Abstract
In this study, we analyse conversations recorded during ethnographic research in two bilingual communities on the island of Rhodes, Greece. We examine: (a) the bilingual in Greek and Turkish Muslim community of Rhodes (Georgalidou et al. 2010, 2013) and (b) the Greek-American/Canadian community of repatriated emigrant families of Rhodian origin (Kourtis-Kazoullis 2016). In particular, combining interactional and conversation analytic frameworks (Auer 1995; Gafaranga 2007), we examine contemporary approaches to bi-/multilingualism focusing on the pragmatics of humour in conversations among bilinguals. We scrutinise aspects of the overall and sequential organisation of talk as well as instances of humour produced by speakers of different ethnic origin, generation, and social groups. We focus on the construction of “otherness,” which reflects the dynamic interplay between the micro-level of conversational practices and the macro-level of discourse involving contrasting categorisations and identities pertaining to differently orientated ethnic and social groups. Based on the analysis, we will show a) how humorous targeting orients in-groups versus out-groups, and b) mediates the dynamic process of constructing the identity of speakers who, being members of minority linguistic communities, represent “otherness.”
References
Androutsopoulos, J. (2007). ‘Style online: doing hip-hop on the German-speaking Web’, in Auer, P. (ed.), Style and Social Identities: alternative approaches to linguistic heterogeneity. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 279-317.
Attardo, S. (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humor. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Attardo, S. (2017). ‘Humor and pragmatics’, in Attardo S. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor. New York: Routledge, pp. 174-188.
Auer, P. (1995). ‘The pragmatics of code-switching: a sequential approach’, in Milroy, L. & Muysken, P. (eds.), One Speaker, Two Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115–135.
Auer, P. (1998). ‘Introduction: bilingual conversation revisited’, in Auer, P. (ed.), Code-switching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity, London: Routledge, pp. 1–24.
Auer, P. (2005). ‘A postscript: code-switching and social identity’. Journal of Pragmatics, 37 (3), pp. 403-410.
Auer, P. (2007). ‘Introduction’, in Auer P. (ed.), Style and Social Identities. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1-24.
Auer, P. (2019). ‘Translanguaging’ or ‘doing languages’? Multilingual practices and the notion of ‘codes’ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332593230_%27Translanguaging%27_or_%27doing_languages%27_Multilingual_practices_and_the_notion_of_%27codes%27
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination (ed. by M. Holquist and translated by C. Emerson & M. Holquist). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bamberg, M. (1997). ‘Positioning between structure and performance’. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7, pp. 335- 342.
Blom, J-P. & Gumperz, J-J. (1972). ‘Social meaning in linguistic structures: code-switching in Norway’, in Hymes, D. & Gumperz, J-J (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, Holt, New York: Rinehart and Winston, pp. 407-434.
Blommaert, J., Collins, J. & Slembrouck, S. (2005). ‘Spaces of multilingualism’, Language & Communication 25, pp. 197–216
Blommaert, J. & Backus A. (2012). ‘Superdiverse repertoires and the individual’, in de Saint-Jacques, I. & Weber, J-J. (eds.), Multimodality and Multilingualism: Current Challenges for Educational Studies, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp. 11-32.
Bucholtz, M. & Hall, K. (2005). ‘Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach’. Discourse Studies 7 (4-5), pp. 585-614.
Canagarajah, S. (2011). ‘Translanguaging in the classroom: emerging issues for research and pedagogy’. Applied Linguistics Review 2, pp. 1-28.
Canagarajah, S. (2017). ‘Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: exploiting the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations’. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), pp. 31-54.
Coupland, N. (2001). ‘Dialect stylization in radio talk’. Language in Society 30 (3), pp. 345-375.
Dynel, M. (2009). ‘Beyond a joke: types of conversational humour’. Language and Linguistics Compass 3 (5), pp. 1284-1299.
Dynel, M. (2011). ‘Joker in the pack: towards determining the status of humorous framing in conversations’, in Dynel, M. (ed.), The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 217-241.
Eckert, P. (2000). Language Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Belten High. Massachusetts: Malden.
Eckert, P. (2012). ‘Three waves of variation study: the emergence of meaning in the study of Sociolinguistic Variation’, Annual Review of Anthropology 41 (1), pp. 87-100.
Fishman, J-A. [1965] 2000. ‘Who speaks what language to whom and when?’, in Li W. (ed.), The Bilingualism Reader, London: Routledge (Reprinted from: La Linguistique 2 (1965): 67–88.), pp. 89–106.
Gafaranga, J. (2000). ‘Medium repair vs. other-language repair: telling the medium of a bilingual conversation’. International Journal of Bilingualism 4 (3), pp. 327-350.
Gafaranga, J. (2007). Talk in Two Languages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Garcia, O. & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Georgalidou, Μ. (2004). ‘Η αφήγηση: Η συνομιλιακή διαπραγμάτευση ζητημάτων ταυτότητας στο πλαίσιο της δίγλωσσης γλωσσικής κοινότητας των Μουσουλμάνων της Ρόδου’ [Narrative: The conversational negotiation of identity issues in the bilingual community of Muslims in Rhodes], in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Greek Linguistics.
Georgalidou, M., Kaili, H. & Celtek, A. (2010). ‘Code-alternation patterns in bilingual conversation: Α conversation analysis approach’. Journal of Greek Linguistics 10, pp. 317–344.
