Studies of Laughter in Interaction [1st ed.] 9781441164797, 1441164790

Table of contents :
Varieties of laughter. Beyond ((laughter)): some notes on transcription / Alexa Hepburn and Scott Varney --

Laughter and turn-taking: warranting next speakership in multiparty interactions / Keiko Ikeda and Don Bysouth --

Laughs in turns. "There's many a true word said in jest": seriousness and nonseriousness in interaction / Elizabeth Holt --

Having the last laugh: on post-completion laughter particles / Chloë Shaw, Alexa Hepburn, and Jonathan Potter --

Laughter in bilingual medical interactions: displaying resistance to doctor's talk in a Mexican village / Anna Claudia Ticca --

Laughs in sequences. Laughter and competence: children with severe autism using laughter to joke and tease / Timothy Auburn and Christianne Pollock --

Laughter and smiling in a three-party medical encounter: negotiating participants' alignment in delicate moments / Marilena Fatigante and Franca Orletti --

"Cause the textbook says ...": laughter and student challenges in the ESL classroom / Christine Jacknick --

Interviewee laughter and disaffiliation in broadcast news interviews / Tanya Romaniuk --

Laughter and identity. No laughing matter: laughter and resistance in the construction of identity / Rebecca Clift --

Constructing identities through laughter / Grit Liebscher and Jennifer Dailey-O'Cain --

Interviewees volunteered laughter in employment interviews: a case of "nervous" laughter? / Phillip Glenn.

Citation preview

Studies of Laughter in Interaction

Also Available from Bloomsbury Translation, Humour and Literature, edited by Delia Chiaro Translation, Humour and the Media, edited by Delia Chiaro Second Language Identities, David Block

Studies of Laughter in Interaction Edited by Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt

A companion website to accompany this book is available online at: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/studies-of-laughter-in-interaction-9781441164797 Please type in the URL above and receive your unique password for access to the book’s online resources. A link to the Companion Website is shown by the icon in margin of the text. If you experience any problems accessing the resources, please contact Bloomsbury at: [email protected]

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 USA

www.bloomsbury.com First published 2013 © Phillip Glenn, Elizabeth Holt, and Contributors, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978–1–4411–8347–7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Studies of laughter in interaction / Edited by Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-6479-7 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4411-8347-7 (ePDF) - ISBN 978-1-44116280-9 (ePub) 1. Conversation analysis. 2. Laughter. 3. Social interaction. I. Glenn, Phillip J., editor of compilation. II. Holt, Elizabeth, 1966- editor of compilation. P95.45.S877 2013 302.34’6--dc23 2013000819 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

Contents Transcription notations List of author details 1 Introduction, Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt Part 1 Varieties of Laughter 2 3

Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription, Alexa Hepburn and Scott Varney Laughter and Turn-Taking: Warranting Next Speakership in Multiparty Interactions, Keiko Ikeda and Don Bysouth

Part 2 Laughs in Turns 4 5 6

“There’s Many a True Word Said in Jest”: Seriousness and Nonseriousness in Interaction, Elizabeth Holt Having the Last Laugh: On Post-Completion Laughter Particles, Chloë Shaw, Alexa Hepburn, and Jonathan Potter Laughter in Bilingual Medical Interactions: Displaying Resistance to Doctor’s Talk in a Mexican Village, Anna Claudia Ticca

Part 3 Laughs in Sequences Laughter and Competence: Children with Severe Autism Using Laughter to Joke and Tease, Timothy Auburn and Christianne Pollock 8 Laughter and Smiling in a Three-Party Medical Encounter: Negotiating Participants’ Alignment in Delicate Moments, Marilena Fatigante and Franca Orletti 9 “Cause the textbook says …”: Laughter and Student Challenges in the ESL Classroom, Christine Jacknick 10 Interviewee Laughter and Disaffiliation in Broadcast News Interviews, Tanya Romaniuk

vii viii 1 23

25 39 65

69 91 107 131

7

135

161 185 201

vi Contents

Part 4 Laughter and Identity 11 No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity, Rebecca Clift 12 Constructing Identities Through Laughter, Grit Liebscher and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain 13 Interviewees Volunteered Laughter in Employment Interviews: A Case of “Nervous” Laughter?, Phillip Glenn References Index

221

223 237 255 277 293

Transcription notations From the system developed by Gail Jefferson. (See chapters for any specific notations used in the data included in that chapter). [ ] brackets indicate overlapping utterances. = equal marks indicate contiguous utterances, or continuation of the same utterance to the next line. ( . ) period within parentheses indicates micropause. (2.0) indicates timed pause in approximate seconds. ye:s colon indicates stretching of sound it follows. yes. period indicates falling intonation. yes, comma indicates relatively constant intonation. yes? question mark indicates upward intonation. yes! exclamation indicates animated tone. yes- single dash indicates abrupt sound cutoff. yes underlining indicates emphasis. YES capital letters indicate increased volume. >yes< less-than symbols indicate fast pace. more-than symbols indicate slow pace. °yes° degree marks indicate decreased volume of materials between. hhh hs indicate audible aspiration. •hhh period followed by hs indicates inbreath. ((cough)) items within double parentheses indicate some sound or feature of the talk which is not easily transcribable, e.g. ((in falsetto)). (yes) parentheses indicate transcriber doubt about hearing of passage. ↓yes ↑yes arrow indicates marked change in intonation. yes*/yes# An asterisk or a hash indicates creaky voice. £yes£ pound signs indicate “smile voice” delivery of materials in between. y(h)es h in brackets indicates laugh particle within speech. heh huh beats of laughter.

List of author details Tim Auburn, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Plymouth University, UK, [email protected] Don Bysouth, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan, [email protected] Rebecca Clift, Senior Lecturer, Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, UK, [email protected] Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain, Associate Professor of German Applied Linguistics, Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada, [email protected] Marilena Fatigante, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, “Sapienza” University, Rome, Italy, [email protected] Phillip Glenn, Professor of Communication Studies and Interim Dean, School of Communication, Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA, Phillip_Glenn@ emerson.edu Alexa Hepburn, Reader in Conversation Analysis, Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK, [email protected] Elizabeth Holt, Senior Lecturer, School of Music, Humanities, and Media, University of Huddersfield, UK, [email protected] Keiko Ikeda, Associate Professor, Division of International Affairs, Kansai University, Japan, [email protected] Christine M. Jacknick, Assistant Professor, Department of Developmental Skills, Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, NY, USA, [email protected]



List of author details

ix

Grit Liebscher, Associate Professor of German, Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, gliebsch@ uwaterloo.ca Marilena Fatigante, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, “Sapienza” University, Rome, Italy, marilena.fatigante@uniroma1. Franca Orletti, Full Professor of Linguistics, Department of Human Studies, “Roma Tre” University, Rome, Italy, [email protected] hguh [hooh< ] 15 Caroline: [hhh ] wh↑(h)howh! .hhh

Figure 2.1

Caroline at Line 12

Here laughter is mixed with an “oh” in Line 12 (see Figure 2.1 for illustration of accompanying facial features) and a “wow” in Line 15. It is useful in displaying both disbelief and a non-serious orientation towards TV1’s racist utterance.

Post completion particles As Shaw et al. (this volume) show, it is also important to capture the quality of delivery in post-completion position, as sometimes laughter particles can be designedly “raucous” or minimal, depending on the interactional work being done. As we’ve seen, plosive interpolated particles are enclosed in parenthesis, and breathy ones are not. However, the parenthesis/non parenthesis solution can lead to confusion when transcribing standalone particles because of the role of parenthesis in marking uncertain hearing. For this reason, post-completion plosiveness can be represented through other means such as underlining to represent the sound as “punched up”. For Example, Line 1 below: Extract 1a: Rahman B.2.IV; 1.10, P2 (Raymond and Heritage, 2006) 1 Jen: [Yeh James’s a little] divil ihhh ↑heh heh



Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription

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2 Ver: [T hat3 Jen: [huh .HH[H He:-

As Shaw et al. note, Jenny’s post-completion laughter on Line 1 is produced as plosive via the underlined “h”: “↑heh heh”, and it also contains elevated pitch and voiced vowels. By contrast the laughter particle on Line 3 “huh” has a less plosive and more breathy sound.

Discussion The study of laughter and interaction will only move forward as a topic if analysts work with clear and accurate transcripts of its different features. This is challenging—but that challenge is manageable. We have made a start on setting out in detail some of its key features. Comparing examples with sound files is absolutely crucial for developing a good transcriber’s ear for laughter. We sketch below some thoughts on possible areas of future study opened up by this endeavor. Although Jefferson (1985) distinguished between the kind of laughter that is “compatible with the notion of flooding out” (p. 31) and that which is “put in” to do interactional tasks, careful transcription and some initial analysis of a range of examples shows that even when laughter appears to be “flooding out” it can still be organized in orderly ways, modulating actions or managing some perceived insufficiency or trouble. It seems then that in many cases, the distinction between what is “put in” to do interactional tasks and what simply “floods out” begins to blur. This would be an interesting topic for future study. Another avenue opened up by careful transcription relates to the boundaries between laughter and other emotional inflections, for example crying and pain, or more fine grained modulations, for example a tut particle bleeding into laughter, or laughter with “sympathetic” intonation. Laughter and displays of relational closeness or empathy and sympathy would also be an interesting avenue. Further study is also needed on how the vernacular terms for laughter map on to the technical representations (or not), and laughter’s potential to replace or supplement propositional forms. Related to this, perhaps a key area for development, suggested by many of the chapters in this volume, is laughter in action formation and action modulation.

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One thing seems apparent—only when clear and accurate transcripts have been developed can we start push forward the study of laughter and its various interactional functions.

Additional transcription conventions used in this chapter Voiced vowels Elevated volume Reduced volume Pitch shift, moderate Pitch shift, marked Plosive particles Plosive interpolated particles Breathy interpolated particles Breathy Breathy, hearable particles Consonant sounds

huh/hah/heh/hih/hoh H A HA °huh hih° hah hah ↑hhah ↑↑.hhih heh heh fu(h)u(h)nn(h)y uhhhp hhhe:h hh-hh-hh hhhmhhhh, Khnhhhuhh

Notes 1 http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ 2 See Lerner (2004) for analysis of collaborative turn sequences, from which this provides an interesting deviation. 3 See Extract 1, preceding which Hazel has just said “I think you’ll get over it won’t you” in reference to her husband’s objections to buying the house that Hazel wants (see Hepburn and Potter, 2011, for further discussion of this extract). 4 See Hepburn (2004) for a discussion of laughing and crying in transcription.

3

Laughter and Turn-Taking: Warranting Next Speakership in Multiparty Interactions Keiko Ikeda and Don Bysouth

One important mechanism for the production of social action is the turnallocation role of laughter in multi-party interactions. Smooth turn-taking among multiple parties in interaction requires a greater number of procedures (often more complex) than those required in dyadic interaction (Egbert, 1997; Schegloff, 1995). Therefore, deployment of current-selects-next techniques (e.g. Goodwin, 1981; Lerner, 2003; Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 1995) can be a useful device. However, more commonly next speakers self-select, and in multiparty interactions, this can involve complex negotiations (Lerner, 1993, 2003; Sacks et al., 1974). In such cases while one of the addressed party members will likely end up speaking next, participants must locally work out who will speak next. In addition to turn-taking management, multiparty interactions also allow for a more complex set of participation roles. For example, the allocation of fixed, discrete roles such as “speaker” or “hearer” may not adequately capture the gradient nature of roles performed by those present in a party. This study identifies an important role for laughter in this particular process: how addressed members can produce various kinds of laughter and through such contributions display to each other their changing participation status at particular junctures in on-going talk-in-interaction. Based on detailed analysis of a corpus of video-recorded casual multiparty interactions in Japanese, featuring six different discussion groups (approximately 560 minutes of recorded interactions), this study identifies practices involving two types of laughter which may contribute to an interactant in a multiparty interaction either gaining the speakership or maintaining a recipient stance. When a group consists of four or more people, increased degrees of freedom of potential initiatory and responsive social actions become available to individual interactants; each person may need to project to others how

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they will participate next in the interaction. Multiparty interaction naturally requires profound underlying distinctions in participation roles (Levinson, 1988). In a study of Goffman’s (1981) participation framework, Levinson (1988) highlights the complexity of assigning participant roles; a speaker may seek a particular individual as an addressee, but that party may choose not to attend in that capacity. A participant role is not unilaterally assigned, but rather negotiated and potentially contested. At the juncture of exchange, participants may stay in a recipient role or seek the speakership, shifting their participation status. Both language and embodied action are critical to the ways that participants achieve local social order. Research on hearers’ activities during interaction (e.g. Goodwin, 1981) has revealed the ways participants attend to talk through various sorts of assessments (verbal) and nonvocal displays, for example headshakes that express awe at what the speaker is saying and nods that enthusiastically endorse the speaker’s talk. Alternatively, hearers can also choose to distance themselves from the speaker’s talk through displays of disattention, and also to show further engagement with the speaker to obtain a more active role (M. H. Goodwin, 1999). This chapter shows that laughter is also routinely used to display and negotiate participation status in ongoing talk-in-interaction. In multiparty interaction, greater flexibility presents an additional degree of freedom as to who is to laugh first, who may join in to the shared laughter, and who is to resume the ongoing interaction after shared laughter (Glenn, 2003, p. 89). Being the ‘first to laugh’ does not necessarily mean that there is only one single addressee who does so. Laughing is an activity which can be performed by more than one speaker at a time (Sacks et al., 1974; Sacks, 1992; Silverman, 1998). Thus, there can be multiple first laughs following a current teller’s turn.1 Jefferson et al. (1979) also point out that participants do not necessarily laugh in unison or in the same manner. Importantly, the social interactional meaning that shared laughter may represent is not necessarily understood by participants a priori but is worked out in-and-through interaction. In this regard, multiple participants laughing should not be taken as the launching of a shared social action; rather, there may be a number of actions initiated which may involve a range of participant roles. Laughter combines different kinds of modalities. Pronunciation, volume, and aspiration of fricative sound [h] can generate numerous shapes of laugh units. Laughter is sometimes classified in terms of voiced v. unvoiced forms (Bachorowski and Owren, 2001; Grammar and Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1990). In these



Laughter and Turn-Taking

41

studies, laughter with only one or two pulses (sometimes “chuckles” or “exclamation laughter”) is rather frequent but brief. Far less common are lengthy bouts of laughter that constitute a “laughter episode”. In addition to the actual tokens of laughter, laughter can accompany facial expressions such as smiling (e.g. Haakana 2010; Peräkylä and Ruusuvuori, 2006) and various body movements such as the use of torso as in body torque (Schegloff, 1998), leaning forward and back (Ford and Fox, 2010), or covering the face with hand(s) (Ford and Fox, 2010). However, embodiment co-occurrences such as changes in posture and body movements have received scant attention in studies of laughter (Ruch and Ekman, 2001). The current study examines how embodiment may feature as an integral component in laughter, particularly with regard to how particular types of laughter might be selected by a participant, by adopting a multimodal approach to social interaction (e.g. Streeck, Goodwin, and LeBaron, 2011). Among multiparty participants, then, we can expect that one may choose to laugh in a similar way to others in the group, or to adopt a distinct manner of laughing depending on one’s participation status in a particular interactional sequence. In examining the relationship of types of laughter to turn-taking, we draw on Ford and Fox (2010) who describe multiple semiotic practices, both phonetic practices as well as visible bodily practices, which are used by the participants in the laughable sequence. Ford and Fox (2010) adopt a holistic view of “semiotic systems”, which are co-constructed by interactants themselves (C. Goodwin, 2000, 2002). They point out that these semiotic resources are made clearly noticeable by the interactants; thus the quality of laughter can be distinct from the rest of the production of talk. In the present study, we have looked at laughter which occurs at turn transition spaces. Different types of laughter may contribute to negotiating the producer’s participation in the ongoing talk. In this study we analyze two kinds of laughter: one displays passive recipiency and the other incipient speakership.

Recipient laughter and turn-initial laughter We identified at least two different kinds (variations) of laughter by participants that afford for different interactional consequences. Recipient laughter is a contribution (or can be a turn in itself) which operates as a kind of “continuer” response (Schegloff, 1982). With this variation, laughing recipients can indicate that they do not intend to take a more active participation role in the next

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contingency. As a result, the next speakership will be undertaken by either a current teller or other participants. In contrast to recipient laughter, turn-initial laughter contributes towards the person selecting herself as the next speaker. An interactant who speaks next does not join in the recipient laughter with other parties, but by adopting some recognizably distinct laughter marks a participation status distinct from the remaining parties. The following excerpt illustrates these two types of laughter. The participants in this excerpt (to be revisited in detail in Excerpt 6) are all female graduate students doing part-time teaching at various universities. C is reporting on one of her classes, where the students performed a quiz show as their foreign language skit. D, E, and B hear this story for the first time from C. Excerpt 1 10 C: >↑ichiban sekai de >ichiban takai yama wa< 11 no.1 world LOC no.1 highest mountain TOP doko deshoo?toka ittara (.) .hhh 12 where COP-Q like say-when £Takao san£ toka itte sa: (.5) Mt.Takao like say IP Which mountain is the highest in the world?, they ask, then some answer ‘it’s Mt. Takao2! 13-> D: heh [heh heh heh 14-> E: [˚˚heh heh heh˚˚ 15-> C: [ ˚heh heh heh˚ (.) 16-> B: ˚hehe˚= uwa *1SAMU:: Wow cheezy *1---------* Wow, so cheezy’ 17 C: ˚˚u::n >toka itte< bu:: toka itte demo SORE GA yeah:: like say beep like say but that S 18 ichiban uketeta. no.1 popular Yeah:: then they say ‘beep (wrong)’ but that was most popular (among them). 19 B: soo na n da: Right COP NM COP Is that right.



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20 ER: ˚Takao [san tte-˚ Mt. Takao QT When you speak of Mt. Takao. 21-> B: [nande Takao san? Why Mt. Takao Why Mt. Takao? *1 G: ER nods towards C

The response of D (Line 13 “heh heh heh heh”) and E (Line 14“˚˚heh heh heh˚˚”) are examples of recipient laughter. The laughs are produced rather softly in comparison to B’s following utterance, and the manner of delivery is brief and curtailed (See Figure 3.1 for an acoustic analysis using PRAAT). In contrast, B’s response in Line 16 contains an initial short laugh (approximately brief two pulses “hehe”) immediately followed by an amplified assessment commentary (SAMU:: “cheezy”). Figure 3.1 illustrates that B’s laughter at this point exhibits a much lower pitch (100~250 Hz range) than the other recipients. We suggest that the distinct pattern of laughing at the start of her turn-initial laughter importantly contributes towards gaining her the speakership in Line 21. Recipient laughter, as we have discussed earlier, may be minimal and sound disengaged, whereas turn initial laughter may be louder, more clearly enunciated, or stepped-up to make sure that the parties in the group orient to it as different. This illustrates that laughter responses are not “a simple stimulus-response to a

Figure 3.1 Excerpt 1, Lines 13–15 overlapping laughter, and line 16

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prior humorous turn”, (Holt, 2011, p. 407) and that the recipients, despite using laughter as a response to preceding talk, can engage in forward-looking actions through laughter. The form of laughter produced by participants can contribute towards displaying the kind of participation they wish to adopt. In the following section, we will explore some features of these two types of recipient laughter drawn from the corpus.

Recipient laughter Spectator laugh One way that interactants can adopt an accountably passive role (in terms of turn-taking) in interaction is to display their participation stance as one of being a member of an audience to the unfolding interaction. One can produce minimum acknowledgment laughter and then yield to remaining parties within an addressed group who initiate a more elaborate response back to the current teller. In the following example, K and R produce recipient laughter when the current teller F produces a laughable. Through their eye gaze direction and torso positioning, they display themselves as a spectating audience of their co-participants, particularly during a vocal exchange among the current teller (F), M, and W which follows the joint laughter. Excerpt 2 Participants: Six graduate students are having a casual discussion in a classroom. They are talking about how competence in using and understanding regional dialects can vary among different generations in Japan today. See Figure 3.2 below for an indication of the seating of the participants. 1 M: watashi no obaachan to watashi ˚da to˚ umareta I GEN grand.mom &I COP when born 2 tokoro hotondo issho desu kedo:= ↓hanashikata place almost same COP but speaking style 3 zenzen chigaimasu. akusento mo chiau shi at all different accent also differ and 4 goi mo chiau shi. vocab. also differ also The place where my grandma and I were born is almost the same, but speaking styles are very different—accents, vocabulary, all different.



Laughter and Turn-Taking 5 hatsuonno shikata mo zenzen chiau. Pronunciation GEN howalso at all differ Pronunciation also differs too. 6 (.5) 7 F: ↓uchi no obaachan to >hanashiteru to< (.) Us GEN grand.mom & talking    when 8 *1nanawari gurai shika 70% about only 9 *2˚rikai d(h)eki *3[n(h)ai˚] Understand can NEG *2---------------------> *3-------> When my grandmother speaks, I only understand about 70% . 10-> R: [˚heh˚] 11 W: he HEH HUH! 12 Y: ˚heh heh heh˚ 13-> K: *4[˚˚he˚˚˚˚heh˚˚ 14-> R: [˚˚he˚˚˚˚heh˚˚ 15 *4---------------> Y: [*5˚˚hehe˚˚ ] 16 *5------------> W: [*6/*7HEH ][he ] *6 ----------------------* *7------------------------------------> 17 M: [*8/*9↑soo] soo soo Yes yes yes *8 ----------------> *9 ----------------> Yes yes yes. 18 F: iya: ma >boku wa< hanashi kiitoru n yakedo 19 No HES I TOP talk listening NOM but (.2) nanawari gurai wa nanka:. (1) 70% about TOP HES 20 No I mean I am indeed listening, but about 70%. W: £waraw(h)azu n(h)i:?£ hehe understand-NEG PT 21 Cann(h)ot understand her? F: wakaranyo. understand-NEG IP

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction 22 Cannot understand. W: >nanka< obaachan to, (.) issho ni: 23 HES grand.mom with together PT sunde inai? live NEG Uhm you don’t live with your grandma, do you? *1 F shakes his head, looking around the group. *2 K, R, W, Y, M all gaze at F. *3 F smiling at W. *4 K and R look at F. *5 Y turns towards M, G: Y smiling. *6 K and R look at W. *7 K and R small vertical shakes of their shoulders. *8 K looks at F. *9 R looks at M.

In Lines 7–9, the current teller makes a contribution which is treated as a laughable (“I don’t understand my own grandmother’s language much”) and the other parties (with the exception of W) respond to his comment with recipient laughter (Lines 10–16). In Lines 10 and 13, K and R produce minimal, quiet laughter. In Line 12, Y also produces recipient laughter. The laughter in Line 10 is uttered in overlap with the ending part of F’s turn (Line 9), and laughter in Line 13 is uttered together with K in a chorus-like manner, positioned second to the immediate laughter response by W. Figure 3.2 below shows how these participants shift their eye gaze directions in concert with their continuing laughter. At the end of his TCU (Line 9), F smiles while not participating vocally in joint-laughter with the other parties. In Lines 13 and 14, K and R produce short, soft laughter, while looking at the current teller (F). In Line 15, K and R switch their mode of laughter from vocalization to a nonvocal, body display; they vertically shake their shoulders quickly and continue smiling while W vocalizes his laughter at a relatively louder volume. In Line 17, M, who was the teller prior to F’s turn (Lines 3–8) produces a confirmation token (soo soo soo “yes yes yes”). K and R continue to smile and maintain a slight vertical shoulder movement, displaying that they are still engaged in recipient laughter. While doing so, R turns her gaze towards M (nonlaughing speaker) and K shifts her eye gaze to F, who is about to speak again next. In line 18, F resumes his turn by expanding the old topic (“I am trying to listen but cannot decode her dialect”).



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   F   K     R      W    Y     M Line 13 *3 K and R look at the current teller (F)

Line 15 *6 K and R look at W *7 K and R display recipient laughter by shaking their shoulders vertically Line 17 *8 K returns her gaze towards F *9 R looks at M

Figure 3.2 Note that K and R first join in the recipient laughter along with the other members, then they produce brief and very soft laughter in various ways while the interaction proceeds. These soft, ambiguous laugh particles show the parties’ equivocal stance (i.e. neither positive or negative) toward the other participants. The observation made here implies that stepping down may permit participants to distinguish between these two kinds of laughter.

Recipient laughter and body positioning In addition to the acoustic quality of recipient laughter, certain features of embodiment displayed with laughter can also configure a passive participation stance with regard to next speakership. In the following example, five graduate students are discussing various behaviors exhibited by different generations in contemporary Japan. In Excerpt 3, H mentions in Line 1 that she does not like to sit next to Japanese businessmen while on a train. Excerpt 3 1 H: *1>nanka< yoko ni sarariiman itara watashi wa doku-(.)

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HES side LOC salarymen exit-if I TOP avoid seki tatsu (.) *2kana? seat leave FP *1-----------------------------------------* *2 -----------> If salarymen would come next to me, I would avoid them. I will leave my seat. 2 W: *3a [soo? oh right *3 ------> Is that right? 3 O: [*4˚˚e?˚˚ what *4-----> What? 4 T: *5hehehuh n(h)ande? Why hehehuh w(h)hy? *5--------------------------------> 5 O: >sarariiman kawai[so!< salarymen poor Poor salarymen! 6 K: [*6heh huh 7 T: [*7hehuhheh *7 --------------> 8 H: *8che- chau chigau =ojisan *9wa: wron-wrong wrong old men TOP *8 G -----------------------* *9 B: --> 9 ashi o *10sugoi hirogeru wake. Legs O a lot spread NM  No, it’s not that, these old men spread their legs so widely (while they sit). 10 T: he:↑[::↓ Oh I see Oh I see.



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11 H: [de watashi wa >koo hutsuu ni suwatteru kara< Then I TOP this normal PT sitting CAU 12 *11koo >˚nante yuu no˚< ko-koo *12ashi ga kite this what say IP thi-this legs S come And I’m normally sitting like this, then their legs come (near me) this

way. 13 >nanka< suggoi (.)˚ ossan ga ˚ = HES a lot old men S  then I usually sit normally, so this-like this, their legs come towards me this way. Those men do that. 14 K: =heh huh [huh 15 H: [hasamareteru kanji ga site .hh heh Being sandwiched feel S make 16

(.) iya n(h)a w(h)ake. dislke COP reason I feel being sandwiched, so I don’t like it.

*1 H looks up in the air. *2 H looks at O (mutual eye gaze with O). *3 W smiling at H.

T

D

H

K O

K: [*3heh huh *3 K turns to O, then leans back T: [*4hehuhheh *4 T looks towards H

Figure 3.3

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction *4 O looks at H. *5 T looks at H. *6 K looks at O while leaning back. *7 T looks at H. *8 H waves her right hand, while eye gaze with O. *9 K returns to her normal position, while looking at her own hands. *10 H spreads both hands widely. *11 H iconic hand gestures showing where the businessmen’s legs are located. *12 H looks at O.

H’s statement in Line 1 is immediately followed by W, O, and T, who launches a newsmark and a question to H (Line 2 “oh right”, Line 3 “what?”, Line 4 “why” while laughing). All participants including the current speaker (H) are smiling at this point, which is displaying in a subtle way that H’s talk is recognized as something amusing. T and K laugh simultaneously in overlap with O’s teasing turn (Lines 5, 6 and 7). As we can observe in Figure 3.3, there is a slight difference between T and K in their embodied displays while they are laughing. T stays more or less in the same posture, gazing towards H who is the primary referent of O’s tease. K also looks at H at the beginning of her laughter but quickly changes her torso positioning by leaning back and sitting deeply in her sofa chair (see Figure 3.3, *3). Note that both participants are looking at the party who is most likely to speak next (H), and thus they are at this point both yielding a turn to H. While leaning has been discussed as a bodily movement associated with a laughable display (Fox and Ford, 2010), whether it is related to turn-taking negotiation has not been systematically investigated. As a nonverbal behavior in communication, leaning back is understood as a typical listener’s behavior (Kendon, 1990; Knapp and Hall, 2011). Here, K’s bodily display together with her recipient laughter appears to make her listener role salient. Following on from these turns, in the next sequence T and K adopt distinct participation roles in the exchange. H expands her account in Line 9 that the reason she does not like sitting next to the businessmen is because they sit spreading their legs wide. T inserts a nonlaughing response token he::: “oh I see” (line 10) but K assumes passive participation by yielding turns to the other members, while still leaning back against the sofa. K returns her positioning to the previous location in Line 9, in the midst of H’s resumption of her current telling. K’s bodily display of nonparticipation can also be observed again in Line 14. During the production of her account concerning the businessmen (Line



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13), H uses a vulgar term to name the older male generation ossan (old guy) in Japanese. K laughs rather quietly while leaning back against her chair, similar to the previous occasion. K’s recipient laughter in Line 14 is a “volunteer laughter”, or laughter produced even though the main speaker has not laughed first (Jefferson, 1979, p. 81). While hearing K’s laughter, H does not acknowledge K’s response in her talk and resumes her telling, while mutually gazing with O. Leaning back while laughing at a particular laughable may frame a participant’s involvement as peripheral to the unfolding talk. By leaning backward and keeping her torso position this way, a speaker can remain within the recipient participant role, yielding to others to initiate a next action (including selecting next speaker). Excerpt 3 is a case where teases and improprieties are the target of laughter by the recipients such as T and K. While laughter can display the potential willingness to participate in the interactional project, laughter by itself does not entail that such a display can be oriented to as demonstrating outright affiliation with what is going on (Glenn, 2003, p. 22). In this excerpt, K may wish to avoid displaying strong affiliation with the teaser, O, and remain as a recipient to the ongoing action. Recipient laughter with the application of a particular body placement enables K to display mere appreciation of the talk while simultaneously resisting further stance-taking actions during the activity. Based on the materials examined thus far, we can identify a set of common features of recipient laughter. Firstly, these laughs are produced as being discrete, that is, they are produced without accompanying talk. In the absence of any immediate follow up talk, soft vocal laughter by itself is treated as ambiguous. That is, it is regarded as insufficient to enable the unpacking of any subjective stance of the speaker (Jefferson et al., 1987). Secondly, recipient laughter tokens are in lower volume and higher pitch than turn-initial laughter (to be discussed in the following section). Each pulse of laughter tends to be homogeneous and those who are in the rather passive listener roles produce their recipient laughter in chorus-like manner. Finally, recipient laughter seems to come packaged with a range of multimodal cues such as facial expressions (smiling), direction of eye gaze (towards the other parties in line to speak next), and embodied displays (shoulder movements, leaning backwards), which project declination of actions that might enable an interactant to adopt a more assertive participation status.

Turn-initial laughter The extracts involving recipient laughter cases have illustrated how speakers signal to other parties that they are not seeking to speak next. However, laughter can also take

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a form that suggests more active participation in the ongoing talk, possibly helping the producer to gain the speakership to make a more elaborate contribution. In this regard, we examined our corpus for cases in which interactants regularly engaged in particular types of laughter which engenders next speaker (self) selection. We have categorized this type of laughter as turn-initial laughter and in the following sections explore two specific types that we categorize as step-up laughter and delayed laughter.

Step-up laughter In contrast to recipient laughter which tends to be softly spoken, turn-initial laughter tends to be more recognisable in its acoustic quality. Laugh units may be comprised of distinctly different laugh particles—amplitude of laughing voice is one example. Jefferson et al. (1987) discuss practices involved with the “stepping up” of laughter, in which laughter moves from a closed position to an open position gradually, along with an increase in the volume of laughter particles. Pronunciation shifts (Jefferson, 1985) that can occur within a steam of laughter (e.g. heh to ha) can also be considered as a component of such “stepping up” practices. When used at a turn-initial position, this kind of laughter sets one off from others in an audience, and it often coincides with a bid for the speakership. In the following excerpt, we find turn-initial laughter used in Line 10. From this point on, the recipient (K) now becomes the next speaker, and he extends his turn (Lines 10–14). Excerpt 4 Participants: G, K, and Y Here G, K, and Y are talking about their experience as graduate students. G and K have just mentioned that their peers would do things together at all times, and they are feeling that it is not as productive as they initially thought. 1 G: minna insei shitsu(.) insei shitu >kite< minna all graduate room grad. room come all 2 yatteta kara= issho ni. doing CAU together PT Everyone came to the grad. room and did (the research paper), so. All together. 3 K: ah:: Oh Oh:



Laughter and Turn-Taking 4 G: ore wa shoo insei shitsu ni ↓zutto ita ˚˚shi.˚˚ I TOP small grad. room LOC always exist and I was always in the small grad. room. 5 Y: are wa kooritsu warukatta yo ne:: that TOP productivity badIP IP 6 im(H)a om(h)oeba=eh [heh heh now think-when Now that I think of it, it was really unproductive, wasn’t it. 7 K: [*1˚hmm˚ *1----* 8 G: minna issho ni tetsuya de ganbaro! >˚tte tte˚ K: [*3he HAHA HA]HA=*4sono hoo] ga, (.) That way S *3 ---------------------------* *4 ----------------------> 11 Y: [heheheh] 12 K: =kaette gyaku [ni.] contrary reverse PT That is actually the reverse (effect), despite the aim. 13 Y:

[heh]

14 G: [heh heh huh ] 15-> K: £*5kigen warui shi karada ni *6warui shi.£ mood bad and health PT bad and *5------------------------------------------------------------------> *6 --------------* They get grumpy and not good for their health. *1 K nods twice, while smiling at Y *2 G looks at Y, while smiling at Y *3 K leans forward while his arms crossed on the chest *4 K looks at G / G nods towards K with smile

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction *5 K smiles at Y *6 Y and I both look at K (mutual gaze between Y and K) while Y nods a few times

Across Lines 8–9 G indicates that they used to stay up all night together working on their papers in the student office, and that it was unproductive. G then provides a short laugh particle at the end of his turn (Line 9), which invites laughter from the other members. K and Y individually provide recipient laughter (Lines 10 and 11, respectively), with G joining the laughter in Line 14. K’s step-up laughter in line L10 and shift in pronunciation (he to HAHA HA) is then followed by talk which elaborates on G’s prior assessment. The volume of these laugh pulses is quite loud (see Figure 3.4 below, “HAHA HA” shows higher dB than “sono hoo ga”). The pitch of these pulses is also high (350~450Hz range). A comparison with the recipient laughter in Figure 3.1 from Excerpt 1 shows a clear difference (“he he” in Excerpt 1 was within 100~300 Hz). Talk that immediately follows laughter sometimes involves discussion of where the laughability of the previous talk resides, and in this case K’s talk has done exactly that. In contrast, Y’s laughter would appear to be produced as recipient laughter, laughing first along with G’s invitation and then laughing along with K (heheheh in Line 11). Here, Y displays appreciation of both G and K’s actions with a freestanding laugh token. In Line 15, K then takes the floor, saying that staying up all night makes people grumpy and is not good for their health. Importantly, this topic shift by K appears as the collaborative laughter

Figure 3.4 PRAAT capture of K’s turn-initial laughter (A dark line shows Hz: pitch change, and a white line shows dB: loudness)



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in Lines 10–14 projects possible topic closure (Holt, 2010; Jefferson, 1979). K’s turn-initial laughter and Y’s freestanding recipient laughter in this excerpt allow us to see how these two types of laughter contribute towards the different interactional roles adopted by these parties. Excerpt 53 Participants: C, K, R, G (all female speakers of Japanese) K and R are sitting across a round table from C. G is sitting between C and R. They are discussing what they have seen on television shows lately. Their talk involves discussion about how some expressions in foreign languages coincidently resemble Japanese expressions. 1 C: sakki no arama no hanashi mo aru kedo sa: before GEN arama GEN story also exist but IP 2 hangariigo *1de sa, .h shio ga tarinai koto o: Hungary COP  IP    salt S  lacking  NM  O *1--------* 3 shio taran tte ˚yuu.˚ shiotaran QT  say There’s arama thing too, but in Hungary, people say shiotaran when things lack some salt. 4-> K: *2 [he heh hehehe heh ] *2 --------------* 5 G: *3 [˚˚hehehe he˚˚ ] *3 ---------------------------------> 6-> R: [>he heh he heh   really? really? 7 C: ˚hmm˚ 8 R: he: *6 HEEEH: (.5) hee: tte shitteru? “hee” QT know *6--------* he: HEEEH: do you know about hee(bottun)? *1 C points towards K and R with her right arm. *2 K leans forward quickly and returns to the previous position, smiles at C. *3 G looks at C while smiling at C. *4 R brings her right hand to partially cover her mouth.

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*5 looks at C (mutual gaze with C). *6 R taps her right hand on the table three times.

C has just finished talking about a comical phrase in Japanese (shio taran “lack of salt”) which sounds similar to a word in Hungarian language (sotalan “lack of salt”). K, R, and G produce simultaneous responses with various types of laughter. K produces multiple laugh particles while leaning towards the table and smiling at C (Line 4). G’s laughter particles are voiceless (Line 5). R takes up the next speakership after C (Line 8), and this is accomplished by her insertion of turn-initial laughter in Line 6. R’s laughter is produced as a cut-off laughter token, but is immediately followed by a spoken display of surprise HONTO:? “really?” at Line 6. R then repeats the surprise display, with an emphasized articulation. R gains mutual eye contact with C while doing so. After C’s short confirmation token hmm, R takes the initiative in Line 8, and suggests a slight shift in topic (Do you know what this “‘hee” gesture4 is all about?) to the others. A cut-off and quick transformation to the actual utterance may be a distinct feature of turn-initial laughter. Studies of how response tokens are produced in multiparty interactions have shown that an interactant who claims primary recipiency will be more likely to obtain the next speakership (Goodwin, 1980; Saft, 2006). Turn-initial laughter will function to first display recipiency of the current talk, then quickly transform participant role into the next speakership.

