. Examples included teasing about how the student’s L2 pronunciation likely caused a misunderstanding on the bus (Megan), L2 ability diminished without practice (Jared, Megan), professors had to speak the L2 slowly for their students’

200 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

benefit (Jared), and L2 competency was limited to botellón (‘street party’) Spanish (Megan). Another example is shown in (42), which is an excerpt from the Time 7 interaction between Megan and her host father. In the closing days of the semester abroad, Megan had been discussing her interest in finding a job related to Spanish once she got home, since she felt that speaking Spanish gave her a competitive edge in the US. In (42), Megan talked about loving to speak Spanish in the US (lines 4 and 7–9) in Spanish class and with other L2 speakers. This assertion was funny to Manuel (lines  6 and 10) because earlier in the conversation Megan had said that during a weekend away with American friends, they spoke a lot of English. She clarified that the other US-based study abroad students did not make the effort to speak Spanish with her, even though she tried to speak Spanish with them (lines 12, 17, 22, 23). Despite some difficulties, Megan felt that her Spanish listening comprehension had improved, even if her speaking was still problematic (lines  28–30 and 33–35). In response, Manuel teased playfully that if she needed to demonstrate her L2 ability, she should just get angry—the implication being that she spoke Spanish better when she was angry. (42) “Speak Spanish when you’re angry”: Megan (M) and host father Manuel (F) in Time 7 (week 11) 1

M:

2

quiero- trabajar en español porque:: (.) uh porque mis amigasI want- to work in Spanish becau::se (.) uh because my girlfriendsy amigos and guy friends no saben cómo hablar en español ydon’t know how to speak in Spanish and-

3

F:

@

4

M:

me encanta hablar en español I love to speak in Spanish

5

y: (.) aquí (.) [no:: a:nd (.) here (.) [I do::n’t

6

F:

[eso es muy interesante [that’s very interesting

7

M:

no hablamos pero ahí cuando estoy en la- en mi- clase↑ we don’t speak but there when I’m in the- in my- class↑

8 9

o: hh con una amiga quien puede hablar español o:r hh with a friend that can speak Spanish hh ahí (.) uh hablamos en español- l- todo el día hh there (.) uh we speak in Spanish- l- all day

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

10

F:

11

M:

 201

@ [@ @ [pero aquí↑ [but here↑

yo no sé qué pasó pero- a veces yo:: probaba::: ↑ I don’t know what happened but- sometimes I:: trie:::d↑

12 13

tch uh este [fin de setch uh this [weeken-

14

F:

15

M:

tch uh sí tch uh yes

16

F:

¿sí? @ @= yes? @ @=

17

M:

=este semana fue muy dura (.) para mí porque yo:::: uh probaba↑ =this week was very hard (.) for me because I:::: uh tried↑

18

y::: tch a:::nd tch

19

(1.5)

20

F:

21

M:

22 23 24

[¿con la gente del [Instituto]? [with the people from the [Institute]?

F:

25

nadie quería hablar castellano @ @ [@ @ @ @ nobody wanted to speak Spanish @ @ [@ @ @ @ [no::: [no::: porque:- yo- hablo:- hablaba e:n (.) castellano↑ becau:se- I- spea:k- was speaking i:n (.) Spanish↑ y ellos- cons::taban↑ [en inglés and they- ans::wered↑ [in English [en inglés [in English

(1.0)

26

F:

@@@

27

M:

y:: por eso yo tengo problemas para entender a::nd for that reason I have problems understanding

28

y- pero- (.) esto- yo puedo:: um (1.5) yo puedo:: ver queand- but- (.) this- I ca::n um (1.5) I ca::n see that-

29

estoy mejor con- co:n um entie::nde::n I’m better with- wi:th um they unde::rsta::nd

202  30 31

F:

32

M:

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

entiendiendo↑ uf understanding↑ uff

sí que tú entiendes mejor [ahora el castellano yes you do understand Spanish [better now [sí [yes

33

sí, yo puedo entender más que puedo decir yes, I can understand more than I can say

34

que es- bien a veces that is- good sometimes

35

pero cuando- [quiero- (.) contestar but when[I want- (.) to answer

36

F:

[(...)