Georgalidou, M., Kaili, H. & Celtek, A. (2013). ‘Code alternation patterns in bilingual family conversations: Implications for an integrated model of analysis’, in Auer P., Caro, J. & Kaufman, G. (eds.), Language Variation-European Perspectives IV, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 117-128.
Georgalidou, M., Kaili, H. & Celtek, A. (2014). ‘Intergenerational Greek/Turkish conversations’, in Christodoulidou, M. (ed.), Analysing Greek Talk-in-Interaction, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 184-217.
Georgalidou, M. & Kaili, H. (2018). ‘The pragmatics of humor in bilingual conversations’, in Tsakona, V. & Chovanec, J. (eds.), The Dynamics of Interactional Humor, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 77-103.
Glenn, P. & Holt, E. (2017). ‘Conversation analysis of humor’, in Attardo S. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, New York: Routledge, pp. 295-308.
Goddard, C. (2018). “Joking, kidding, teasing”: slippery categories for cross-cultural comparison but keywords for understanding Anglo conversational humour’. Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (4), pp. 487–514.
Grice, H-P. (1975). ‘Logic and conversation’, in Cole P. & Morgan, J-L (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, v. 3, London: Academic Press, pp. 41-58.
Gumperz, J-J. (1964). ‘Linguistic and social interaction in two communities’, American Anthropologist 66 (6_Part 2), pp. 137-153.
Gumperz, J-J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haugh, M. (2017). ‘Teasing’, in Attardo S. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor. New York: Routledge, pp. 204-218.
Haugh, M. & Weinglass, L. (2018). ‘Divided by a common language’. Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (4), pp. 533-562.
Holmes, J. (2006). ‘Sharing a laugh: pragmatic aspects of humor and gender in the workplace’. Journal of Pragmatics 38, pp. 26–50.
Jaspers, J. & Malai Madsen, L. (2019). ‘Fixity and fluidity in sociolinguistic theory and practice’, in Jaspers, J & Malai Madsen L. (eds.), Critical Perspectives on Linguistic Fixity and Fluidity: Languagised Lives. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 1-26
Jaspers J. & Van Hoof. S. (2019). ‘Style and stylisation’, in Tusting K. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography. London-New York: Routledge, pp. 109-145.
Jørgensen, J-N. (2005). ‘Plurilingual conversations among bilingual adolescents’. Journal of Pragmatics 37 (3), pp. 391-402.
Jørgensen, J-N. (2008). ‘Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents’. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (3), pp.161-176.
Jørgensen, J-N & Møller, J-S. (2014). ‘Polylingualism and languaging’, in Leung, C. & Street, B-V. (eds.), The Routledge Companion to English Studies, London: Routledge, pp. 67–83.
Karachaliou, R, et al. (2018). ‘Constructing the hybrid identity of the ‘stranger’: The case of Greek immigrants in Canada’, Półrocznik Językoznawczy Tertium. Tertium Linguistic Journal 3 (1), pp. 127-152.
Kourtis-Kazoullis, V. (2016). ‘Διγλωσσία και πολλαπλές ταυτότητες σε γυναίκες που επαναπατρίστηκαν από αγγλόφωνες χώρες’ [Bilingualism and multiple identities in women who repatriated from English-speaking countries], in Georgalidou, M. & Tsitselikis, K. (eds.), Language and Social Diversity in the Dodecanese Islands in the 20th Century. Athens: Papazisi Publications, pp. 487-527.
Labov, W. & Waletzky, J. (1967). ‘Narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience’, in Helm, J. (ed.), Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts. Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 12-44.
Meeuwis, M. & Blommaert, J. (1998). ‘A monolectal view of code-switching: layered code-switching among Zairians in Belgium’, in Auer P. (ed.), Code-switching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity, London: Routledge, pp. 76–100.
Mullan, K. & Béal, C. (2018). ‘Conversational humour in French and Australian English: What makes an utterance (un)funny?’. Special issue: Conversational humour: forms, functions and practices across cultures. Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (4), pp. 457-485.
Myers-Scotton, C. (1988). ‘Codeswitching as indexical of social negotiations’, in Heller, M. (ed.), Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp.151–186.
Myers-Scotton, C. (1996). Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Myers-Scotton, C. & Bolonyai, A. (2001). ‘Calculating speakers: codeswitching in a rational choice model’. Language in Society 30, pp. 1–28.
Norrick, N. (1993). Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Otsuji, E. & Pennycook, A. (2010). ‘Metrolingualism: fixity, fluidity and language in flux’. International Journal of Multilingualism 7 (3), pp. 240-254.
Pennycook, A. (2003). ‘Global Englishes, rip slyme, and performativity’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7 (4), pp. 513-533.
Poplack, S. (1980). ‘Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish Y TERMINO EN ESPAÑOL: toward a typology of code-switching’. Linguistics 18 (7-8), pp. 581-618.
Rampton, B. (1995). Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. London: Longman.
Tannen, D. (1989) Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Venour, C., Graeme, R. & Mellish, C. (2011). ‘Dimensions of incongruity in register humour’, in Dynel, M. (ed.), The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains, Oxford: John Benjamins, pp. 125–146.
Wei, L. (2018). ‘Translanguaging as a practical theory of language’. Applied Linguistics 39 (1), pp. 9-30.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2021 The European Journal of Humour Research