Delayed laughter Another feature of turn-initial laughter is delay with regard to the timing of the onset of laughter. Conversationalists constantly deal with the complex task of interpreting the actions and utterances produced by fellow interlocutors, and they must display their interpretations by producing mutually intelligible social actions. While laughter is regularly placed immediately following the talk to which it refers, laughter can also appear at an earlier recognition point at which the laughability of the utterance that is unfolding becomes evident (Jefferson, 1974). In other words, placement of a laugh indexes precisely what the laughable is, or what the recipient sees as laughable (Glenn, 2003, p. 49). As the precise timing of a first laugh unit affords (or indeed constrains) a range of possible significant meanings, not providing or delaying laughter can also suggest meaning. For example, not laughing along with a laughing speaker immediately may be normative when a speaker is reporting “troubles” (Jefferson, 1984). In other settings, delayed recipient laughter might be a feature of interactions in which there are multiple parties in an audience in a joke-telling context (Sacks,



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1992). Jokes can be used as an “understanding test” among participants. In order to display the same interpretation of the joke as other participants, members may wait to see how the rest of an audience reacts before showing their own assessment through laughter. The delayed laughter can then be heard as discrete from any other utterances by the other party, unlike the recipient laughter discussed earlier. It can also be heard as turn-initial (i.e. self-selection of the next speakership) when used in a transition relevant place during the talk-in-interaction. While a lag may often be considered as permissible, delaying laughter within an unfolding sequence may come with some interactional risks. Such a delay may be oriented to as projecting that laughter will not be coming from a recipient. In a dyadic interaction, this risk is perhaps most eminent. In a multiparty setting, where more than one recipient can potentially respond to a current teller, the interactional setting affords for delays in laughter production without running such a risk. Delayed laughter can contribute to securing the next speakership. By delaying, the speaker sets his/her response off from the other recipient laughter, enabling him/her to earn the next speakership. We consider how this gets done in Excerpts 6 and 7. Excerpt 6 Participants: B, C, D, E, and G (Figure 3.5 shows their location vis-à-vis each other) The participants are graduate students in Hawaii. They have gathered at D’s apartment to have a potluck dinner together. C has just returned from a trip to Japan, and has previously worked as a language teacher at a university in a

Figure 3.5

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suburban area in Tokyo. C is describing an activity which C has assigned her students to do: a quiz-show game. 1 C: >nanka↑ichiban sekai de >ichiban takai yama wa< no.1 world LOC no.1 highest mountain TOP 11 doko deshoo?toka ittara (.) .hhh where COP-Q like say-when 12 ~Takao san~ toka itte sa: (.5) Mt.Takao like  say IP Which mountain is the highest in the world?, they ask, then some answer ‘it’s Mt. Takao!’ 13-> D: heh [heh heh heh 14-> E: [˚˚heh heh heh˚˚



Laughter and Turn-Taking 15-> C: [ ˚heh heh heh˚ (.) 16-> B: ˚hehe˚= uwa *1SAMU:: Wow cheezy *1---------* Wow, so cheezy. 17 C: ˚˚u::n >toka itte< bu:: toka itte demo SORE GA yeah:: like say   beep like say but   that S ichiban uketeta. 18 no.1 popular Yeah:: then they say “beep (wrong)” but that was most popular (among them). 19 B: soo na n da: Right COP NM COP Is that right. 20 ER: ˚Takao [san tte-˚ Mt. Takao QT When you speak of Mt. Takao.

[nande Takao san?

21-> B:

Why Mt. Takao Why Mt. Takao?

22 C: datte hora:: IBU dakara sa: Takao yuki [no : CAU you see IBU CAU IP Takao bound GEN Because you see, IBU campus area has things bound to Mt. Takao. [ah:: uhm ] oh:: HES Oh: well.

23 B: 24 ER: huh heh [ heh heh heh ]

[>kisha ya ressha aru ja nai< ]↓Takao san Steam train and trains exist COP NEG Mt.Takao

25 C: 26

tte no ga. QT NM  S There’re trains which go to Mr. Takao, right.

*1 L: ER looks at C.

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In Lines 8–9, C (the current teller) produces in an animated voice (Goffman, 1981) what her student has done in a small play. Following this, recipients D and E laugh in a more or less choral manner (Lines 13–14), and C laughs together with them (Line 15). Following a micro pause, B in Line 16 produces a short laugh unit hehe and follows it immediately with an assessment uwa samu: “wow what a cheezy joke”. In Line 19, B elaborates on her assessment and asks C how this particular joke got told by a student. While D and G produce independent laugh units with no talk following, B responds in the second assessment position (Heritage and Raymond, 2005) by laughing. In this example, G and D’s (passive) laughter is the first assessment to the target in the “punchline” of C’s talk, and B claims her epistemic authority to evaluate this by producing a turn-initial response. B’s turninitial laughter is fairly brief and it latches on to her evaluative commentary. This minimized delivery enables B to engage in more than just displaying appreciation of C’s talk and transforms her role quickly into that of an active speaker. In Excerpt 7, we present another example of delayed recipient laughter by an addressed party. In this example, smiling is produced to display the participant’s participation during the recipient laughter projection by others. Excerpt 7 1 I: ↑janku fuudo ga hajimatta no ga uchi no hahaoya Junk food S started NM S us GEN mother 2 no sedaina n desu yo=choodo. GEN generation COP NM COPIP just The time when junk food had become (available) is just around when my mother’s generation. 3 T: he:[: I see I see. 4 I: [de sono sono toshi gurai kara=kyuu ni Then that that year about from sunnden PT 5 heikin jyumyoo tte no ga mijikaku nar- naru tte↓ average lifespan QT NM S shorten bec- become QT 6 iwaretetete, said Then around that year, it’s been said that average lifespan would be shorter. 7 T: ha::n=



Laughter and Turn-Taking

Yeah Yeah.

8 I: =>kore wa< uchi no hahaoya wa ˚moo >mainichi< This TOP   us   GEN mother TOP much everyday 9 watashi wa moo sugu shinu. I TOP much soon die 10 moo sugu shinu.˚ [tte much soon die QT For this, my mom used to say every single day I’m going to die soon. 11 T: *1[heh heh *2HEH heh he] *1 ------------* *2----------------> 12 H: *3[heh heh] *3-------------> 13 K: *4[hehehe hehe] *4--------------------> 5 14 * (.) *5---> 15 D: heh=&sore d(h)e tte >yuu no ha[yai *7----------> nai to omou NEG QT think    I would think it’s absolutely not likely. 17 T: 18 H:

[˚heh heh˚ [˚˚he::heh˚˚

*1 T first looks at I. *2 T looks at H and K. *3 H looks at I. *4 K leans backward while looking at O. *5 D looks at O, while smiling at O. *6 D looks down once then re-engages in eye gaze with O. *7 D turns her attention to her notebook. *8 T looks up in the air.

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D

H

K O

Figure 3.6 Before commenting in Line 16, D’s participation in the recipient laughter appears to digress slightly from the others. T, H, and K produce their laughter more or less as a co-joint production (Lines 11, 12 and 13). While these three vocalize their laughter, D maintains her smile to display appreciation of D’s laughable referent; however, she does not laugh. While T, H, and K either look at each other or away from O, D maintains her eye contact solely with the current teller (Figure 3.6, Lines 14–15). D’s divergence in terms of her gaze direction here sets her response away from the other party’s recipient laughter. In addition to gaze, D’s smiling without verbalized laughter is different from the others. Haakana (2010) suggests that smiling can acknowledge or even show strong uptake of the laughability of a previous turn. In this example, D’s smile during the production of T, H, and K’s vocal laughter displays her affiliation with their response as well as her recognition of the laughable moment. However, not vocalizing laughter while others do may be treated as a rather distinct behavior. Consider that at Line 14, there is a one-second silence during which D disengages from the gaze with O and looks down towards her notebook and then, at Line 15, D takes the next turn. Here, D first produces a very short curtailed laughter particle heh, which is immediately followed with talk in smiling



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voice “it is too fast in conclusion to say (one will die from eating junk food)”, accounting for the laughable quality of O’s telling. As Haakana (2010) suggests, laughter and smiling have different functions in different sequential and verbal contexts. Smiling can be used as a pre-laughing device, but it is not treated as a laugh token. In this example, a smile allows a delayed recipient response, and in the next available slot D designs her turn with a turn-initial laughter as its preface. Turn-initial laughter is still a response that displays acknowledgment and appreciation of the prior speaker’s talk. When it is placed as a preface to projection of a next turn, it also creates a transition space of speakership among the parties. In this section, we have detailed several methods by which one shapes turn-initial laughter in order for other interactants to orient to it as an accountable warrant for seeking next speakership. Clearer and emphasized articulation and a delay in timing of production of laughter were observed in the study corpus.

Conclusion In multiparty interactions individual members may claim different roles while laughing simultaneously. Those who let pass their opportunity to speak next display their passive recipiency, making use of laughter units with multimodal cues such as eye gaze, direction and body displays, which serve to frame them as recipients to the primary exchange of interaction in the context. Those who would take up a next speaker turn may produce qualitatively different laughter than those producing passive laughter. In such cases, they find a way to distinguish their laughter by varying the quality of their laugh particles and applying various body postures to show their heightened involvement. What they may achieve with such laughter is self-selection as the next speaker. Interactants may also delay recipient laughter such that the delay will enable divergence from other recipients while ensuring that any delay is not hearable as a resistance to laugh, given that delays in laughter may be oriented to as projecting potential interactional trouble. Furthermore, when the laugher is delayed, there is a greater likelihood of getting one’s contribution in the clear so that the laughter is not drowned out by the shared laughter or others’ responses. Our analysis extends previous findings that laughter by itself is oriented to by interactants as being equivocal with regard to its social meaning (Glenn, 2003), with such equivocality remedied by the employment of multimodal

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practices during laughter production and immediate post-laughter talk. The analyses presented here add to a growing body of work demonstrating the flexibility of laughter as an interactional resource for turn-taking in multiparty interactions. *The authors would like to thank Elizabeth Holt and Phillip Glenn for their extremely valuable suggestions and erudite analytic insights.

Notes 1 In many cases, one person begins laughing then others join in. Here we highlight multiple first laughs as a possible occurrence, not as a commonly found case. 2 Mt. Takao is obviously not the highest mountain in Japan (Mt. Fuji). It is a locally known mountain in the area of the university campus which the referred students go to. 3 Permission to present the visual data for this excerpt was not obtained. 4 At the time of recording this data there was a popular game show which introduced what is called a “hee button”. It projects a surprise response hee in Japanese when one presses it.

Part Two

Laughs in Turns

In this section are three chapters whose main focus is exploring the work that laughter does in turns at talk. A starting point for Chapters 4 and 5 is laughter accompanying talk (incorporating the laughable)—post-completion in Chapter 5, and in a variety of positions in Chapter 4. Chapter 6 focuses on laughing in response turns, both in isolation or as laugh particles within speech. But analysis of laughs in turns inevitably leads to consideration of the wider sequence to which they contribute. And in analyzing these, the authors in this section arrive at findings that share some similarities and touch on recurrent themes within this volume. Most notably these relate to: first, issues to do with alignment/nonalignment, affiliation/disaffiliation; and second, the relationship of laughter to delicate sequences. The first chapter in this section—“ ‘There’s Many a True Word Said in Jest’: Seriousness and Nonseriousness in Interaction” by Holt—explores this commonly-made distinction in relation to informal conversations. A starting point is Sacks’ (1992) observation that first pair parts can be serious or nonserious in terms of the next actions they make relevant, and that laughing is one way to treat a first part as nonserious. Thus, Sacks showed that first parts treated as nonserious do not carry the same sequential implications they would have if treated seriously. Holt lays out some of the various ways in which turns and responses can be designed to be serious, nonserious, or equivocal, and the role laughter plays in contributing towards constituting turns as one or the other. What emerges from consideration of a corpus of instances is that seriousness and nonseriousness are recurrently thoroughly entwined in interaction. Holt analyzes a number of excerpts in which sequences involving laughter and nonseriousness are used to accomplish serious tasks. The extracts analyzed by Holt involve talk that is in some way delicate or problematic—expressing concerns about not being good enough to perform at

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a country dance; showing up without a promised comestible and then negotiating whether to fetch one; and admitting that promised use of a holiday home has been offered to others. By using laughter and actions built to be, at least in part, nonserious, participants strive to maintain affiliation and alignment while negotiating their way through these difficult sequences. In Chapter 5—“Having the Last Laugh: On Post-Completion Laughter Particles”, Shaw, Potter, and Hepburn focus on turns with post-positioned laugh tokens; i.e. laughter after turn completion. The authors explore instances of unilateral laughter which neither invite nor receive reciprocation. The analysis reveals that following potentially troubling actions, laughter in the turn space after the talk can modulate the action, neutralizing or softening its problematic nature. In this way speakers can attempt to avoid provoking disaffiliative recipient responses without disrupting the progressivity. Shaw, Potter, and Hepburn also show that the delivery and duration of the laughter is calibrated to the nature of the action, thus demonstrating the need for careful analysis of the laughter particles (see Chapter 3 by Ikeda and Bysouth for further explorations of this insight). By showing how post-completion laughter modulates action, Shaw, Hepburn, and Potter provide insight into a possible reason for the recurrent relationship between delicate sequences and laughter. The laughter in their extracts works towards maintaining affiliation. Further, as they point out, “the analysis goes beyond specifying that the action being accompanied is disaffiliative, to specifying how the action implicates the recipient, with the laughter being calibrated to this finely grained level of action analysis”. Holt’s chapter also provides a possible reason for the association of laughter and delicate moments: framing an action as potentially nonserious provides for an array of recipient responses ranging from orienting to the serious action of the turn to treating it as entirely nonserious. This allows participants to manage delicate moments with nuanced displays of varying degrees of alignment and affiliation. The final chapter in this section—“The Use of Laughter in Bilingual Medical Interactions: Displaying Resistance to Doctor’s Talk in a Mexican Village” by Ticca—concentrates on laughter in response turns. Her data is drawn from a corpus of video-recorded bilingual medical consultations in a clinic and a hospital in Yucatan, Mexico. The patients—mothers of small children— laugh in sequences where such a response does not seem to be invited by the physician’s prior turn; in other words, in the context of otherwise serious talk. Furthermore, the talk is of a delicate and problematic nature: doctors criticize the patients by asking why a baby is so dirty or stating that a child is too old to



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be breastfed. In treating the doctor’s talk as nonserious, patients disalign with the activity in progress and resist the doctor’s critical stance. Thus, these extracts vividly demonstrate how laughter may be used in overtly problematic situations to resist actions while, at the same time, maintaining some level of social cohesion. In this way, Ticca’s chapter also sheds light on the recurrent use of laughter in delicate sequences.

4

“There’s Many a True Word Said in Jest”: Seriousness and Nonseriousness in Interaction Elizabeth Holt

Members of society regularly distinguish between seriousness and nonseriousness, as indicated by, for example, comments such as “I’m kidding” and “I’m serious”.1 Here’s an example heard in passing: A: Don’t do tha:t B: huh huh huh A: I’m serious:

Furthermore, in reading literature on laughter and humor in interaction, one occasionally comes across the same distinction made by analysts (for example, O’Donnell-Trujillo and Adams, 1983, p. 182; Schegloff, 2001; Schenkein, 1972), and in undertaking research into laughter in interaction, I myself have sometimes found it useful to distinguish between seriousness and nonseriousness. But I also wonder what exactly it is we mean by these terms and whether analysis might give us a better understanding of the phenomena they gloss. Such analysis will establish if they are useful analytically. Often nonseriousness is equated with humor or joking. However, in using the term humor both analysts and participants recurrently invoke a broader class of actions than can easily be accounted for by defining them as humorous. Based on an analysis of nonseriousness in interaction, Schegloff (2001) writes (with reference to a particular extract), “… then perhaps this instance may serve to suggest that ‘joke’ is but one ‘value’ of the more general feature ‘non-serious’” (pp. 1952–3). He also includes hyperbole and nonliteralness as being potential members of the category on some occasions of their use. From a conversation analytic perspective, however, exploring the idea of nonseriousness does not simply involve identifying phenomena (such as jokes, irony, teasing) that are included in the class. The seriousness or nonseriousness

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of turns resides in social action rather than in the message itself or in the perception of the sender or receiver. Conversation analysts take a sequential approach, identifying how participants might establish the nonseriousness of a contribution (either their own, or a prior one) and the impact this has on the ongoing talk. Thus, nonseriousness is a result of the negotiation and collaboration of participants. Consideration of this negotiation of the nature of actions (i.e. whether they are to be treated seriously, nonseriously, or by some combination) enables us to witness how social action is collaboratively created and molded in sequences of interaction. It demonstrates the subtle work that can be done on the action and import of turns, influencing the nature of subsequent turns and sequences. We will see that this makes it an extremely powerful device in dealing with delicate actions in particular. And, as the data demonstrates, such work is only possible because of the inextricable interdependence of seriousness and nonseriousness. Sacks (1992) offers an account based on seeing nonseriousness as constituted by participants. He states that participants to interaction recurrently orient to the fact that many first pair parts can be either serious or nonserious. [I]t’s one criterion of an utterance being a first pair member that it can be followed with, not only the second pair member but either the second pair member or laughter- or, alternatively, the question ‘Are you kidding?’ or ‘Are you serious?’ (p. 672, original italics)

He makes the point that whether an utterance is judged to be serious or nonserious is fundamentally important to the kind of response it will receive. Sacks discusses this in terms of a kind of “ambiguity” of first pair parts. We are not, then talking about the issue of the sentence having an ambiguity of meaning in the sense of this term or that term, but, does it have this sequence appropriate after it or that sequence appropriate after it; a possible acceptance of the proposal or laughter? (p. 672)

Thus, a first pair part taken to be nonserious does not have the sequential implications it would normally have. For instance, a “joking” invitation does not have an acceptance or declination as its expected response, but something that orients to its nonseriousness such as laughing. Building on Sacks’ observations, Glenn (2003) makes a connection between nonseriousness and playfulness. He draws on the work of Bateson (1972, pp. 177–93) who “characterizes play as an interactional state created by metacommunicative signals which frame or bracket messages as nonserious” (p. 137).



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Thus: “(f)ramed as play, a conversational act does not carry the ‘serious’ consequences it might otherwise. An impropriety treated as play does not create offense or breach in the interaction” (p. 137). However, Glenn also makes the point that the distinction between serious and nonseriousness, or play and nonplay is not always clear-cut. Metacommunicative signals can be employed to display “not ‘this is play’ but ‘is this play?’ ” (p. 137). Thus, whether an action is play or not may be unclear to interlocutors and may be negotiated over turns. The ambiguity may also be used for strategic purposes; participants may “utilize the potential ambiguity inherent in ‘is this play?’ messages to extend an invitation which has not been ‘really’ extended, or to perform acceptance which may or may not constitute ‘real’ acceptance” (p. 137). The observation that the distinction between seriousness and nonserious is not clear-cut will be central to this chapter. I will show that it is not always even appropriate to see them as two sides of the same coin; rather, in interaction they are regularly so closely intertwined as to be frequently inseparable. I will analyze sequences of talk to demonstrate that this intertwining is crucial to the delicate work that oscillating between more serious and nonserious poles can do, particularly in potentially problematic sequences. In order to explore seriousness and nonseriousness it is necessary to begin with consideration of certain closely related phenomena: laughter and laughables. These will be useful in exploring the interactional landscape of the phenomena. I move on to focusing on short sequences (single turns and pairs of turns), showing how components (especially laughter) may help to constitute talk as nonserious. I then consider longer sequences, showing how seriousness and nonseriousness are entwined over series of turns, and the interactional work that is accomplished.

Laughter and nonseriousness The most obvious manifestation of nonseriousness in interaction is laughter. According to Sacks (1992, p. 672), as demonstrated in the quote above, a response to a first pair part treated as nonserious can involve laughter. A laugh response displays that the recipient either takes the prior turn to be nonserious, or is treating it as such. Let me illustrate this with an example where the recipient of a turn laughs.

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction (1) [Holt:M88:1:5:14] 1 Lesley: eYes I know it’s-e-it’s using these 2 little grey ce:lls [isn’it. 3 Robbie: [↑(he he)↑ 4 (.) 5 Robbie: I think I’ve lost min[e 6 Lesley: [ehh::hhah huh 7  huh huh huh .hhhhh

In Line 5 Robbie announces that she thinks she has “lost her little grey cells”. Lesley responds with laughter, thus treating this as neither a serious announcement nor self-deprecation.2 The nature of the action at Line 5 has important consequences for the response and the ongoing sequence. A serious announcement could have invited a news receipt (e.g. “Oh have you?”), a self-deprecation, taken seriously, could have been responded to with a disagreement (e.g. “No you haven’t”) (Pomerantz, 1984). But by laughing, Lesley treats this as nonserious. Her laugh response brings the sequence to a close (Holt, 2010). Laughter can also be crucial in displaying a speaker’s stance towards her own turn; i.e. that she is not being serious (or, at least, not entirely serious). So, for example, by laughing at the end of a turn a speaker may help constitute it as a potential laughable and make laughter an appropriate response. This is illustrated by the following extract. (2) [Holt:O88:1:4:2] (Lesley has been asking Eleanor about an upcoming event involving country dancing. It seems that, in contrast to Lesley, Eleanor attends regularly.) 1 Lesley: .hhhh Right so-e ↑see you the:[re. 2 Eleanor: [O:kay then? 3 Lesley: .hhh ah I hope ↑it won’ be too difficult, 4 (0.5) 6 Eleanor: No::[:: 7 (Lesley) [↑ih 8 Eleanor: ↓No[:: 9 Lesley:  [ih Go on. Eh hheh heh 10 Eleanor: eh hheh ↑he[h

At Line 9 Lesley produces a turn with three beats of laughter at the end. The first part of the turn, “ih Go on”, appears to disagree with Eleanor’s prior emphatic claim that Lesley will not find the dances too difficult. However, the laughter



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does some work to the action of the turn: it modifies the disagreement (See Shaw, Hepburn, and Potter, Chapter 5, this volume). Eleanor does not treat it as a disagreement; rather, she laughs in response. Thus, laughter, in a variety of sequential positions, is recurrently centrally bound up with notions of nonseriousness: it is often the clearest clue that some turns are being designed to be nonserious or are being treated as such.

Laughables Investigation of the relationship between laughter and nonseriousness also raises the notion of the laughable and its role in the interactional landscape. There is clearly an extensive overlap between these two related terms: turns that draw laughter are laughables and may also be deemed to be nonserious. However, there are also differences: the term nonseriousness may sometimes be used in a broader sense than laughable. Whilst the latter refers to a turn responded to with laughter, the former may be used to refer to turns where there is no laughter present. Further, while laughable refers to a turn or component of a turn, nonserious may also refer to a sequence of turns. Exploring nonseriousness invites us to consider how a turn may be designed to be so,3 though turns that do not appear to be designed as such can still be treated as nonserious. So to more fully understand seriousness and nonseriousness we need some finer distinctions. It is useful to recognize that, in respect of first turns, it is possible that: turns may be designed as potential laughables; they may be designed to be serious; or they may be equivocal. Furthermore, second turns (responses) may: treat the prior turn as nonserious; treat the prior turn as serious; or some combination of the two. These will be illustrated in the following sections.

First turns Turns designed as nonserious In the following extract it appears that Dwayne designs his turn (Lines 6–9) to be nonserious. Evidence for this comes both from the design of the turn and from Mark’s response.

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction (3) [Holt:M88:2:1:7] (Mark has rung to talk to Dwayne’s wife about his invitation to the forthcoming wedding of their daughter. Dwayne’s wife is out and so he suggests he ring back later.) 1 Dwayne: Ye:h cuz she’d love to chat to you becuz 2 we’re only: (0.6) .h Well it o- well I say, 3 not just I mean it wz over the weeke:n:d. 4 You ↓kno:w, 5 Mark: hYe:s, 6 Dwayne: when it came your name came along you 7  see 'nd uh .hhh (0.5) she said uh:::: 8  various (.) .hh horrible things 9  abo[ut you? 10 Mark: [Yehhh::heh heh huhh 11 Dwayne: 'n [I s'd well ]cross im o:ff. you]know 12 Mark: [u- .hk- u ].h h h h h h h h h] hYeh= 13 =hheh ↑heh ↑.hhhh ↑hehh 14 .hu-h-[.hu .hh-].hhh .snkff! 15 Dwayne: [A n : d ]uh

Dwayne claims his wife “said various horrible things” about Mark when they mentioned him some days before. He goes on to say that he advised her to “cross him off ” the list of people invited to their daughter’s forthcoming wedding. These “insults” are delivered baldly which, despite the “deadpan”4 nature of the turn, helps to convey that they are nonserious. Additionally, the strength of the negative assessment “horrible” and the dismissiveness of “cross him off ” add to its ironic nature. In response, at a place where Mark could have produced a serious uptake, he laughs (Lines 10 and 12–14). Thus, the laughter conveys that Mark does not take these insults seriously: he orients to them as playful.

Turns designed to be serious In the next extract Lesley responds with laughter to a prior turn that appears to be entirely serious. (4) [Holt 88U:2:2:17] (Lesley, a teacher, and Kevin have been talking about a mutual friend, Ben, who they say has benefitted from retiring from teaching.) 1 Kevin: sometimes I wish I(.)’d uh (.) taken up 2 teaching as eh: Claydon said I ought to’ve



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3 done, 4 Lesley: eh ↑heh heh heh heh heh↑ .hhhh I don’t think 5 so not these days ↑hheh heh↑ (.) too much 6 stress, 7 (0.9) 8 Kevin: Well I don’t know,

Following the completion of discussion about a mutual friend’s retirement from teaching, Kevin says that he sometimes wishes he’d taken up teaching. There is nothing about the turn that explicitly suggests it is not serious: it is not uttered with smile voice or laughter and there seems nothing about its construction that is recurrently associated with laughables. However, Lesley responds with six loud beats of laughter before producing a disagreement, “I don’t think so not these days” and two further beats of laughter prior to the account, “too much stress”. Thus, despite the fact that Kevin’s turn appears to be serious, Lesley responds with components that orient to it both nonseriously and seriously.

Turns designed to be equivocal In the following extract Lesley’s turn at Lines 13 and 14 appears to be designed to be somewhat equivocal between being serious and nonserious. (5) [Holt:X(C)1:1:6:3] (Lesley has forgotten to pay the phone bill and was cut off for a short period.) 1 Lesley: But apparently they cut w- ↑fi:ve ↑people 2 off in Galhampto[n: on [: Thursday3 Mum: [(  )! [(    ) 4 Mum: ↑Oh: lo:ve. 5 (0.4) 6 Mum: That’s a nuisance isn’t it. 7 Lesley: Ye [s. 8 Mum: [They re getting terrible. 9 (0.3) 10 Lesley: We:l [l- I ↑ s a i d ] 11 Mum: I [mean ↑look what↑ ] 12 (0.2) 13 Lesley:  I ↑said to↑ them. £this is British Telecom 14 Lesley:  for you(h)£= 15 Mum: =Yes..h An› ↑look what they↑ cha:rge. They 16 charge you .h three pounds (just t’have)

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this wretched old thing in your hou:se (0.5) Yes.=

In response to Lesley’s report that five people in the village had their phones cut off by the company, Mum makes two critical assessments (Lines 6 and 8) and then begins to launch her own complaint (Line 11). However, in overlap, Lesley begins to recall what she said to an employee (Line 10), which is recycled and continued in Lines 13 and 14. This turn contributes to the complaint; however, there is noticeable smile voice throughout the reported speech, and a slight hint of laughter towards the end. Mum orients to this as a complaint; in response (following the affiliation) she appears to continue the complaint began in Line 11. Thus, Mum orients to it as serious: her complaint is explicitly built as a continuation of Lesley’s more equivocal complaint with “Yes. .h An’”, even though Lesley’s turn clearly has nonserious elements.

Three kinds of responses Having considered first turns in terms of whether they may be designed to be serious, nonserious, or equivocal, I now turn to second turns to show how they may orient to a prior turn as serious, nonserious, or equivocal.

Serious responses In the next extract a turn with laughter at the end is not responded to with reciprocal laughter or some other kind of response that treats it as nonserious. Rather, it is treated as an informing. (6) [NB:II:2:3] 1 Frank: Hello:. 2 Jim: Hello: hello. 3 (0.4) 4 Frank: W’ts goin o:n 5 Jim: Not mu:ch. Wuddi [yih know. 6 Frank: [Mh7 Frank: Huh? 8 Jim: Whuddiyih kno:w. 9 (0.3)



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10 Frank: Nodda mu:ch th [e: ] waves er about 11 Jim: [Ya ]h 12 Frank: tuh wosh us away hih h [eh ] hn hn hu ]= 13 Jim:  [Is ] that right? ]= 14 Frank: =Ye:h, 15 Jim: Yah.

Frank’s question in Line 4 comes after the initial greetings at the start of the call. It elicits a first topic. In response, Frank refers to the rough sea at his holiday venue, appending laughter. Jim overlaps after the first beat of laughter with a question, a newsmark (Jefferson, 1981), that positions him as news recipient. It displays that the previous turn has been informative and invites continuation. He pursues topical talk without reciprocating the laughter. Thus, Jim treats Frank’s turn as an announcement with its conventional sequential implications rather than orienting to its nonserious element. In so doing, Jim may also be orienting to Frank’s turn as a potential troubles-telling (Jefferson, 1984): reciprocating the laughter could be seen as disaffiliative with the (mild) troubles-relevance of Frank’s turn.

Laugh responses In the next extract a turn without laughter receives a response of laughter. (7) [Holt(U)2:4:20] (Carrie’s husband, Ronald, has recently died) 1 Skip: =I sp [oze or Fri ]:dee night ]hh We ‘r= 2 Carrie: [ ↑Did you ]↓Did you: ] 3 Skip: =wond’rin how you= were gettin’ o::n, .t 4 Carrie: ˚Well we’re doin:g eh-˚ (1.0) down quite 5 We’re settled ↓well really 6 you kno: [w, 7 Skip: [Goo:[d. Ye:s. 8 Carrie: [I made myself sleep in th’ 9 middle’v the ↓bed (strai [ght     ) 10 Skip: [Ah:: ha hhhe:h. 11 Carrie: he he ↑he hih .hhhh ↑When Ronald use to be 12 in Sint Peter’s I still slept in my third 13 a’ the bed as Steven called it 14 yo [u know ‘n I ]thought r:i:ght. One= 15 Skip: [u h Y e :s, ]

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16 Carrie: =.hhhh pillow out en’ this one’s going 17 in:[the middle 18 Skip: [( ) 19 Skip: heh he[h 20 Carrie: [wz the mos’ sensible thing t’do: 21 rather th’n have a ba:re patch 22 bihsu-u (.) [besi:de ] m[e. 23 Skip: [ehYE:s, ] [Ye:s. Ye:s. .hhh 24 Skip: That’s ri:ght,

This extract begins some way into the conversation in which Carrie has rung to announce the birth of her granddaughter. Skip reports that he and his wife were wondering how Carrie and her daughter are “getting on”. This seems implicitly to index her recent bereavement, and Carrie’s answer treats it in this manner as “‘settled down quite well”’ implies after the death. Her response is positive, but hedged with “quite” and “really”. Skip responds with the assessment “good” which does not orient to the possible troubles hinted at in Carrie’s response. In Lines 8 and 9, she replies with the report of something she has done: “I made myself sleep in th’ middle’v the ↓bed (strai[ght     )”. This is said without any overt assessment, although “made myself ” hints that it was difficult for her and suggests her bravery in the face of adversity. In response, Skip first produces a response token “Ah:: ha”, then he laughs. There appears to be nothing explicitly nonserious about Carrie’s turn; for example, there is no smile voice or laughter in its construction. However, his response is not treated as inappropriate by Carrie, as she also laughs in Line 11. Furthermore, she then embarks on a further telling of something relating to sleeping in the marital bed that could be a further laughable, to which Skip responds with more laughter at Line 19.5

Combinations Recurrently in interaction, turns are responded to with a combination of actions that orient to both the serious matter(s) conveyed by the previous turn, and treat it as laughable, most commonly through laughter. In the following extract, the laughter is “volunteered” (Jefferson, 1979) in that there is no laughter in the preceding turn. However, elements of the turn are commonly associated with laughables, thus making it an equivocal laughable that is responded to as such. (8) [Heritage:I:3:1] (Ilene’s dog, referred to as “Madam” in Line 2, has been staying with Lisa in order to be mated and groomed.)



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1 Ilene: .hhh Uh: an’ how’s my uh m- ho:w uh 2 how’s Madam:,= 3 Lisa: =↑Fi:ne thank you ready tih co:me back< 4 (.) 5 Ilene: Oh ↓good. 6 (0.4) 7 Lisa: Been well ↓ma:ted I got the knots out’v 8 her ea::rs?= 9 Ilene: =M[m hm? 10 Lisa: [I’ve done ‘er toenai:ls? 11 (0.2) 12 Ilene: .t.hhh Yes[: good< ] 13 Lisa: [Y’c’d ne ]a:r= 14 Ilene: =[°becuh-° 15 Lisa: =[You c’d hear’er in th’nex’ 16 county? b [‘t she’s ]done. 17 Ilene: [e h h h! ] 18 Ilene: Yheh-heh-heh-heh-heh he-he-he19 Ilene: .hehhhh She’s a terrible fuss 20 Ilene: over [her fee: ]t.hh .hhh 21 Lisa: [Awghhh! ]

In Lines 15 and 16, Lisa describes the noise the dog made while having her claws clipped as “You c’d hear’er in th’nex’ county?”. There is no laughter or smile voice; however, such overdone figurative expressions are commonly associated with laughables (Holt, 2011). Ilene first responds with several beats of laughter, plus the hint of an agreement token at the start of Line 18. Following the laughter she then adds “She’s a terrible fuss over her fee:t”, thus orienting seriously to Lisa’s complaint by adding one of her own. Her response combines elements that orient both seriously and nonseriously to the prior turn. These extracts, then, reveal some of the landscape relevant to consideration of seriousness and nonseriousness in interaction and begin to demonstrate the intertwining of these two elements. They show that turns can be built using components that can push in the direction of seriousness or nonseriousness and that responses to first turns can orient to prior turns in an array of ways along this scale. Further, they highlight the significance of sequentiality in considering seriousness/nonseriousness: the negotiation of these is played out over turns. In fact, analysis of longer sequences reveals how complex and intricate this negotiation can be. It also reveals how sequences involving these kinds of

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negotiations are impressively suited to dealing with delicate matters. It is to this that I now turn.