37

cuando tú tengas que demostrar que sabes hablar en when you have to demonstrate that you know how to speak in castellano Spanish

38

lo que tienes que hacer es enfadarte what you have to do is get angry

39

M:

sí yes

40

F:

sí yes

41

M:

@@

42 43

este sí, [estethis yes, [thisF:

[recuérdalo [remember it

In terms of the third environment, there was just one teasing sequence that was initiated in response to a non-target-like L2 form produced by a Spanish native speaker, shown in (43). The talk in (43) occurred immediately after Kyle’s host father, Andrés, had told a canned joke, which Kyle had not understood and for which he was teased by his host parents. In lines 2–7, as Andrés attempted to move out of the previous topic and on to another, he used the discourse marker pues (‘well’, ‘so’) at the beginning of his utterance in line 5. It was this use of pues that triggered the teasing in this excerpt. The first tease was produced by Kyle’s

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 203

host mother, Pilar, who referred to Andrés in the third person and said antes no decía Andrés pues::: (‘Andrés didn’t used to say pues:::’). From later on in (43), it became clear that Kyle’s host parents perceived as non-target-like the turn-initial use of the discourse marker pues with sound lengthening of the sounds /e/ and /s/. Even though it was the host father who employed pues in a perceived nontarget-like manner, the host parents asserted that Kyle used pues in that way and had influenced his host father’s manner of speaking. (43) “Pues”: Kyle (K), host father Andrés (A), and host mother Pilar (P) in Time 3 (week 6) 1

A:

es así it’s like that

2

bueno pues- lo que te estoy diciendo anyway- what I’m telling you

3

hh después claro hh afterwards right

4

una vez que::: (.) tch once::: (.) tch

5

pues:- (.) eh- pasa como con todo pues:- (.) eh- it happens like with everything

6

K:

mhm mhm

7

A:

pasa como con todo it happens like with everything

8

P:

antes no decía [Andrés] pues::: [Andrés] didn’t used to say pues:::

9

A:

@@@@

10

eso lo dice pues:: that’s what he says pues::

11

K:

¿pues? pues?

12

P:

pues:::: pues::::

13

A:

es- es que lo de pues es de Kyle= it’s- that way of using pues is Kyle’s way=

14

P:

=@ @ @ @

204 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

15

A:

este pue::s this pue::s

16

F:

él para decirme algo     [dice (.) pue::s to tell me something he [says (.) pue::s

17

P:

18

K:

hum hum

19

A:

estaba diciendoI was saying-

20

P:

tú estás cogiendo costumbres nuestras you’re picking up our customs

21

K:

sí yes

22

A:

eeh

23

P:

y él:: está cogiendo   [costumbres tuyas and he:: is picking up [your customs

24

A:

25

K:

26

P:

27

A:

lo de pues es tuyo, ¿eh? the pues thing is yours, eh?

28

P:

@ @ [@

29

A:

30

P:

antes no lo decía él= he didn’t used to say it=

31

A:

=lo  [que pasa=the [thing is-

32

K:

33

A:

sí:: sí:: yeah:: yeah::

34

P:

¿sí? really?

[@ @ @

[@ @ @ @ [pue:s @ @ [pue:s [@ @ @

[nosotros- yo no utilizo pues [we- I don’t use pues

[pues- (.) los españoles sí [pues- (.) Spaniards do

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

35

K:

¿pero vosotros no? but you guys don’t?

36

P:

[no:: [no::

37

A:

[no:: [no::

38

K:

¿no:? no:?

39

A:

sí:: no mucho yeah:: not much

40

F:

yo no [utilizo pues (.) no I don’t [use pues (.) no

41

P:

42

K:

pues otros españoles pues other Spaniards

43

P:

¿sí? really?

44

A:

tampoco mucho not a lot either

45

[no (.) nosotros no: decimos mucho: [no (.) we do:n’t say it a lot

no te creas que pue:sdon’t believe that pue:s-

46

K:

los profesores creo: the professors I thi:nk

47

P:

[¿sí? [really?

