Humor and interlanguage in a bilingual elementary school setting

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between humor and language acquisition in a bilingual immersion setting. Data stems from picture story narrations by 18 informants taking part in an English immersion program in Germany. The analysis concentrates on instances of laughter and smiling as they appear spontaneously during the child narrations. In an initial step, different categories of laughter are identified and subsequently analyzed with regard to their relation to humor and to (the second) language, respectively. A final step of analysis discusses the functions of these categories within the social interaction of interviewer and child. The results point to young language learners’ use of humor (among other functions) as a mechanism to cope with the linguistic inadequacies of their interlanguage.

Understanding Task‐in‐Process Through the Lens of Laughter: Activity Designs, Instructional Materials, Learner Orientations, and Interpersonal Relationships

“…New developments in the CA‐inspired SLA research that have emerged and proliferated in the past decade or so (e.g., Mori & Markee, ) have opened up an exciting arena for the detailed analysis of interactions that involve laughter (but not necessarily humor per se; see, e.g., Bushnell, ; Sert & Jacknick, ; Waring, ). These studies often reported on the instances of laughter produced in the face of interactional troubles or linguistic inadequacy (Kersten, ; Ohta, ; Petitjean & González–Martínez, ; Sert & Jacknick, ). Laughter in troubled situations was found to play various roles, such as indicating the presence of troubles, mitigating the seriousness of troubles, and even preempting and solving the troubles.…”

That match was “a bit like losing your virginity”. Failed humour, face and identity construction in TV interviews with professional athletes and coaches

“…Dynel 2016;Chovanec 2012), school settings (e.g. Kersten 2009;Schnurr et al 2016), and sports teams (e.g. Wolfers et al 2017;Hester 2010).…”