Extended sequences of seriousness and nonseriousness. Occasionally in interaction, one comes across extended sequences of turns of nonseriousness, as in the following instance. Here, the participants collaborate with joking contributions over a number of turns to create a playful, hypothetical scenario. (9) [Holt:Nov2000:1:3] (P and his new partner are about to stay with D at his in-laws’ house. D’s in-laws have met P’s ex-wife, Pam, but not his current partner.) 1 P: ↑So you will let me kno:w uh- uh- y- you 2 don’t think there’ll be kind of any 3 ha:ss[le. 4 D: [↑Oh (f-) th- there won’t be any any 5 hassle at all they’ll uh .hh [hhh 6 P: [>In fact 7 d’yuh think they will< enjo:y co:mpany. 8 D: Ye:s uh- I think it’ll be a case of the 9 more the merrier=they- th- the- they know 10 you ve:ry we:ll .hhhh uhh th- they’re very 11 happy for you to (.) to be there (th-) >I 12 don’t think there’s a problem bab [e< 13 P: [(They’ll) 14 say .tch ↑it’s very nice to meet you Pa::m 15 D: .hh ↑he huh hee hah hah hah hah hah hah 16 .hhhh ↑by:: you’ve fucking grown a few 17 inches like haven’t [yuh 18 P: [( ) 19 D: hah [hah hah hah hah 20 P: [°huh huh huh° 21 (.) 22 P: ↑Yuh ti:ts uh bigger [aren’t they? 23 D: [.hhh 24 D: he hu:::h heh heh .hhh in fact you’ve 25 got ti: [ts heh heh heh heh hah hah hah ]= 26 P: [heh heh heh excellent ( ) ]=



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27 D: =[hah HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH hah hah hah 28 P: =[there you go ( ) ba(h)be

In this extract the participants use “enactments” (Holt, 2007) to act out a scenario where D’s in-laws mistake P’s current partner for his ex-wife. In Lines 13–14, P produces hypothetical reported speech portraying his parents-in-law greeting D’s friend with the wrong name. This, and the turns that follow, are clearly nonserious. Elements of their design contribute to this, for example, the fact that the speakers “play” characters (they enact what the parents “would” say), their use of profanity and vulgar terms (such as “fucking grown” and “ti:ts”) and the extended laughter throughout the sequence.6 But such extended sequences of nonserious talk are relatively unusual in interaction. Much more commonly, sequences involving laughter are less clearly nonserious; rather, they mix seriousness and nonseriousness. Recurrently, talk that appears to be nonserious also does serious work (see Drew, 1987). Thus, for recipients it is often not a straightforward choice between treating a turn as nonserious (and thus, not having its usual sequential implications), or serious (and, thus, carrying its conventional sequential implications), but some combination of the two. I will illustrate this with reference to the following extract (a section of which was discussed briefly above). It shows how, over an extended sequence, elements of seriousness and nonseriousness are thoroughly entwined. (2) [Holt:O88:1:4:2] (Lesley has been asking Eleanor about an upcoming event involving country dancing. It seems that, in contrast to Lesley, Eleanor attends regularly.) 1 Lesley: .hhhh Right so-e ↑see you the: [re. 2 Eleanor: [O:kay then? 3 Lesley: .hhh ah I hope ↑it won’ be too difficult, 4 (0.5) 6 Eleanor: No:: [:: 7 (Lesley) [↑ih 8 Eleanor: ↓No [:: 9 Lesley: [ih Go on. Eh hheh heh 10 Eleanor: eh hheh ↑he [h 11 Lesley: [.hhh £You’re all experts 12 I kno[:w.£ 13 Eleanor: [No:↑:: huh No we’re not, .hh No: we 14 very often get it wrong, ↑h [ih 15 Lesley: [Well you will 16 get it wrong tonight I[c’n assure y-]

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction 17 Eleanor: [E : : v ‘ n ] 18 one- you know ones that we’ve been doing. 19 (.) every ti:me, we still get 20 wro(h [h) heh heh ↑he [h 21 Lesley: [heh ha ha [.hhhhhh 22 Lesley: Ah well we shall see: bu [t (.) ↑ih: 23 Eleanor: [eeYe:h 24 Lesley: certainly you’ll you’ll have a novice 25 amongst you tonight. 26 Eleanor: [ (   ) 27 Lesley: Eh hheh 28 Eleanor: [ (   ) 29 Lesley: .hh[h ↑Okay then,

To explore this instance, I will divide the talk into three smaller sections reproduced below. 9 Lesley: [ih Go on. Eh hheh heh 10 Eleanor: eh hheh ↑he[h

In Line 9 Lesley disagrees with Eleanor’s prior denial and laughs. The first part of the turn (“ih Go on.”) appears to disagree with Eleanor’s emphatic, repeated, denial that Lesley will find the dances challenging. However, the three beats of laughter at the end of the turn do some work to its valence, casting it as (at least partly) nonserious. The laughter modifies the disagreement making it less potentially confrontational or dispreferred. According to Jefferson (1979), laughter can also invite reciprocal laughter. The turn is, then, equivocal, consisting of both serious and nonserious elements. In her response, Eleanor orients to the nonseriousness of the turn by reciprocating the laughter. Furthermore, she treats it as nonserious in that she does not orient to it as having its usual sequential implications. Had she treated “go on” seriously, she may have responded by reasserting her claim that the dances will not be difficult. Rather, at a point where she could have selected a serious response, she laughs. But, Lesley’s turn does not seem to be entirely nonserious. It carries two actions: a (modified) disagreement with Eleanor’s denial, and laughter. Eleanor orients only to the laughter. The subsequent turn by Lesley, however, suggests that her turn was not necessarily entirely nonserious. Rather than continuing her laughter in order to join in with Eleanor, she overlaps the end of it with “.hhh You’re all experts I kno:w.”, thus, continuing to maintain that the dances



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will be difficult (and to implicitly compliment Eleanor at the same time). In so doing, she gives Eleanor another chance to orient seriously to Lesley’s concerns. 11 Lesley: [.hhh £You’re all experts 12 I kno[:w.£ 13 Eleanor: [No:↑:: huh No we’re not, .hh No: we 14 very often get it wrong, ↑h[ih

This time there is no laughter at the completion of Lesley’s turn and, on the face of it, the turn may seem to be designed to be serious. However, there are certain aspects that suggest that it is equivocal. For example, there is noticeable smile voice throughout. Furthermore, it contains a component recurrently associated with contributions treated as laughables. The strongly formulated assessment “all experts”, as an extreme case formulation, is somewhat similar to the exaggerated and overdone assessments recurrently associated with laughables (Ford and Fox, 2010; Holt, 2011). Thus, it appears to be both serious and nonserious. In her response, Eleanor mainly orients to the previous turn as serious: she begins with an emphatic disagreement, “No:↑::”, there is then a beat of laughter, before two further disagreements with Lesley’s assessment and a further beat of laughter at the end. It largely maintains its serious sequential implications, but also conveys some orientation to nonseriousness. This intertwining of orienting to the serious matter at hand (i.e. Lesley’s concerns about the dances being difficult) and treating it nonseriously, is continued in the following turns of the sequence. 15 Lesley: [Well you will 16 get it wrong tonight I [c’n assure y- ] 17 Eleanor: [E : : v ‘ n ] 18 one- you know ones that we’ve been doing. 19 (.) every ti:me, we still get 20 wro(h [h) heh heh ↑he [h 21 Lesley: [heh ha ha [.hhhhhh 22 Lesley: Ah well we shall see: bu [t (.) ↑ih: 23 Eleanor: [eeYe:h 24 Lesley: certainly you’ll you’ll have a novice 25 amongst you tonight. 26 Eleanor: [ (   ) 27 Lesley: Eh hheh

Notice how the beat of laughter at the end of Eleanor’s previous contribution (Line 14) is overlapped as Lesley turns down the laugh invitation orienting

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instead to the serious action (Jefferson, 1979) in Lines 15 and 16. Again she asserts her novice status: she claims that errors will be made by the group of dancers because of her mistakes. In Line 17 Eleanor overlaps the end of Lesley’s turn with a continuation of her assertion that the regular dancers also frequently get it wrong. There is laughter interspersing the end of Eleanor’s talk and three beats at the end. This time Lesley does orient to Eleanor’s laughter as an invitation and she reciprocates so that they are laughing together. Lesley then continues with a summary turn (Lines 22, 24, and 25) followed by some more laughter (Line 27) and a move to close. Thus, although there is quite a lot of laughter in this sequence, and participants orient to some turns as laughables, there is also orientation to the serious matter regarding Lesley expressing her concerns about her ability compared with others in the group and Eleanor trying to reassure her. Turns have a bivalent quality: in part they convey actions concerning the serious matter, but they have elements (most notably laughter) that constitute them as not entirely serious. Thus, for example, “ih Go on. Eh hheh heh” (Lines 6 and 7) is not treated by Eleanor as having its usual sequential implications: she does not treat it (at least initially) as a disagreement. Instead she laughs. Similarly, in response to Eleanor’s self-depreciating assessment in Lines 17–20 (“E::v‘n oneyou know ones that we’ve been doing.(.) every ti:me, we still get wro(h[h) heh heh ↑he[h”) Lesley does not disagree with it (which is the preferred response to an assessment of this kind [see Pomeranz 1984]) but laughs. The intermingling of seriousness and nonseriousness may be particularly useful in environments where participants negotiate their way through potentially tricky sequences, often concerning delicate activities such as offers, requests, and invitations. Glenn (2003, pp. 131–41) provides a thorough analysis of an extended sequence involving a playful sequence that arises out of an error, then subsequent mock errors and playful invitations. According to Glenn, In the context of producing next errors, speakers can provide utterances whose ‘seriousness’ is systematically ambiguous. They can make social invitations, accept those invitations, create sexual innuendo, and more, all relevant as ways to provide for more shared laughter. (p. 140)

To further demonstrate how this ambiguity between seriousness and nonseriousness may be extended over sequences that also contain actions other than simply joking, I present an extract (previously analysed by Schegloff, 1988, 2001) encompassing a playful complaint, offer, rejection, and subsequent offer.



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(10) [SN–4, 5] (This takes place in a student dorm, at the beginning Carol walks in as the others are talking.) 1 Sherri: Hi Carol.= 2 Carol: =H [i:. ] 3 Ruthie: [CA:RO ]L, HI:: 4 Sherri: You didn’t get en icecream sandwich, 5 Carol: I kno:w, hh I decided that my body 6 didn’t need it, 7 Sherri: Yes but ours di:d= 8 Sherri: =hh heh-heh-heh [heh-heh-heh [.hhih 9 ( ): [ehh heh heh [ 10 ( ): [(  ) 11 Carol: hh Awright gimme some money en you c’n 12 treat me to one an I’ll buy you a:ll 13 some [too. ] 14 Sherri: [I’m ]kidding, I don’t need it. 15 (0.3) 16 ( ): (hih) 17 Carol: I WA:N’ O:N[E, 18 ?Ruth: [ehh heh-hu [h 19 Carol: [hheh-uh .hhh= 20 Carol: =No they [didn’ even have any Ta:(h)b. 21 ?Ruth: [.hheh 22 Carol: This is all I c’d find.

After the greetings in Lines 1–3, Sherri does a noticing that Carol has not bought an ice cream sandwich (it is made evident at Line 22 that Carol has some other item). In Lines 5–6 Carol gives an account, “I decided that my body didn’t need it”. Sherri then produces a turn which could be taken as a complaint, “Yes but ours di:d”, but it is followed by laughter and is thus, at least in part, built to be nonserious. However, in Lines 11–13 Carol does treat this as having its usual sequential implications by offering to go and buy everyone one. Carol’s turn may also be constructed to be equivocally nonserious: the “gimme some money” is a very bald request, as is “you c’n treat me to one”, suggesting that this is not an entirely serious offer. In Line 14 Sherri treats Carol’s offer as serious by first claiming that her prior complaint was “kidding” and then rejecting it with “I don’t need it”. However, the possibility of Carol going to get ice cream sandwiches appears to be maintained over a few more playful turns. In Line 17 Carol says “I WA:N’ O:N[E” which, according to Schegloff (2001,

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p. 1949) is produced in a “loud, whining voice, apparently designed to do ‘being a child’”. Although said playfully, this turn may continue the offer, giving the recipients another chance to accept. Instead, there is some laughter from another participant which is then reciprocated by Carol. In Line 20 Carol says, “No they [didn’ even have any Ta:(h)b.”; thus, at this point she gives another account for her choice, and the “offer” is no longer under negotiation: this turn does not maintain the dual strands of potentially serious offer and “just kidding” maintained in previous turns. Schegloff (2001) considers a number of extracts involving “no” prefaced turns after sequences of “joking”. He writes, “On the one hand it can mark what preceded as having been a joke or in some other respect non-serious; on the other, it can mark that what is to come is not” (p. 1954). Interestingly, however, there is a laugh particle (or IPA [Potter and Hepburn, 2010]) towards the end of the “no” prefaced turn in Line 20. Thus, it is possible that the turn may be designed to be not entirely serious. Rather, what this turn appears to do is to mark that the preceding playful offer has come to an end: the delicate matter kicked around in the nonserious talk is no longer current. This marking of the end of the delicate matter pursued in preceding nonserious talk by a “no” prefaced turn is also exemplified in another instance from Schegloff ’s collection which also serves to highlight the intertwining of seriousness and nonseriousness. Further, it demonstrates the intertwining of seriousness and nonseriousness in an even more delicate context than those exemplified in previous extracts. Freda and Rubin are having dinner with Kathy and David. The former pair is in the process of explaining that their summer house, which has been offered to the latter pair in the past, has been offered to others, but that they are still welcome to use it. (11) [KC–4, 14] 1 Freda: An besides tha [:t, 2 Rubin: [You c’n go any [way 3 Dave: [Don’ Don’ 4 git- don [get ] 5 Freda: [they ] won’t be: 6 Dave: Y’know there- there’s no- no long 7 explanation is necessary. 8 Freda: Oh no no no: I’m not- I jus:: uh-wanted 9 you to know that you can go up anyway.= 10 Rubin: =Yeah:.



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11 (0.2) 12 Freda: You know. 13 (0.2) 14 Freda: Because-ah 15 (3.3) 16 Rubin: They don mind honey they’re jus not gonna 17 talk to us ever again.= 18 Dave: =(hehem)/(Ri:(h)ight) 19 (0.8) 20 Kathy: We don mind< [we jus ne:ver gonna talk to 21 Dave: [(No, b’t) 22 Kathy: you e:ver hh(h’g) 23 Rubin: heheheheh 24 Kathy: No:: that’s awright 25 Freda: So:: 26 Dave: ( ) 27 Freda: You know what we’re gonna- in fact I’m28 she I haven’t seen her since I spoke to 29 you but I’m going to talk to=what ayou 30 making?

According to Schegloff (2001, p. 1950), “there are various indications that this is an awkward juncture for both parties”. Dave overlaps Rubin’s insistence that they can “go anyway” (Line 2) with a turn that begins very disfluently with a number of self-repairs, followed by his claim that no long explanation is necessary. Freda strongly denies that it was a long explanations with repeated “no”s, then, after more self-repair, insists the house is still available. However, this is followed by silence from Kathy and David. At Line 14 Freda begins another turn which she abandons and is followed by a prolonged silence. Into this awkward environment, Rubin does a turn that is, at least in part, nonserious, “They don mind honey they’re jus not gonna talk to us ever again.” (Lines 16–17). Schegloff describes this as equivocal between the two because “its various marks of ‘kidding’ – its overtness, its overstatement, its broad ‘aside’ delivery – are offset by the fully deadpan character of its delivery” (1950). In Line 18 Dave treats the prior turn as, at least in part, nonserious, by including laughter in his turn. Kathy’s response (Lines 20 and 22), however, is to repeat Rubin’s turn. According to Schegloff (2001, p. 1950) “‘confirming by repeating’ is a way of confirming not only what has been said in the repeated utterance, but also that that had been inexplicitly conveyed before”. The turn

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is equivocal; it is said seriously, repeating Rubin’s serious turn; however, at its ending Kathy laughs. Rubin orients to it as nonserious by responding with laughter. Thus, these turns by Rubin and Kathy are built to be equivocal between seriousness and nonserious but address the very serious matter of Kathy and David being offended by their treatment by Freda and Rubin. In Line 24 Kathy produces a “no” followed by “that’s awright”. This marks the end of the delicate matter carried in the equivocally nonserious turns regarding Kathy and David’s upset over the change in arrangements regarding the house. The turn suggests a return to seriousness whereby Kathy claims that no offense has been taken: thus, the implication of some hurt feelings in prior nonserious turns, is dropped in the “no” prefaced turn. Thus, the “no” prefaced turns in these two extracts display participant orientation to ending some matter that has been implicitly tackled in prior equivocally nonserious turns. In both these extracts the matters explored in these prior turns are delicate ones: failure to come bearing an expected snack and an offer to purchase one in (10); and the offense caused by new arrangements regarded an offered summer house in (11). These excerpts clearly show how turns which are equivocal between seriousness and nonserious can tackle serious issues in ways that are distinctly different from those that may be adopted in entirely serious exchanges.

Conclusion I began by showing that nonseriousness is not necessarily to do with humor. Rather, it is more usefully conceived of in terms of the sequential implications of turns. First turns with laughter, or other elements that display they are nonserious open up an array of possibilities in terms of their appropriate next action: recipients can orient to them as nonserious, for example, by laughing, they can orient to them seriously, or with some combination (see also Drew, 1987). Further, we have seen that responses can treat prior turns as nonserious (whether or not they appear to be designed to be so) or in some combination.7 In so doing, such turns do not treat the prior as having its usual, serious sequential implications. But it has also become clear that seriousness and nonserious are not always, or perhaps even regularly, clearly distinct phenomena. Sequences of interaction involving laughter and nonserious turns are recurrently used to accomplish serious tasks (Drew, 1987). Seriousness and nonseriousness are inextricably



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entwined in interaction. Such sequences can be extremely useful in environments of, for example, delicate negotiation. Sensitive actions can be performed and responded to under the guise of nonseriousness. For example, a request designed nonseriously can be treated as not having its serious implications, i.e. as making an acceptance or refusal appropriate in the next turn. Rather, it can be treated as nonserious, being responded to with laughter or another laughable. Constituting actions as nonserious is one way in which participants can negotiate social action. What we have in these sequences is a window into the micropolitics of daily life (Drew, 2011). By casting actions as nonserious (whether our own or those of others), we do fine work on their sequential implications. Recurrently, introducing nonseriousness does not mean that the serious sequential implications are completely swept away. Rather, it enables an intertwining of strands as serious matters are dealt with more and less seriously, allowing for a more delicate and implicit touch. It is, then, a way of both having our cake and eating it too.

Notes 1 An unusual version (recently said by my seven-year-old daughter) was “I’m seriousing you Mum”. 2 In treating this as a laughable, Robbie may, at least in part, be orienting to the idiomatic expression “little grey cells” which may help to make laughter appropriate (Holt, 2011). 3 Of course we have no access to speakers’ intentions. What we can do is examine the design of turns to ascertain the action. Analysis of the subsequent turn enables us to see how the recipient analyzed the turn as demonstrated in their response. This is not to say, however, that turns are not sometimes designed to perform one action, but taken to perform another. 4 The term “deadpan” is often applied to contributions that are clearly designed to be nonserious but are delivered without laughter or smile voice. 5 It may be then that Skip’s laugh response has encouraged Carrie to pursue a less troubles-relevant continuation following her deeply ambivalent response to his question. 6 See Holt (2007) for a more extended analysis of this extract. 7 The highly recurrent nature of response turns that combine serious and nonserious elements (e.g. an affiliation and laughter) provides evidence of the ubiquitousness of this intertwining in talk.

5

Having the Last Laugh: On Post-Completion Laughter Particles* Chloë Shaw, Alexa Hepburn, and Jonathan Potter

When one party to a conversation pursues a particular interactional project, there is sometimes a potential for actions to be heard as problematic. For example, a speaker may form a description that might have the potential to be heard as a complaint. An action of this kind will make a response relevant from the recipient: an account, a counter complaint, and such like. This may hinder the progress of the interaction and generate further trouble. Our analysis suggests that speakers can manage these problems by inserting laughter particles into the transition space after their (potentially) troubling action. This provides a way of modulating the action, softening or neutralizing its problematic features, and thereby heading off problematic recipient actions, without disrupting the progressivity of the talk. Laughter particles are ideal for this as they are brief, nonpropositional, and can be interpolated into words if required.  This interactional role for laughter particles may be fundamental, and distinct from whatever role they have in relation to humor and what is “funny”. This chapter works with a collection of laughter particles that are issued following the completion of actions. It will show how they are used to modulate the speaker’s action and manage the recipient’s response requirements. The analysis will draw on and refine Schegloff ’s (1996) discussion of “post-completion stance markers” and Jefferson’s (1984) work on laughter in the management of troubles telling, as well as take up broader issues in the analysis and role of laughter. A further focus is on the way the prosodic delivery of laughter tokens in post position is closely fitted to the modulating action that they are managing. In some cases multiple tokens with a raucous or guttural delivery will do the managing work most effectively; in other cases small numbers of tokens with reduced volume and a less plosive delivery will be most effective. This fitting of

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delivery to action can be seen as one strand in a more general phenomenon of “relatedness” in the delivery of talk, where speakers fit the prosody and delivery to ongoing actions (Couper-Kuhlen, 2009b). This underlines the importance of producing careful transcripts of laughter which draw attention to the individual particles and points of overlap (see Hepburn and Varney, Chapter 2, this volume). Jefferson’s (1984) pioneering work on laughter in troubles telling sequences has suggested limitations in the idea that laughter is principally an index of amusement. In this work, she documented the way troubles-tellers laugh to show that they are coping with their trouble. In doing so, troubles-tellers actively display themselves as troubles-resistant. Recipients of troubles-tellings, in contrast, display their troubles-receptiveness by actively not laughing. The interactional work of laughter is particularly resonant here as, rather than being used to invite recipient laughter or “share a joke”, its role is primarily to manage local actions. Building on the foundation laid by Jefferson, a small number of studies have looked at the role of laughter to manage a range of different kinds of interactional business. Adelswärd (1989) argues that one interactional role of laughter in institutional settings is to display oneself as “modest” or “embarrassed”. In Finnish doctor-patient interactions, Haakana (2001, 2002) showed that patients often laugh on their own when presenting a discrepancy with what the doctor has either just said or suggested. He proposes that laughter displays an awareness of something problematic (of rejecting what the doctor has said) while also working to fix it.  Laughter has also been found to manage interactional trouble in group therapy sessions (Arminen and Halonen, 2007), and bookshop interactions (Gavioli, 1995). In prenatal genetic counseling sessions, Zayts and Schnurr (2011) showed how medical practitioners used laughter to overcome resistance from patients as well as to circumvent direct questions. Furthermore, Edwards (2005) showed how laughter can be used as a resource to display oneself as not moaning or making too heavy weather of a complaint item in indirect complaint sequences. Wilkinson (2007) suggests that laughter is a resource in aphasic speakers’ prolonged attempts at self-repair, where it is used to signal a failure, as well as display that the speaker is actively coping and taking the problem lightly. This chapter will build on this previous research, and also on work by Potter and Hepburn (2010) that has documented both the “serious” work that laughter can be implicated in, and its highly ordered production and placement. They focus on laughter particles placed within words, and identified two uses of these



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particles. The first is to mark the insufficiency of one or more lexical item, for example, a laughter particle in the word “punishment” in a complaint about the inappropriate treatment of a child protection helpline caller’s son at school, both uses and problematizes that term. Second, they show the way laughter particles could be used to modulate the nature or strength of an action. For example, a laughter particle in the description of someone else’s child as a “porker” in a call to a child protection helpline can modulate the cruel or teasing nature of the action being done. Of course these two uses often occur together. Potter and Hepburn noted that a more analytically cautious characterization of these particles would be “interpolated particles of aspiration”. The point of this analytic caution was to resist the explanatory freight carried by the term “laughter” with its conceptual link to humor, joking, or even “making light” of something. The start point instead is the aspiration particles and developing a more elaborate sense of how they work in relation to the specific actions they inhabit. In this chapter, too, we will hold off assumptions about the nature of the sounds we are studying as laughter and about their role in humor. However, for accessibility we will here refer to these particles of aspiration as laughter; we ask readers to be vigilant and hold in mind the virtues of this analytic caution. The current analysis considers the role of laughter tokens in post position rather than interpolated into words during the turn. The analysis will work with cases in which (a) unilateral laughter is produced by the speaker once their turn is completed, and (b) that laughter neither invites nor receives recipient laughter. Laughter in terminal position has been referred to by Schegloff as one of a range of “post-completion stance markers”. As he puts it, post-completion stance markers are elements: which are positioned post-possible completion, but do not represent extensions of the prior talk, but rather retrospective or retroactive alignments towards it, or consequences of it (Schegloff, 1996, p. 90).

Post-completion stance markers also include things like nodding, facial expressions, and shrugs. This current work will build on his analysis of this phenomenon by explicating the interactional work of these “post-completion stance markers” and in particular how they can be used to manage incipient trouble. The key finding here is that laughter is used in this position to modulate, soften, or neutralize the action it accompanies. The analysis will not only focus on the orderly placement of laughter tokens; it will also explicate the orderly role of a range of prosodic features of laughter.

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In this respect it will parallel Hepburn’s (2004) work that unpacks crying into a range of distinct elements. We will aim to show the analytic virtue of paying attention to the specific localized actions in play, the prosodic delivery of the laughter tokens, and also their interactional implications. If this order of prosodic detail is available to, and consequential for, participants in interaction, then it is beholden on analysts to take it seriously. As always with the analysis of laughter, its nonpropositional and somewhat off the record nature makes it a challenge for analysis. The point of the operation of the practices we will consider is that they are not explicit and spelled out in propositions. We will do the best we can by trying to explicate the sequential regularities in the production of turn terminal laugh tokens, by considering the trajectory of what follows in relation to what might have happened, and by drawing on the reader’s own sense of what is going on. As will become clear in the course of the analysis, the use of laughter in post position is part of subtle and complicated ongoing actions. It is likely that there will be further patterning of such laughter in relation to the specific type of action, broader relational issues between participants, and relevant institutional actions that are being performed. Our initial aim is to document the phenomenon as a basis for indicating some of the further lines of research that will be required. Nevertheless, we believe we have made the case for the pervasive use of laughter tokens in the modulation of problematic actions and the extremely delicate fitting of the tokens to the nature and severity of the problematic actions.

Method Analysis draws upon a wider collection of laughter particles that are issued following the completion of actions. Our examples are all taken from a range of mundane conversational environments, and are designed to illustrate some common features across the corpus, while allowing space for detailed analytic consideration. Most names presented are pseudonyms.

A note on transcription Hepburn and Varney (Chapter 2, this volume) detail techniques for transcribing the various elements and sounds associated with laughter, but here we want to draw attention to the main components relevant in post-completion position. As Potter and Hepburn (2010) showed with interpolated laughter particles,



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it is important to transcribe degree of plosiveness of laughter particles—how “explosive” they sound. Placing particles in parenthesis is a useful way to display this within words, while out of parenthesis represents “breathy” delivery. However, the parenthesis/nonparenthesis approach can lead to confusion when transcribing standalone particles because parenthesis is also used to mark uncertain hearing. For this reason, we represent post-completion plosiveness through underlining to represent the sound as “punched up”. For example: Rahman B.2.IV; 1.10, P2 (Slightly modified from Raymond and Heritage, 2006) 1 Jen: [Yeh James’s a little] divil ihhh ↑heh ↑heh ↑heh heh 2 Ver: [T hat3 Jen: [huh .HH[H He:-

Here Jenny’s post-completion laughter in Line 1 is produced as plosive via the underlined “h”, and it also contains elevated pitch and “voiced vowels” (see Hepburn and Varney, Chapter 2, this volume). By contrast, the laughter particle in Line 3 “huh” has a less plosive and more breathy sound.

Post-completion laughter particles and action modulation In order to illustrate what we mean by action modulation and the role that laughter may play, we begin with an extract that has been extensively analyzed elsewhere (e.g. Heritage and Raymond, 2005; Raymond and Heritage, 2006). The extract comes from a telephone conversation between friends. Jenny has called her friend Vera, who has just had her grandchildren to stay. It appears that Jenny also had to look after the grandchildren for a short time. Prior analysis (Raymond and Heritage, 2006) notes that Jenny’s Line 11 may be involved in a display of knowledge where that knowledge was put into question by the confusion over names in Line 5. As Raymond and Heritage put it: “Ironically, in solving this problem, Jenny inadvertently creates trouble of a different kind: In conveying that she meant to refer to Paul, Jenny comes to produce a declaratively formed, first position, negative assessment of Vera’s other grandson, James” (2006, p. 693). They focus on what Vera does to reassert epistemic primacy. Our interest is in the role of the post-positioned laughter tokens at the end of Line 11. Extract 1: Rahman B.2.IV; 1.10, P2 (Slightly modified from Raymond and Heritage, 2006) 1 Ver: ……yihkn[o:w

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Studies of Laughter in Interaction 2 Jen: [Yeh: w’l I think he’s a bri:ght 3 little boy: u[h:m 4 Ver: [I: do= 5 Jen: =l[ittle Ja ]: [:mes, ] uh [Pau:l.yes. ] 6 Ver: [ Pau:l, ] [mm- m ] mm [Pau : : l, ] 7 Jen: Mm:.[Yes. 8 Ver: [Yes. (0.3) 9 Ver: [Yes ( )] 10 Jen: [Yeh James’s a little ] divil ihhh ↑heh ↑heh 11 Ver: [T hat12 Jen: [huh .HH [H He:13 Ver: [James is a little buugger [isn’e.

By the end of “divil” on Line 11, Jenny has issued a negative assessment of Vera’s grandson, in first position1. Such a construction is hearable as critical or even complaint building (Jenny had to unexpectedly look after the children when the parents arrived). As a by-product of her quest to build epistemic credibility, Jenny is hearable as having started to form a complaint, which in this context would be a dispreferred action and something that Vera could be treated as accountable for. It is precisely at this point that Jenny issues a series of laugh particles. Let us consider what their role may be. Jenny’s problem is that an undesirable or unwanted action is incipient. What is needed is some way of modulating that action and diffusing its response requirements. Our suggestion is that the laugh particles do this job. They operate through what we can call the “soft semantics” conventionally associated with these sounds. Their retroactive orientation displays an attention to the problematic nature of the incipient action at a point when it is available to both parties. In this way, they also proactively diffuse the response requirement. Laugh particles have some important design features that support this job. First, by virtue of their nonpropositional nature they are not easily conversationally formulated or made accountable by the recipient. We have no examples in our corpus of the recipient commenting on the laugh particles or picking up on them in some explicit way. Second, unlike an operation of self-repair, the insertion of laugh particles does little to hold up the progressivity of the interaction; they are brief and require no syntactical reorganization—it is possible to add just one or more than one (the extract above has four laugh tokens in turn terminal position). Third, as they are inserted into the transition space, they compress space that might otherwise herald a dispreferred response.



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A further feature to note about these laugh particles is the prosody of their delivery. The laughter sounds moderately raucous, with the pitch shift on the first two laughter particles, as well as the higher pitched vowel sounds and emphasis. The point is that it is not laugh particles per se, but laugh particles delivered with a particular prosody. This pitch pattern itself works against the incipient action of negatively assessing or complaining. Note that Vera’s turn in Line 14 does not respond to the potentially negative sense of Jenny’s action. As Heritage and Raymond (2006) note, Vera reclaims the epistemic authority to assess her grandchild, by using a locally initial reference form “James”, and by tag formatting the turn in second position. For our analysis, asserting epistemic authority in this way provides evidence that Vera is strongly aligning with the position that James is indeed “a little divil” suggesting that no trouble has ensued with the potentially negative consequences of the assessment as an incipient complaint. The harmful nature of the action appears to have been neutralized by the laughter tokens. Consider another example. This also comes from a mundane telephone call between friends. Eve has just been invited by Gordon to come round for the evening. Eve delivers a request in Line 1 in relation to the invite to come over. Extract 2: Holt 88U:1–06; 0.59, P4–5 1 Eve: Would it be alr’t if I co [me up for tea↓: ] 2 [((noise-------- ] [--------)) ] 3 [(0.5) ] 4 Gor: .t [.k ihiHHH huHang on 5 Eve: [Or (not) 6 ((grik grunch grzz)) 7 Gor: ((muffled)) Iss alright’f she comes up f ’tea 8 (1.2) 9 Gor: ((muffled)) hhuh huhe hh [eh 10 Les: ((muffled)) [Tell ‘er the chicken’s a bit 11 small an’ she won’ get mu [ch 12 Gor: [Yeh alright but you won’geh m’ch 13 chi:cken. Hhhuheh .h [.hhhfh 14 Eve: [>Well would it [best if I came ]= 15 ( ): [(               ) ]= 16 ( ): = [(               ) 17 Eve: = [u- ah prolly better if I come< after then [really ] 18 Gor: [ .hh ]hhhh 19 u-Eh::m

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(0.5) Yeah. Proba’ly, .h Yeah I’ll do that the:n, .hh uh:m wuhwhat time would be bes:t.=

At the start of this extract, Eve has already been invited to “come over” by Gordon. In Line 1 she requests something over and above merely coming over, namely to come for a meal. As such, this request has the potential to be presumptuous and imposing.2 Gordon checks with Leslie, who directs him to report that the chicken is small and therefore Eve’s portion will be small. Gordon then builds a pallid acceptance (“Yeh alright”) qualified by noting, as audibly directed by Leslie, that her portion will be small.3 This qualification makes the acceptance seem grudging and abrupt. Crucially, it lacks an appreciation of Eve’s desire to eat with them and any enthusiasm for her joining them. In addition Gordon makes no apology for the lack of chicken. By the end of “chi:cken.” Gordon has thus issued a somewhat problematic and disaffiliative acceptance. Again our suggestion is that the laughter particles in terminal position on Line 13 work to modulate the action and in this case neutralize some of its problematic features. The particles mitigate what will be heard as the somewhat grudging provision of limited chicken. Note that this modulation is a different practice from self-repair. Although it operates on the prior utterance, it does not alter the nature of that utterance or replace it with another. Its virtue is that it attends to specific interactional problems without the interruption to progressivity consequent on repair operations. Gordon’s post-completion laughter is breathy and soft, with the two laughter particles quickly delivered amidst out- and inbreaths. We suggest that this again is fitted with the action it accompanies. The kind of raucous laughter that managed the incipient complaint in Jenny’s initiating action in the previous extract, would here risk making light of this dispreferred response and therefore of being seen as slightly callous. Rather than modulate the action, more raucous laughter might suggest pleasure in the delivery of a small portion to a guest. Eve’s response displays an orientation to this action modulation. She responds to the qualified acceptance by suggesting that her visit be deferred until after dinner—as such it heads off any problem with insufficient chicken. But note that she does not appear to respond to the interactional trouble. This may be because the laughter has mitigated Gordon’s turn and provided a nontroubling progressive way forward in the interaction. Again, this post position provides for a sequentially relevant location to modulate the action underway as well as



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filling the transition space where we may have otherwise had some delay as a marker of interactional trouble. The next example comes from a phone call between a mother and her youngadult daughter. We join it at the very start of the call. Extract 3:ShawP1C5, P1 1 Phone rings 2 Sarah: He↑llo:= 3 Mum: =.hh Hello: hh 4 Sarah: ↑You ↑alri:ght¿ hh 5 Mum: Yes.=How are you. 6 (0.4) / ((background noise)) 7 Sarah: Yea::h I’m goo:d=I didn’t think you was 8 talking to me#:: hhu[h 9 Mum: [Why:? 10 (0.4) 11 Sarah: [‘Cause you didn’t ] text me or ring me 12 [(        )] 13 Sarah: yest’da:y. 14 (.) 15 Mum: O::h I’d- I- got it l:ate when I was at 16 Chamber an then when I got home I’d 17 forgotten all about it.=Sorry. 18 Sarah: Oawh::. a’right. Oh: s’alr#ight. Not a problem, 19 (.) 20 Mum: .hh huhh ↑hih huh huh= 21 Sarah: =↑Are you↑ ↑alri:ght then,= 22 Mum: =.hhh Yea:h, not too bad. hhhh

After a conventional start with hellos and how-are-yous Sarah, who has been called by her mother, latches straight into a construction that is hearably complaining: “I didn’t think you was talking to me#::”. The “my side” construction (Pomerantz, 1980b) provides an environment for the recipient to fill in her side; in this way Sarah is calling her mother to account for her actions (Bolden and Robinson, 2011). The early delivery of this complaint in the sequence means that it is not mitigated through delay (see Schegloff, 2007a, on dispreferred firsts). In addition to its early delivery, the sense of grievance is reinforced by the prosody within this turn: the word “me” is elongated and produced with a croaky voice. By the completion of the delivery of “me#::”, a somewhat bald and pumped up complaint has been issued. It is precisely at this point, where

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the strength of the complaint might take over the interaction, that Sarah issues a single laugh token. Again, our suggestion is that this token modulates and softens the complaint, and by doing so perhaps places less pressure on Mum to produce an immediate and elaborated account for her conduct. As before, the laughter fills any delay that may have been a precursor to interactional trouble. The laughter sounds like a slightly more plosive outbreath which overflows from the talk it immediately follows; it is both soft and short. As such, the laughter works to maintain a sense of grievance that a more extended or raucous spate of laughter might distort. This complaint-relevant turn is held in place as the main action, allowing Sarah’s concerns to be addressed, and yet work has been done to soften its offensiveness. The laughter again, therefore seems to fit the action it accompanies and as such is calibrated itself by the action. Mum initially responds by calling Sarah to account in Line 9, which works to unpack this complainable matter. She then goes on to give an apology in Lines 15–17. Mum’s response shows that the action of complaining and therefore responding to a complaint is still held in place and yet it has not resulted in major trouble between the recipients. Mum accepts that she has made a transgression and works to make amends through her apology. The account and apology transform the transgression from something psychologically potent to a mere failure of memory after a long day. There is therefore again some evidence in Mum’s response for the modulating work of laughter. This next extract comes from a telephone conversation between a mother and her young-adult daughter. The daughter, Sinitta, is just in the middle of telling her mother what is going on in her life. She notes that she is going to start using sunbeds; her mother reports her father’s concern. Extract 4: ShawP3C4: 0.16, P1 1 Sin: .HHH and I think I’ll also start going for some 2 sunbeds like twice a week* 3 (.) 4 Mum: Oh:: (0.4) Dad’s not happy about tha:t 5 (.) 6 Sin: ↑Why? 7 (0.7)/ .hh↑hh 8 Mum: Becau::s:e (0.4) in cas:e it’s dangerous [: ] 9 Sin: [Oh wel ]l: 10 I’m >still gonna do it.< (.) khuh 11 Mum: = Yeah, 12 Sin: .hhh Yeah.



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13 (.) 14 Sin: >Just< (0.5) so then I can get a proper tan on holiday. 15 (0.9) 16 Mum: Yeah 17 (0.3) 18 Sin: An not come back pasty whi(h)tehh = 19 Mum: = Yeah 20 (.) 21 Mum: .hHH I-I mean:, 22 (0.2) 23 Sin: ’S↑not like I’m gonna do it every day. 24 (.) 25 Mum: I know. 26 (0.4) 27 Sin: >So I’ll be alright.< 28 (1.3) 29 Mum: M +gazes at the baby--> 2 DOC +y por qué está+ tan +sucio tu beb+é? and why is  so dirty  your baby I +gazes at DOC-->



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D -->+away--> M -->+,,,,,,,,,,,,+at DOC--> 3 I 4 DOC D I

(0.3) +(0.3)  -->--+at the baby--> fig 61 no lo +baña +s? don’t you bathe him --> +at baby--> --> +-DOC +-MOT-->

5 D -->

+(0.6) +at MOT-->

6 MOT £*ju’uj* £ +y[aan se’en +ti’£ he +hhh˙ £ no   £ he has a cough £  he hhh ((laughs)) M £……..£----------------£ M *shakes head* M +gazes at INT--> I --> +at DOC-+away fig 62 7 DOC [por qué why 8 +£(0.1) D --> +at INT-->> M £--> 9 INT 10

---- £,,,,,,, £ £-->> I *makes a grimace-->> tos por eso no lo [baña> a cough that’s why she doesn’t bathe him

During the pause preceding the first line of the extract, the doctor writes on a file and at the same time looks towards the child in front of her, who moved behind his mother and the interpreter. In Line 2, while still looking at the child, the doctor asks why he is so dirty (y por qué está tan sucio tu bebé\ “and why is so dirty your baby”) with an “and” prefaced question (Heritage, 2010; Heritage and Sorjonen, 1994), which backlinks to a prior question/answer set. This seems to be the case here—the link seems to be to the information-gathering

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phase of the visit, typically carried on with question-answer pairs. But asking why the patient is dirty is clearly a different activity than asking questions about his symptoms; the question thus seems to refer to—and criticize—hygienic practice, and thereby a lifestyle. During the pause preceding the doctor’s question (Line 1), the mother gazes at her son (likely following the doctor’s gaze, directed towards the child, Line 1), and turns her gaze towards the doctor only in proximity to the latter’s turn completion in Line 2. But the doctor has already returned attention to her writing, so there is no eye contact between the two participants. This lack of shared gaze (Heath, 1988) may explain the pause in Line 3 (Figure 6.1), a transition relevant space that makes the lack of the recipient uptake noticeable. In other words, the mother’s silence could reflect both the lack of an available recipient for her turn as well as her resistance to replying to the doctor’s question, which seems to be projecting a complaint.6 Indeed, the doctor retakes the floor and produces a polar question (Line 4), which offers a candidate reply to the unanswered question (no lo bañas/ “don’t you bathe him”). The doctor talks while writing, and then orients her gaze towards the child. In the following pause (Line 5) the two coparticipants share a mutual gaze, and it’s at this moment that the mother initiates her reply: she smiles, embodies and utters a negative response (ju’uj / “no”, Line 6), then produces a verbal turn, and finally laughs (y[aan se’en ti’ he hhh/“he has a cough he hhh”, Line 6, Figure 6.2). The delay in the mother’s reply, her smile, and laughing activity all display elements of dispreference (on preference see, among others, Pomerantz, 1984, 2008; Schegloff, 2007a), exhibiting resistance to replying (Glenn, 2003; Ticca, 2011). Interestingly, the account offered—not bathing the child because he is sick—refers to a (cultural) practice followed by the woman when her child is sick. The problematic practice in this instance reflects a common habit in the community where the research was conducted. Water is considered “cold” and in particular bathing and getting a chill when one has a common cold is considered dangerous (see Redfield and Villa Rojas, 1934, p. 130, 161–3). So the caring practices adopted by the mother, in line with what people in her community commonly do, seems to be in contrast with the practice expected by the doctor, a member of the institutionalized medical system. And it is this well-known local practice that the doctor’s questioning brings into play, as will be seen more clearly in Extract 2, taken from the same visit. The mother’s laughter, which remains unshared, is then reduced to a smile (Line 8). The interpreter takes the floor next, probably invited to do so by the doctor’s gaze (Line 8). Although she smiles while reporting the mother’s reply



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( / “she doesn’t bathe him because she says he has a cough that’s why she doesn’t bathe him”, Lines 9–10), this turn is produced with a mocking embodiment (grimace) and intonation (slow production of talk), marking this as a case of “laughing at” (Glenn, 2003). So in this sequence the mother’s laughter clearly treats the ongoing activity as problematic, whereas the shape of the interpreter’s turn, produced with a mocking smile and face, exhibits her disaffiliation with the mother’s stance.