48

A:

[sí pero tú como[yes but how you-

49

como lo dices tú no lo utilizamos how you say it we don’t use it

50

K:

¿no? no?

51

P:

@ [@ @

52

A:

[ves que tú cuando se te pregunta algo [see how you when you’re asked something

 205

206 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

53

hhh y se te pregunta hhh and you’re asked something

54

bueno (.) eh Kyle well (.) eh Kyle

55

“¿cuándo vas a:::: a Granada?” “when are you going to:::: to Granada?”

56

y en [vez de decir and in [stead of saying

57

K:

58

A:

59

K:

60

A:

[(...) pues voy a Granada mañana↑ pues I’m going to Granada tomorrow↑ uh huh uh huh

tú dices pue:::s:: @ @ @ @ you say pue:::s:: @ @ @ @

61

dices pue::::s @ you say pue::::s @

62

a to [do @ dice pue:::s @ to e  [verything @ he says pue::::s @

63

K:

64

P:

65

A:

[@ @ [@ [@ @ ¿eh? eh?

The teasing in (43) originated with a tease directed at the host father, but the rest of the sequence focused on Kyle as the target, with a series of teases about his non-target use of pues (lines 10–62). His host parents reproduced his manner of saying pues to playfully make fun of him, repeating the word pues a number of times and greatly exaggerating the vowel lengthening of /e/ and /s/. Both the exaggeration of non-target-like usage and the frequent repetition of the same basic tease served to upgrade the teasing, instead of mitigating the criticism. This rather aggressive teasing is an example of the flouting of politeness norms, or mock impoliteness, that can potentially offend the target, but can also have the effect of enhancing solidarity, rather than diminishing it. This paradoxical situation was described by Norrick (1993: 252), who asserted that “flying in the face of friendly politeness can build rapport, because it signals a relationship which eschews such superficial conventions.”

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 207

Kyle’s host father also positioned him as an outsider by saying “cómo lo dices tú no lo utilizamos” (‘how you say it we don’t use it’), which excluded Kyle from the in-group of the host parents and, more generally, Spaniards. Furthermore, given that the topic of the tease (i.e., Kyle’s non-target-like use of pues) was highly relevant to the target—that is, it was not something patently absurd—and pointed out a perceived L2 error, it was possible that Kyle could have been offended by this teasing. During the talk in (43), Kyle mostly maintained a serious frame, genuinely interested in determining how pues was used in Spanish, although in line 25, he joined in the humor by saying pues and poking fun at himself. This episode was memorable enough that Kyle wrote about it in his journal for that week (week 6), saying: This week my [host] parents gave me a hard time for how I always say pues a lot. They mentioned it in the recorded conversation how I am rubbing off on my dad and he is starting to use the word in the same way I do. They told me that I don’t really use it correctly but that it was fine. I start a lot of sentence with pues … but my dad said it makes more sense to say bueno, pues … However, there are some expressions like pues que no or pues que sí where pues can come first. He said other phrases that he uses instead of pues could be es que or sometimes entonces. For me I think it’s like saying “ummmm” in English just as a way to stall and give my brain some time to think of what I’m going to say.

Kyle framed the interaction with his host parents as them giving him a “hard time” about his use of pues, but it is unclear whether he felt offended by it. His entry focused more on trying to figure out how to use pues appropriately, which is, indeed, a complicated topic for an L2 speaker, given the varied functions of this discourse marker. Metalingual talk, that is, talk about linguistic form is not unique to interactions involving L2 speakers. Norrick (1993: 91) described its presence in native speaker conversation: “It is not at all rare for conversational joking to merge into serious discussion of the topic in question. So it is only natural for joking about ways of speaking to call forth explicit metalingual comment on vocabulary or constructions. In such cases, both the joking and the serious talk allow participants to exchange views on the acceptability of certain words and phrases.” While the host parents’ teasing was somewhat aggressive, they also softened the teasing by clearly contextualizing it as play, using cues such as increased volume, sound lengthening, and marked pronouns (i.e., referring to the target in the third person). And despite his being positioned as an outsider with regard to use his use of pues, in another moment, Kyle was included discursively as part of the in-group of the host family. Pilar said in lines  20 and 23 that they were adapting to Kyle’s ways of doing things and he was, likewise, adopting some of their customs, a move that expressed solidarity politeness and framed Kyle as someone on equal footing with the host parents, that is, that he could influence them just as they could influence him.

