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Laughter in professional meetings: the organization of an emergent ethnic joke

Markaki, Vassiliki and Merlino, Sara and Mondada, Lorenza and Oloff, Florence. (2010) Laughter in professional meetings: the organization of an emergent ethnic joke. Journal of Pragmatics, 42 (6). pp. 1526-1542.

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Official URL: http://edoc.unibas.ch/48430/

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Abstract

On the basis of a single case analysis of the emergence of an ethnic joke, this paper explores issues related to laughter in international business meetings. More particularly, it deals with ways in which a person's name is correctly pronounced. Speakers and co-participants seem to orient towards 'proper' ways of vocalizing names and to consequent 'variations' or 'deviations' from them, making different ways of pronunciation available as a laughable. In making such pronunciation variations available, accountable and recognizable, participants reflexively establish as relevant the multilingual character of the activity, of the participants' competences and of the setting; conversely, they exploit these multilingual features within specific social practices, leading to laughter. Our analysis focuses on the contexts of action, the sequential environments and the interactional practices by which the uttering of a name becomes a 'laughable' and then a resource for an ethnic joke. Moreover, it explores the implications of transforming the pronunciation into a laughable in terms of the organization of the ongoing activity, changing participation frameworks and membership categorizations. In this sense, it highlights the flexible structure of groups and the way in which laughter reconfigures them through local affiliating and disaffiliating moves, and by making various national categories available and relevant.
Faculties and Departments:04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Departement Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Fachbereich Französische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft > Französische und Allgemeine Linguistik (Mondada)
UniBasel Contributors:Mondada, Lorenza
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0378-2166
e-ISSN:1879-1387
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:13 Dec 2021 11:04
Deposited On:13 Dec 2021 11:04

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