Figure 6.1

Figure 6.2

In what follows, where the doctor continues the same activity of inquiring about the status of the child, we find an instance of shared laughter. 2. Extract 07SIS_PAHE_1_B 11 DOC [+y en la noche +no lo puedes bañar? and at night can’t you bathe him D +gazes at MOT-->> M +gazes at DOC--> 12 (0.8) *(0.2) M *shakes head--> 13 MOT £ºju’º £no M ££--> 14 DOC >que no *hace* frio y £que lo vas a meter a bañar?< that it is not cold and then you can give him a bathe M -->-----*,,,,* M -->£reduces smile--> 15

no verdad ‘no (you can’t) right’

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16 (0.2)*(0.2) M *shakes head--> 17 MOT ja’[aj* no M -->* 18 INT [(no) (no) 19 DOC >está más bonito mugroso.< he is prettier filthy 20 M

£(0.3) -->££-->

21 MOT M D

£ha +haha ’h [ha ha £ha £ha haha h ha ha £ha ((laughs)) -->+gazes at INT-->> £-------------------££-->>

22 INT

[he hehe he ’he he hehe he he ((laughs))

23 DOC ££pues £no? +tú lo tienes que baña:r?   but £no you have to bathe him M ££-->> I ££-->> M -->+gazes at DOC-->>

In Line 11 the doctor expands the previous topic and asks the mother if she cannot bathe the baby at night7 (y en la noche no lo puedes bañar? / “and at night can’t you bathe him”, Line 11). Despite the shared gaze between doctor and mother, the latter’s reply is markedly delayed (Line 12), thus signalling incipient trouble. In Lines 12–13 the mother embodies and verbally produces a negative reply. Similar to what occurred previously, her smile (Line 13) remains solitary. Then the doctor gives an account of why bathing at night is unharmful8 (que no hace frio y que lo vas a meter a bañar?< no verdad/“then it is not cold and then you can give him a bathe, isn’t that right”, Lines 14–15), while the mother and the interpreter return to being serious (Line 16). Again, the mother’s minimal reply comes delayed (ja’[aj/“no”, Line 17). This activity is not yet concluded for the doctor, who produces a nonserious turn increment (>está más bonito mugroso.mira sus oi- sus orejas ya vió?< look look at her ea- her ears did you see (them) 2 M

*(0.3) *bends on her child-->>

3 MOT ºju:mº um 4 DOC >esta niña< es-tá mu:y (.) sucia (0.2) por qué? this girl is very dirty why 5 (0.5) +(0.5) D +gazes at MOT--> 6 DOC no la cui[da? don’t you take care of her

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7 MOT [( ) le grahnoso’hh [( ) the pimhpleshh 8 DOC D 9

tiene mugre< también [no lo ve: she has grime too don’t you see it

10 MOT 11

[+no. >tiene granos pero -->+at the child--> no she has pimples but

[(º º)

(1.6)

12 DOC muy mal cuidada su- esta niña e:? very badly cared for your- this child 13

(1.3)

14 DOC si sigue así no la voy a recibir +cuando >esté sucia.< if it continues like this I won’t receive her when she is dirty D -->+at MOT--> 15

(0.3)

16 MOT +he [he ’hh he he ’hh D -->+gazes away-->> 17 DOC [ah ha? okay 18

(0.7)

19 DOC £aunque se ría £even if you laugh D £-->>

In Line 1 the doctor points to the ears of the child, produces a strong, negative assessment about her cleanliness, and asks why she is so dirty (Lines 1–4). Given that the mother does not reply (Line 5) but keeps looking at her child, the doctor gazes at the mother and then offers a provocative candidate response that contains a criticism (no la cuida/“don’t you take care of her”, Line 6). This prompts the mother’s reply, which mentions the presence of the pimples as an account (Line 7). Note that her reply is uttered with laughter (grahnoso’hh ‘pimhpleshh’). Similar to Extract 1, laughter occurs in response to a nonmedical



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question, it is delayed, it is produced in combination with a verbal turn, and it remains nonreciprocated.10 In the following turns the doctor first acknowledges the presence of the pimples and then insists on the presence of dirtiness (Line 8). After an inaudible reply of the mother and a lengthy pause (Lines 10–11), the doctor repeats her negative assessment about the child’s care (Line 12). No reply or account is offered by the mother, leaving ambiguous her willingness to comply. After another pause (Line 13) the doctor issues a threat, making the acceptance of a next visit dependent on the cleanliness of the child (Line 14). The mother replies following a delay with freestanding laughs (Line 16). This occurs in overlap with the doctor’s ratification token (Line 17), which ratifies her previous comment. Interestingly, in her next turn the doctor smiles and openly addresses the mother’s laughter, displaying her critical stance towards it (Line 19). Similarly to what we have observed in the prior case, laughter in response to the doctor’s questioning reveals an emerging conflict between the two speakers. Again, laughter occurs in sequences of talk where the doctor’s attitude towards the layperson’s accounts about childcare is dismissive and critical. The sequential features of laughter in the three extracts analyzed so far are also similar. Laughter is directly addressed by the doctor (Extract 3), treating it as problematic in this interactional environment. Extract 4 presents a clear instance of the professional’s intent to deal overtly with laughter in the ongoing course of action. This extract is drawn from the same consultation as Extract 3, and it refers to the treatment phase of the visit. While writing on the patient’s file, the doctor invites the mother to wipe the child’s nose, handling her a paper roll. The mother refuses to do it, smiling and gazing at the interpreter. The doctor invites her to listen to the child’s congested breathing, with a serious and almost upset voice. The extract below follows this complaint. 4. Extract 07SIS_PAHE_2 18 DOC tienes que preocuparte más por tu niño £eh? you have to care more for your child £right M £--> 19 £(0.3) *(0.3)* M -->£laughs silently--> M *shrugs* 20 DOC £te£ £veo así como que ≠ay sí≠? £I £ £see you being like ’oh well’ M -->£,,£ £smiles-->

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21 (0.5) £(0.6) +(0.5) +£(0.5)˙ £+(0.2 £0.3)+£ M -->£laughs silently-------£,,,,,,£smiles--> M +gazes at INT—-> I +gazes at MOT+,,,,,,,+ I £smiles--------£,,,,,£ fig 63 22 DOC +(no-) te da risa o no me entendiste. (not) it makes you laugh or you didn’t understand me M -->+gazes away fig 64 23 (2.7) 24 DOC no? (you) didn’t 25 M

£(0.5) £laughs silently-->

26 INT +táan a na’atik £ba’£ax ku ya’al+ik are you understanding £what£ she says M +gazes at INT-------------------+away M -->£,,,£smiles-->>

In Line 18 the doctor admonishes the mother to take better care of her child. This turn ends with a tag that projects the relevance of a next turn. Indeed, the mother offers a verbal and embodied response: she first smiles at turn completion (Line 18), then laughs with a shrug (Line 19). The doctor acknowledges this response by mocking it (te veo así como que ≠ay sí≠ / “I see you being like ‘oh well’ ”, Line 20). As a result of this turn, the mother first stops laughing, then reduces her smile (Line 20) and, after a short pause, shares gaze with the interpreter and laughs again. This time her laughter is reciprocated by the interpreter’s smile (Line 21, Figure 6. 3). Interestingly the doctor, who remains serious, provides two possible “online” readings of the mother’s laughter ((no-) te da risa o no me entendiste./“(not) it makes you laugh or you didn’t understand me”, Line 22). No reply comes from the mother, who displays her resistance to responding by withdrawing her gaze from her coparticipants (Line 22, Figure 6.4). It’s only after a macro pause and the doctor’s further solicitation (Line 24) that the mother looks at her and produces a new burst of laughter (Line 25). At this point the interpreter intervenes and asks in Maya whether she understands the doctor’s talk (Line 26). Again, the mother remains silent (Line 27) and gazes away. In this instance, once more, laughter is used



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as a response to criticism, and it serves to display resistance to engage in the progression of the activity.

Figure 6.3

Figure 6.4

This case illustrates how laughter in a serious environment can mark an interactional problem, displaying resistance, while simultaneously continuing the interaction. Broader questions about childrearing practices can also emerge during clinic visits. Prior research has shown how patients multimodally display resistance to accepting the doctors’ recommendations (Ticca, 2011). Such recommendations challenge or contrast with practices commonly carried out by the local community that are considered inappropriate, e.g. nursing babies past the age of weaning, birth control practices, etc. Resistance emerges in the form of dispreferred replies along with laughter. Extract 5 illustrates this pattern. Unlike the previous cases, where laughter is recurrently proffered within speech (see Extract 4), here laughter is produced as the sole response to doctor’s questions or commentaries, which displays the coparticipants’ resistance to engange in the current topic. The extract concerns a visit where a sick child, accompanied by her mother and father (FAT),11 is breast-fed during the consultation. At the moment of the interaction reported below, the child is crying insistently. 5. Extract 07SIS_GF/B 1 DOC *por*• qué* le £da p-•(0.5)* chuchú si tiene dos años.£ why do you give£ him (the) b- breast if he is two years£(old) D *…*PP to child*,,,,,,,,,*hand on her chin F £smiles------------------------------£ fig 6•5 fig 6•6 2 FAT he he ’h he he h ((laughs))

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120 3 £(1.0) F £smiles-->

4 DOC para que se calle? so that he shuts up 5

(0.5)

6 MOT ºuhº [(ma’) ( ) he he hh= uh (no) he he hh ((laughs)) 7 DOC =no:: no se le da chuchú: no the breast should not to be given 8

(1.7) ((MOT looks alternately at her crying baby and the DOC))

9 DOC y está muy grande. hasta los diez años le va a £dar?£ and he’s very big (grown up) until he’s ten £you’re£ going to be giving it to him F --> £,,,,£ 10 FAT £he he he: ºheº £he he he he ((laughs)) M £smiles---> 11 DOC £o hasta qué edad £or up to what age F £smiles--> 12

(1.7)

13 MOT £(º º) £ ((talks with the baby and tries to calm him down)) M--> £,,,,£ 14 £(0.4)£ F--> £,,,,,£

((fifteen lines omitted))

29 DOC pero >no le dan- no le tienen que dar< má::s >desde but don’t give it- you don’t have to give it to him more since 30 £hace mucho< tie:mpo: no se les da:: a long time ago it should not be given F £smiles--> 31 (0.2)£ F -->----£



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32 FAT he he hhh he he hhh ((laughs)) 33

(0.5)

34 DOC no se ría. (.)£es para que ya no les den don’t laugh it’s for you (you should) no longer give it to him M £smiles-->>

In Line 1 the doctor points to the couple’s son and asks why the two-year-old child is being nursed (Line 1). The doctor’s talk is not shaped to invite laughter, nor is laughter expected or projected by the interactional and sequential environment in which talk occurs. As the doctor points towards the baby—a movement done by extending her whole arm and holding a pen (Line 1, Figure 6.5)—the father starts smiling and, as soon as the doctor retrives her hand and finishes her turn12 (Line 2), he laughs. The father’s nonserious activity is initiated before the end of the doctor’s verbal turn (Figure 6.6), which suggests that the referent of the father’s smile and laughter might be the doctor’s gesture. Since no reply is provided to this question, the doctor offers a candidate reply (para que se calle?/“so that he shuts up”, Line 4). The mother first replies in YM with a negative item followed by some inaudible material and then utters laugh particles (Line 6), while the father keeps on smiling. At this point the doctor informs them they should no longer breast feed the child (Line 7). Neither of the parents offers a response; they keep smiling and the mother gazes alternatively at the baby and the doctor. So again the doctor produces a turn increment—which displays her orientation towards the current topic despite the lack of uptake of her coparticipants—and asks whether they intend to nurse him until he is ten years old. This ridiculous image of a ten-year-old boy sucking his mother’s breast prompts the couple’s laughter and smile (Line 10).13 This laughter is not shared by the doctor, who continues with an incremental turn (o hasta qué edad/“or up to what age”, Line 11), which again remains unanswered (Lines 12, 13). In a side sequence (Jefferson, 1972) (not shown; Lines 15–28) the doctor finds out that the child is the youngest among eight children. She then resumes the previous activity with a pero “but” prefaced turn, which dismisses this additional information and backlinks to a prior segment of talk (see Mazeland and Huiskes, 2001), and ratifies her advice (pero >no le dan- no le tienen que dar< má::s >desde hace mucho< tie:mpo: no se les da::/ “but don’t give it—you don’t have to give it to him more since a long time ago it should not be given”, Lines 29–30). This advice is once more responded

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to by the father’s smile and laughter (Lines 30–32). Again the doctor’s turns and increments receive only laughter and smiles as responses. And, much as occurs in Extract 3, the doctor openly makes reference to this type of response: she censors the laughter and provides an account for her advice (Line 34). Note that, again, the mother produces a smile while the doctor offers this recommendation (Line 34). Here again laughter is used to avoid replying to and affiliating with the doctor’s questioning regarding this lifestyle practice. The disaffiliation likely stems from both cultural and personal disagreement: extended nursing is normal in the Maya community and it is likely these experienced parents have successfully raised eight children nursing in this way. The doctor does not acknowledge the resistance displayed with laughter, which is thereby censured. This case demonstrates that laughter can be used in isolation to refrain from replying to questions that challenge accepted cultural practices related to child care.

Figure 6.5

Figure 6.6

In a final extract,14 laughter allows a patient to avoid responding to a problematic turn at talk. In the prior cases the doctor’s question was overtly addressing a lifestyle practice; in the following case, it is the patient who seems to be treating a routine, medical question as if it were a lifestyle question, responding to it with laughter. The case is drawn from a visit involving a pregnant woman and an interpreter, and the extract refers to the doctor asking for information about the food intake of the day. 6. Extract 06SIS_MA 1 DOC +YA comi+ste ahorita? have you already eaten just now D +gazes at PAC-->



Laughter in Bilingual Medical Interactions

I P

2 I

+gazes at DOC--> +gazes at DOC--> +(0.3) +(0.7) +….. +--gazes at PAC-->

3 INT sáam a jaankech +beoras[ae’ have you already eaten just now 4 PAC fig 5 INT y [a already

[sáamej• (I) have already 6•7

6 DOC [sí:? yes 7

(0.3)

8 PAC [°ja:j° yeah 9 DOC [qué comíste? what did you eat 10 P

(0.3) +(0.4) -->--- +withdraws gaze from DOC

11 P j’ je je:: +­je £je +je[::? je::*˙ h he hee he he he he ((laughs loudly)) P +gazes at DOC--> D    £smiles with a mocking face expression-> D -->+looks at file she holds in hand-> fig 6•8 12 I (tu)[men túun yo’+osal (t)u *məm: (be) cause in order for ‘cause I +gazes at DOC--> D *nodds--> 13 ma- ma’e’ ma’ *túu béeyt(al) £uka’ (0.2) ºts’áa(i)k not-if you don’t (answer) she won’t be able to re-give P -->£stops smiling D -->*stops nodding 14 +bin teech u jeeº

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124 P

another to you she says +gazes at DOC-->>

15

(0.8)

16 INT °ba’ax ta jaantaj bin bey wáa ja’ wa’(al)ik teeno’° what did you eat she asks so if you can tell me 17

(0.2)

18 PAC sniff °jum° chéen jun:: (0.5) p’íit so:pa °tin jaantaj° sniff hum just one little bit of soup I ate 19 +(0.2) 20 INT +que +sólo sopa com+ió (she says) that she ate just soup I -->+….+--gazes at DOC-->> D -->+gazes at INT--> 21 D

(0.3) + --> +gazes away

22 DOC sopa soup

In Line 1 the doctor asks a (routine) question regarding the patient’s food intake (YA comiste ahorita? / “have you already eaten just now”). During the pause in Line 2 the patient withdraws her gaze from the doctor and does not provide a verbal reply. The interpreter treats this lack of uptake as an invitation to translate the prior turn, and in Line 3 she looks at the patient and asks her if she has already eaten. The patient replies affirmatively (Line 4, Figure 6.7), and after a short ratification sequence (Lines 6–8) the doctor asks what she ate (Line 9). This turn is followed by a pause (Line 10), where the patient withdraws her gaze from the doctor (Line 10) and initiates a high voiced laugh (Line 11). Note that with her gaze she selects the doctor as the recipient of her laughter. The doctor’s facial expression turns into a smile, which almost resembles a grimace, then she looks at her file while nodding (Line 11, Figure 6.8), thus momentarily abandoning the current interactional space. Here there is clearly a misalignment, jointly produced by the patient’s laughter and the subsequent doctor’s momentary disengagement from the current course of action. At this point the interpreter, in overlap with the patient’s laugh units, provides an account for the doctor’s question ((tu)[men túun yo’osal (t)u məm: ma- ma’e’ ma’ túu béeyt(al) uka’ (0.2) ºts’áa(i)k bin teech u jee° / ’cause in order for ’cause



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if not—if you don’t (answer) she won’t be able to re—give another to you she says”, Lines 12–14). The use of the items men/“because” and ts’áa(i)k/“re-give” accounts for the relevance of the initial question regarding the food intake. The interpreter remains serious, and the patient herself stops smiling (Line 13). After a pause the interpreter reports the doctor’s question (°ba’ax ta jaantaj bin/“what did you eat she asks”) and then clearly asks the patient if she can tell her that (bey wáa ja’ wa’ (al)ik teeno’°/“thus/so if you can tell me”, Line 16). With a slight delay the patient offers her reply (Line 18). This has a markedly dispreferred turn design: it contains a prefacing loud nose inhalation (sniff/“sniff ”), a hesitation token (°jum°/“hum’”, a syllabic lengthening (jun::/“one”), an intraturn pause of 0.5 sec., a further syllabic lengthening (so:pas/“soup”), and a low voice final utterance °tin jaantaj°/“I ate”). The interpreter’s intervention, that seeks to account for the doctor’s request of information regarding the food intake, seems to localize the problem in the reasons motivating the request. Indeed, it’s only after her intervention that a full content reply is produced. And as a matter of fact, this is the only content that gets delivered to the doctor (que sólo sopa comió/“(she says) that she ate just soup”, Line 20). The sequence ends with the doctor gazing briefly at the interpreter as she delivers the patient’s reply and a ratification of the prior turn (Line 22). The doctor then resumes the “main” course of action (data not shown), that is, she continues the history taking inquiring about the presence of concerns related to the pregnancy, which signals the conclusion of the prior activity. In this case the doctor does not address the patient’s burst of laughter, and her momentary abandonment of the conversation after laughter contrasts with the interpreter’s action, which, by identifying the problem in the doctor’s question, reestablishes the momentary misalignment between the two coparticipants. In order to understand what occasioned laughter here, where, contrary to what we have observed so far, no criticism or problematicity is visible in the activity initiated by the doctor, it might be helpful to look outside the micro interactional environment we have been analyzing so far. Indeed, the interpreter’s understanding of the interactional problem made relevant by laughter is likely linked with her background knowledge of the local Maya community. From ethnographic study it emerges that talking about food intake can be a delicate topic, especially since food might not be always abundant in rural Maya households. Having this local knowledge, the interpreter recasts the question as about her immediate consumption in relation to a medical practice rather than as a general question about the quality of food she eats. This is clearly shown by the sudden response this translation elicits from the patient, who, once the

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clarification is provided, replies to the doctor giving the specificity of her food intake. This final case then seems to suggest that a medical question in a crosscultural context can be misinterpreted by patients as socially inappropriate thereby occasioning a momentary fragmentation in the ongoing course of action.

Figure 6.7

Figure 6.8

Discussion This study has examined patient laughter in response to a serious course of action initiated by the doctor. Laughter was observed in two main sequential positions: within speech, where it marks the prior turn or activity as problematic, as illustrated in Extracts 1, 2, 3, 4, and in isolation, where it is used as a resource to avoid responding to the doctor’s questions or criticisms, as illustrated in Extracts 4, 5, and 6. This patient laughter disaligns with the doctor’s activity, deviates from the serious trajectory of talk, and is unshared. The doctor carries on the initiated activity despite the manifest resistance displayed by the interlocutor’s laughter (see Extract 6), and pursues a response with incremental turns at talk. This contrast between the doctor’s effort to obtain a reply and the patient’s resistance not only highlights an interactional asymmetry between participants, but it also shows that there is not always agreement about what is a legitimate topic to discuss and to put into question in the medical consultation. As the analysis shows, some of the local care and health practices carried on by indigenous people can become topics in these interactions, and when such practices do not fit with the doctor’s views, a problematic course of interaction can emerge. Laughter allows participants both to display this problematicity and also to (try to) overcome it. If laughter in serious talk represents a useful resource for the speaker, its uses and meanings are not always grasped by the



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recipients, as some of the doctor’s responses to laughter exhibited. For instance, Extract 6 offers an interesting example of the different ways serious laughter can be treated and understood in interaction, where the burst of laughter, likely due to the misinterpretation of the (medical) relevance of the requested information, receives a different response from both the doctor and the interpreter. In this case, the interpreter, by “translating” the implications of the turn that prompted laughter, suggests the core of the problem, which seems to lie in the differing experiential and cultural background and conversational expectations of the Maya speaker. Laughter then, like other multimodal resources such as body movement, gesture, and gaze (Kendon and Cook, 1969), can convey meanings that depend both on its sequential position in talk and in the type of ongoing activity, and on its relationship to background experiences rooted in cultural differences. In sum, the sequences of serious talk analyzed show how laughter is used as an alternative way to respond and to resist social activities which are treated as problematic. In this way laughter provides a useful resource which contributes to the unfolding of the activity in progress while simultaneously displaying resistance to its progression. Finally, these analyses were made possible by the multimodal examination of talk and conduct in interaction, which allowed not only for a description of the resources mobilized to display resistance, but also for the identification of the turns participants treat as problematic. A more traditional analysis, based only on the audible data, would fail to observe with this detail the micro level of interaction and thus would fail to describe how laughter in interaction is praxeologically organized and sensitive to the multimodal activity of participants. In addition, this micro analysis of laughter can reveal the relevance of cultural differences in the practices addressed in interaction, insofar as they require cultural knowledge to be recognized and interpreted. Thus the interactional and the ethnographic dimensions of analysis should interact to provide a better understanding of the emergence of laughter in these medical interactions. More generally, interactions of this sort in other settings across linguistic, interactional, and cultural boundaries, where conflicts and disagreements often occur, are likely to profit from a multidimensional approach to the analysis of human interaction. Additional transcription conventions used in this chapter ≠ squeaky voice ‘h inbreath h’ outbreath

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cahsah pronounced laughing he he h h laughter particles + gaze * gesture pp pointing gesture £ smile and laughter ££ intense smile …… gesture preparation ---- gesture and smile maintainance ,,,,, gesture withdrawal > movement or gaze continuing in the following lines >> movement or gaze continuing beyond the extract/beginning before the extract  situtation represented in the corresponding figure

Notes   1 In the data presented in this study, patients are usually children (Extracts 1–5), and their mothers present their cases during the consultations. The item “patient”, when used in general, refers to the adult people who interact with the doctors.   2 An ethnographic description and information about participants are found in the author’s unpublished doctoral dissertation (2008).   3 Some of the doctors involved in the research demostrated knowledge of the most general lexical items or short sentences commonly used in the medical consultations.   4 I am aware that these two notions are extremely vague and don’t reflect the real and variegated language abilities and competences of the individual speaker, who is never a full representative of either sociolinguistic category.   5 Laughter is marked as follows: morphological ha ha/he he, talking while laughing cahsah, smile £. As for the latter, when talk is produced smiling, the English translation will present the symbol £ within the corresponding text. For the text in YM, a morphological gloss and a more idiomatic translation is given. The labels are explained in the additional transcription conventions at the end of this chapter.   6 There is a rich CA oriented literature on complaints. For a recent contribution on the topic, see Heinemann and Traverso (2009).   7 In the rural village where the research was conducted, and in others I have been to, it is common to bathe in the afternoon or early evening. It is possible that the doctor means bathing the child inside the house, with warm water, so as to minimize a chill. But this would not solve the problem of water being considered



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“cold”, and hence bad for an ill child, nor would bathing the evening before assure cleanliness for a visit to the doctor. The content of this utterance is not totally clear, and this might be due to the speed with which it is proffered. The mother is positioned just in front of the camera, often showing her back to it, which impedes monitoring her gaze movement. As mentioned, an interpreter participates in this visit, but he is seated on the medical bed behind his coparticipants, and out of the camera focus. Thus it is not possible here to determine whether his audible activity is made relevant/taken account of by his coparticipants, and vice versa. The mother only speaks YM, but at times her understanding of Spanish is also displayed. The father is able to communicate also in Spanish. During the visit the doctor is unable to make herself understood and an interpreter, a bilingual employee of the clinic, is called on to participate to the consultation. Consistent with findings from Jefferson’s (1972) study, the father’s laughter is produced at an early recognition point, that is, prior to the end of the speaker’s turn. What is arguable here is the laughable status of an item, and who establishes what a laughable is. As for the cases analyzed here, a laughable is an item that has been treated as such, independently from the will or intent of the speaker producing the laughable, whose interior states are not accessible unless he/she makes it accessible for the coparticipants and the analyst. In this case the doctor does not invite laughter by uttering laughing particles or smiling, so she is not overtly exhibiting the laughability of her turn. An earlier and reduced analysis of other features of this excerpt can be found in Ticca (2008).

Part Three

Laughs in Sequences

A main focus of the chapters in this third section concerns the contribution laughing makes to the ongoing sequence of action, and in turn how an understanding of the sequential environments informs the analysis of laugh particles. Forging links to the previous section (and to two central themes of the book) the research reported here adds to our knowledge of: the relationship between laughter and delicate or overtly problematic sequences; and laughter and affiliation/disaffiliation and alignment/nonalignment. Further, in analyzing unfolding sequences the chapters here explore the relationship between laughter, talk and other actions such as smiling (see Chapters 7 and 8). The data on which these chapters focus are largely drawn from institutional settings, and they show how the institutional role of the participants is crucial to their use of laughter and the sequence of actions. In Chapter 7—“Laughter and Competence: Children with Severe Autism Using Laughter to Joke and Tease” —Auburn and Pollock report findings based on analysis of a corpus of interactions between children with severe autism and their carers in a range of settings. The authors consider whether children who have impairments impacting their communicative abilities display deficits in their use of laughter to affiliate in sequences of talk. This is especially significant as it has been suggested that laughter in children with autism is simply an outward manifestation of an internal state (Hudenko et al., 2009; Reddy et al., 2002). Extracts included in the chapter are drawn from interactions with a single child, Alfie. Detailed analysis of extended sequences involving laughter and laughables demonstrates that Alfie orients to establishing and maintaining affiliation through these devices. His laughter mitigates actions and invites his recipient to collaborate in playful activities. Again, this chapter demonstrates the relationship between laughter and delicate sequences. The extracts involve Alfie laughing in a range of potentially

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problematic environments, pursuing a request for more biscuits, providing a teasing answer in a structured therapy environment, and declining to participate in a question-answer teaching sequence with his mother. Laughing, and multimodal activities that go along with it (such as smiling) provide Alfie with resources he can use in a sophisticated way to tease a co-participant, make a request (against house rules), and resist the activity in progress. Connections can be made to the modulating role of post-completion laughter explored in Chapter 5. The next chapter in this section—“Laughter and Smiling in a Three-Party Medical Encounter: Negotiating Participants’ Alignment in Delicate Moments” by Fatigante and Orletti—also considers the relationship between laughter and affiliation. The data is drawn from multiparty medical encounters. In these interactions (and, more specifically, in time-outs from the prescribed activities of the examination) the negotiation of participation, alignment, and affiliation is particularly salient. One reason for this is that the talk, in each case, is of a delicate and potentially problematic nature, for example, a patient reporting that a possible mistake the doctor made on a form caused friction with her partner. The authors demonstrate that both laughter and smiling are central to the creation of alignment in these sequences. For example, in the extract just mentioned, laughter between the nurse and doctor that risks excluding the patient is eventually transformed into an inclusive sequence involving laughing. It emerges that laughter may be recurrently more related to inclusion than to affiliation. As in Chapter 7, the findings reported here are derived from examining extended sequences of talk and actions involving laughter and smiling. Thus, the complex and changing role of laughter in unfolding sequences is demonstrated, as is the need to consider the wider interactional environment. The institutional setting and roles of the participants are salient to the talk, along with physical aspects of the scene such as spatial orientation. In Chapter 9—“ ‘Cause the Textbook Says … ’: Laughter and Student Challenges in the ESL Classroom”—Jacknick examines a number of extended extracts from this context. Again, the laughter occurs in delicate sequences, talk involving students questioning the teacher’s answers to set problems and challenging her epistemic authority. The data shows that the students and teacher use laughter in rather different ways. The teacher uses laughter to invite affiliation, but students do not reciprocate and instead pursue the challenge. Distinctions in the use of laughter also relate to whether it orients to a problematic action (such as following a challenging turn) or constitutes the



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problematic action itself (such as laughing in response to a serious turn by the teacher). The institutional role of the participants is obviously highly salient to the differing actions of the participants. Jacknick argues that epistemic authority does not simply arise from their institutional role but is negotiated throughout these sequences. Laughter is central in this process, especially due to its relationship to aligning or (more relevantly in these excerpts) disaligning. Chapter 10—“Interviewee Laughter and Disaffiliation in Broadcast News Interviews” by Romaniuk—also focuses on nonaligning and disaffiliative laughter. The data derives from televised news interviews where interviewees laugh in response to interviewers’ questions (both following the questions and in overlap). Thus, as in the previous chapter (and the others in this section) institutional role is central to the actions of participants and their use of laughter. As in Chapter 9, the laughter occurs in problematic sequences which are potentially face-threatening. Thus, the relationship of laughter to disaffiliation and resistance is demonstrated and explored. Interviewers do not laugh along with the interviewees, but instead pursue serious answers to the questions. This chapter adds to our knowledge of the distinction between seriousness and nonseriousness (as explored in Chapter 4) as well as between affiliation and nonaffiliation through laughter.

7

Laughter and Competence: Children with Severe Autism Using Laughter to Joke and Tease Timothy Auburn and Christianne Pollock

The research on which this chapter draws is concerned with children diagnosed with severe autism and how they engage with others, primarily their parents, teachers, and therapists. One important reason for focusing on this group of children is that there is a shortage of research which examines their competencies, social engagement, and development compared to children diagnosed as higher functioning (Chiang, 2008). Here we focus on how such children manage their participation in interactions involving laughter. One of the main focuses of research into laughter in interaction is its role as an affiliative action. When parties to an interaction laugh together, one party, usually the recipient, is displaying support and endorsing the stance of the other who has initiated the laughter (cf. Stivers, 2008) and such moments can, in the words of Glenn (2003), be “relationally potent”. As such, the impairments typically attributed to children with autism, in particular those related to communication and social interaction (Wing, 1996; Roth, 2010) would suggest that the ability to affiliate either through initiation of laughter or laughing along would also show deficits. In addition, children with severe autism are often limited in their interactions, not only by any cognitive and language difficulties, but also by their lack of access to the standard “tools” of interaction such as speech. Many such children may have associated dyspraxias (Dzuik, et al 2007) that make sign or speech very difficult to produce with accuracy. In compensation for their lack of verbal ability, these children often rely on other communicatory systems such as the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) (Bondy and Frost, 1994, 2001). However, by considering interaction from a multimodal perspective, previous work (e.g. Clarke and Wilkinson, 2009) has shown how interactions may be

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rich, through the precise and systematic placement of nonspeech sounds and gesture into ongoing turns of conversation even when speech and movement are limited. We focus here on the multimodal engagement by these children in interaction with others which inter alia is oriented to affiliation and displays a competence in directing courses of action over several turns. As such, this analysis is commensurate with a strong tradition in CA which looks beyond deficits as individual traits, to the structure and organization of interaction as both constituting and compensating for those deficits (e.g. Goodwin, 1995, 2003; Maynard, 2005).

Autism and laughter One of the most striking features of the everyday interactions involving children with autism is the frequency and spontaneity of laughter, yet there have been surprisingly few studies focusing on autism and laughter (Hudenko et al., 2009). Such children are regarded as showing deficits in their social awareness and responsiveness to others from an early age (Maestro and Muratori, 2008) which is often taken as likely to impact on their ability to appreciate and produce humor. This view has been emphasized by Reddy et al. (2002) who say: Humour and laughter in children with autism are of particular relevance because their difficulties centre specifically around relating to other people, sharing cultural conventions and understanding others’ emotional, attentional and intentional states, and because the debate surrounding the nature of the primary deficit in autism is still unresolved (pp. 219–20).

Previous studies are inconsistent in whether there are differences in the nature of laughter between those with and without autism (St James and Tager-Flusberg, 1994; Snow et al., 1987; Sheinkopf et al., 2000). More recently, Reddy et al. (2002) examined laughter in children with autism by analyzing video recordings of free play in the home. They compared children with autism to children with Down’s syndrome. By coding and rating the type and frequency of laughter, they noted that there were few differences in the frequency of laughter between the two groups. However, the children with autism were more likely to pay no attention to other people’s laughter even when it was directed toward the child. These findings have led to the suggestion that laughter produced by children with autism simply reflects an internal state rather than being used interactionally. Hudenko et al. (2009) compared voiced and unvoiced laughter, voiced



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laughter being associated with “their internal experience of positive affect” (p.  1398) whereas unvoiced laughter is functionally distinct being used more as a marker within social interaction. They found that children with autism produced “almost no” (p. 1398) unvoiced laughter, implying that their laughter was an expression of an internal state rather than being used to negotiate social interactions. The evidence from this and Reddy et al.’s studies suggest that children with autism show a lowered ability to regulate and participate cooperatively in social interaction using laughter than their normally developing counterparts. On this account, children with autism laugh simply because they “cognitively process” an event as humorous. There are a number of limitations of these studies which in part motivate our own project for understanding the social being of children with severe autism. First, these studies have invariably been conducted on children diagnosed as higher functioning or with Asperger syndrome. Little research has been conducted with children diagnosed as low functioning, and as such these studies implicitly assume that this group of children will show the same deficits but simply to an even greater extent. Second, these studies have been largely based on experimental or quasi-experimental methods. It is likely that children with autism find it harder to interact in these circumstances given the novelty of the environment and their cointeractant. Third, these studies pay little attention to examining the interactional details through which laughter is produced. Their focus has been on measuring the type and frequency of laughter with less attention on the sequential environment in which laughter is produced. As a consequence, these studies tend to isolate both the child and his/her laughter. They isolate the child from his or her coparticipants and isolate laughter as the phenomenon of interest without examining the nonverbal and other conversational components which might systematically be involved in the production of laughter as a part of a course of action. Here we broaden the investigation of laughter to include those children with autism who are deemed low functioning and to consider naturalistic settings with other participants who are familiar to the child. Also, given the limitations in conventional communication often displayed by these children, it is important to examine systematically the organization of laughter from a multimodal perspective (e.g. Streeck, 2002).

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The study Although we have focused the analysis reported here on one child, “Alfie”, the organization of interaction we adumbrate was based on a larger corpus of naturalistic data. Overall, 12 hours of video was obtained from 11 children (one girl and ten boys) ranging in age from four to eleven years of age. All participants had scores of 37 or over on the childhood autism rating scale (Schopler et al., 1988) indicating that they were at the severe end of the spectrum. Six children were filmed at a community school specializing in severe learning disabilities and profound and multiple learning difficulties. Five children were filmed at home. The home video material included home therapy sessions, family interactions, and family mealtimes. Initially every instance of laughter was identified. From these instances, a corpus of laughter initiated by the children was assembled—where the first laugh was identified as being produced by the child, and included shared and unshared instances of laughter. The analysis identified a pattern whereby the children were using laughter or smiling in combination with eye gaze specifically to modulate or condition a contemporaneous action in such a way as to constitute it potentially as a laughable. We demonstrate this pattern by focusing on one child, Alfie. We have video of Alfie both at school and home which allows us to demonstrate this pattern in various settings. Alfie is nonverbal and has been instructed in the use of PECS as a compensatory strategy. In this system picture cards are selected from a folder and placed on a strip, which then should be exchanged with the cointeractant. In this way the child can make simple requests or observations to others. The practice of exchanging is emphasized as the most important part of early PECS training (Bondy and Frost, 2001). We have used three episodes to illustrate the organization of Alfie’s participation in interactions involving laughter. In the selected fragments we show that despite his diagnosis of severe autism Alfie participates, through the deployment of a systematic sequence of multimodal actions, invites laughter, and thereby projects affiliation. We also show that laugh invitations can be deployed in first and second pair parts of recognizable adjacency pair sequences, and these seem to be treated differently as jokes or teases respectively. Furthermore, the acceptance or not of the laugh invitation is instrumental in constituting Alfie’s competencies and motivations.