208 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

Table 26: Frequency of individual teases as social influence. Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

Host family

0

5/12 (42%)

10/30 (33%)

14/43 (33%)

1/1 (100%)

1/3 (33%)

31/91 (34%)

Age peer

1/7 (33%)

2/19 (11%)

1/3 (33%)

0

0

0

4/52 (8%)

Total

1/9 (11%)

7/31 (23%)

11/33 (33%)

14/59 (24%)

1/3 (33%%)

1/8 (14%)

35/143 (24%)

Looking beyond L2-related teases, teasing directed at students by host families and age peers demonstrated a range of functions. Teases that bonded predominated, although a few teases toward the “nipping/biting” end of the continuum were also observed. Interlocutors teased students for their own amusement, as well as to amuse the student. Other functions of teasing included the display and negotiation of identity, softening criticism, mitigating conflict, instigating conflict, expressing skepticism, and social influence. Of all functions observed in the corpus, social influence was relatively frequent. A total of 35 individual teases (24%) involved attempting to influence the target of the tease to change his or her behavior, typically because that behavior violated social norms or was otherwise perceived as undesirable. Table  26 indicates in which interactions teasing as social influence occurred. For the group as a whole, the host families (N = 31, 34%) employed this function of teasing substantially more often than the age peers (N = 4, 8%), although some families (Jared, Kyle, Megan) did so considerably more than others (Chloe, Miranda, Samantha). Only three age peers, those of Chloe, Jared, and Kyle, used teasing which revealed an attempt to influence the student. In social influence teasing, various behaviors were commented on by the host families, but the following aspects were the most common: eating practices (Kyle), practicing Spanish (Jared, Kyle, Megan, Miranda), study habits (Jared, Kyle, Megan, Samantha), nightlife (Jared, Megan), and traveling (Megan). For example, Jared, Megan, and Miranda were all teased by their respective families about not making a greater effort to speak Spanish while in Spain. Kyle was routinely teased by his host parents about the foods that he did not like, such as fish and seafood. Family members of three students (Jared, Kyle, Megan) teased about needing to spend more time studying to get good grades. Jared and Megan were also teased at other times because they stayed home on a weekend evening and did not go out and enjoy nightlife, the former by an age peer and

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 209

the latter by her host mother. The four teases produced by the age peers had to do with, first, Chloe’s age peer encouraging her to join in an activity with her friends; second, Jared’s peer teasing him that he should go out on the weekend; and, third, Kyle’s age peer saying that he should not leave his homework to the last minute. An example of social influence teasing is provided in excerpt (44). Megan and her host mother, Isabel, were talking about Megan’s classes, but Megan showed more interest in the end-of-semester trips that she was planning than in her studies. Isabel pointed out that Megan seemed unconcerned about her exams, to which Megan agreed, saying that she was not worried, although admitted that perhaps she should be more concerned (line 4). The meaning of Megan’s explanation in lines 7–9 is vague, but Isabel interpreted what Megan said as her being preoccupied with things that she would do after the semester was over. Megan’s apparent lack of commitment to her studies triggered Isabel’s teasing in lines 16, 18, and 19. She changed footing and playfully took on the role of a mother, scolding Megan in an exaggerated fashion and commanding her to start studying tomorrow. Switching back to a serious key, Isabel made reference to previous foreign students that the family had hosted, saying that they had all gotten good grades, so Megan should too (lines 22–23). Isabel teased Megan again, quoting a Spanish idiom te has tocado la barriga (literally: ‘you’ve touched your belly’), which means to slack off or to sit on your butt and do nothing. When Megan did not recognize the idiomatic expression, Isabel explained the meaning, repeating the teasing and laughing. The use of mock scolding in this teasing sequence rather than genuine scolding reflects the role of Isabel vis-à-vis Megan. That is, Isabel was in the role of a surrogate parent to Megan: she cooked for her, cleaned her living space, washed her clothes, and watched out for her personal safety. Discursively, she regularly oriented to that parental role by giving Megan advice, showing concern for her, and helping her with her language and culture learning. At the same time, Megan was a young adult and a relative stranger, so Isabel likely felt that enforcing good study habits was not within her responsibilities as a host parent. Isabel never gave Megan commands or scolded her in a serious frame in the recordings. Through playfully teasing Megan about her study habits and giving her mock commands to start studying, however, Isabel could briefly take on the role of a concerned mother and encourage Megan to study more, while framing that footing as non-serious. Given that Isabel discussed the topic of studying in a serious key at some points in the interaction in (44), it is likely that through her teasing she was genuinely attempting to urge Megan to focus more on her studies; what was off-record and contextualized as play was the more aggressive scolding and demand that Megan shape up.