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Making a joke: First turn laugh initiation This sequence shows Alfie engaging informally with his mother. He has already been given two biscuits and he extends the interaction by asking for more. Because he has already had two biscuits, asking for more at this point is a breach of the family rules invoked and oriented to on this occasion. However, his move to ask for more biscuits is not sanctioned but is treated by both participants as a laughable. Extract 1 1a A a:y yee yee. 1b A PECS_____,,.M____ 1c A ____ 1d A ..reaches for card Image 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.1.3 2a M no:h mo:re bis[cuits 2b A M__________________,.PECS___________________________ 2c A _________________ 2d A reach___________,.withdraws arm 3 A [(h)uh ah °ha [ha°.hh ha 4 M [>huh huh huh< Image 7.1.4  7.1.5 5a A ↑.uugh hu:hh (.) huh [↑°.ugh° 5b A PECS___,..M___________________________ 5c A _________________________ 5d A ..reaches for card_______________ 6 M [No(h):(h) Image 7.1.6 7 M huh ha by(h)e bi(h)scuit[s 7a A M_______________,..PECS_______ 7b A ______________ 7c A hand on card_________________________ 8 A [°ayee° Image   7.1.7 9a (0.8) 9b PECS_______, 9c hand on card Image 7.1.8

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10a A °ai↑yee° 10b A ,..M____ 10c A hand on card Image 7.1.9 11a M no ↑more ↑bis(h)cui[hih hih ts (.) .hh 11b A M_________________________, .PECS____________,, 11c A _____________________ 11d A hand on card___________________________________ 12 A [hihih Image   7.1.10 13a A ai y e e 13b A …M______ 13c A __ 13d A hand on card Image 7.1.11 14a M >no more< biscuits. 14b A M_____________________ 14c A hand on card__________ Image 7.1.12 15a (0.4) 15b A M_____ 16a A huh huh (h)u:h= 16b A M_________________ 16c A ________________ 16d A hand on card______ 17a M =mm huh huh 17b A M____________ 17c A ___________ 17d A hand on card_ Image 7.1.13 18a A ai y e e 18b A M___________ 18c A __________ 18d A hand on card Image 7.1.14 19a M .h ye:ah: Alfie bubye biscui(h)t[s ha ha (.) >huh< 19b A M_____________________________________________________,,



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19c A ______________________________________________________ 19d A hand on card____________________________________ 20 A [huh huh huh Image 7.1.15 7.1.16 21a (1.4) 21b A .PECS_________ 21c A hand on card,, Image 7.1.17

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This extract consists of a number of sequences linked around essentially the same laughable action pursued over a number of turns. This laughable consists of Alfie requesting an object by articulating and simultaneously pointing to and touching one of the cards, here the biscuit card. His utterance and gesture are responded to with a refusal by his mother. Alfie then laughs and his laughter is then taken up by his mother. As the analysis will show, Alfie draws on sequential and multimodal organization to initiate and participate actively in the trajectory of these sequences and in doing so displays a strong orientation to affiliation with his coparticipant. The first request-refusal sequence can be seen in Lines 1–4 on the transcript. Alfie walks over to the PECS folder while looking at the cards and points to or half grasps one card (Line 1d). Alfie uses a combination of nonlexical sounds which can be approximately rendered as “ay” and “yee”. As he reaches forward to point to the card he vocalizes “a:y yee yee” (Line 1a). At the end of this utterance he turns his head sharply and gazes with a smile toward his mother (Lines 1b–1c). This sequence can be understood as a multimodally enacted first pair part recognizable as a request. It consists of two components: establishing a referent for the request by vocalizing and pointing to the card, followed by the selection of mother as next speaker through intonational features of his utterance and the switch in gaze from the card to his mother. However, there are some subtle distinctions in the organization of this request which modulate its meaning and



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which we see oriented to in the mother’s second pair part and Alfie’s take-up of the mother’s response. Specifically, Alfie does not use the PECS cards in the conventionally taught way; rather than taking the card representing biscuit, placing it on the exchange strip and offering to exchange it with his mother, he reaches toward it and simply points at it allowing his hand to rest on the card. Moreover, as he does this gesture he turns and gazes at his mother at the same time smiling. This action is recognizable as a request. However, this use of pointing and then the shift to gazing at his mother whilst smiling, imparts an ironic, joking stance. This sequence of smiling before laughter has been identified as a “pre-laughing device” (Haakana, 2010); it potentially anticipates this move as laughable though at this point the action has not been ratified as such. In this first pair part Alfie uses a sequentially, coordinated combination of utterance, gesture, gaze, and smiling to constitute the action and establish a stance on the action conditioning the manner of its preferred take-up. The mother’s response in Line 2a treats the first pair part as a request for more biscuits, and she answers with what amounts to a refusal implicitly recognizing that this request is “inappropriate” for that local context by the inclusion of the modifier “more”. This response is delivered without intonation or laughter particles which would otherwise display her recognition of the first part as a laughable. Before this refusal is concluded, Alfie laughs, anticipating the end of his mother’s turn (Line 3). Coincidental with the onset of his laughter, Alfie looks away from his mother and back toward the PECS cards. He also withdraws his arm from pointing to the card (Lines 2b–2d). Alfie has initiated laughter and, after a short delay his mother takes up the laughter (Line 4) so that at the end of this sequence there is shared laughter. The laughter initiated by Alfie at this point close to the completion of his mother’s TCU acts in a manner similar to a “post-completion stance marking” device (Schegloff, 1996, p. 92; Clift, 2006), whereby his stance on the smile-marked first part request is now ratified. This stance is recognized and taken up by his mother through her joining in with the laughter. The subsequent look away from his mother and the withdrawal of the pointing gesture then signify the conclusion to this laughter sequence. Alfie extends the sequence of laughter by recycling this now established laughable. Glenn (2003) has documented a number of ways in which participants extend laughter beyond the recognizable completion points for a sequence of laughter. In this case Alfie extends laughter through the extension of a single laughable; he reinvokes the laughable action—pointing at the biscuit card—four

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further times. These extension sequences occur at Lines 5a–8, 10a–12, 13a–17d, and 18a–21c. At the start of the second request-refusal sequence, Alfie’s laughter continues on from the end of the first sequence (Line 5a); he has also withdrawn his reaching gesture and is looking at the PECS cards. He turns his gaze toward his mother, with a wide open-mouthed smile while simultaneously reaching for the same biscuit card (Lines 5b–5d). The reach for the card is coincidental with a more plosive laugh particle (Line 5a: hu:hh). This coordinated combination of laugh particle, shift in gaze, the display of smiling, and the second reach for the card, signifies a new sequence with Alfie producing a new first pair part. This first part redoes the request while also conditioning the manner in which this request should be received as potentially laughable. His mother refuses this request using a locally understood form (“bye bye biscuits”) with laugh particles bubbling through (Line 6–7). Alfie brings this sequence to an end, through a quieter nonlexical acknowledgement of the refusal (Line 8) and simultaneously looking away and so disengaging the wide smile and gaze toward his mother (Lines 7a–7b). There are further sequences where the same play around the request and refusal is acted out. Each of these sequences displays similar sequential and multimodal organization. There is the requesting first pair part by Alfie and his mother’s second pair part refusal. In producing the first pair part, Alfie both establishes the referent for the request and conditions his stance on the request as a potential laughable through the combination of gazing and smiling. He initiates laughter which his mother takes up after a delay or simultaneously in overlap. This trajectory toward joking interaction is also facilitated by the mother’s local knowledge of Alfie. These play sequences occur in relational histories of past and anticipated interactions between these children and their parents as well as in other contexts with teachers, therapists, and siblings. This shared experience is an important resource for understanding what counts as “laughable” sequences; for example, the fact that Alfie points to rather than places cards when using the PECS is a significant semiotic distinction which is understandable as such to the participants through their local history of involvement with each other. Also in this encounter, his mother displays a readiness and orientation to affiliating with Alfie’s laugh invitations and hence mutually constituting this moment as a celebration of Alfie’s joke.



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Teasing: Next turn laugh initiation We now turn to another encounter in which Alfie produces a laughable involving what is recognizably teasing. Teasing by children has been described as “involving the rapid alternation of metasignals, which create then remove doubt” (Reddy, 1991, p. 144). One of Reddy’s examples of a teasing game is “creating a false expectation and disrupting it” (p. 146). She goes on, “It would appear to involve some knowledge of others’ expectation separated from the act of fulfiling them and it appears to involve the ‘pretend’ use of gesture … ” (p. 147). This analysis of teasing places emphasis upon its underlying mental operations. Also pertinent is to consider teasing in terms of its social organization. Drew (1987) analyzes teasing in the context of competent verbal adults. Teases are “in some way” a response to a prior turn that display the teaser’s understanding of the first speaker’s turn as “overdone” in some way. As with laugh initiations, there is a range of ways in which a tease can be taken up. Drew identifies a continuum from going along with the tease to ignoring the tease. A further important distinction is between recognizing a tease, and displaying recognition of a tease. In the former, though the tease might be recognized as such, this recognition is not built into the response and so the response ignores the projected humor of the tease; in the second, the recipient of the tease displays recognition and hence explicitly acknowledges its projected humor. Reddy’s and Drew’s analyses suggest two conclusions. First, teasing suggests an ability to deploy a sophisticated social awareness of others and their intentions, perhaps particularly in relation to a “theory of mind” (cf. Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). Second, producing a tease displays an engagement with social norms whereby the participation framework is shifted or modulated. The tease is produced as a potential laughable in response to a serious turn which itself does not normatively prefer a tease as a second pair part. Teases also project humor as an assessment of the actions of the first. The next extract shows Alfie constructing a tease despite restricted communicatory resources. It takes place during a cooking lesson in which Alfie is being taught to label items correctly. The teacher, Maria, places the PECS cards on the strip to issue “test questions” to Alfie. Following a directive (“I want icing sugar”), normatively Alfie would respond by choosing the correct item from a choice of sugar or chocolate powder. Prior to this exchange, Alfie had been asked to choose between icing sugar and chocolate powder and had chosen chocolate powder. This prior choice seems relevant to the eventual uptake by the teacher (Line 19a, 20a, and 23a).

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Extract 2 A Alfie T Maria, Alfie’s teacher 1 (3.7) 2 T prepares materials for asking A a question 3 T °okay° (.) 4a T Alfie: (.) can >you remember< which one’s [whi:ch:, 4b T Strip__________________________________________,..A_ 4c T places two PECS cards on sentence strip 5 A ..Strip__________________ Image   7.2.1 6a A na:hh 6b T A____,, 6c A Strip_____ 6d A leaning forward toward strip Image   7.2.2 7a T I:: ] [want:= 7b T A_________________,, ] [.Strip, 7c tapping chest ] [points to 1st card 7d A Strip________________________ Image   7.2.3          7.2.4 8a A =ah 8b A Strip__ 8c T A______ 9 (0.2) 10a T (.) i:cing >sugar< 10b T .A______,, ..Strip____ 10c T points to 2nd card 10d A Strip_________________ Image   7.2.5 11a (0.6) 11b T Strip_ 11c T places strip on table directly in front of A 11d A Strip_ Image   7.2.6



Laughter and Competence 12a A °uh° 12b A Strip,, 12c T Strip,, 13a T whi:ch one is it?= 13b T Packages_______________ 13c T gestures in turn to each package Image   7.2.7      7.2.8 14a A =eeh 14b A Sugar__ 14c T A______ 15a (0.3) 15b A Sugar_______,, 15c A reaches for sugar 15d T Packages______ Image   7.2.9 16a T goo16b T Packages___ 16c A ..Choc Powder___ 16d A switches reach for chocolate powder Image   7.2.10 17a A eh >hehhehI’d prefer that one.< 20b T A_______________________,, ..Strip_________________ Image 7.2.14 21a T .hh I want i:cing sugar:: look 21b T Strip________________________________ 21c T bringing sugar over to strip Image 7.2.15 22a [(1.0) 22b T [..A___ 22c T [____ 23a T °cheeky boy° huh hih hih he:: 23b T [..A_____________________________ 23c T [______________________________ Image 7.2.16

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At the start of the extract, Maria is preparing the materials, including placing the relevant PECS cards on the strip. At Line 7a she issues a directive complemented by gesture and pointing. Thus she taps herself when referring to “I” and then points in turn to the cards that she has placed on the strip referring to “want” and “sugar”. Alfie has had his attention drawn to the strip at the start of this sequence (Line 4) and then focuses on that. During her directive Maria has mostly been looking at Alfie, but as she reaches its conclusion both she and Alfie are looking at the strip (Lines 7b and 7d). This joint orientation demonstrates a shared participation framework toward the relevant task object facilitated by placing the strip in the joint space on the table in front of them (Line 11c). Maria then finishes by asking a wh- question (Line 13a: “which one is it”). Alfie then initiates his tease. He initially looks and reaches for the package of sugar (lines 14a–15d); as he does this Maria begins her evaluation of his choice (Line 16a) which is then cut-off as Alfie switches his reach toward the package of chocolate powder (Line 16d). As he does this switch, he emits two

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short laughter particles and simultaneously switches his gaze from the chocolate powder to Maria (Lines 17a–17b). She at this point is looking at the sugar and chocolate powder packages (Lines 17c). As Alfie switches and emits the laugh particles, Maria switches her gaze from the packages to Alfie and emits a loud, open mouthed laugh in which the words “no” is elongated with several laugh particles bubbling through. She continues laughing and gazing at Alfie as she formulates an account of his actions containing further laugh particles which die out as she continues. Recognizing that he is teasing her is provided for by her final comment (Line 23a) where she characterizes him as a “cheeky boy” followed by further quieter laugh particles. What makes this a tease rather than say, simply an error in choice of package by Alfie? In part this can be answered by noting the canonical social organization of teases and the deployment of a range of nonverbal resources by Alfie. The normative organization of this interaction would be for the teacher to issue a test question, for the child to respond and for the teacher then to produce a third position evaluation. This interaction initially appears to be following this trajectory, with Maria beginning her evaluation (Line 16a) as Alfie reaches for the correct package. However, the tease changes the participation framework. Alfie produces an incorrect action. This action is designed as a laughable through the combination of laughter particles and nonverbal actions deployed by Alfie in a systematic and precisely located way. As he reaches for the incorrect package, he shifts his gaze to Maria, the recipient of the tease, and simultaneously issues three quick laugh particles (Line 17a). This combination of gaze and laugh particles modulates the incorrect action as a tease. These laugh particles work as a post-completion stance marker through which Alfie projects a stance on this switch as laughable and as designedly done, thus modulating its meaning. With regard to the social organization of this episode, the actions of the participants are also consistent with the features adumbrated by Drew (1987), i.e. that the tease is in second position and is directed toward the person issuing the first part. Further, as Maria realizes what Alfie has done, she displays a clear and enthusiastic recognition of his actions as incorrect but produced as a laughable and joins in the laughter he initiated. What is less clear is that there is no explicit “vulnerability” noticeable in Maria’s first part. It would be outside the scope of this chapter to explore this feature here, but we could speculate that any first part is potentially vulnerable, or that here teases arising from repetitive teaching activities are vulnerable precisely because of their repetitive nature.



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Initiating a laughter sequence unsuccessfully In the previous exemplars, the participants affiliated to the moment as laughable whether in first or second position; consequently, it could be argued that the adult in the interaction was simply responding in a socially conventional way to the child’s laughter. In this next sequence we show how Alfie attempts to initiate a laughter sequence, with reference to activities which are treated by his adult coparticipant as disruptive and displayed in part by the nontake-up of the laughable. This sequence emerges from a move on the part of Alfie which disrupts an ongoing therapy session (ABA). ABA takes the form of a series of “trials” which are frequently made up of directives. This extract shows Alfie shifting orientation so that the participation space and orientation to it for the original teaching activity are disrupted. As with Extract 2, the disruptive action is a dispreferred second to a teacher initiated test question. The deployment of laughter particles and gaze immediately following the disruptive action can be understood as designed to constitute that action as a laughable and so achieve affiliation with the new, nontask trajectory. Extract 3 M – Mother A—Alfie (son and child with autism) Also present Father (filming), younger son in cot and not participating.

(Due to the camera angle it was not always possible to determine whether and at what points Alfie was smiling during the course of this interaction). 1 M ↑wea::::yh.= 2 =>lessdo another one< 3 (0.4) 4a M match (.) rabbi:t 4b M ..A__________________ 4c M …Passes card to A 4d A Board__,, ..M________ Image   7.3.1 5a (3.9) 5b M A______,, ..Board______________________ 5c A M,, ..Card/Board_______________________ 5d A Reaches and takes card Places card on board Image 7.3.2

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6a M .hhhaah (0.3) = 6b M Board________,, .A_____________, .Card stack____ 6c A Board_________,,, ..M_____________,, 6d A Card on board,,, 7 A [°uh yuh° Image 7.3.3 8a M = (.) g:[oose 8b M Picks up next card Passes to A 8c A ..M___________________ 8d A [Stands_____ Image 7.3.4      7.3.5 9a (1.3) 9b A M____________ 9c A Moves toward M Image   7.3.6 10a A ↑huh hu:hh 10b A M___________ 10c A Stands in front of M Image   7.3.7 11a M right (.) °djuwant to do th:is first° 11b M A___________________________________ 11c M Holds up toy microwave____ 11d A M____________________________________________ Image 7.3.8 12a (1.3) 12b M A,,,, 12c A M,, ..Toy Microwave 12d A   Pushes toy down__ Image     7.3.9 13a A huh 13b A Toy__ 13c M A,,,, Image   7.3.10 14a (0.6) 14b A ..M__ 14c M Toy__



Laughter and Competence 15a M ngho: don’t do this again Alfie= 15b M ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,A 15c A M_________________________________ 15d A Leans in to M_____________________ Image 7.3.11 16a M =↑go and sit on the sea:t 16b M ..points to seat 16c A M,, Image   7.3.12 17a (0.5) 17b M ..A__ 17c A ..M__ 18a M this is your new disruptive behavior 18b M A,, 18c A M___,, 19a M °isnnit° sit on the ↑seat< .h 19c (1.0) 20a M Alf ie sit [on the seat 20b M ..A______________________,, 21 A [nah huh Image 7.3.13 22 M go on (.) sit 23a A huh huh (0.2) >huh< 23b A ..M____________________ 23c A sits / stands Image   7.3.14      7.3.15 24a (2.1) 24b M A____ 24c A M____ 24d A Moves to M 25a M Alfie (0.2) sit on the seat 25b M A_,, 25c A M________________________________ Image 7.3.16

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26a (1.6) 26b A M____ 27a A >hih hih< .uhh 27b A M________________ Image   7.3.17 28a (1.0) 28b A M____ 29a (0.2) 29b M ..A__ 29c A M____ Image   7.3.18 30a (1.0) 30b M ,A 30c M Turns head sharply away from A 30d A M____ Image   7.3.19 31a A ,,M 31b A walks away

Image 7.3.1

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Image 7.3.7

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At the start of this interaction, Alfie has successfully been cooperating with his mother in a task where she provides him with a card which he then has to place on the matching picture on a board. Alfie has completed several of these rounds just prior to the start of the interaction shown in the transcript. At Line 2, the mother starts a new round, and in the following lines (Lines 2–6a) we see their canonical trajectory: directive (Line 4a) —compliant action (Line 5d) —evaluation (Line 6a). At the same time, the mother and Alfie display joint attention to the board as a common workspace for the activity (Lines 5b–5c) and they are both positioned in such a way as to make the board centrally relevant to their activities. Following this round, Alfie disrupts the sequence. As his mother initiates the next round by saying “match goose” (Line 8a) Alfie stands up and moves toward his mother (Lines 8d–9c). He is gazing at his mother rather than the offered new card, and his position and movement around and towards his mother means that his stance is not commensurate with taking the card and placing it in the correct position on the board. As he undertakes this move while gazing toward his mother, he issues two brief laugh particles (Line 10a). Normatively there are a number of options available to his mother as responses to this laugh initiation: accept, remain silent, or return to prior business without acknowledging the laughable. She does the latter. In fact his mother seems to interpret Alfie’s disruptive move as identifying the missing evaluation and reward which usually follows correct completion of the round. Here she holds up the toy microwave which has been serving as a reward for Alfie whenever he correctly completes a matching round (Lines 11a–11d) thus potentially serving to maintain the task-based participation framework. However, he pushes the toy down and moves further in toward his mother and as he does so issues another short laugh particle (Line 13a). His mother again follows this with an attempt to return to prior business: she issues two directives, one to stop the current actions and an immediately subsequent one to return to his seat which would be appropriate for participation in the matching task (Lines 15a–16c). His mother also displays recognition of this action (Line 18a); in contrast to the recognition of Alfie’s action by the teacher in the previous extract as a “cheeky boy” here the mother identifies the action as his “new disruptive behavior”. There are two further attempts by Alfie at laugh initiation in this episode (Lines 23a and 27a). In the first, Alfie is directed to sit and makes a move to do so. Immediately on sitting, he stands again and moves toward his mother once more disrupting the participation space for the completion of another round of



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the matching task. As he stands he issues three laugh particles and is engaging in gaze toward his mother. His mother issues another directive (Line 25a) all the while avoiding engaging in mutual gaze with Alfie. It is after this directive, when a conforming response would be relevant (Craven and Potter, 2010), that Alfie issues another short burst of laugh particles (Line 27a). In this extract, there are four separate occasions where Alfie laughs. Each time the laughter appears to be responsive to the emergence of disruption or resisting the attempt to return the interaction back to original matching task. On each occasion, Alfie combines laugh particles with gaze toward his mother. As in the other exemplars, this combination seems designed to condition the just-prior action as a potential laughable and display his stance toward these actions. In this extract, these attempts are not successful and this nontake-up is displayed through lack of reciprocal laughter, an overt avoidance of returning gaze at the point when responding to laughter might be relevant, and a formulation of the action as disruptive. Alfie has limited ways in which he can refuse to engage with an activity. By placing a laugh particle combined with gaze into his refusal to take part in the therapy, he offers his mother the opportunity to join in with the laughter and turn this into a moment of playfulness—a suspension of the recognizable business.

Conclusion We have provided some exemplars of laughter taking place between a child diagnosed with severe autism and his carers. In undertaking this detailed examination of laughter, one of our implicit strategies has been to compare these sequences to the extant literature on the social organization of laughter in other quotidian interactions. In one sense, we have found nothing profoundly different in the way that our target interactions have been organized compared to these canonical formations. Indeed, one question would be whether we would expect to find differences. On the one hand, because severely autistic children are deemed to have neurocognitive deficits which impair their ability to participate in social interaction, then the answer might be “yes” and this would be commensurate with some of those studies which have previously investigated laughter in autistic children (Hudenko et al., 2009). On the other hand, we could answer “no”. This answer would be predicated on the principle that laughter is a joint accomplishment and hence not

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dependent exclusively on the competencies of one party. This answer would be commensurate with the large body of evidence which shows that interactions involving people who are communicatively impaired can nevertheless display courses of action which are normative, recognizable, and accountable (Bloch and Wilkinson, 2009; Dickerson et al., 2004; Dickerson et al., 2007). The extracts we have assembled here go some way to displaying this feature of interaction with children who are severely autistic. Tangentially, we can note that in the above examples Alfie shows what is often regarded as a complex source of humor, social inappropriateness (Reddy et al., 2002) here constituted through a limited range of communicative resources, an ability which would not normally be regarded as within the competencies of a child with severe autism. More specifically we have attempted to draw attention to three features of these interactions. First, Alfie displays a clear orientation to sharing and gaining affiliation in his attempts to initiate laughable moments. This observation goes some way to countering a view that laughter in those with autism is simply the outward manifestation of an inner state. There are observable and systematic practices which constitute these attempts comprising laughter particles, gaze, and smiling. These components are skilfully and precisely placed in the interaction and are recognizable by coparticipants as moves to constitute the moment as laughable. Second, in interaction with others, Alfie can participate in a skilled and competent way in practices for accountably projecting a prior action as laughable, and on occasion persisting with this course of action in the face of recipient’s opposition or blocking moves. One aspect of this observation is a feature which we have only partially been able to foreground. For many of these children, their interactions take place with others who have extensive knowledge of them. This local, shared knowledge plays a significant role in constituting the events as laughable. A case in point is the interaction between Alfie and his mother over requests to have more biscuits. Alfie’s pointing to the PECS card was a relevant contrast to taking and placing the card. Using one exemplar of this practice it is difficult to show how this is a relevant semiotic distinction for the participants. In part it comes about because we can draw upon what those participants tell us about what makes sense to them. The difficulty we encounter here is redolent of the debate about the role of context in CA studies and the degree to which we rely on explicit orientation to such locally coded distinctions or rely on “supra-local context” for analytic purchase (Glenn, 2003; McHoul et al., 2008). The mistake, however, would be to overly privilege such contextual information drawn from sources other than interaction (say



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interviews) at the expense of locating this information in the recipient designedness and sequential organization of the interaction itself. Third, it is significant that Alfie can deploy systematically a combination of laughter particles and gaze to bring off teasing and other actions, including resisting structured therapy activities. We have chosen an exemplar where there is an explicit orientation to the actions of the child as teasing; the subsequent contributions of the recipient of the tease display her recognition of the actions as teasing. Taking this action to be an instance of teasing goes some way to forcing us to question the standard view of autism as a deficit in “theory of mind” as an internal attribute of the child. “Mindreading” and other competencies emerge in interaction as mutually constituted attributes, and serve the purposes of both participants; thus, on the one hand, Alfie is successful in bringing off a tease, and on the other hand, the teacher is able to acknowledge his playful motivation. However, the recognition of these competencies is also constituted in and through coparticipants laughing along. Where laughing along does not occur in response to a laugh initiation then the formulation of the action, and thereby range of competencies attributed to its production, are constituted differently. Where the action has disrupted the participation framework of a therapeutic task, then the recipient displays a lack of affiliation with the laugh invitation, and in the example here attributes the source of the action to the “disruptive behavior” of the child. Thus we would argue that the sort of competencies that are attributed to children with severe autism are locally occasioned and constituted in and through the sequential organization of the interaction involving laughter.

Additional transcription conventions used in this chapter In addition to the standard Jeffersonian conventions, these transcripts use the conventions for indicating the movement and direction of gaze described by Glenn (2003, p. 69). Object ____ … ,,, 

Object or person toward which gaze is directed. Solid line indicates continuation of gaze on the object or person. Movement of gaze toward an object. Movement of gaze away from an object. Indicates smiling with ___ indicating the continuation of smiling.

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These transcripts also include a description of relevant gestures (e.g. pointing, placing). … Initiating the gesture. ,,, Moving out of the gesture.

8

Laughter and Smiling in a Three-party Medical Encounter: Negotiating Participants’ Alignment in Delicate Moments Marilena Fatigante and Franca Orletti This chapter examines the negotiation of participants’ alignments with laughter and smiling in a multiparty medical encounter including the doctor (a female gynecologist), the patient, and the nurse. We focus on sequences in which participants address problematic or delicate activities at different stages of the institutional interaction. In these environments, we analyze how the repair of understanding and/or affiliation is managed by laughter and smiling. We demonstrate how laughing or smiling do not always mark the participants’ endorsement of a shared perspective (i.e. affiliation) by all, but they work toward building inclusion. This work adds to the field of studies on laughter in medical settings (Haakana, 1999, 2002, 2010; West, 1984; Zayts, et al., 2010) in three ways: first, by examining the way it develops beyond the doctor-patient dyad; second, by exploring how laughter and smiling help participants aligning and/or affiliating (Stivers, 2008); third, by taking into account the multimodal trajectory of participants’ alignments via laughter and smiling (Birkner, 2010; Ford and Fox, 2010), occurring through different spaces and stages of the gynecological visit.

Aligning and affiliating through laughter and smiling When applied to conversation, the meaning of the term alignment is often left implicit and it is not always clear whether it refers “simply” to coorientation to the talk in progress or to participants’ stance-taking. A recent attempt to clarify the difference between alignment and affiliation was made by Stivers (2008, also in Stivers et al., 2011, p.22). In storytelling, Stivers compared vocal continuers and nodding in recipient’s responses, and found that, whereas vocal

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continuers provide evidence of the recipient’s ”attendance” to talk (what she calls alignment) (i.e. acknowledging the teller’s talk and passing the opportunity to make a more elaborate contribution), nodding is evidence of the recipient’s affiliation toward the teller. By affiliation, Stivers means “that the hearer displays support of and endorses the teller’s conveyed stance” (Stivers 2008, p. 35). The distinction is particularly relevant for the analysis of laughter, and, to a certain extent, smiling, as we will make clear. Laughter is generally discussed as a marker of affiliation, meant by Schenkein (among others) as “a coincidence of thought, attitude, sense of humour and the like” (quoted in Glenn, 2003, p. 29). Not all laughter conveys affiliation. When produced in the context of troubles-telling (Jefferson, 1979, 1984), recipient laughter shows disaffiliation with the teller. Laughter may work as a “flag of trouble” (Potter and Hepburn, 2010), signaling problematicity or insufficient description of the item talked about. In genetic counseling sessions, doctors’ laughter marks moments of misalignment and discontinuity from patients who resist their agenda of information giving and treatment (Zayts and Schnurr, 2011). Also, laughter demonstrates the potential “splitting” of alignment and affiliation. Doctors most often decline to laugh (West, 1984; Haakana, 2002) in response to the patient’s laughter. This is so because in doctor-patient interaction, the patient’s self-initiated laughter frequently marks the delicate and problematic nature of the activity (Haakana, 2001, 2002; Potter and Hepburn, 2010) rather than inviting shared laughter. Other displays (such as whispering, amused quality of the voice, smiling) may signal the doctor’s alignment with the patient’s laughter (Haakana, 2010; see also Glenn, 2003; Lavin and Maynard, 2002). In multiparty encounters, managing displays of alignment and affiliation can be even more nuanced. Shared, affiliative laughter among two participants (termed as laughing with; Glenn 1995, 2003; Jefferson, 1972) can disaffiliate from a third party who does not “get” the joke. This makes her/him cast apart from the affiliative laughter and “laughed at” by the others. In this sense, laughter works as a marker of “social inclusion” for some participants, and “social exclusion” for others. As laughing at and laughing with alignments are always “changeable, sometimes equivocal and subject to moment to moment negotiation” (Glenn, 2003, p. 115), the boundaries between the “team” of affiliating participants and the other(s) are also volatile. Whereas laughter can also be read as disaffiliative, smiling has been consistently described as a marker of both alignment and affiliation. Early experimental



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studies (Kraut and Johnson, 1979) interpreted smiling as the listener’s opportunity to visually display her/his engagement and comprehension of the ongoing talk and included it in the wider class of “backchannel” signals (Duncan, 1979; see Schegloff, 1980, for a critique of the term). Conversation analytic studies demonstrate how smiling can co-occur with laughing, either working as a pre-laughter device, or appearing as a response to laughter in the prior turn and thus displaying, in the absence of a laughing with, the recipient’s alignment toward the laugher (Haakana, 2010). In storytelling and other forms of talk, smiling has generally been described as conveying a positive and appreciating stance (Ruusuvouri and Perakyla, 2009, p. 384) from recipients. The characteristics of laughter and smiling in relation to alignment and affiliation examined so far provide starting points to analyse how they work in multiparty gynecologist-patient-nurse interaction. Specifically, we focus on instances in which participants experience misalignment or problems in understanding, and we analyze how laughter and smiling are used by the different parties to align or display stance.

Data collection and corpus The corpus examined in this study includes ten videotaped doctor-patientnurse interactions (extracted from an overall number of 35 gynecological consultations) collected in a public hospital in Rome, Italy. Patients are either Italians (native speakers) or immigrants from different countries (Bangladesh, Morocco, Philippines, Peru, Ecuador, India), with varying degrees of competence in Italian as a second language. Before entering the analysis, we provide a brief description of the spatial setting and the temporal arrangement (format) of the consultation, because both these aspects are relevant for the organization and trajectory of participants’ alignments in the course of the gynecological visit and, particularly, in the sequences we will examine.

Setting and format of the gynecological consultation Gynecological consultations in our corpus include a female doctor and a nurse, although the nurse’s presence may be intermittent: in some of the consultations, nurses may leave the room, in order to check whether the next patient

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has arrived in the reception area. The gynecological consultation is characterized by stages (Byrne and Long, 1976; Maynard and Heritage, 2006), which broadly include the initial interview stage, the physical examination, and the final stage of recommendation and treatment/planning of next actions. The different activities occur in different spaces in the room. The initial and final stages unfold at the desk (and therefore are visible to the video camera), whereas activities related to the physical examination, i.e. weight measurement and body inspection, take place in the back of the room, to which participants who remain in the “front” have only audible access. The setting of the room and the position of the activities are shown in Figure 8.1. A curtain segregates the front region (zone A, in Figure 8.1) from the back (zone B). Most of the consultation takes place in zone A. The video camera is oriented toward the desk, placed sideways. Given its position, it is able to include the patient and (partially) the doctor’s face during the interview. When the interview is completed, the nurse invites the patient to go back for the weight measurement and, after that, to get ready for the physical examination by the doctor. This normally takes a few minutes, including the time necessary for the patient to undress herself. The participants’ alignment to the talk in progress is, then, invariably constrained and shaped by space boundaries (such as the distinction between back and front region of the room) which index what kind of institutional activity is being performed and when.

Figure 8.1. Map of consultation room



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Laughing after the resolution of a problem: Shifting alignment and building inclusion In the first excerpt, we analyze the role of laughter and multimodal resources (prosody, facial expressions, posture) in the alignments that the doctor and the nurse display to the patient’s problematic telling. First, we will briefly analyze the patient’s complaint (including one instance of laughter) and discuss how the doctor and the nurse align to it. Then, we will analyze the second part of the sequence, when the doctor reopens the patient’s narrative and shifts in alignments can be observed. Although the telling (Excerpt 1a) occurs as the doctor and the patient face each other, the doctor and the nurse further continue discussion of it (commenting and assessing its implications, Excerpt 1b) when the patient is behind the curtain, while the doctor and the nurse are close to each other in the front space. This configuration helps shape the different alignments. The excerpt starts as the doctor has just concluded her interview with the patient, who is Ecuadorian. The nurse has already invited the patient to go to the back of the room in order to check her weight. Before standing, the patient addresses the doctor with a question. Excerpt 1a1 1 PAT dottor↑essa vorrei d[ir doctor+F want-COND.1SG tell-INF do↑ctor (I)’d like to [te2 DOC [mi dica [me-DAT tell-IMP.3SG [tell me 3 PAT vode- vorr(hh)ei! (1.0) un’espositi- una cosa    want-COND.1SG one expositi – one thing I’l- I’(hh)d like! (1.0) an explica- a thing. ((she takes a form out of her bag)) 4 ((DOC watches the computer screen)) 5 PAT qui: perché  mi ha    messo  due:::  aborti? here why me-DAT have-AUX.2SG- put PST two abortion-PL why did you put two::: abortions here? 6  ((PAT bends toward the doctor, her body stretched on the desk, and points at the form, with her gaze on it)) 7 ((PAT smiles at DOC)) (1.5) 8  ((DOC turns toward PAT and looks at the paper; PAT continues smiling looking at the form))

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9 PAT o è sbaglio. or is mistake2.((she lifts her gaze to the doctor, smiling)) 10 (1.8) 11 DOC no. gravida:nze tre. no. pre:gnancies three. (…) 14 DOC parità due. significa   che c’   ha avuto   due::: figli.  parity two. mean-PRS.3SG that POSS  have-AUX.3SG have-PST two child-PL parity3 two. that means that you had two::: children. 15 PAT *yes ((looking at the paper)) 16 *((NUR comes close to the desk and stands, looking downward to the form)) 17 DOC aborti,   qui c’ è il se- ci dovrebbe essere il numero (.) zero abortions, here LOC is the se- LOC must-CON be-INF the number zero as for abortions, the number. (.) zero should be here. 18 PAT ah  ho capito    perché ha letto  il mio::: uh have-AUX.1SG understand-PST because have-AUX–3SG read-PST the my-M uh I see. because my::: he re£ad ((lifting her arm, she starts to withdraw)) 19 DOC £na, 20 PAT e   ha detto ­io,     *perché [io c’ ho   un:: amico – compagno and have-AUX.3SG tell-PST I   because I POSS have one friend partner-M and he £said ↑I, *‘cause [I have a:: friend- partner 20 *((PAT gazes at NUR, smiling)) 21 DOC [allora glie-lo metto così guardi thus DAT-OBJ put-PRS–1SG so look—IMP.2SG [listen then I’ll write it this way for you. ((she takes the PAT’s medical report)) 22 gravidanze (.) [tre. pregnancies, (.) [three. ((she writes on PAT’s medical report)) 23 PAT [e s’ è   arrabbiato pr­oprio and REF   be angry-PST really [and he got really a↑ngry ((looking at NUR)) 24 perché ha visto che because have-AUX.3SG see-PST that ‘cau[se he saw that 25 DOC [parità due [parity, two 26 PAT ho fatto    due aborti.  e  ho detto  c[o:me?



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 have-AUX.1SG do–PST two abortion-PL. and have-AUX.1SG say-PST say-PST–1SG how? I made two abortions. and I said w[ha:t? ((with an hand on her chest, looking at NUR)) 27 DOC [abo:rti, zero= [abo:rtions, zero= 28 PAT =io non ce l’ ho: ↑(hh) hh I NEG POSS OBJ have-PRS.1SG =I didn’t have any. (­hh) hh ((turning her eyes toward the paper and pointing at it)) 29 hh hh. (.) ((she looks at NUR)) 30 ↑.hhh ((PAT disengages gaze from NUR and turns it toward the paper)) 31 DOC e no perché   deve   di:re   che il numero di dopo and no because must-IMP tell-INF that the number of after well no↑ because you must tell him that the following number– 32 adesso glie-lo  scrivo  zero now DAT-OBJ write-PRS.1SG zero I’ll write it zero for you then

The sequence starts when the doctor has turned her gaze from the patient to the computer. The patient’s question reopens the interaction with the doctor, deviating from the normal institutional course of action (the overall structural organization of the visit, Drew and Heritage, 1992), which would involve transition to the body examination. The patient’s question is marked by many features (e.g. question— preface and modal verb in Line 1; plosive laughter, repair, and pause in Line 2) indexing its dispreferred nature both as regards its sequential placement and its delicacy, i.e. questioning the doctor’s action4. On the other hand, the doctor responds to the patient’s turn (allowing continuation) in overlap, thus, aligning with the projected telling adumbrated in the patient’s preface (Line 2). The patient’s problematic turn appears at Line 5: she questions the doctor with regards a potential mistake she has made by inaccurately listing an abortion. She says that this attribution caused her trouble with her partner. A long pause follows, during which the doctor reads the form (Line 8), while the patient intermittently (Line 7, 9) looks at her and smiles. Questioning the expertise and authority of the doctor is a delicate task for the patients, who, on their part, can claim accuracy of knowledge when the objects of medical description are part of their own experience (Gill, 1998; Gill and Maynard, 2006). Thus, the patient’s smile may work to reduce the dispreferred nature of her turn: that is, if her verbal turn threatens the affiliation with the doctor

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in that it points to a possible medical misdoing, her facial displays convey an impression of a nonhostile stance. On the other hand, the doctor does not smile or look at the patient; rather, she inspects carefully the problem that the patient has presented, and, after reading the form, she corrects the misunderstanding, providing an account for what was written (Line 17). By not smiling the doctor treats the issue seriously, orienting to it as a problem needing a solution. Smiling (or laughing) may have been seen as disaffiliative and would not have aligned with the “serious” activity in progress. Furthermore, as the selected addressee of the patient’s complaint, the doctor should respond (as a relevant next move; Schegloff, 2007). For this reason, the doctor aligns with the patient’s smile only later (Line 19), when the patient herself has provided enough evidence that she has acknowledged and endorsed the professional’s explanation for the trouble (Line 18). Beginning at Line 18, the patient launches a narrative. With a smiley voice, she describes what her partner did, and she gazes, smiling, toward the nurse (who has approached at Line 16). Here, we do not have evidence of the nurse’s response since her face and front are turned away from the camera. She stands in front of the patient and the patient continues talking, which suggests that the nurse is in fact attending the talk, although passing the opportunity to display her stance by, for instance, nodding, providing vocal assessments, or engaging in talk with her. To respond more actively might recruit the patient as her interlocutor, intervening in the doctor-patient interaction, still open. The doctor, on the other hand, has shifted her orientation already to the actions devoted to solving the problem: she has turned her torso and gaze to the computer and started to write the correct formulation on the electronic record. In so doing, she orients toward repairing the mistake, thus aligning with the patient’s complaint (to whom she also displays collaboration and help; see Line 21, “I’ll write it this way for you”). The patient eventually delivers the full story mainly looking at the nurse. At the end of her narrative, she laughs (Lines 28–30). Here the patient’s laughter can be interpreted as lessening the problematic consequences of the event reported and, thus, the seriousness of the complaint (Edwards, 2005). While laughing, the patient points toward the form, as if identifying the source of the problem in the medical record (Line 30). Neither the doctor nor the nurse reciprocates the patient’s laughter at the end of the episode, thus treating it as marking problematicity rather than inviting affiliation (Jefferson, 1984). Despite this, the doctor shows the patient her affiliative stance by soliciting her to adequately inform her partner (Line 31) and eventually volunteering to make a clearer annotation on the patient’s report



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(Line 32). After a few seconds though, once the patient has gone behind the curtain, the doctor returns to the telling and reopens the opportunity to align with the patient’s narrative as a trouble telling. Excerpt 1b 41 DOC a:h ha pensato     che l:: lei glie-l’ avesse nasco:sto u:h have-AUX.3SG think-PST that you DAT-OBJ hide PST-PRF so: he thought that you:: [kept something from hi:m 42 PAT [s:ì che già sono due aborti= [yes: that already be–3PL two abortion-PL [yes: that I’ve already done two abortions 43 perché ho detto   ↑no::: because say- PST.1SG no so I said ↑no:: 44 DOC uh:, 45 PAT forse s’ è sbagliata   la dottoressa maybe be-REFL-PST wrong.3SG the doctor-F maybe the doctor made a *mistake 46 *((DOC looks at NUR, exaggeratedly widening her eyes with a smile)) 47 DOC ↑a:°mmazza° ∅-SUBJ kill w°o:w°. ((looks downward)) 48 (0.5) ((DOC looks at NUR, and nods to her with her mouth tightened )) 49 NUR (ca°rino eh°)? nice-M  eh (how ni°ce is i [t°) ? ((ironic)) 50 PAT [mi  ha fatto    un  casi:no dottoressa [me-DAT have-AUX.3SG do-PST a chaos doctor-F [he raised [hell with me doctor. 51 DOC → [(h)hh°:: (.) ↑hh=↑hh ↑↑Heh heh: ↑↑heh: 52 DOC → [↑hh: ↑Hhh: 53 NUR → [le    ha F↑A:tto    un casi:no [you-DAT have-AUX.3SG do-PST a chaos [he R↑A:ised he:l [l with you. 54 DOC [.h (.) ↑pensa te [think-IMP you-VOC [.h (.) unbeli↑evable ((to NUR)) 55 (2.0) ((NUR leaves to go to the back, behind the curtain)) 56 NUR (xxx)?

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57 DOC può dire, (0.5) can-IMP.2SG tell-INF, you can tell him, (0.5) ((in childish voice)) 58 che non ha capito be:ne lui that NEG have-AUX.3SG understand-PST well he that he did not pro:perly understand. ((in childish voice, turning her head toward the curtain)) 59 PAT hh [(h)eh hh. 60 DOC [da parte della dottoressa. from part of the doctor-F [on the part of the doctor.

In our data, the patient’s walking behind the curtain often initiates doctor-nurse talk, related to instrumental tasks or small talk exchanges (Coupland, 2000) restricted to the doctor-nurse dyad. Here, instead, the doctor addresses the patient, thus allowing a continuation of their shared engagement. Her opening is marked by an interjection (uh, functionally glossed as “so” in English) that works retrospectively as a late-acknowledgment token, and which, also, marks a topical restart (Bolden, 2009). By providing herself a description of the reason why the patient’s partner would have been angry at her, the doctor does a formulation (Heritage and Watson, 1979): in this way, she solicits the patient to provide confirmation or further details, which are in fact delivered (Lines 42–5). The doctor aligns by a vocal assessment (“uh”, Line 44) with the patient’s telling and, overlapping with the end of her turn (Line 45), she gazes at the nurse, displaying an overbuilt facial expression of amazement (Line 46). Eventually, she utters a strong assessment (Line 47): “wow”, in Italian original, “ammazza”, an idiomatic expression whose literal translation would be “you kill (yourself)” and that can be also glossed as “that’s strong”. Considered in light of the ongoing narrative, this expression is one of those vocalizations (such as wow, gosh, and really) that Schegloff (1982) calls assessments, in that they express the listener’s reactions to the current turn. According to Stivers (2008), these responses could more appropriately be considered as markers of affiliation rather than simply alignment. Interestingly, the doctor’s assessment/marker of affiliation is here addressed to the nurse, not to the patient. It is produced in lower volume than the turn addressed to the patient (Line 41) and, given also that the patient is behind a curtain, it is likely hard for her to hear. Besides, the doctor and the nurse are in close proximity to each other. While the first still sits on the chair, the nurse stands beside her, and, although we do not see the nurse’s expression here (she still has the video camera behind her), we can observe the overbuilt facial expressions that the doctor addresses to her



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(Lines 46, 48); the smile, the amazement expression, the nodding, the lips tightened as if holding back a stronger reaction, seem to affiliate with the patient in considering her partner’s behavior as overdone. However, all these indexes are addressed to inviting the nurse’s affiliation rather than displaying affiliation with the patient. The nurse aligns by producing an ironic comment (irony is precisely constructed by the application of a positive term, “nice”, to a negative behavior, effecting a reversal of meaning; Attardo, 2000; Grice 1975; cf. also Partington, 2007) that works as a second assessment with regard to the doctor’s turn in Line 47 (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1992). That comment is also uttered at a lower volume compared to the rest of the speech, and it matches the whispered tone of the doctor’s turn. The tag question appended at the end of the nurse’s assessment also invites the doctor’s agreement. Affiliation is thus created between the doctor and the nurse. In overlap with the patient’s continuation of the narrative (Line 50), the doctor produces overt laughter (Lines 51–2). The laughter starts with plosive components, and then increases its volume through time. Given that it starts before the patient has reached the full formulation of her overdone expression (“raised hell”), it remains ambiguous whether it is responsive to the nurse’s ironic turn or to the patient’s overdone expression. In the first case, laughter would build affiliation with the nurse, whereas in the second it would also display proper alignment—and affiliation—with the patient. This is, then, an interactionally delicate moment, in which the doctor and the nurse could continue affiliating with each other (engaging in laughing with) leaving the patient aside (risking appearing to laugh at her). They both eventually manage to include her instead. On one hand, the maintenance of laughter over the production of the patient’s turn casts the doctor’s laughter as the appropriate move in response to an overdone expression (Holt, 2010). On the other hand, the nurse’s redoing of the patient’s turn (Line 53, “he r­a:ised he:l[l …” ), indexes affiliation and empathy with the patient, reinforcing her self-presentation as someone unfairly criticized. The nurse’s employment of the Italian third person pronoun “lei” (in English, “you”, Line 53: (“[he R­A:ised he:l[l with you”; in Italian) and the increase in the volume of her speech provide evidence that the patient is now addressed and included as a full-fledged participant in the doctor-nurse interaction. The doctor’s comment at Line 54 (“unbelievable”, in Italian “pensa te”, literally translatable as “think that”), still works ambiguously in between the two different frameworks: addressing the nurse, she conveys to her—and not to the patient—her reaction. At the same time, she voices her stance in favor of the patient, as she assesses as unthinkable and, thus, unacceptable, the

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partner’s attitude towards her. Eventually, she affiliates with the patient, when she instructs her to confront her partner and attribute to him responsibility for the misunderstanding (Lines 57–8). The patient joins in laughing at the end of the doctor’s turn (Line 59), once the problematic quality of the narrative has been converted into a critique toward the third absent party, who is cast (and somehow “scolded”) as someone who did not understand. Summarizing the analysis of this long episode, we highlight the following points. The whole episode (marked by laughter twice: one by the patient, the other one by the doctor) deals with a delicate matter, namely, the patient’s problematizing and attributing potential blame to the doctor’s conduct. This could threaten affiliation between the doctor and the patient. Responses to the patient’s narrative develop in different moments and establish different alignments: the doctor does not reciprocate the patient’s laughter when the patient is in front of her, instead orienting seriously to the matter and working to solve the problem. It is when participants enter a “time-out” in their institutional agenda of activities that the participant’s alignment gets reworked. Screened by the curtain, the doctor and the nurse now affiliate with each other. Their affiliative exchange risks developing into laughing at the patient. Instead, the patient gets included in the doctor-nurse talk, when they make their perspective public, by laughing and designing talk to be heard and attended by the patient too. The excerpt shows that laughter in the course of this multiparty medical interaction is equivocal, capable of instantiating ambiguous alignments between participants. The threat of excluding one of the participants is always present. We have seen how the members of the professional team (the doctor and the nurse) put their efforts into transforming what might be heard as a laughing at into a supportive, affiliative environment. This is done by explicitly displaying their stance toward the patient and her narrative, engaging in a kind of remedial work after the threat of the patient’s exclusion engendered by the ambiguous laughter. The next two excerpts also provide cases in which participants face a lack of understanding or momentary state of misalignment; we concentrate on the analysis of the patient’s smiling in aligning with laughter exchanged by the doctor and the nurse, and in performing the inclusive work already introduced above.

Patient’s smiling and interstitial alignment to coparticipants The sequence examined in Excerpt 2 starts in the last part of the visit, after the patient has returned from the physical examination and is sitting again in front



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of the doctor (who is writing prescriptions for the next tests). The nurse has left for a few minutes to check the list of patients. As the nurse enters the room, this sequence unfolds: Excerpt 2a ((the doctor is writing a prescription, the nurse opens the door and addresses someone behind her)) 1 NUR ferma   qui signora= un attimo still-ADJ-IMP here madam-VOC one moment stop here madam=a minute ((looking forward, opening her hand as to say “stop” to someone behind her)) 2 (0.5) ((NUR nurse comes into the room and begins closing the door)) 3 DOC ch­e↑è succes°so.° fig 8.2.1 wha↑t ‘s happen°ed.° ((raising her gaze toward the nurse, she stops writing)) 4 (0.8) ((NUR slightly shakes her head with a frowning face maintaining her gaze forward, closing the door behind her, DOC )) 5 NUR niente dottoressa *nothing doctor. ((assertive tone)) 6 * ((DOC starts smiling)) ((NUR walks to the opposite side of the room, fig 8.2.2 disappearing outside the camera view)) (2.0) (2.0)  7 *((DOC continues to smile, her mouth more open)) fig 8.2.3 8 *((PAT lifts her gaze toward the nurse)) 9 DOC hh *↑hh ↑hh. fig 8.2.4 10 *((PAT starts smiling to NUR)) 11 ((PAT continues smiling, looking downward)) 12 ((NUR comes closer to the desk, (2.2) figs 8.25–6 appearing into the camera window, smiling))





Figure 8.2.1. What’s happened

Figure 8.2.2. Starts smiling

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Figure 8.2.3. DOC continues to smile

Figure 8.2.4. PAT starts smiling

Figure 8.2.5. DOC downcast gaze, PAT smiling

Figure 8.2.6. NUR enters scene

The episode begins with an apparently unclear incident: a directive pronounced in a quite imperative manner by the nurse (Line 1) is addressed to somebody who is not visible. Since the doctor was filling in a form, she could not see who the nurse was addressing: the nurse’s action may appear unclear to her. The doctor displays her puzzlement by stopping writing and, lifting her gaze, asking the nurse for an account (Line 3). The doctor imbues her turn with a childish voice, keying her question as affiliative5, nonhostile. The nurse responds by shaking her head, frowning, and, with an assertive tone, claiming that “nothing has happened”. This leaves the doctor’s puzzle unsolved. At this point, with her gaze following the nurse as she moves away from the door, the doctor smiles. As visible from the pictures shown (8.2.1–8.2.3), the doctor’s smiles continues all the way through the nurse’s movements, as she disappears—to reappear again later, at Line 10 (see Excerpt 1b)—from the visual field. In this sequential environment, smiling signals the doctor’s insufficient understanding of the ongoing action and attends to the lack of response from the nurse. During the 2.0 seconds in which the nurse moves from the door to the opposite side of the room, the doctor’s smile leads into overt laughter (Line 9). In this sense, smiling seems to intervene between the identification of the trouble (not adequately accounted for by the nurse) and the laughter, which



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upgrades the doctor’s displayed puzzlement at the event and at the noticeable absence of the nurse’s response. The nurse walks toward the right wall of the room, out of view of the video camera; thus it is not possible to document any signs of alignment with the doctor’s smiling or laughter. The patient shows a particular kind of alignment. Having been exposed to the “problematic” exchange between the doctor and the nurse, she maintains a position that allows her not to remove face orientation (Kendon, 1990) from the doctor (a dispreferred action in the institutional framework of the visit) and, at the same time, to orient toward what is happening in that moment. As shown in the video frames, when the doctor addresses the nurse, the patient has her gaze downcast (Figures 8.2.1–2), and maintains her torso still, facing the doctor. However, she slightly turns her face in the direction of the nurse, who eventually lifts her gaze (Figure 8.2.3). In so doing, she appears to embody a milder version of what Schegloff (1998) has termed as a “body torque”, a kind of postural configuration whose main capability is “to display engagement with multiple course of action and interactional involvements, and differential ranking of those courses of action and involvement” (p. 536). The patient keeps a serious facial expression until the doctor utters her laughter at Line 9, when we observe her gazing upward at her left side, where the nurse is, and smiling (Figure 8.2.4, Line 10). As the nurse (most likely) approaches the desk, the patient returns her face to the “home position” (Schegloff, 1998), partially realigning it with her torso, with her gaze downcast. Note that in this posture, she continues smiling, while the doctor returns, still smiling, to her writing (Figures 8.2.5–6). By smiling, together with multimodal, small adjustments of her posture and gaze, the patient is able to display an interstitial alignment toward both the doctor and the nurse. As the nurse approaches the desk, the patient self-selects and, without gazing at anybody but slightly bending toward the nurse, she responds to the question originally launched by the doctor: “what’s happened”, proffering an explanation. Excerpt 2b 12 PAT no perché prima no because before well it’s be*cause ((slightly oriented toward the nurse, her gaze downcast smiling)) 13 NUR *((she lifts her gaze toward the patient)) 14 PAT stavano       l[ì  a litiga:re stand-PST-PROG.3PL   there to quarrel- INF people were qua[rreling out the:re

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15 DOC [ah:: a le- alla signora di fuo:ri glie-l’hai detto. ferma qui. uh:: DAT- to the lady of outside DAT-OBJ have-AUX.    2SG. tell-PST stand-IMP.2SG here. [↑ah:: so you we- ((to NUR, smiling)) you said stop here to the lady o*utsi:de. 16 NUR *((nodding to PAT)) 17 DOC pensavo a le:i think-IPFV.1SG to her-DAT I thought you told he:r ((pointing with her head toward the patient))

By responding to the doctor’s original question, the patient provides a vicarious account for the nurse’s commanding attitude. Speaking about what is happening outside, and using the imperfect tense, she refers to something that has occurred (or at least it has begun) some time before, perhaps when she was still waiting to enter the consultation room. On this information she can claim independent knowledge that she has in common with the nurse, not with the doctor. Smiling and head orientation toward the nurse (Line 12), then, appear to mark the shared nature of the experience she is referring to. At the same time, responding to the doctor, she acknowledges her as the main recipient of her talk. In brief, the patient maintains alignment and affiliation with both the doctor and the nurse and, by answering the doctor’s question, she helps mediate the reconstruction of their mutual alignment. The patient maintains her gaze downward even when she takes the turn, in so doing withholding the recruitment of a specific addressee. In fact, both respond to the patient’s turn: the doctor interprets her turn as providing brand-new information (see the change of state token opening Line 15) and the nurse responds by nodding to her and thus treating the information as already known and shared. By carefully managing an “in-between” position of her gaze, posture and smile, the patient maintains herself available to multiple alignments. Moreover, we note that the patient adjusts to the development of the interaction between the doctor and the nurse, in order not to interrupt: she takes her turn, still smiling, only when the doctor has already returned to the writing task, in so doing allowing the laughter exchange between the nurse and the doctor to unfold till the end. The third and final excerpt shows again the way in which the patient is able to handle different concurrent alignments by smiling and in a manner that is sensitive to the institutional constraints on the interaction. The sequence begins in the final part of the visit, as the doctor is printing the prescriptions she has typed for the patient. While taking the paper out of the



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printer, she finds a little plastic component of the printer—normally attached to the tray—placed on the top of it. Given its inappropriate placement, she asks the nurse for an account. Excerpt 3 1 DOC ma =questo (pezzo)? fig 8.3.1 but=this (pi↑ece)? 2 (0.6) ((NUR leans over to her right, in the direction of the printer)) 3 NUR questo è:: this is:*::, ((maintaining her gaze toward the printer)) 4 *((DOC turns toward NUR)) 5 NUR (0.5) ((NUR gazes at DOC)) 6 si è    staccato. £hm fig 8.3.2 be-AUX-REFL.3SG  untie-PST it came off. £hm ((frowning her eyebrows and opening her hands as with regret)) fig 8.3.3 7 DOC allora::: lo metto qua. hm £mh. h. (so)::   OBJ put-PRS.1SG here. hm £mh. h. we::ll I’ll put it here then. hm £mh. h. 8 NUR £hh £hh £hh. £hhh [.H↑ ((gazing downward)) fig 8.3.4 9 DOC [è    in £più↑(hh) hh. h. be-PRS.3SG in more-ADV it’s an extra £pie↑ [(hh)ce. hh hh. h. ((turning to NUR and smiling)) 10 NUR [ £Hhh ↑Hhh.  ((NUR gazes at DOC)) fig 8.3.5 11 *£Hhh £Hhh £Hhh ((hiding her face behind her hand, 2.0 lenght)) 12 *((DOC turns her gaze to the computer)) fig 8.3.6 13 *((PAT smiles toward the doctor )) 14 NUR °°hh £hh £hh°° ((with her face still hidden behind the hand, she gazes at the video camera)) 15 → ci  £stanno  registr↓an[do, h. us-OBJ stand-AUX.3PL record-PRS-PRGR we’re £being rec↓ord [ed, h. ((pointing her index finger to the video camera)) 16 DOC *[h(h) hh↑ ((looking at the computer)) 17 *((PAT looks at the video camera)) fig 8.3.7 18 DOC e non fa niente. = and NEG make–3SG othing we£ll we can do nothing for it. ((turning toward the printer, smiling)) 19 =  s’è  stac*cato  °°scusa°° be-AUX-REFL.3SG  untie-PST  excuse.2SG it came *o:ff, sorry ((toward the printer, smiling)) fig 8.3.8

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20 (0.6) *((NUR opens her right hand, hiding her face with the other)) (0.6) 21 NUR *eh::: ((opens her hands in PAT’s direction)) fig 8.3.9 22 * ((PAT smiles, downcast gaze)) 23 NUR s’è stac [cato it ca [me off, 24 DOC [che ci possiamo fa(h):re. what LOC can.1PL do-INF [what can we do for that. ((gazing at the computer))

Figure 8.3.1. DOC but=this (pi­ece)? (Line 1)

Figure 8.3.2. NUR it came off. £hm (Line 6)

Figure 8.3.3. DOC we::ll I’ll put (Line 7) Figure 8.3.4. NUR £hh £hh £hh. £hhh (Line 8)

Figure 8.3.5. (Lines 9–10) DOC it’s an extra £pie↑[(hh)ce. NUR    [ £Hhh ↑Hhh

Figure 8.3.6. (Lines 11–13) NUR £Hhh £Hhh £Hhh



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Figure 8.3.7. (Lines 15–16) NUR   we’re £being rec↓ord[ed, DOC [h(h) hh↑

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Figure 8.3.8. (Line 19) DOC it came *o:ff, sorry

Figure 8.3.9. (Lines 21–22) NUR  *eh:::

Here again, the sequence starts with the identification of an incongruous element, the accidental finding by the doctor of something misplaced, which triggers a request for explanation. At Line 4, the doctor addresses the nurse by gaze, holding her accountable for the information requested. The nurse starts to provide a topically relevant response to the question “what is x?” when she is still looking at the target of the inquiry but then stops and, shifting her gaze to the doctor, reformulates her turn (Line 6, Figure 8.3.2). Line 6 is probably a restart of Line 3, which the nurse left suspended. Interestingly, whereas the prior attempt to provide an answer was accompanied by markers of dispreference such as hesitations, interruptions, and pausing (Line 3, 5), her formulation in Line 6 is uttered plainly, as a factual statement, orienting toward a normalization of the event. However, by laughing immediately after, the nurse displays how the formulation itself is either problematic or insufficient (Potter and Hepburn, 2010). At first, the doctor mildly affiliates (Line 7) with the nurse’s stance toward the accident, laughing herself (she formats her turn in the same way the nurse did, with laughter appended later): this makes the continuation of the nurse’s

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laughter still relevant (Line 8, Figure 8.3.4). The two participants, here, work in order to mark the “delicacy” of both the discovery of a broken piece in the consultation room and the insufficient account provided, which may constitute breaches in their displayed morality as representatives of the institution. At Line 9, the doctor’s laughter upgrades her amused assessment of the incident. The doctor affiliates with the nurse: she looks at her, she smiles and ironically formulates that the piece is extraneous, thus “normalizing” the incident and endorsing the nurse’s stance. At this point, the participants share laughter (Lines 9–10), indexed by mutual gaze and smiling (Figure 8.3.5). Although not addressed, the patient is aligned to the talk in progress. In particular, she orients primarily to the doctor and her course of actions. She follows the direction of the doctor’s gaze while the doctor inspects the piece and questions the nurse, and she maintains a frowning expression, still orienting to the doctor, throughout the doctor-nurse exchange (see Figure 1–5). She releases her eyebrows and finally smiles to the doctor only after the doctor and the nurse have engaged in shared laughter (Figure 8.3.6). Given that the nurse’s laughter started a few turns before and lasts for 2.5 seconds, she could have aligned to the amused quality of the exchange well before. Instead she smiles only after the doctor has upgraded her affiliation to the nurse and endorsed the nurse’s ironic assessment of the incident. While smiling, the patient still looks at the doctor, although the doctor has already oriented elsewhere: by Line 11, in fact, the doctor disengages her gaze and smile from the nurse, and returns to write on the computer (Figure 8.3.6). At this point, the nurse hides her face behind her hand, and, laughing, directs her gaze towards the video camera (Line 14). Her comment on the video camera (Lines 14–15) solicits the coparticipants’ reengagement. The patient orients to the video camera, responding to her bid for attention, and smiles (Figure 8.3.7). The doctor joins in with the laughter (Line 16) although she maintains visual orientation toward the computer. By Line 18, though, the doctor disaffiliates from the nurse’s stance: she normalizes the incident (using the same account that the nurse had mentioned at the beginning) and frames it as something for which they cannot account; in this way, she detaches from the nurse’s concerned attitude with regards the presence of the video camera. Also, she adds the discourse marker scusa (sorry) to her turn at Line 19, which in Italian is often appended to frame the speaker’s mild disagreement with the interlocutor (Contento, 1999). By repeating the doctor’s words and showing a self-discharging gesture with her hand, the nurse appears to formally endorse the doctor’s position, and she displays her “newly acquired” own stance towards the patient. For her part, the patient continues smiling:



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she smiles while following the doctor’s gaze direction (Figure 8.3.8), and, when she orients toward the nurse again (Line 22, Figure 8.3.9), she smiles while maintaining her gaze downward. Not looking the nurse in the eyes, the patient withholds endorsing the nurse’s concern. However, she is able to display herself as still an available, potentially responsive and empathizing partner of the nurse. This is confirmed by the nurse finally addressing her (Line 21) as recipient, after the doctor has expressed her view. Although the event that led to the laughter originated in the doctor-nurse dyad, the patient’s smiling (as in Excerpt 2) marks continuous engagement, maintains alignment with the doctor and the nurse, and excludes no one from the talk. Again, we observed the patient’s gaze downcast, situated “somewhere in the middle” between the doctor and the nurse (Figure 8.3.9); again, we observed the patient’s smile developing gradually, as a “discreet”, unobtrusive move, following the coparticipants’ actions until the completion of their (more or less shared) laughter. In displaying interstitially her gaze and smile, the patient is able to show attendance to the talk while not recruiting particularly the attention of any of the two other participants, nor displaying her affiliation to any of them in particular. Summarizing our analyses, we have seen similarities in how participants’ alignments in these three-party exchanges are carried out by laughter and smiling. First of all, consistent with other studies, the laughter comes right after moments in which a problem has been identified. As a marker of trouble, the laughter triggers topical talk, which develops in the time-outs we have analyzed. Another important aspect is that, in these multiparty institutional exchanges, the laughter’s affiliative or disaffiliative status is ambiguous: laughter by itself does not always appear to convey the laugher’s stance toward the target item and the interlocutor. Also, given the spatial configuration of the participants’ positions in the room, it is not always possible for them to be and have the others be visually accessible in equal ways; this affects their opportunities to align and fully understand the talk marked by the laughter. Despite this, we have seen how participants prevent exclusion from occurring. This is done, in the first example, by reopening the opportunity for the nonaddressed (or, ambiguously addressed) party to engage in the ongoing conversation, and preventing the risk of the patient in that case being cast aside. In the second and third excerpts, in which the doctor’s laughter appeared as problematizing the nurse’s conduct, the “including” work is done by the patient’s smile, addressed to both the doctor and the nurse. The third aspect we discuss is how the different participants’ alignments also relate to—and are constrained by—the participants’ orientation toward the

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institutional character of both the participation framework and the ongoing activities. In Excerpt 1, the doctor first attends to the institutional demand of solving the patient’s problem. After completing this, profiting by a transition—both in space and time—in the different stages of the visit, she joins with the nurse in assessing the telling and eventually including the patient in the affiliating sequence. In the second and third excerpts, the patient displays herself as responsive to both the nurse and the doctor, members of the professional team, without interfering in their interaction, and mainly restraining her participation to being a (still supportive) observer of their institutional communication.

Concluding remarks In this paper we have analyzed participants’ negotiation of alignments with laughter and smiling in the doctor-patient-nurse interaction. The instances analyzed germinated from some kind of problem. In all instances, laughter marked the trouble but its affiliative status is ambiguous (Adelswärd, 1989; Glenn, 2003, p. 141). Besides the fact that it can mark problematicity or resistance, in this multiparty encounter shared, inclusive laughter between two parties risks excluding the third participant. This was the case in Excerpt 1. Participants navigate these risky moments, eventually orienting toward inclusion; that is, they work in order to allow the patient to be a legitimate coparticipant in their interaction. On the other hand, in Excerpts 2 and 3, when overtly exposed to a doctor-nurse problematic exchange marked by laughter, the patient’s interstitial actions such as smiling, gaze, and torso movement display her alignment to both interlocutors. The question whether or not the patient might affiliate with the doctor more than the nurse (such as when she continues to look at the doctor and models her facial expressions with regards the focus of attention in Excerpt 3) is left open and will need to be explored by further analyses. The patient’s smile is a marker of alignment to both the doctor and the nurse, and this also helps to maintain mutual engagement between them, preventing breakdown or exclusion. The participants orient to the institutional framework of the visit: in Excerpt 1, the doctor addresses her institutional activity in the first place, reopening the sequence and laughing when the patient is behind the curtain and the task of examining the patient has not yet begun.



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In Excerpts 2 and 3, the patient’s maintenance of smiling and her interstitial gaze, situated in between the doctor and the nurse, allow her to exhibit her attention to both without recruiting particularly the attention of any of them. By not overtly recruiting either of them, she also withholds attempts to display “too much” intimacy with the professionals, intimacy sometimes being indexed by laughter (Jefferson et al., 1987). In medical settings, episodes marked by laughter are largely recognized as having an affiliative, “relational” function (Maynard and Hudak, 2008; Ragan, 1990); they can ease the tension and reduce the face-threats of physical examination (Emerson, 1970; Grainger, 2004; Robinson, 1983). We have analyzed episodes that appear as time-outs in the institutional ordering of stages normally scheduled in a visit. By analyzing the differential participants’ alignments to these episodes across time and distances, we have demonstrated that laughter and smiling provide different resources, adjusted to both local contingencies and to the institutional framework of the visit, to warrant that participants, whether they display the same stance on the unfolding problem or not, may still have their perspective attended by the other participants and be included in their group.

Notes 1 The extracts have a three-line transcript system: the first line provides the original Italian; the second line a word-by-word grammatical translation, adopting the Leipzig glossing rules (see http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules. php); the third displays an idiomatic translation in English. The second line is omitted in cases in which the word-by-word- translation is sufficient to provide the meaning of the utterance. Participants are always labeled as DOC (doctor, F), PAT (patient, F), NUR (nurse, F) 2 Due to the incomplete mastery of the Italian language by non-native patients, mistakes often appear. In this case, the patient removed the indeterminate article “a” from the referent “mistake”. 3 In medical jargon, parity is the number of times a woman has come to term and delivered a baby (http://en.allexperts.com/q/ObGyn-Pregnancy-issues-1007/ para-definition.htm). 4 See in this regard, her use of the conditional mode, which acts as a mitigating device upon the speaker’s request to the doctor (Caffi, 1999). 5 This could be intepreted as, on the one hand, contrasting the commanding tone heard in the nurse’s turn and, on the other, as affiliating with her, for whatever reason motivated her to behave that way.

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“Cause The Textbook Says …”: Laughter and Student Challenges in the ESL Classroom Christine Jacknick

This chapter examines how laughter contributes to a sequence where the institutional roles of the participants, with their related activities, become problematic. This study lends further weight to the suggestion that laughter is regularly associated with interactional problems (Glenn, 2003), and more particularly, offers a detailed analysis of how laughter becomes salient in sequences involving interactional trouble related to institutional roles. Laughter reveals participants’ “ongoing understandings of the constraints and obligations of their roles” (Glenn, 2010, p. 1497), and this analysis demonstrates how participants’ laughter reflects their orientation to their institutional roles. In grammar lessons, the ESL teacher may reasonably claim privileged epistemic status over course content derived from “pedagogical knowledge and expertise” (Hall, 2011, p. 7). However, the excerpts to follow show students claiming equal right to such epistemic status and thereby challenging the teacher. These challenges are followed by laughs (both within-speech and turn final). Glenn (2003) notes that laughter by current speaker may orient to the need to work through “interactional difficulties” (p. 105), including face concerns, and in this chapter, the laughter following student challenges addresses these difficulties. By tracing the occurrence of laughter over the course of extended interactions, this analysis shows differential use of laughter by the teacher and students in different discursive environments, and the interactional consequences of the presence or absence of laughter. This chapter contributes to current research both on classroom discourse (particularly language classroom discourse) by describing functions of laughter in whole-class interaction, as well as research on laughter in institutional interaction by identifying interactional functions of laughter in multiparty institutional interaction. By examining laughter following student challenges, this analysis identifies how laughter indexes resistance on the part of the students as well as the teacher.

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Data The participants in this study included students enrolled in the highest-level advanced ESL course of a community language program, and their instructor, a 24-year-old Korean-American female graduate student in her first year of study in a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program. The ESL students ranged in age from 20 to 60 years old, and while their home countries and languages varied widely, the majority of students (9 of 17) were Japanese. The data consist of video and audio recordings and transcripts of all classes from one semester. Transcriptions were created with reference to the three video cameras, allowing for attention to visual behaviors; the additional audio recordings were consulted as needed for clarity. The excerpts selected for this chapter come from two separate lessons. In the transcripts that follow, when multiple participants are laughing together, the presence of laughter is indicated by, for example, hhHHHhh following Clayman (1992a) and brackets are used to indicate where the overlap of laughter occurs. In cases where individual laughter particles are identifiable, they are transcribed as faithfully as possible. Finally, laughter within speech is indicated by exhalations within words (“h”). While other interpretations of within-speech exhalation are possible (e.g. sighing), in this case, the copresence of smiling was used to identify these as instances of laughter.

Analysis The teacher and students in this classroom produced laughter in many different lessons and in different sequential contexts. For example, both teacher and students were found to produce first laughs as invitations to shared laughter, supporting Glenn’s (2003) assertion that laughter is used to display affiliation. However, laughter also functioned to mark interactional difficulty of one kind or another, and to diffuse or lighten tension resulting from these conflicts. Here, laughter occurs within sequences involving challenging student turns, including those where disagreement is overtly marked by contrastive words such as no and but (Schiffrin, 1987), as well as those where students claim epistemic authority by disagreeing with the teacher and the textbook answer. Such student challenges may be considered dispreferred actions given the fact that the teacher’s prior turns do not invite student follow-up, let alone disagreement;



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however, the challenges lack the usual markings of dispreferred turns, including indirectness, structural elaboration, and delay (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Rather, students claim access to epistemic authority directly and without delay. The laughter that follows from either teacher or students highlights the interactional difficulty of challenging the institutional representative in this direct way. In brief, this chapter examines the work accomplished by laughter, particularly following interactional trouble, relating to face considerations, institutional roles, and epistemic authority. Excerpt 1: But it’s the subjunctive here In this first excerpt, the teacher is reviewing an error correction workbook activity. The students had been given a letter from an employment counselor and were directed to locate and correct several “mistakes in verb forms” (Gordon, 2003, p. 51). Following a stretch of individual work, the teacher began a review of the items, nominating different students in turn to read a sentence aloud. The sentence under discussion in the excerpt is: I advise you not have read an old newspaper because those jobs can already taken. This excerpt shows how student laughter marks interactional trouble—in this case, trouble occasioned by participants with roles entailing reduced epistemic status related to English grammar (students) challenging the participant with greater epistemic status (the teacher). Excerpt 1a starts near the beginning of this whole-class review, just as Nobu has finished reading the first sentence. Excerpt 1a 1 T: can you read the next one too? 2 Nobu: I advise you an old newspaper because 3 those jobs can already be taken. 4 T: >okayokayto occur during the night.< >let me seeokaycause there is-< ] 38 Nobu: report right?= 39 T: =mm-hmm? 40 Keiko: [but (object) ] object [is more ] 41 Nobu: [so ‘report’ ] [relevant ] 42 T: [ yeah, ] 43 Keiko: [(relevant), ] 44 Clara: [ more real ] because they report (that 45 fact). 46 T: yeah, I see what you guys are saying, >okayokay< ] I- I mean, I 49 Nobu: [heh heh heh ] 50 T: think it’s, I think u- to occur is fine walks to students, looking at textbook 51 though. um, more strokes are likely to reading from textbook from ‘more’ 52 occur, or report more attacks (0.6) to 53 occur during the night, I do-, [you know] backs away from students 54 I’m not sure. Nobu smiles



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The teacher pursues affiliation with the students by identification with their perspective (I see what you guys are saying, Line 46) and through her withinspeech laughter. Directly following the teacher’s laughter, Nobu laughs in overlap with her continuing talk (Line 48), aligning with her prior laughs. However, the teacher’s turn in Lines 47–8 may also be self-deprecatory, chastising herself for “listening to the textbook” in the first place. This within-speech laughter may suggest an invitation for laughing at herself (Glenn, 1991/1992), presenting a problematic choice to the students. The students’ declination to laugh following the teacher’s invitation would then show their orientation to the talk at hand as nonlaughable (i.e. the preferred response to self-deprecation, disagreement with negative self-assessment by not laughing along). At the very least, this turn shows the teacher’s orientation to the trouble caused by her uncertainty. Whether because they are not affiliating or because they are choosing to disagree with a self-deprecation, no others join in the laughter, and the teacher herself does not continue to laugh, instead pursuing the matter at hand. The teacher’s continuing turn (Lines 48, 50–4) begins to reassert her earlier position (that “to occur” is correct), but does so while downgrading her commitment to her position (I think) and ending with an equivocation (I’m not sure). The tentative nature of her assertions here is also evident through the many cut-offs occurring throughout the turn, her checking the textbooks again for confirmation, as well as the pause before the problematic element (“to occur”). Excerpt 2c 55 Nobu: Heh heh looking up at teacher, smiling 56 Rodrigo: but the: end of the book,= Nobu looks down to his textbook 57 Nobu: =huh heh heh=   looks up from book towards Rodrigo 58 Rodrigo: =says [↑gerund.] 59 Sachiko: [ yeah, ] gerund. 60 T: = exaggerated head nod 61 Nobu: =he heh= 62 T: =yes it doehh[s, an- and then] nods and smiles 63 Nobu: [ he huh heh ] 64 T: the other points to the textbook on her desk 65 T: textbook says um, you know, not. so,

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Following the teacher’s declaration of uncertainty with I’m not sure, Nobu laughs again in Line 55. There is no uptake on this laughter from the teacher or other students, and Nobu in fact stops laughing as well. Rodrigo continues to pursue the challenge (But), arguing that their textbook indicates a clear answer. Nobu’s subsequent laughter latches with Rodrigo’s continued challenge as he directs his eye gaze towards Rodrigo, demonstrating that he is treating the challenge as a laughable. The teacher’s laughter following the student challenges may be a way of dealing with their face-threatening nature, but Nobu’s laughter following her declaration of uncertainty (Line 55) and in response to Rodrigo’s continued challenge (Line 57) is again a face-threatening action itself. Rodrigo’s and Sachiko’s turns can be seen as doing the business of pursuing “topical matters” (Holt, 2010, p. 1514) by the content of their turns, but also by not joining in the laughter. While the teacher’s response in Line 60 to Rodrigo’s and Sachiko’s challenges confirms their validity, the slow and drawn-out prosodic delivery, what Brown and Levinson (1987) call “hesitant prosodics” (p. 188), marks it as dispreferred. Nobu laughs again, latched to the teacher’s Yes, and this laughter is reciprocated by the teacher’s within-speech laughter in Line 62 as she acknowledges that she sees conflicting information in the teacher’s edition and the students’ textbook. The teacher’s laughter is again followed by Nobu’s laughter in overlap with her utterance. Rodrigo and Sachiko, however, continue not to laugh following the teacher’s response in Lines 62 and 64–5. While the teacher’s within-speech laugh invitation meets with more success here than earlier, the fact that wholeclass discussion represents multiparty talk may help explain why the topic is not closed by partially shared laughter. Here, participants laugh as they attempt to deal with interactional difficulty—in this case, the problematic nature of student challenges to the teacher’s epistemic authority and her uncertainty itself. While one student laughs along, others pursue the matter at hand, delaying closure. Following another 26 lines of continued student challenges on this item, the teacher marks a topic shift with Okay (Beach, 1993; West and Garcia, 1988), and by suggesting that they move on without resolution. Excerpt 2d 91 T: ºokay,º let’s keep going.= looking at text, smiles at ‘going’ 92 Rodrigo: =we can vote,=     sweeping gesture with left hand to include class, then dismissive wave 93 Amelie: =.hhh hhh ((sneeze)) Rodrigo smiles



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94 T: uh-huh, 95 Rodrigo: we can vote. smiling 96 T: we can vote? Heh heh heh .hhh $o kay$, 97 [h-h-h] how many people say to occur. 98 Ss: [hhhhh] (0.2) 99 (1.0) 100 T: to occur. 101 Ss: HHHhhhhh (0.2) 102 T: one, two three. >okay< well, the official answer 103 is to occur, but ↑how many people say 104 occurring. 105 {(1.6)–((Ss raise hands and T looks around to count))} 106 T: ˚okay˚, then use- use what you want. He heh heh 107 huh. 108 (0.8) 109 T: okay, um, let’s see if doing more examples helps. 110 um, at-risk cardiac patients, um Michiko?