210 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

(44) “You’re slacking off”: Megan (M) and host mother Isabel (I) in Time 3 (week 6) 1

M:

estoy muy: (.) emocionada para mi viaje con mi hermana I’m very: (.) excited for my trip with my sister

2

I:

sí: los exámenes no te preocupan mucho yea:h your exams don’t worry you much

3

M:

hh no: no: hh no: no:

4

creo que es- yo necesito preocup-ó más↑ I think that it’s- I need worrie-d more↑

5

I:

[preocuparte [to worry

6

M:

[pero[but-

7

hh pero creo que voy a:: (.) tener muy:: u::m (.) muy- um hh but I think that I’m going to:: (.) have very:: u::m (.) very- um

8

hh mucho::s cientos- um para después hh many:: one hundreds- um for afterwards

9

y no puedo: um (.) estudiar @ @ and I ca:n’t um (.) study @ @

10

I:

@@@

11

que vas a tener muchas cosas para hacer después ((laughing)) that you’re going to have many things to do afterwards

12

y muchas cosas que pensar and many things to think about

13

M:

sí:: yeah::

14

I:

para después for afterwards

15

M:

sí yes

16

I:

¿y no vas a poder estudiar? ((exaggerated scolding)) and you’re not going to be able to study?

17

M:

@

18

I:

tienes que estudiar you have to study

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

mañana te pones a estudiar ya ((an exaggerated scolding, motherly voice)) tomorrow you get to studying already

19

20

M:

21

I:

sí:: yo     [sé::: @ @ yeah:: I [know:: @ @ [pero bueno [but well

22

aquí todo el mundo ha sacado A: y A plus here everyone has gotten A: and A plus

23

así que tú también so you too

24

M:

sí yo puedo yes I can

25

I:

claro que puedes of course you can

26

M:

hhh [eh yohhh [eh I-

27

I:

[como- como dicen los españoles [as- as the Spanish say es que te has tocado la barriga it’s that you’re slacking off

28 29

M:

¿qué:? wha:t?

30

I:

@@@

31

cuando uno no estudia mucho when one doesn’t study a lot

32

M:

sí yes

33

I:

porque cree que se lo sabe que está bien because s/he believes that s/he knows it that it’s OK

34

dice- te has tocado la barriga ((laughing voice)) it says- you’re slacking off

35

@@@@@@

36

M:

hhh sí::: e- e- yo:: um (.) nunca estudio para: mis mitades hhh yeah::: e- e- I:: um (.) never study fo:r my middles

 211

212 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

37 38

pero- para mis finales yo estudio como un- (.) yo no sé but- for my finals I study like a- (.) I don’t know I:

pues es más fácil ir poco a poco well it’s easier to go little by little

In another sequence in excerpt (45), Kyle’s host parents teased Kyle about his dislike of fish. They had just started serving dinner and had just turned on the recorder. The host father, Andrés, was in another part of the room at the beginning of this segment, so several of his turns were inaudible. The host mother, Pilar, in line  1, jokingly offered Kyle some of the fish. It is clear from her next turn that she was well aware that he did not like it, since she stated so much explicitly in line 3. Indeed, in a previous recorded interaction, the parents had teased Kyle about the fact that he only liked what they called “comida de niños” (‘child’s food’) such as lentils and spaghetti, not adult food such as fish and vegetables. Beginning in line  5, Andrés joined Pilar in the teasing, which was marked by playful intonation, as well as the use of the third person to refer to Kyle (i.e., ese Kyle, ‘that Kyle’), and exaggeration (e.g., el pescado está prohibido, ‘the fish is forbidden’; tú de eso nada, ‘none of that for you’). They upgraded the teasing through repetition and jokingly praised the tastiness of the fish (lines 22 and 23), highlighting how he was missing out on something delicious. Through this teasing, the two host parents jokingly pointed out and made fun of his culinary tastes. For his part, Kyle laughed several times in this interaction and also joined in the joking in line 19. (45) “Forbidden fish”: Kyle (K) and host parents Andrés (A) and Pilar (P) in Time 5 (week 9) 1

P:

¿quieres un poco de esto, Kyle? do you want a little of this, Kyle?

2

A:

bueno (...) well (...)

3

P:

a Kyle no le gusta esto Kyle doesn’t like this

4

A:

nada not at all

5

sólo (...) only (...)

6

ese Kyle that Kyle

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

tú de eso nada none of that for you

7 8

P:

sí yes

9

K:

¿sí? really?

10

A:

nada none tú olvídate del pescado forget about the fish

11 12

K:

@@

13

P:

sí yes

14

A:

[para ti [for you

15

P:

[son[they are-

16

A:

para ti el pescado está prohibido the fish is off-limits for you

17

K:

@

18

P:

sí yes

19

K:

está olvidado it’s forgotten

20

A:

para ti olvídate está prohibido for you forget about it it’s forbidden

21

K:

@

22

P:

con lo rico que está, Kyle with how delicious it is, Kyle

23

A:

con lo rico que está with how delicious it is

24

K:

@@

25

A:

allá tú suit yourself

 213

214 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

While the social influence message of the teasing is clear in the talk itself, the host parents’ intentions were also supported by their interview comments. In responding to the researcher’s question about what they felt that Kyle had learned during his semester abroad, one of the things Kyle’s host mother mentioned specifically was they did not succeed in changing his view on fish. Pilar said in the interview: “No hemos conseguido que cambie porque … no le gusta la verdura ni el pescado. Los guisos españoles sí le gustan. Pero el pescado no lo hemos conseguido, no le gusta nada. Le digo que ‘te vas a ir sin que te guste el pescado’.” (‘We haven’t gotten him to change because … he doesn’t like vegetables or fish. He does like Spanish stews. But with the fish we haven’t succeeded, he doesn’t like it at all. I tell him ‘you’re going to leave without liking fish.”’). It seems that because the two host parents really enjoyed fish themselves—as many Spaniards do—and, perhaps, because they wanted to show off how well they could prepare fish at home (both parents showed pride in their cooking in the recorded interactions), the fact that they could not influence Kyle’s tastes to be more similar to theirs was a salient aspect of their view of him. A similar teasing episode was reported by Kinginger (2015) in which an American study abroad student was teased by his Chinese host family about not liking fish, suggesting that food practices and taste may be an important point of social influence by host parents cross-culturally (see also DuFon 2006).

2.4  Exaggeration Exaggeration was employed regularly by host families and age peers, although some did so more than others. Table 27 indicates that a total of 62 humorous utterances incorporated exaggeration, constituting 16% of the total and with a range from 12%-30% for the interlocutors who spoke with each student. Exaggeration was often conveyed through lexical devices familiar to even lower-proficiency learners such as muy (‘very’), mucho (‘a lot’, ‘many’), and the superlative suffix –ísimo (e.g., malísimo ‘very bad’), as well as through prosody. While there were no examples of student use of –ísimo in the corpus (students employed lexical rather than morphological means to intensify nouns, e.g., muy malo ‘very bad’), this suffix was employed regularly by families and peers. An example of exaggeration employed humorously is shown in (46) below, an excerpt from a conversation between Miranda and her Spanish age peer Marta. In the segment in (46), Miranda indicated that she had not seen big cars in Spain. Marta joked using exaggeration that, based on American movies that she had seen, cars in the US were grandísimos (‘enormous’; line 9) and added in lines 11