The teacher’s turn in Line 91, including a volume change, OK, and explicit reference to resuming the main activity (let’s keep going), bids to close this sequence (Jacknick, 2011). This bid for activity shift is contested by Rodrigo, who smiles during the teacher’s bid and then returns to the prior discussion by suggesting that they take a vote (Line 92). His suggestion is potentially challenging on two levels: first, students do not normally suggest next activities in the classroom; and second, he is directly challenging the teacher’s bid to move on. The teacher’s continuer (Line 94) acknowledges that Rodrigo has spoken, but does not address the content of his turn (she may not have fully understood him due to Amelie’s concurrent sneeze). Roderigo repeats his proposition (again smiling), and the teacher repeats his suggestion and appends four syllables of appreciative laughter before treating it as a serious proposal by assenting (okay) in Line 96. Her smiley-voiced okay displays a playful stance towards Rodrigo’s suggestion, making his challenge less confrontational. Her subsequent laughter is overlapped by general laughter among the students, the first time there has truly been shared laughter throughout this extended excerpt. The teacher regains authority as she coordinates “the vote”, and the students continue to laugh. While the teacher distinguishes her answer (“to occur”) as the official answer with marked stress in Lines 102–3, the students’ answer (“occurring”) wins a clear majority, and she concedes to them in Line 106, ending her turn

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with laughter. Without laughter, her suggestion to the students to use what you want might seem dismissive, but here, it takes on a lighthearted, playful tone. The shared laughter between students and teacher is indeed associated with the closure of this topic, as the class moves on to the next item following this sequence. The ritual power of voting allows these participants to move past a delicate moment of challenge and disagreement and restore the social order with the teacher in charge. In this interactionally-charged moment, laughter plays a vital role in managing delicacy.

Discussion This analysis highlights the interactional effects of laughter in multiparty, institutional interaction, particularly as they relate to the negotiation of institutional identities and asymmetries. Laughter is a clear marker of interactional trouble—in some cases showing participant orientation to problematic acts (following student challenges), and in others constituting the act itself (following teacher explanations). While the current speaker generally does not laugh first in multiparty interaction, doing so may smooth over prior interactional trouble by inviting affiliation, pointing to some earlier utterance as laughable (Glenn, 2003). Laughter following student challenges also shows student resistance to the teacher’s epistemic authority (when the students laugh) as well as teacher resistance to student challenges themselves (when the teacher laughs). Despite the teacher’s attempts to invite affiliative laughter, students do not produce reciprocal laughter or smiles to indicate acknowledgment (Haakana, 2010), and instead pursue the challenge. This analysis suggests that in multiparty institutional interaction, shared laughter between some participants may be insufficient for topic termination; rather, topic closure and truly shared laughter (most students smiling or laughing along with the teacher) only comes when the dispute gets playfully resolved by the vote. Beyond laughter’s role in multiparty topic termination, this analysis also demonstrates how participants use laughter to negotiate their institutional roles. The teacher may be expected to claim epistemic authority over grammar in an ESL class, and her laughter following student challenges to this authority reflects the problematic and potentially face-threatening nature of such student claims. Whether the teacher’s laughter occurs as self-deprecation or in response to the



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challenges themselves, it orients to the interactional trouble such challenges provoke. The students’ failure to laugh along underscores their desire to pursue their challenges. Interestingly, both the teacher and the students ground their claims to epistemic authority in references to the textbook, an external source of authority. This focus on external authority allows both teacher and students to challenge the others’ epistemic authority while attending to face wants by placing responsibility for incorrect information on the textbook, rather than on each other. Additionally, while teacher questions are often considered to be powerful discursive moves by controlling the trajectory of discourse (Markee, 1995), in the second excerpt, the teacher is asking referential questions of the students, the answers to which are theoretically within her domain of expertise as the teacher. Furthermore, while voting moves past the difficulty created by the student challenges, the teacher’s earlier uncertainty places her authority at question—regardless of whether the textbook is wrong, as the teacher, she should know the answer. This analysis reveals that, despite expectations based on institutional role, epistemic authority is not owned by one party or another; rather, it is claimed by participants with different roles (i.e. teacher and students) in different ways, and laughter is instrumental in displaying (dis)alignment with claims.

Additional transcription conventions used in this chapter HH (0.2) Capital letters indicate an enthusiastic laugh response (i.e. more student participation in laughter). The number of letters roughly indicates the duration of the laughter, and the numbers in parentheses give a more accurate idea of the duration of the response. h-h hs with dashes indicate a less enthusiastic response. {((gaze))-}  Braces surrounding nonverbal double parentheses indicate that the nonverbal behavior coincides with talk. The dash connects the nonverbal double parentheses and the coinciding talk.

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Notes 1 All names are pseudonyms to protect anonymity. 2 While the answer key does indicate “occurring” is the right answer to number 6, “to occur” was the correct answer to number 8 in the exercise, so the teacher may have looked at the wrong line in the key. 3 Glenn (2003) explains that the theory of incongruity “suggests that laughter results from experiencing the unexpected, from a perceived inconsistency between what one believes will happen or should happen and what actually occurs” (p. 19).

10

Interviewee Laughter and Disaffiliation in Broadcast News Interviews* Tanya Romaniuk

The choice to laugh or not to laugh may display acceptance of or resistance to some definition-of-situation proposed by other. […] Although not possessing linguistic or semantic content, laughs still allow for varied, nuanced, and subtle displays of definitions of situation. (Glenn, 2003: 168)

Since Jefferson’s (1979) pioneering work on the organization of laughter in talkin-interaction, conversation analytic (CA) work has investigated its various uses and accomplishments in a range of institutional settings, including medical encounters (e.g. Haakana, 2002; West, 1984; Zayts and Schnurr, 2011), legal and workplace contexts (e.g. Adelswärd, 1989; Markaki et al., 2010; Matthews, 2011), and academic settings (Politi, 2009; Thonus, 2008). However, laughter in politics, particularly in the context of broadcast interactions, has received comparatively little attention. The few studies that do exist have not made laughter per se central to their analyses, and have tended to focus either on laughter as audience behavior (Clayman, 1992; Eriksson, 2009), or have been carried out in genres of broadcast talk distinct from the broadcast news interview, such as (celebrity) talk shows (Anderson, 2000; Eriksson, 2010; Hopper 1995; Montgomery, 2000) or presidential news conferences (Ekström, 2009; Hualpa, 2012). With the exception of Clayman (1992), these studies only consider examples of laughter as an affiliative response to what is constructed by participants as “humorous”, coinciding with a widespread but incorrect assumption that the source of laughter is necessarily “humorous” in some way. Yet a great deal of CA work has shown that laughter is far more complex and recurrent than being simply a response to humor (e.g. Glenn, 2003; Haakana, 1999; Holt, 2012). Building on this notion, and the preliminary findings of Romaniuk (2009), this chapter diverges from the little work that exists on laughter in broadcast interactions by focusing on laughter as a disaffiliative response in broadcast news interviews.

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Within the broadcast news interview, laughter has not previously been investigated from a CA perspective. Two studies have reported on the laughter of both individual politicians, namely, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and interviewers in media interviews (O’Connell and Kowal, 2004, 2005). However, the interviews selected for analysis in both studies followed the publication of both politicians’ memoirs, Living History (Clinton, 2003), and My Life (Clinton, 2004), respectively, and thus, a primary purpose of those interviews was to promote the publication of their books. Such “lifestyle” interviews (e.g. afternoon talk shows, late night comedy shows) differ significantly from accountability interviews—which are the focus of this chapter’s analysis—where politicians are actively screened by journalists on the public’s behalf (for a typology of interview types, see Montgomery, 2008). Indeed, the fact that the “lifestyle” interview format characterizes the bulk of interviews considered in O’Connell & Kowal’s two studies has important consequences for their findings on laughter. That is, because the majority of interviews were centered on topics related to the Clintons’ personal lives, most occurrences of laughter could be characterized as affiliative responses to “humorous” talk. Moreover, because both studies are not focused on the sequential analysis of laughter, important details that help to understand what laughter accomplishes in any particular instance are not provided (e.g. what form the laughter takes, where in the course of the unfolding sequence of action does the laughter occur, what else is going on visually that may contribute to establishing the relevance of laughter as a response, etc.). While the authors conclude that laughter “manifests some sort of position-taking on the part of the laugher” (O’Connell and Kowal, 2004, p. 476), they do not offer any further insight into precisely what sort of positions or perspectives are displayed through laughing. Indeed, being able to do so requires attention to the sequential organization of laughter in the course of larger actions and activities, and both the vocal and nonvocal components that combine to construct and make interpretable those actions and activities. Such an analysis of interviewee (IE) laughter that accomplishes disaffiliation is the focus of this chapter.

Laughter and (dis)affiliation The dual nature of laughter has been noted by a number of scholars across disciplines: “It may signal alignment and bring people together, but it may



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also display hostility and be used mockingly or derisively” (Glenn 2008). Since laughter may itself be ambiguous in terms of whether it displays going along with what is happening or resisting it, the question is how do we know, beyond our intuition, whether any particular instance of laughing is affiliative or disaffiliative? Clayman (1992) provides one answer to this question in his analysis of the affiliative status of audience responses during televized American presidential debates. In a collection of three 90-minute debates during the 1988 election, he coded 24/169 episodes of audience response as disaffiliative (i.e. booing, derisive laughter). He defines disaffiliation as “those responses which are unfavorable, which express disapproval or derision, and which are used by audience members to dissociate themselves from speakers and their views” (Clayman, 1992, p. 35). Focusing on the audience’s laughing responses, he shows that affiliative laughter occurs in rhetorical environments that involve criticisms of a candidate that are marked as laughable by explicit or implicit means (for a discussion of similar findings, see Anderson, 2000). He argues that such environments establish the relevance of audience laughter while at the same time constituting a laughing with environment. On the other hand, disaffiliative laughter occurs following a candidate’s positive and noncritical self-talk (where descriptions of one’s accomplishments or qualities are judged unconvincing, evasive or otherwise inadequate in light of previous talk)—talk that is not marked as laughable. These statements are treated as laughable, however, and thus such laughter is hearable as disaffiliative. That is, such laughter shows the audience to be not taking the candidate seriously, and in that sense, laughing at him. In general, then, Clayman’s study illustrates that features of the local sequential context enable analysts (like participants) to disambiguate the status of laughter as affiliative or disaffiliative (Glenn, 2003). Building on Clayman’s discussion, Glenn (1995, 2003) describes how participants interactively negotiate laughter’s affiliative status in the context of ordinary conversation. Specifically, he proposes four crucial features, or “keys”, that participants draw on as resources in any laugh relevant sequential environment to create, modify, or disambiguate the affiliative work laughter may be doing (ibid). These keys include: 1) the initiation of laughter (who laughs first?); 2) the nature of the laughable (what is being laughed at?); 3) (possible) second laugh (how does the recipient respond to first laugh?); and 4) subsequent talk (characterized more broadly as, what happens next?). Glenn rightly points out that these four keys should be considered starting points for understanding at least some of the ways participants may disambiguate situations of laughing with from laughing at. As alignments that participants may orient to in diverse

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ways, he reminds us that these alignments are not fixed, may sometimes be equivocal, and are always subject to variation and change in the moment-bymoment unfolding of interaction (Glenn, 1995, p. 46). In what follows, then, I adopt Clayman’s definition of disaffiliation and consider Glenn’s keys in relation to two sequential environments where IE laughter occurs: 1) at the completion of an interviewer’s question and prefatory to a verbal response; and, 2) during an interviewer’s questioning turn. Before turning attention to the analysis, however, first a few words about the data on which the subsequent analysis is based.

The data The analysis is based on a collection of over 70 instances of IE laughter in two sequential environments. Examples are drawn from a corpus of 50 news interviews (half copresent; half via satellite) recorded between 2007 and 2010. The programs include those regularly airing interviews on five of the major US commercial television networks (e.g. This Week on ABC; Face The Nation on CBS; Late Edition1 on CNN; Fox News Sunday on FOX; Meet The Press on NBC), and those featuring either political candidates for public office or already elected officials. However, only those news programs that were broadcast live and thus free of signs of post-production editing or cutting were included. In accordance with the principles of conversation analysis, the findings reported here are based on a comprehensive analysis of all the cases in the collection.

Interviewee laughter in the broadcast news interview While there are different configurations for where and how IEs laugh, the following analysis focuses on laughter that is heard as responsive to the interviewer’s (IR) question, or some aspect of it, as opposed to laughter that occurs within the IE’s own turn at talk (i.e. within-speech or post-completion laughter), and/or that may be heard as at oneself. Crucially, these questions are not observably designed or keyed as “humorous” but rather are designed as “serious”. As Holt (2010, this volume) has described regarding ordinary conversation, laughter can follow turns that are not designed as potential laughables. Indeed, in the context of broadcast news interviews, IR questions are predominantly designed as “serious”, thereby establishing the relevance of “serious” answers. Further, the analytic focus is on



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cases of volunteered (Jefferson, 1979) rather than invited laughter: that is, the IR’s talk is not constructed in evidently “humorous” ways, nor is the relevance of responsive laughter established via other common practices such as the IR laughing first, or producing other laugh relevant items such as smiling or what Potter and Hepburn (2010) call “interpolated particles of aspiration” (IPAs). To volunteer laughter after a “serious” question has been delivered, or during its production, is a disaffiliative interactional move on the IE’s part. Consistent with Clayman’s (1992) definition of disaffiliation, the case will be made that these instances of IE laughter are disaffiliative in terms of their retrospective indexing of the prior action or action-in-progress as something they do not agree with/ endorse. Drawing on Glenn’s keys—specifically addressing the nature of what is being laughed at, how the laughter is responded to, and what happens following its occurrence—this chapter presents an analysis of disaffiliative laughter in these two sequential environments (i.e. at the completion of or during an interviewer’s question).2 In both environments, IE laughter disaffiliates from what is being proposed by the IR as a “serious” matter or inquiry while simultaneously projecting a disaffiliative verbal response, although the analysis will consider the different ways in which this is accomplished in these distinct sequential positions.

Interviewee laughter at question completion The first two examples illustrate IE laughter that occurs in response to an IR’s question and prior to offering a verbal response. In these examples, IEs laugh in response to “serious” opinion-seeking questions, which are not formulated in an adversarial way, and which are not about the IE. In this environment, the laughter acts as an implicit commentary on the question, undercutting its legitimacy as a question to be taken seriously. In terms of its referent (i.e. what the laughter is about), the laughter operates on the propositional meaning of the IR’s question by retrospectively casting it as laughable. At the same time, laughter may also project a further responsive action (i.e. an explicit verbalization) that is disaffiliative in nature as well. And, by laughing in response to a question, IEs also effectively delay providing such a response. In the first example, David Gregory is interviewing New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. Prior to where Excerpt 1 begins, Schumer was asked to comment on Senator John McCain’s opposition to a proposed investigation on alleged torture in the Bush administration (hence, a “serious” matter). Following Schumer’s response, the IR follows up with his next question. Notice the laughter that the IE produces at its completion (Line 12).

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Extract 1 2009Jul12-MSNBC-MeetThePress–1: Sarah Palin IR: David Gregory; IE: Chuck Schumer 11 IR: Is Sarah Palin the future of the Republican party, 12 IE: .hh hh=W(h)well(h)heh heh heh .hhuh 13 I guess I shouldn’t judge and let them £f(h)ight 14 among themselves. £hnh [hehhheh 15 IR: [What do you think though.= 16 IE: =.h[h 17 IR: [D’you think she’s qualified to be President? 18 IE: .hh Well y’know, I- I think the: American people 19 saw her. (0.2) and they saw:, (.) pro:blems in 20 terms or preparation and knowledge of things […]

The IR’s yes-no interrogative at Line 11 is delivered as a “serious” question: the IR does not “invite” a laughing response (Jefferson, 1979) in any hearable or visual way (e.g. he is not smiling and the talk is produced without any hearable IPAs).3 And yet, immediately following its completion, the IE produces a substantial laugh unit across the production of the turn-initial component “well” before offering a verbal response (Lines 12–13). Features of the IE’s response suggest that Schumer is not laughing at Sarah Palin per se, but rather he is disaffiliating from the proposition embodied in the question (i.e. Sarah Palin being the future of the Republican Party). By formulating the question in the way the IR does without any prefatory material, the IR presumes Schumer is an authoritative source for this information, and thus, that he should offer his position. After laughing, instead of offering his assessment of Sarah Palin, Schumer resists the idea that he is willing to comment on this (“I guess I shouldn’t judge”), and constructs himself as an outsider with respect to the Republican Party in a way that also implies that whatever he would have to say would be negative (“let them fight amongst themselves”; Lines 12–13). By responding in this way, Schumer undercuts the question as a legitimate one for him, and thus avoids providing an explicit answer although, to some extent, his laughter projects an answer already. That is, Schumer does not provide what Raymond (2003) calls a type-conforming response by answering “yes” or “no”, but instead only implicates a “no” by laughing through a turn-initial component that often indicates nonstraightforwardness when produced in response to questions, namely “well” (Schegloff and Lerner, 2009; Schiffrin, 1987). However, the IR does treat this response as an answer to his question. In overlap with three post-completion laugh particles from the IE (Line 14), the IR pursues a “serious” answer but



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in a way that retreats from what the initial question sought: that is, while the initial yes-no interrogative invited a favorable assessment of Palin, the form of the pursuit merely seeks Schumer’s opinion in a more open-ended way, “What do you think though” (Line 15) (on IRs’ pursuits of answers in the context of broadcast talk, see Romaniuk forthcoming). Following this downgraded pursuit of the initial question, the IR reformulates that opinion-seeking question in terms of Palin’s qualifications for president (Line 17). In terms of the IR’s responsive behavior, then, Gregory refuses to align with Schumer’s laugh, and his account for not answering the question, not only by not smiling and not laughing in response but in fact by pursuing a “serious” answer. At the beginning of this “serious” pursuit of topical matters, Schumer’s facial expressions clearly convey a laughing stance, but once the IR completes the first component of his pursuit, Schumer’s facial expressions shift dramatically. First, he withdraws his gaze as he takes a hearable inbreath and then licks his lips, transitioning from the broad smile and laughing (end of Line 13) to bringing his lips together (end of Line 15). During this transitioning on Schumer’s part, the IR reformulates his pursuit of the initial question in terms of whether Schumer believes Palin is qualified to be president, and at its completion, Schumer begins to produce a “serious” dispreferred response (start of Line 18), whose status had already been projected to some extent by his laughter. Here, too, Schumer does not supply a type conforming “yes” or “no”, but again indicates nonstraightforwardness (“well”; Line 18), and then frames his answer in terms of what “the American people” thought of her as opposed to expressing his own point of view (which is, in fact, what the question sought). The second example is another case of responsive laughter at the completion of an IR’s question, this time involving Republican Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford. Prior to where Excerpt 2 begins, Sanford had cited three people he sees as the future of the Republican Party in answering a question about the state of the Party following the 2008 election. The IR then produces a follow-up question in Lines 25–7 that gets responded to with laughter. Extract 2 2008Nov24-Fox-Hannity&Colmes–2: Republican Party IR: Alan Colmes; IE: Mark Sanford 25 IR: 26 27 28 IE: 29

=Who else would you put in that category:, Who=what other names(‘d) you a:dd as the future of the party Sarah Palin for example, [hh heh heh heh heh huh .hh (0.3)]= [((IR remains po-faced ))]

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30 IE: =Uh: ↑certainly, she’s among the ↑mi:x, 31 uh:::: I- y’know I- I think (it) a 32 broad swath it literally goes from Jin33 Jim Douglas, who won in the most blue of 34 blue states there in Vermont, .huh come 35 Tuesday a couple a Tuesday’s ago. 36 .h or somebody [who’s 37 IR2: [(H-) 38 IE: like a young rising star, [like Bobby Jindal, ] 39 IR2: [(Hey Gov’nor?) ] 40 IE: .h It is somebody like Sonny Perdue there in 41 Georgia, =who’s been working on a lotta neat 42 reforms, it’s a broad swath of different folks […]

The IR’s WH-question concerning “what other names” Sanford would offer for the future of the Republican Party subsequently offers Sarah Palin as a candidate example (Lines 25–7). And, again, it is designed as a “serious” opinion-seeking question. Interestingly, it is formatted as a declarative question, thereby inviting the IE’s confirmation that Palin is another name to add to the future of the Party (Heritage, 2010). However, in response, the IE produces a substantial stretch of laughter consisting of five particles (Line 28). Thus, instead of answering “yes” or “no”, the IE laugh projects a non-type conforming response. And, at the same time, it retrospectively casts the candidate example the IR offers as a laughable matter. Notably the IR remains what Drew (1987) calls “po-faced” (Lines 29), which he achieves by retaining an overtly serious face throughout Sanford’s laughing display and not producing any reciprocal laughter. By doing so, the IR disaligns with the IE’s stance toward the question thereby treating it as inadequate. Perhaps in recognition of the IR’s lack of affiliative uptake of Sanford’s laughter (Lines 28, 29), and after exhibiting some hesitation, Sanford markedly shifts his stance from “joke” to “serious” (Schegloff, 2001). That is, his laughter first suggests a nonserious treatment of the question, but his subsequent verbal response treats the question seriously by providing an explicit answer (“certainly”). While “certainly” constitutes a preferred response, there are a few issues concerning what happens before, during, and after its production that suggest dispreferredness. First, the very fact that his laughter delays the production of a verbal response suggests that “certainly” was not the immediately forthcoming response in mind. Second, the response token “certainly” is produced with hesitation and a tentative-sounding voice quality. Third, by stating “she’s among the mix” (Line 30), he acknowledges Palin’s presence in the



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political arena, but the remainder of his response shifts focus away from her per se. Specifically, after stumbling slightly in making this shift, Sanford reformulates the likely contenders as a “broad swath”, listing three other viable candidates (Lines 32–40). By not including Sarah Palin among this “mix”, he implies that she is not “a young rising star” (Line 36) like those he does name. Of course, Mark Sanford is a Republican governor and so he is in the delicate position of being asked to take up a position about a member of his own party whom he clearly resists endorsing. While his initial vocal response displays his treatment of the IR’s question as laughable, thereby disaffiliating from the proposition embodied in the IR’s question, Sanford then modulates that position when the IR visually sustains his treatment of the question as a “serious” one. So far, we have seen IEs laughing in response to primarily opinion-seeking questions, which are not formulated in an adversarial way, are not about the IE, but are in fact constructed as “serious” interview questions. Although these questions are formatted in such a way as to presume their relevance for those IEs, by prefacing their verbal responses with laughter, these IEs provide an implicit commentary on those questions, challenging their legitimacy as “serious”. Moreover, rather than straightforwardly answering “yes” or “no”, laughing in turn-initial position can prefigure a dispreferred response, both in avoiding offering an explicit “on record” verbal response and in delaying providing that response as well. In the second sequential environment of interest in this chapter—IE laughter occurring in the course of IR’s questions—IEs appear to be orienting to a somewhat different set of interactional contingencies.

Interviewee laughter during interviewer questions Cases in which IEs laugh once an IR’s question has been brought to completion are actually quite rare in the context of broadcast news interviews (BNIs). It is in fact much more common for IEs to laugh earlier on in the IR’s questioning turn, specifically, during question components (usually prefaces) that are also designed as “serious”. However, unlike the type of questions in examples (1) and (2), these question components are also in some sense adversarial, in that the IR is offering some form of critical commentary about the interviewee, their position, or a situation related to them. That said, because IRs are expected to project a formally neutral or “neutralistic” posture (Clayman, 2010), they often formulate such critical commentary by attributing it to some third party, be it an individual, a group, or the general populace (Clayman, 1988, 1992, 2002, 2007).

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Thus, when IE laughter occurs during critical question-prefaces, it also does so when that talk is constructed as being on behalf of others. In this way, IEs are not heard or understood as laughing at the IR, or at what the IR says, but as laughing at what the IR is reporting someone else has said. News interview talk is characterized by a participation framework (Goffman, 1981) that differs from ordinary conversation. Importantly, it includes an overhearing audience as the “primary, though unaddressed, recipients of the talk” (Heritage, 1985, p. 100). What this means is that, while an IE’s laughter is clearly responsive to critical components of an IR’s question-preface, it may also be a means of displaying the IE’s orientation toward that talk for the benefit of the overhearing audience. Keeping these contingencies in mind, given that the turn-taking system of conversation displays a strong preference for one party talking at a time (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson, 1974), and that the normative interactional framework for broadcast news interviews makes IEs’ answers responsive actions relevant only on the completion of a question (Clayman and Heritage, 2002), the next two examples are representative of how IEs are able to negotiate these constraints through their use of laughter during the IR’s turn. That is, laughing in an environment in which the IR has exclusive rights to talk enables an IE to construct an audible orientation to that talk while it is being produced, while still technically abiding by the normative interactional framework for news interviews (Romaniuk, 2009). This audible orientation, in combination with other semiotic resources (e.g. eye and head movements, facial expressions; see, for example, Ekström, 2012; Hualpa, 2011; 2012, respectively) offers a public display of the IE’s stance toward the IR’s talk-in-progress, usually one that expresses disaffiliation or disagreement with the criticisms being put forward.4 Further, I would suggest that the degree to which an IE can produce such displays ranges on a continuum in terms of the degree of explicitness (see Figure 10.1), so that nonvocal displays such as withdrawing gaze might fall on the more implicit end of the spectrum, while verbal interjections (e.g. “no, no, no”; see Excerpt 4) would clearly represent the more explicit end, and vocal displays such as laughter may lie somewhere in between, since they are in some sense more explicit than nonvocal ones (for example, vocalizations are more likely to disrupt the trajectory of the talk and/or cause explicit orientations by coparticipants in ways that nonvocal displays such as gaze practices may not).5 Further, the solid line around nonvocal displays such as eye rolls or head movements (e.g. nodding, lateral headshakes) is meant to capture the fact that these are more conventionalized markers of stance, whereas the blue line around smiling and laughter is meant to convey that their meanings are less conventionalized.



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Figure 10.1: Degree of explicitness in disaffiliative displays during IR’s talk

Most IE displays in BNIs fall on the subtle to moderate end of the spectrum. And, considering precisely where these displays occur helps determine what sort of stance is being offered. In the following two examples, the IEs’ laughing displays—in concert with other resources—disaffiliate from what is being conveyed in the IR’s action-in-progress, thereby working to disarm that action while it is being produced and undermining it as something to be taken seriously. In the next example, representing the more implicit end of the continuum, Christine O’Donnell—a Tea Party favorite who defeated a nine-term Republican US Representative and former governor—is being interviewed following her unexpected victory in the Delaware Senate primary in September 2010. Excerpt 3 begins after an initial question-answer sequence in which the IR and O’Donnell had just talked about what message her victory sends to what O’Donnell called “establishment Republicans”. Note the onset of her smiling and subsequent laughter in the course of the IR’s next question. Excerpt 3 2010Sep14-CNN–1: National Republicans IR: Jessica Yellin; IE: Christine O’Donnell 14 IR: >Uhno one more and then I’m gonna give you a 16 [a chance [on this,< [One more,a Las [Vegas developer,= 17 IE: [hi hi [hi hi [hi °hi hi [hi° ((claps)) 18 IR: =that you : (.) worked with= 19 IE: =heh=he [h 20 IR: [who had a close partnership 21 (0.2) uh: with Hong Kong billionaire (0.2) 22 who was close tuh Kim Jong I:l. 23 IE: khhh=heh heh heh 24 IR: These are a:ll accusations. [(0.2) being made in]a 25 IE: [((shakes head)) ] 26 very serious way [about27 IE: [Th-they’re not ser [ious Tim. 28 IR: [about your 29 business.

At this point, the IE produces an extended stretch of laughter that cuts across most of the IR’s second example within this preface, at the completion of which, the IE again produces three more laugh particles (Lines 17–24). And yet, with no audible indication of either smiling or laughing in response, the IR sustains the trajectory of his talk, completing his question preface by characterizing these examples as “accusations” of a “serious” nature (Lines 25, 27). Such an orientation by the IR works to counter the humorous stance that Giuliani has made relevant by laughing through the specific criticisms as they were being produced. As in the other examples, Giuliani’s subsequent verbal response again provides the grounds for understanding the embodied displays up to that point as disaffiliative, and thus, as prefiguring disagreement. That is, Giuliani

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first indicates his disagreement with the accusations visually (by shaking his head when the IR labels his examples “accusations”; Line 24), and then verbally (“they’re not serious, Tim”; Line 27), providing further evidence that his embodied behavior up to that point sought to undermine the status of those accusations as “serious”, and more generally, to disarm the action-in-progress. To briefly summarize, in Excerpts 3 and 4, IE laughter occurred during the IR’s talk at points of action recognition, that is, at points where criticisms had been leveled against the IEs: in Excerpt 3, after O’Donnell is told her campaign will not be funded by the National Republicans, and in Excerpt 4, after Giuliani’s questionable associations with controversial figures are reported. In both of these instances, the IEs oriented to the recognizability of the action-in-progress (i.e. actions that depict them in negative ways), and by laughing during those specific moments, they treated them as matters to be laughed at, and hence, not ones to be taken seriously. This allows the IE to treat such potentially damaging remarks as laughable, thereby engaging in a form of “damage control” (Romaniuk, 2010) by disarming the action as it is in progress. And, the IE’s use of laughter combined with other semiotic resources (e.g. smiles, lateral head shakes) form embodied stance displays that simultaneously operate on the IR’s talk but can also project a disaffiliative responsive action—a responsive action that often follows.

Conclusion This chapter has presented an overview of IE laughter used in disaffiliative ways in two sequential environments vis-à-vis the IR’s questioning turn. This involved examining the local, sequential context in which the laughter occurred with respect to Glenn’s (1995, 2003) keys. What the analysis reveals is that IE laughter that is volunteered rather than invited, that occurs in relation to the IR’s “serious” questioning turn, and is responsive to it, constitutes a disaffiliative move on the IE’s part. Further, it offers at least three contributions to existing literature on laughter from a social-interactional perspective, in general, and within the specialized context of broadcast news interviews specifically. First, it reports on a previously undescribed phenomenon within this context, namely the practice of IEs laughing during the course of, or in response to, IRs’ “serious” questions. In doing so, it adds to the growing body of research in CA that has moved away from viewing laughter as simply a response to



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humor or as a display of affiliation. Perhaps more significantly, it highlights the important relationship between affiliation/disaffiliation and the serious/nonserious distinction. As the quotation at the beginning of this chapter indicates, while a speaker can always propose a serious or nonserious definition-ofthe-situation, a recipient can always respond in ways that either affiliate with or disaffiliate from that proposed definition. Indeed, participants can and do engage in complex negotiations regarding the laughing or serious nature of talk in terms of how they choose to respond to it—or not—in the moment by moment unfolding of interaction. What should be clear from the foregoing analysis is that an understanding of these negotiations requires a detailed sequential but also multimodal analysis. Second, the analysis joins other work from distinct interactional settings in revealing how the particular workings of laughter and its responses may be shaped by the interactional roles of participants (e.g. Glenn, 2010; Jefferson, 1984; Lavin and Maynard, 2002). BNIs are an environment where laughing in response to matters constructed as “serious” is not—normatively—responded to with laughter by the IR. “Consistent with the ideal of objectivity”, as Clayman (2012) notes, “journalists are supposed to remain impartial or neutral.” In avoiding actions that are not accountable as merely “seeking information”, one of the additional ways IRs orient to this important aspect of their institutional role is by systematically declining to laugh along when IEs laugh. In remaining “po-faced”, pursuing a “serious” response, and/or terminating the relevance of further laughter by either sustaining or justifying the trajectory of their talk, IRs disalign with the IE’s laughter as a response, thereby treating it as inadequate and displaying their expectation of a “serious” answer. Particularly in cases of adversarial or challenging questioning, when journalists construct such questions they do not do so because they support the position being put forward in them but because their professional role as watchdog requires them to counterbalance the IE’s position (Clayman et al., 2007). In the context of having constructed, or constructing, “‘serious” questions, then, if IRs laugh, it undercuts their questioning agenda in holding public figures accountable to the public at large. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that IRs systematically decline to produce reciprocal laughter precisely because it would damage their neutralistic posture and their ability to remain objective. Third, the practices described in this chapter show laughter to be one of the available resources politicians, as IEs, mobilize in negotiating the constraints of this particular interactional setting. Previous studies of laughter in other interactional contexts have considered the ways in which it can be a resource

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for managing activities or moments that are potentially face threatening (e.g. Haakana, 2001; Wilkinson, 2007; Zayts and Schnurr, 2011). In BNIs, there is no doubt a strong interactional motivation for politicians as IEs to find ways of lessening the impact of and/or diffusing potentially damaging or face-threatening talk. Indeed, Clayman (2001) described this issue as “the IE dilemma”—that is, IEs want to appear cooperative and not evasive, but they also do not want their reputations to be damaged. Prior CA work on BNIs has outlined various questioning practices and verbal strategies for responding, which often constitute forms of interactional resistance (Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Ekström, 2009; Harris, 1991). I would add laughter as yet another form of resistance, and significantly, an embodied one. Given the “performance” dimension of broadcast interactions, embodied multimodal resources such as laughter are so important because they are available not only to the “on-stage” participants but also the overhearing—and, crucially, viewing—audience. In this way, the analysis also contributes to a noted gap in CA research on broadcast talk and political communication (Streeck, 2008), by empirically analyzing the embodied communicative behavior of politicians. Of course, the fact that politicians employ laughter in response to “serious” (components of) questions is itself a risky business. That is, while politicians as IEs may find laughter to be an effective interactional resource—particularly in the environment of criticism—it is worth bearing in mind that these interactions are part of the public domain. Accordingly, it is always possible that they can be held accountable for such actions, both within the interaction itself and beyond its occurrence. As but one example, politicians’ use of laughter in disaffiliative ways runs the risk of appearing strategic or inauthentic, which can affect the public’s perception of them and hence their chances at (re)election. Beyond the interaction, such laughter can attract negative publicity, which can live on in the form of quotations, sound bites, and hostile news coverage (e.g. Clayman, 1990; Romaniuk, 2009). For example, during the 2007–8 Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s laughter became the focus of intense scrutiny by the news media. As I demonstrate elsewhere (Romaniuk, 2012, in preparation), Clinton’s laughter was first decontextualized from the news interviews in which it occurred and then recontextualized as a gendered negative assessment, namely, “The Clinton Cackle”.8 In this process, the kinds of social meanings ascribed to her laughter were substantially altered and transformed in accordance with dominant assumptions about gender. Accordingly, the circulation of a particularly negative representation of Clinton’s laughter across contexts not only served to reinforce a particularly negative



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perspective of Clinton, but also to (re)produce and perpetuate dominant gender ideologies. Given the enduring potential for laughter to be treated as an accountable action, then, for politicians to laugh during or in response to matters constructed as “serious” suggests that this interactional practice may in fact be no laughing matter. * Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a workshop at the University of Toronto (June 2011), the International Conference on Laughter and Humour in Boston (June 2011), the 12th International Pragmatics Association conference in Manchester (July 2011), and the Ross Priory broadcast seminar in Siena (July 2011). In addition to thanking those who offered constructive criticism and commentary at those venues, I am particularly indebted to Federico Rossano for many useful discussions over the course of preparing this chapter, and Steve Clayman, Susan Ehrlich, Emanuel Schegloff, and the editors, Phil Glenn and Liz Holt, for their constructive input on earlier drafts. Chuck Goodwin also deserves special mention since our discussions have substantially shaped my perspective on the construction of action, in general, and laughter, specifically.

Notes 1 Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer was cancelled in January 2009 and was replaced with the program State of the Union with Candy Crowley. The corpus does not contain any interviews from this current program. 2 Clearly these are not the only sequential contexts where IE laughter occurs, nor are the functions I describe for these environments the only ones that IE laughter can accomplish. IEs also laugh when IRs construct talk that is “humorous” or in other ways invite or establish laughter as a relevant response, for example (cf. Eriksson, 2010; Montgomery, 2000). 3 When I presented this example in various contexts, some people suggested that this question is in some sense bold, hyperbolic, or even provocative, and thus, perhaps invites laughter (on bold, overdone statements inviting laughter see, for example, Ford and Fox, 2010; Holt, 2011). Upon simply reading the question from a transcript, it may appear as such; however, I would maintain that the delivery of the question and the IR’s subsequent behavior (i.e. his “serious” pursuit of topical matters at Lines 15 and 17) treats this as a legitimate, “serious” inquiry, and, in that sense, the initial question does not invite laughter as a relevant response. 4 The work of Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin has long investigated the relationship between verbal and vocal resources, gaze, gestures, and body

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orientation in the construction of stance displays (e.g. Goodwin, 2000, 2007; Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987; Goodwin, 1980); however, to the best of my knowledge, they do not use the term (dis)affiliation. Following Couper-Kuhlen (2009, p. 96), the term display is not being used here in the sense of “reveal” (i.e. it is not meant to imply that some inner psychological state is being outwardly expressed), but in the sense of “make publicly available” (a phrase attributable to Charles Goodwin), and in the context of broadcast news interviews, this means being made available for the listening and viewing audience. These examples, and their relative positions, are meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. Further work is needed to examine any possible order to their explicitness, perhaps in terms of the degree to which they are treated and understood as accountable actions. In terms of their deployment in the construction of action, multiple resources—vocal and nonvocal—can be combined and produced simultaneously (for a recent illustration of this argument regarding laughter, see Ford and Fox, 2010; and on the construction of action, more generally, see Goodwin, 2011). Indeed, IEs often do so to formulate and display their stance toward the IR’s talk (e.g. by withdrawing gaze while shaking one’s head or producing a verbal interjection, as in Excerpt 4, for example). The transcript indicates rather than represents the laughter here since the IE’s laugh is not audible at this point, which is a consequence of the fact that the IR has a handheld microphone and is not holding it toward the IE as she produces the question. (This is further evidence that participants—at least IRs—orient to the specialized turn-taking system of broadcast news interviews whereby an IE response is not relevant until the IR has completed the question.) Although the IE produces an IPA within an address term at Line 3, it is delivered sotto voce and there is no visual access to the IE at that point, so it is difficult to say that he is unequivocally laughing per se at that point. At the very least, the turn is produced as audibly breathy. As one example of this kind of representation, Joan Vennochi (2007) of The Boston Globe wrote: “HENS CACKLE (sic). So do witches. And, so does the front-runner in the Democratic presidential contest”.