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 215

Table 27: Frequency of exaggeration employed by families and peers. Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan

Miranda

Samantha

Total

Exaggeration

16 (18%)

12 (14%)

17 (19%)

10 (12%)

6 (30%)

1 (5%)

62 (16%)

Total humorous utterances

87

85

90

84

20

19

385

and 12 that American cars were like buses, that is, muy largos (‘very long’) and muy anchos (‘very wide’), including vowel lengthening on the word largo to iconically emphasize the length. Miranda laughed and recognized that her family in the US also had a big vehicle. (46) “Enormous cars”: Miranda (M) and age peer Marta (T) in Time 6 (week 10) 1

M:

2

muchos- coches de España son pequeños ymany- cars from Spain are small andno hay muchos coches grandes there aren’t many big cars

3

T:

¿no? really?

4

M:

sí yeah

5

T:

sí, es verdad es- yo sí que lo he visto:: yeah, it’s true it’s- I’ve see::n

6

bueno en la películas well in the movies

7

que en Estados Unidos lleváis [unos coches that in the United States you guys have [some

8

M:

[@ @ @ @ @

9

T:

[@grandísimos@ @ @ @ [@enormous cars@ @ @ @

10

M:

[@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

11

T:

se parecían a autobús- que son muy la:rgo::s they looked like a bus- they’re very long

216 

 5 Humor use by Spanish-speaking host families and age peers

muy ancho::s, ¿no? very wide, right?

12 13

M:

sí, mi familia tiene- una: coche grande yeah, my family has- a: big car

2.5  Revoicing Table 28 indicates that students’ interlocutors regularly used revoicing (i.e., reproducing another’s words or ways of speaking) as one resource to create and mark humor. In total, 25% (N = 95) of the families’ and peers’ humorous utterances involved revoicing. The categories of revoicing included direct speech, pinning, imitation of a register, imitation of a regional dialect of Spanish, all of which are shown in Table 28. Most humorous revoicing involved direct speech, which made up 15% (N = 58) of all humorous utterances. Excerpt (30) provides an example of Samantha’s age peer using direct speech in his humor. Pinning (i.e., incorporating a word or expression that a co-participant had produced in the immediately previous talk in order to tease that person; e.g., Priego-Valverde [2016]) was the second most frequent type of revoicing, making up 8% of all humorous utterances (N = 30). The other two types of revoicing were infrequent: imitation of a register was found three times, imitation of a regional dialect occurred in four utterances (three by Kyle’s host father, one by Megan’s age peer). Looking specifically at the amount of revoicing produced by host families compared to age peers, Table  29 shows that the two groups were quite closely matched in terms of relative frequency. Unlike students, as discussed in chapter three (see Table  9), who employed all types of revoicing more frequently with Table 28: Frequency of revoicing types by host families and age peers.

Revoicing Direct speech Pinning Dialect imitation

Chloe

Jared

Kyle

Megan Miranda Samantha Total

11 (13%) 7 (8%) 4 (5%)

20 (24%) 15 (18%) 3 (4%)

27 (30%) 20 (22%) 3 (3%) 3 (3%) 1 (1%) 90

22 (26%) 8 (10%) 13 (15%) 1 (1%)

6 (30%) 1 (5%) 5 (25%)

9 (47%) 7 (37%) 2 (11%)

84

20

19

Register imitation Total humorous utterances 87

2 (2%) 85

95 (25%) 58 (15%) 30 (8%) 4 (1%) 3 (1%) 385

2 Humor use by host Families and age peers 

 217

Table 29: Frequency of revoicing types used by host families compared to age peers.

Direct speech Pinning Dialect imitation Register imitation Total revoicing Total humor

Host families

Age peers

Total

24 (15%) 12 (7%) 3 (2%) 2 (1%) 41 (25%) 163

34 (15%) 18 (8%) 1 (