Part Four

Laughter and Identity

The chapters in the previous section demonstrate that the broader social context of an interaction can impact, and in turn is influenced by, the use of laughter. The majority of the data was drawn from institutional settings, and this was crucial to the nature of the talk and the occurrences of laughing. A most salient way in which this influence was manifested was in terms of the institutional roles adopted by participants. Thus, for example, uses of laughter were found to be dependent on whether the person laughing was a student or teacher (Chapter 9), or an interviewee or interviewer (Chapter 10). Closely related (and overlapping) the concept of role is that of identity. The three chapters in this section focus on the relationship between laughter and identity. They treat identity, not as exogenous to talk but as oriented to and constituted by participating as they go about doing whatever they do. By “identity”’ we do not only refer to those attributes usually thought of as essential parts of who we are (e.g. gender, ethnicity, etc.), but also to more interactionally occasioned identities such as complaint-maker. Interactionally generated identities are the focus of the first chapter in this section—“No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity” by Clift. Her data is drawn from informal telephone conversations. The laughter occurs in turns consisting of direct reported speech. Furthermore, these turns involve competitive assessments as participants construct complaints. Clift points out that complaining has the potential to reflect badly on the complainer. By laughing while complaining, the speaker attempts to forestall negative attributions of character. Here, then, laughter occurs once more in a delicate environment. Further, the laughter orients to establishing or maintaining affiliation by doing identity work, i.e. by heading off negative attributions that may be made as a result of reporting oneself complaining.

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Chapter 12—”Constructing Identities Through Laughter” by Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain—explores identity rooted in a sense of place. Their data comes from research interviews whereby people who have migrated volunteered to talk to fieldworkers. The authors show that laughter is crucial to the construction of place identities in these interactions. In these extended sequences of talk, laughter acknowledges the ambiguity of membership categorization. Laughter can enable speakers to make use of categories while highlighting and contributing towards dealing with problems of suitability. Chapter 13—”Interviewees Volunteered Laughter in Employment Interviews: A Case of ‘Nervous’ Laughter?” by Glenn wraps questions of identity around an analysis of laughter in delicate moments in employment interviews. Employees routinely laugh while answering questions. These laughs are precisely placed in parts of turns in which the interviewees complain about a previous employer, self-praise, or claim knowledge/expertise about the interviewer’s organization or the industry. These are interactionally-delicate activities, and the laughs mark stance toward what is being said. That finding resonates with others in this volume—and it leads to a reflection on “nervous laughter”. We commonly think of job interviews as anxiety-producing events, and it is interesting to consider that these and similar laughs that may be attributed to “nervousness” are in fact doing precise, important interactional work.

11

No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity* Rebecca Clift

A central achievement of Gail Jefferson’s pioneering paper on laughter in talk about troubles (1984) was to show the delicate interactional work that laughter can do, and, moreover, how laughter is not always treated by its recipients as an invitation to laugh together. Jefferson notes that, when a troubles-teller infiltrates the telling with laughter: “He is exhibiting that, although there is this trouble, it is not getting the better of him; he is managing; he is in good spirits and in a position to take the trouble lightly” (Jefferson, 1984, p. 351). Jefferson ties laughter inextricably into the consideration of an aspect of identity in talk: the display of “troubles resistance” through the laughter is built into the very telling of the trouble itself. This provides an alternative to conceptualizations of identity in such exogenous features as gender, ethnicity, and class by demonstrating how a specific identity (of, say, a troubles-teller) may be made relevant and consequential in a particular course of action. In what follows, I similarly examine the mechanisms by which a specific interactional practice relevantly embodies a particular identity. Like Jefferson, I examine a set of cases in which turns are laughter-infiltrated, and in which the recipients in each case decline to laugh. As will become evident, important identity work is similarly being done, but to quite different interactional purposes.

The phenomenon: laughter in reported speech turns The instances in the current collection were identified in a specific interactional context: they occurred in turns of direct reported speech (henceforth simply “reported speech”) where a speaker reports either something s/he or someone else has said at some point in the past (for conversation-analytic

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work on reported speech in a range of environments, see Holt and Clift, 2007). Abstracted away from their sequential contexts, they look like this: (a) I go ‘It’s ab(h)out t(h)ime’ (b) I said ‘your system breaks down ve(h)ry frequentl(h)y’ (c) Fazil said ‘Well I- well I- I(h) I(h)’m payin’ money I’ll n(h)ot sort’ev heh heh .hehhhhhhhh’

The laughter is relatively light in (a) and (b), but more forceful in (c), with the talk itself ebbing away into laughter. The laughter is precisely placed, not in the reporting action (“I go/I said”), but in the reported speech itself. As with Jefferson’s troubles-tellings, the laughter-infiltrated turns are not themselves reporting something overtly humorous; moreover, all three instances clearly express complaints. A central focus of this chapter will thus be what the laughter does in delivering the complaint. Furthermore, it should become evident why such laugh-infiltrated turns (at (A) in the short excerpts below, (i-iii)) are met by responses that do not orient to the laughter (at (B)): (i) (A=Alan; M=Mary) 35 A:A→ Th's w(h)'t hhIhh tol'm I go It's £ab(h)out (h)i:me.£ 36 Yihkno [w. 37 M:B→ [Go::::::[::::[:d] (ii) A→ (Ja=Jane; Je=Jeremy) 26 Ja:→ Ah said your syst’n breaks [do-own ve(h)ry frequentl(h)y 27 (Je): [(mhh!) 28 Je: B→ Oh ah’m ah’m sho’ it doe:s, (iii) A: 30 J: → 31 A: 32 J: A: → 33 A: → 34 A: B→

(J=Jenny; A=Ann) =i-Ye:s. Well that’s uh yihknow Fazil said [(well I= [Mm. =well I I(h)h Ih(h)’m payin money I’ll n(h)ot heh (sort’ev) e[h .hehhhhhhhh [eh exactly.

In each case, as we can see, the responses to the reported complaints respond to the substantive content of the turn while declining to laugh along. In order to gain some analytic traction on why this could be, it is necessary to examine the wider contexts of the complaint turns and their responses. In Extract 1 below, Alan has called Mary; talk turns to Tony, who is now going out with Marcie (the complaint turn is arrowed):



No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity 225 Extract 1

Kamunsky III M=Mary; A=Alan

1 A: =When I kuiuhyu Well You don’ how how b Tony 2 felt toward Marcie. 3 (0.2) 4 A: H [e ha ]ted ‘er. 5 M: [nNo: ] 6 M: Hu:h¿ 7 A: He hated ‘er. 8 (0.3) 9 M: Oh relly:? 10 A: Yeah. He’s a hypocrite.I mean I (.) When I heard thet 11 he yihknow rilly: it rilly blew my mi:nd.= 12 M: =uWhy did ‘e hate ‘er. 13 A: Oh I don’know jis:t b’cuz she wz he:r, I(hh) don’know 14 he nis never liked ‘er et a:ll. 15 (0.2) 16 A: .hhhhh 17 M: Go:::[: : : : : d. ] 18 A: [Then all’v a ]sudden, .hh 19 A: Cuz theythey auditioned a cuppuTony tell you about 20 that audition they ha:d? 21 M: Mahm:, 22 A: .hh Couple a’ weeks ago en thenn Marcie wannida bring 23 Tony en they go nNo Tony can’t come, so Marcie didn’t 24 come. .hhhh 25 M: Uhwhoa::::::::. 26 A: So. I don’t know if Bruce is all Bruce, (.)’s gonna 27 talk t’Marcie anymore he doesn’ wanna even s:ee ‘er 28 anymore. 29 (0.6) 30 M: Whell at’s good,[et least it’s (o:[:fen.) 31 A: [So ‘e [ 32 A: [eeYeah. Fin’lly.= 33 A: =At [s w ‘ t I ] 34 M: [(Close) the ]su:bject, 35 A: →Th's w(h)'t hhIhh tol'm I go It's £ab(h)out t(h)i:me.£ 36 Yihkno[w. 37 M: [Go::::::[: : : : [:d ] 38 A:    [.hhh [Ok ]ay Well the reason I’m calling 39 A: There[is a reason b’hind my madness.

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In constructing this complaint about a mutual friend, Tony, while the speakers are clearly in agreement, it is apparent that their agreements are somewhat competitive in nature. Upon Alan’s reporting of Bruce’s stance in Lines 27–8, Mary produces an assessment (Line 30) with which Alan agrees (Line 32), before elaborating: “Finally” and then what is hearably the launch of a formulation: “That’s what I …” before it is stopped short of completion (by conceivably either “said” or “told him”) because the speaker is now in overlap with Mary’s elaboration of her earlier assessment, “Close the subject”. But upon this, Alan relaunches his prior claim, now in the clear, with the reported speech. And it is clear that what is reported—“it’s about time”—is, in fact, a reformulation of Mary’s own assessment in her prior turn. So not only does Alan claim that he has already said what Mary is now saying—“Th’s w(h)’t hhIhh tol’m”—but he also enacts it through the reported speech. In establishing what the reported speech might be doing in this context, the groundbreaking work by Heritage and Raymond (2005) on claims to epistemic rights in interaction is illuminating. Heritage and Raymond describe how speakers may show through a range of grammatical practices that they are maintaining or subverting the default ordering of rights to assess, whereby the producer of a first assessment thereby claims primary rights to assess. So, for example, a speaker who prioritizes confirming over agreeing (“it is, yes”) claims primary rights to make an assessment, despite her interactional position of “going second”; one who appends a tag question to an assessment, seeking confirmation (“they’re lovely, aren’t they”) downgrades her rights to assess, despite being first with that assessment. In the context of what is clearly competition over rights to assess in Extract 1 above, the reported speech at Line 35, like the instances examined in Clift (2007), constitutes an evidential display of having reached the assessment first. Examination of Extracts 2 and 3 in their sequential contexts reveals similarly that the reported speech in each case, although ostensibly concerned with very different matters, emerges from a competitive assessment sequence. This is evident in the first instance from the assessments produced initially in overlap: Extract 2 Heritage: 01:3:12 Je=Jeremy; Ja=Jane (“They” (Line 1) are the estate agents, who claim that they put Jeremy in contact with the woman (“her”, Line 4) from whom he is buying a flat): 1 Je: 2 3

You see(th) (0.2) they said apparently thehthet that the:y(p)(1.2) they wuhr the furst (0.4) one wihhhh hoooooooooo wuh- ones tih put me in contact



No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity 227 4 with .hh wwwith huhr. 5 (0.3) 6 Je: W’l (.) that ehhh hu that’s abs’lute nons’nse. 7 Ja: Mm:, 8 (0.3) 9 Je: A:n’ thet (0.2) the:n ththey said thet (.) they(g) 10 (0.2) giv’n me missihme details of the flat’n (0.2) 11 ohrdezuh er ed sent me .hh details’v fla:t, (0.9) but 12 thet (0.4) but they haven’t done en (0.2) now of cohss 13 theh thehtheahr saying oh well well: hoo- (0.2) we(m) 14 (.) musta done be becau:se e- (0.5) that’s (.) 15 hu (.) ho:w huhow ahr system wuh:rks. 16 Ja: °Ye:s.° 17 (0.9) 18 Ja: Oh I kno:w ah mean ah I c- [I: 19 Je: [Wiy 20 (.) 21 Ja: con[t e s t e d that ] 22 Je: [You were the:re y ]es [I know. ] 23 Ja: [Yez I c]ontested tha(h)at 24 very str(h)ongly. .hh [hhh 25 Je: [I kno:w. 26 Ja: → Ah said your syst’n breaks [do-own ve(h)ry frequentl(h)y 27 (Je): [(mhh!) 28 Je: Oh ah’m ah’m sho’ it doe:s, 29 (0.2) 30 Je: uB’t (0.4) thethe (0.2) the:h, wih.hh ­So::: (0.4) 31 .t (0.2) it’s thei:r wuh:rd (0.2) wuhrd a 32 hhhhhuu-uu-against ahr wuhrd… Extract 3 R:B:1:JMA(13):7 J= Jenny; A=Ann (Discussing the recently-arrived furniture (”it”, Line 2) of a friend) 1 J: [She w’z very upset actually cuz i- she’s 2 £waited such a£ long [ti:me for it en I mean= 3 A: [( ) 4 A: =[Ye:s. 5 J: =[it’s such en expe:nsive [set isn’t it. ] 6 A: [Where did she bu]:y th’m 7 throu:gh. Barker en[Stone(°house°). 8 J: [Barker’n Stonehouse. Mm, .hh Fazil 9 never liked the manager in there

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10 though, [Faz’l [w’d nevuh= 11 A: [No:, [well he12 J: =[go in there,] 13 A: =[h e ’s a- ] 14 J: =M-[hm, 15 A: [No you see I tau:ght the little bo:y. 16 J: Ye:s,= 17 A: =En:: e-his (.) this: (.) the manager marrie:d, .hh this 18 mother who already had a little bo:y.= 19 J: =Oh::ah[hm? 20 A: [En I: had this little boy en he useto come tsu 21 open night. .hh En I had heard thet’e wz very stroppy. 22 Eez ↑only y’know’e looks a kid imse:lf. 23 J: eYe:s. 24 A: Anyway um (.) e-he ‘e sort’v settled do:wn. .hh An’ I 25 (w) met th’m about a fortnight ago they’ve gotta little 26 girl’v their own no [w. 27 J: [Aoh::::.h 28 A: Uh b’t e-he’s very offputting. Ra:ther (0.4) ‘t.hhh a 29 cocky little devil.= 30 J: → =i-Ye:s. Well that’s uh yihknow Fazil said [(well I= 31 A: [Mm. 32 J: → = well I I(h)h Ih(h)’m payin money I’ll n(h)ot heh 33 J: → (sort’ev) he[h .hehhhhhhhh 34 A: [Yeh exactly. 35 J: Yih nuh ah mean (.)(wiz) we go to Wetherall’s ‘n they’re 36 alwiz very chahr:ming en very [obli:ging in thah. 37 A: [Ye:s. 38 A: En [(that’s [it). 39 J: [u- [End uh:: so that’s it. uh- I mean this- if 40 yer paying money good heavens you want the se:rvice 41 do:n’tchu.= 42 A: =Cert’nly mm [hm ye [:s. 43 J: [Mm, [So she w’z a bit upset about it…

In Extract 2, Jeremy’s complaint about the estate agents ends with the direct quote at Lines 13–15. In response, Jane at Line 18 both lexicalizes her epistemic stance and prefaces it with “oh”—one practice for claiming epistemic priority (Heritage and Raymond, 2005)—before glossing what she did: “I contested that”. But the rest of the turn is subsequently abandoned, coming as it does in



No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity 229

overlap with Jeremy’s turn. But—perhaps in view of Jeremy’s somewhat weak acknowledgment, which simply registers her presence but gives her no credit for active involvement—this is itself subsequently overlapped by Jane’s acknowledgement and emphatic reiteration “Yez I contested tha(h)at very str(h)ongly”. This is met by Jeremy’s reiteration (Line 25) before Jane continues with the reported speech (Line 26) which evidences what she has hitherto glossed as her “contesting” of the estate agent’s claim. In Extract 3, Jenny’s reporting of her late husband’s negative assessment of a shop manager (Lines 8–10) is met with Ann’s agreement and subsequent launch of an assessment. But since Ann has started up in overlap with Jenny’s continuation of her turn, she here pulls up before producing the assessment item itself (Line 13); upon Jenny’s receipt, Ann launches the headline of what is subsequently a story to support her own assessment (Line 15). Ann having won out in the initial battle of assessments, Jenny takes up a recipient stance until Ann returns to her assessment at Lines 28–9—“he’s very offputting. Ra:ther (0.4) ’t.hhh a cocky little devil”—upon which Jenny pounces initially with an agreement. The possible motivations for the subsequent repair should be evident. To follow an agreement with what is conceivably the launch of a claim that what Ann has just said is what her late husband had said—“Well that’s what Fazil said”—would, in fact, not be fitted. Her reported speech, in contrast, evidences her own earlier assertion, that is, her husband did not like to reward bad service or discourtesy with his custom.1 All three sequences, then, show a certain degree of competitiveness in assessing, with the turn in reported speech eliciting alignment and providing for a move onward. The aligning turns both resist the laughter and, in two of the three cases, fall short of strong affiliation. So Mary’s “Go:::::::d” in Extract 1 avoids addressing the content of the prior turn, and in Extract 2 the emphatic insistence of Jeremy’s “oh”-prefaced turn “Oh ah’m ah’m sho’ it doe:s” achieves agreement without ceding the initiative. And while Ann’s “Yeh exactly” in Extract 3 does agreement, it is clearly not the end of the matter for Jenny, who nevertheless clarifies by means of a contrastive assessment (Lines 35–6), and then again with an elaboration and clarification at Lines 39–41. Such observations of course relate in the first instance to the environment— the position—of the reported speech turns in their respective sequences. But Schegloff ’s observation that “both position and composition are ordinarily constitutive of the sense and import of an element of conduct that embodies some phenomenon or practice” (1993, p. 121) also directs us to the composition of the turn. As already noted, even out of context we could see that the turns are

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reporting the (putative) complaints they have made about specified other(s)— complaints at least intimated, if not exactly formulated as such, by the other across the preceding turns. The relevant analytic issue is then to what extent the laughter in the reported speech turn relates to the position—in a competitive assessment sequence—and to what extent to the composition of the turn, as a complaint.

Laughter in position and composition If laughter is a form of mitigation in the context of reported speech emerging from overlap, we might expect to see it present in all instances of competitive—and overlapping—assessment, similar to that in Extracts 1–3. And yet this would not seem to be the case. The following is a somewhat extreme case of competitive assessment, again with reported speech used to formulate something that the other has just laid claim to: Extract 4 (Holt 5:88:2–4:25) M=Mark; D=Deena 1 D: So anyway (0.2) everything seems to be [going alright ]= 2 M: [(-----------) ]= 3 M: =[.h h h h h h h h ((fidgeting---------------------))] 4 D: =[Mark (if you sit down)’n take it’n day to da]:y, 5 (.) 6 M: Ye:s 7 (0.2) 8 M: .hhhh We:ll (.) I dunno I we view the f::::::::act that 9 your kids’re your assets really an’ we’d rather spend 10 our money on our kids than [waste it]= 11 D: → [That is ]= 12 D: → =[exactly h o w I ] 13 M: =[on ourselves or an]ything else [.hhh   hhhh 14 D: → [That is exactly what 15 → we said I said to Dwayne as long as we’ve got a bit a’ 16 → [money to- (.) you [know as long as we’ve got= 17 M: [hhmh [hhmhhhhh 18 D: → =a- (.) nough money that if we want anythin::g at our 19 time a’life (0.4) we [c’n buy it. 20 [((clonk)) 21 M: .tYe:s.



No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity 231

As with the previous examples, an original assessment is marked by significant overlap which becomes competitive (Lines 10–13) as neither party relinquishes the turn. But the reported speech speaker in this case, finding herself in the clear, produces the reported speech without infiltrating laughter; speech, as it happens, that reports not a complaint, but rather a reflection, done as a positive assessment. So if sequential position appears not to motivate the laughter in the reported speech, then it would seem that the laughter has something to do with the composition of the turn itself: the formation of the turn as a complaint. Recent work on complaining in interaction has suggested that it is frequently the case that complaining is “ultimately a joint activity, negotiated in a step-bystep fashion between the participants in interaction” (Heinemann and Traverso, 2008, p. 2; see also Drew and Walker, 2008), contrary to the popular perception of a complaint as produced unilaterally by a single speaker. The following is, then, a relatively rare occurrence of a possible complaint done in a single turn— but one which in fact subsequently generates a complaining-together sequence: Extract 5 (Holt, May 88:1:5) Rob=Robbie; Les=Lesley. Both teach the same class: 1 Rob: ↑Oh he↓l [ l o [ : :, ] 2 Les: [.m.t [Hello ]:= 3 Rob: =I wz ↑thinking ↓about you toda:y, 4 Les: Oh yes (­why’s ’at.) 5 Rob: → ↑Oh I wz thinking (0.2) my: ↓God there’s a lotta 6 → children in this cla(h [h)ss 7 Les: [.t I ↓kno::w.

Notable for our purposes are the laughter infiltrating the final word, “cla(hh)ss” and the fact that Lesley does not orient to it in her response. In identifying what that laughter does, we see the affinity between troubles-telling, as observed by Jefferson, and complaining. Here is a reported thought that tells a trouble, but which also is a potential complainable; indeed, as noted earlier, the speakers complain at length about a variety of teaching-related matters. And returning to Extracts 1–3 and the delivery of the turns in reported speech, it is now clearer that the laugh tokens are placed precisely at the core of what is complainable: that in Extract 1, Bruce associated with Marcie for too long; in Extract 2, that the system breaks down more frequently than it should; and in Extract 3, that Fazil, as a (paying) customer, was entitled to expect good service. Work on complaining in interaction has underscored the delicacy of complaining and its adverse interactional implications; Sacks, in an early observation, notes that “if you don’t want your complaining to be the topic, then

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you may have to avoid making things which are formulatable as ‘complaints’” (1992, p. 638), which may account for both the fact that complaints may be formulated idiomatically (see, for example, Drew and Holt, 1988) and also for the observed dearth of unilateral, single-turn complaints. Edwards, in a paper on the subjective side of complaints, observes that interactants usually refrain from characterizing what they are doing as complaining, “working against the indexical category of the dispositional moaner” (2005, p. 24). If complaining (or, at least, being heard to complain) is a delicate issue, then what we might be hearing in the laughter-infiltration is a device for pulling back from what otherwise might be hearable as a full-on complaint; the laughter works to exhibit, to borrow from Jefferson (1984), that the complainable is not getting the better of the speaker, and undercuts what might otherwise be heard as (metaphorically, if not literally) shrill. What Excerpt 3 shows us, of course, with the speaker purporting to animate the words of her late husband, is that is it not always the speaker of the speech reported on whose behalf this is done. In this respect, the laughter is clearly doing the sort of defensive moral work in the context of complaints discussed by Drew (1998). At this point, we might observe that, in two of the original three examples, the laughter infiltrating the reported speech is adumbrated, albeit delicately, in the talk leading up to it: Extract 1 Fragment 35 A: → Th's w(h)'t hhIhh tol'm I go It's £ab(h)out t(h)i:me.£ 36 Yihkno [w. 37 M: [Go::::::[::::[:d] Extract 2 Fragment 22 Je: [You were the:re y]es [I know. ] 23 Ja: [Yez I c ]ontested tha(h)at 24 very str(h)ongly. .hh [hhh 25 Je: [I kno:w. 26 Ja: → Ah said your syst’n breaks [do-own ve(h)ry frequentl(h)y 27 (Je): [(mhh!) 28 Je: Oh ah’m ah’m sho’ it doe:s,

So in these two instances, even the indirect report of what was claimed to be said is laughter-infiltrated—and, in the case of Extract 2—similarly not receipted with laughter. So the sort of defensive moral work described by Drew is done, not simply in animating what was purportedly said, but also in glosses or characterizations of what was done. The following excerpt shows the fine distinction available to speakers in portrayals of themselves through laughter. It



No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity 233

is taken from earlier in the same call as that of Excerpt 2, and the speakers are discussing the estate agents with whom Jeremy is in dispute. At Lines 8 and 10, Jane characterizes herself thus: “this’s why I got so very angry. Ah I really got very angry”; some turns later, she asserts: “I got e bit SH(h)UHR(h)TY hh ah’m af:r(h)ai(h)d”. Only the second of these is laughter-infiltrated: Extract 6 Heritage: 01:3:4 Je=Jeremy; Ja=Jane; “they” are the estate agents: 1 Jer: from what(0.5)Mummy said (0.4)you’ve(0.2) they(.) they 2 im mim (0.4)im(.)plie:d thet (0.4) we wuhr being aw (.) 3 oll suh (1.5) secretive en s’t’v (.)wheeling’n dealing 4    behind their ba:cks’n .hhh an:: dalmos:t(.)sound ez 5 if wih(.) wir (.) wir (.) °°hhoo°° (0.6) °°whh°° 6 (0.2) criminals idn’it. 7 Jan: .hhhh Yi:ss well that was the implication 8 this[‘s why I got= 9 Jer: [Ye:s. 10 Jan: → =so very ↑angry. ah I [: really got very ↑an ]gry.= 11 Jer: [I don’t ↑blame (you). ] 12 Jan: =I: I said I think thet we ought to get in touch with 13 ahr ↑lawyers. I d I think this is .hhh these 14 implications ahr .hhh completely unfou:nded 15 en[I don’t think you c’n pro::ve, 16 [Yeah. 17 Jan: .hhh thet you sent this lit’rature to u:s: [end uh:::u= 18 Jer: [(Wu:l.) 19 Jer: =They cah:n’t. 20 Jan: → °uh:w° And uh th .hh (.) e-ahI got e bit 21 Jan: → SH(h)UHR(h)TY hh ah’m af:r(h)ai(h)d 22 (.) 23 Jan: ↑.hee[h ↑.eh ↑.i ] 24 Jer: [W’I don’t bl ]em you I (.) probab (.) 25 probally: (w) (0.3) would’ve ↓done ↑too:.

While Jeremy responds to both with much the same formulation—“I don’t blame you”—the first, at Line 11, comes in overlap with the second TCU of Jane’s turn, and the second is relatively delayed, and indeed, like the first, laughter-free. His alignment with Jane is clear in both cases, but what he aligns with in each case—“so very angry” and “a bit shirty”—are distinct. The turns differ in their very formulations—the first is extreme (“so very”), the second mitigated by both the asserted degree (“a bit”) and the defense (“I’m afraid”).

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The descriptors, too, are distinct in their implications, “shirty” being negatively valenced in a way that “angry” is not, with its implications of temperamental overreaction. And if such overreaction is implied by the use of “shirty”, then “so very angry” is portrayed as righteous, or at least justified, by dint of the prior asserted implication by the estate agents that they are “criminals” (Line 6). So once again we can see how laughter, used here to mitigate one characterization of oneself—“shirty”—but not another—“angry”—is available as a resource for doing identity work. And the recipient in each case provides almost identically formulated responses, which, nevertheless, due to their placement and what they receipt, do subtly different actions in the course of aligning.

Laughter in complaints It is evident, then, that the distinction in degrees and subtle shades of annoyance conveyed by the description of oneself as “angry” or “shirty” are attended to, and acted on, by speakers. How might it be possible to establish the same for what has hitherto been glossed as a “complaint”? One way of proceeding is suggested by the earlier ordering of examples (a)—(c), in which, as we have seen, the laughter becomes more forceful. The laughter appears to correlate with the word selection in the design of the turn, so that the first is fairly mild in tone (the mitigated “about time”), the second a stronger assertion (the more forceful “very frequently”), and the last expressing a strong indignation and resolve (“I’ll not”). Thus far, the correlation, such as it is, may be incidental. But the following excerpt, if not conclusive evidence, is suggestive. Lesley and Mum have both experienced problems with the phone company British Telecom. In common with the earlier Excerpts 1–3, we see an epistemic battle in a context where both have equal access to that which is being assessed. This culminates in the launch of Lesley’s reported speech in Line 9, and then her second attempt at Line 12 after she finds herself in overlap with Mum: Extract 7 (Holt: X–1–1–6:2) (“They” are British Telecom) 1 Les: But apparently they cut w ↑fi:ve ↑people off in 2 Galhampton: on: Thursday3 Mum: ↑Oh: lo:ve. 4 (0.4) 5 Mum: That’s a nuisance isn’t it. 6 Les: Ye [s. 7 Mum: [They’re getting terrible.



No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction of Identity 235 8 (0.3) 9 Les: We:l [l I- I ­s a i d ] 10 Mum: I [ mean ↑look what↑ ] 11 (0.2) 12 Les: → I said to them. £↑This is British Telecom for you.(h)£= 13 Mum: =Yes. .h An’ ↑look what they cha:rge. They charge you 14 .h three pounds (just t’have) this wretched old thing 15 in your hou:se. 16 (0.5) 17 Les: Yes.

The reported speech turn is not, in fact, laughter-infiltrated, but produced with a “smile voice”, together with a possible laugh particle at the end of the turn. And if the previous examples are clearly complaints, this one, if a complaint at all, is surely at the mildest end of the spectrum—indeed, Drew and Walker, in an analysis of this excerpt in their account of complaints, call it not a complaint per se but a “generalised complainable summary” (2008, p. 2407). So if smiling is not quite laughter, and what we have here is not quite a complaint, this would seem to suggest that the presence of laughter indexes a complaint, while its degree indexes the vehemence of that complaint. The manner in which the laughter is produced may thus be a constitutive feature of the action being prosecuted.

Conclusion This chapter has focused on a number of instances of unilateral laughter. As in Jefferson’s pioneering (1984) study, it has examined the placement of laughter in a set of instances where a recipient resists the laughter of a prior speaker. And, as with Jefferson’s study, the construction of identity turns out to be central. It should be stressed here that the identity work done by laughter is the outcome, not the starting point, of the analysis. As Schegloff notes: Because more often than not the categories that are at work in an episode of conduct are not articulated overtly, ways of locating and empirically demonstrating the effects of tacit orientation to categories provide important and relevant tools of analysis (2005, p. 450).

This chapter has, it is hoped, shown how a particular sequential placement of laughter may be one such “tacit orientation” to a category in the implementation of a specific action. It has proposed that there are actions which, when reported,

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have the potential to reflect poorly on the agent: complaining is one of these. An interactional problem thus arises in reporting that one (perhaps oneself, perhaps another) has complained; how, then, to convey the content of the complaint without such adverse consequences? Delivering the reported complaint with infiltrating laughter is a practice which would seem to be a fix for this problem, the laughter in effect distinguishing the complaint delivered on this occasion from “the sort of person who complains”. And there is preliminary evidence to suggest that laughter is an indicator, not just of the fact of the complaint, but also of its vehemence. So the action reported by the turn is inextricably bound up with details of its production and delivery. As such, it is evident that laughter constitutes, in such contexts, its own extenuating circumstance—and thereby a critical component in the interactional construction of identity. * I am very grateful to Phil Glenn and Liz Holt for their thoughtful and insightful comments on the early drafts.

Note 1 In Clift (2007, p. 146), I argue that the repair from what is conceivably “Well that’s what Fazil said” to the direct reported speech marks a repair to an evidentially more powerful device.

12

Constructing Identities Through Laughter* Grit Liebscher and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain

Given the increasing wealth of literature on laughter, it is perhaps surprising how little attention has yet been paid to its role in the construction of identities. Furthermore, the laughter research that has addressed identity has tended to analyze how members of different identity groups—usually different genders— behave with respect to laughter (e.g. Grønnerød, 2004; Holmes, 2006; Lampert and Ervin-Tripp, 2006). This contrasts with research with a focus on laughter as a conversational resource available to interactants in the process of doing (gendered) identity work (e.g. Glenn, 2003, pp. 151–61; Jefferson, 2004a). This chapter is situated in this latter tradition of identity research, examining laughter as a resource in identity construction. Specifically, we analyze the relationship between laughter and place identities in interaction in two different social contexts: Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and German immigrants and their descendants in Canada. The first data set, from the “Saxony project” (cf. Dailey-O’Cain and Liebscher, 2009), consists of audio- and videotaped conversations between two fieldworkers (the authors of this chapter) and western Germans who migrated to the eastern German region of Saxony after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. These conversations with 16 families and individuals took place between 2000 and 2003 in Saxony in people’s homes or public places. The second data set stems from the “German-Canadian project” (cf. Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain, forthcoming), consisting of 64 audio taped conversational interviews conducted in 2007–8 between one of two native German-speaking research assistants and speakers from the German diaspora in two Canadian cities. While not as informal as the Saxony conversations, they are still comparable to everyday conversations as unstructured interviews that lack a clearly delineated set of questions (though participants completed a questionnaire about personal information, language exposure and German contact).

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Theory and method We understand identity as constructed in interaction by Self and Other (cf. Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998; Pavlenko and Blackledge, 2004) and as closely linked to processes of membership categorization (Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 2007b). We explore how person categorization comes about through labeling and through narrated social events that become category-bound activities. We focus on place identities that are tied to a person’s history of an extended experience living in a certain place such as a country, region, city/town, or neighbourhood (Schegloff, 1972). As Schegloff (ibid.) shows, such place identities are made relevant in conversations, for example, through the ways in which locational formulations are done. Such formulations are the result of interactants’ location analysis with regard to the current location of speaking, “common-sense” geographies, and membership, as well as topic analysis. A place is more than just a set of coordinates, and always includes three features: geographic location, material form, and a human investment with meaning and value (Gieryn, 2000, pp. 464–5). People make and shape the places where they live, but the places where people live in turn shape those people in enduring ways, for example in terms of experiences of local linguistic varieties and in terms of potential membership categories associated with places. For this reason, place identities are transportable: latent, unavoidable identities derived from an individual’s biography and socialization (cf. Zimmerman, 1998; Benwell and Stokoe, 2006, p. 70). They accompany individuals into various situations and can be made relevant in interaction. In our data sets, place identities are of constant potential relevance in the interactions, due to the fact that our participants have all answered a call looking for people who fit into particular kinds of identity categories (such as “western Germans who have moved to the east” or “German-speaking immigrants in Canada and their descendants”). Furthermore, while interactional identities are contestable in interaction (cf. Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998) these place identities are particularly contestable because they involve people moving between places. There may be ambiguity around place identities that results from the potential ties with more than one place, most obvious with migrants but possible with any persons who experience other sorts of links to places (such as descendants of migrants, who may feel a link to the place of their ancestors). Since places are constructed by people, they are not fixed, and the identities associated with them may be part of contested discourses. In the Saxony project



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in particular, the identities associated with the places in question are socially and politically loaded, in the context of East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in which both economic and political realities as well as public discourse created a strong sense that East Germany was the “loser” and West Germany the “winner” of the Cold War. Migrants from west to east are aware that their migration took place with this social and political friction as a backdrop, and so the ambiguities arising with the construction of these identities are politically and socially sensitive. Contentiousness surrounding identity construction may arise too within the German-Canadian project, which takes place in a context of immigration from Germany to Canada. Positioning persons with respect to either Germany or Canada may have social and political implications. There are larger discourses of integration vs conservation within Canadian society, since Canadian national ideologies of multiculturalism demand that immigrants walk a fine line between integration and maintaining one’s heritage, language, and culture. In both datasets, all participants could potentially identify with either place identity category within the pair (or with both at different times), which, along with the social and political friction resulting from the wider discourses within these societies, makes these identities particularly contestable within interactions that specifically address them. Laughter plays a crucial role in constructing place identity categories, specifically as a tool interactants can use to ambiguously position themselves or others with respect to those categories (cf. Bucholtz and Hall, 2005; Dailey-O’Cain and Liebscher, 2009; Harré and van Langenhove, 1991). We already know at least since Jefferson et al. (1977) that laughter is indexical, i.e. “that it is heard as referring to something, and hearers will seek out its referent” (Glenn 2003, p. 48). When doing identity work, then, part of the laughable “referent” may be the relevant identity category. Due to the ambiguous nature of laughter, however, it can serve two distinct but related purposes: first, helping to construct a place identity; and second, simultaneously drawing attention to the ambiguities arising with such identity. As our analysis will show, by laughing interactants can not only position themselves as hearers or current speakers, but also position others who are not immediately present. Through such positioning, participants draw on available place identity categories, reevaluate them, and establish relationships between them. Laughter can be a resource to index, evaluate, and camouflage arising ambiguities where membership categories tied to place identities may or may not be explicitly stated.

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Analysis Laughter’s role in the construction of identity is located in the sequential organization of the interaction. Holt (2011) suggests that researchers should focus on “what action people are performing when they laugh” (p. 396). Here, we focus on positioning through laughter as linked to identity construction. Self- and other-positioning are different kinds of actions doing different kinds of identity work (cf. Harré and van Langenhove, 1991). Similarly, we will argue that laughter in our data may be performing different kinds of actions whether it is initiated by the person who produces the laughable, i.e. self-initiated, or by another interactant, i.e. other-initiated (cf. Glenn, 2003; Jefferson, 1979). A further important distinction for laughter is whether it is solo or shared (cf. Glenn, 2003). These two distinctions shape both the unfolding sequence and how participants shape place identity constructions. Furthermore, resonant with Potter and Hepburn’s (2010) finding that inserted laugh particles can mark a word as insufficient or problematic, here laughter helps negotiate insufficient, problematic, or ambiguous identity constructions. The excerpts chosen are arrayed from simpler to more complex cases, whereby the complexity results from the number of laughter occurrences as well as the number of people involved in the interaction.

Marking identity formulations as insufficient through self-initiated solo laughter The first excerpt (from the German-Canadian project) contains self-initiated laughter that is not taken up by recipients. The interviewer is talking with a married couple, Frida and Tom, who both migrated to Canada with their respective parents as teenagers. Frida compares the English influence on the varieties of German spoken in Canada and in Germany. Excerpt 1: “Bilingual” 1 Frida: ja das is ja hier (.) weil es zweisprachig is ehm sowieso is es auch, yes that is indeed here (.) because it bilingual is um anyway is it also, yeah here it’s (.) everything is bilingual here um anyway, 2

sieht man des nich als fehler, aber wenn in deutschland, weil wir sees one that not as mistake, but when in Germany, because we one doesn’t see that as a mistake, but when in Germany, because we



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erwarten dass unsere ganzen verwandten und (.) un:::sere (.) expect that our whole relatives and (.) our::: (.) expect that all our relatives and (.) our::: (.)

4 M: IThhmenschen hhehehe in deutschland nur deutsch sprechen. f:ehhllow CITizens hhehehe in Germany only German speak. f::ehhllow CITizens hhehehe in Germany only speak German. 5 Int:

hmhm.

6 Frida: und weil wir alle englischen worte verstehen ist das (.) komisch. (.) and because we all English words understand is that (.) weird. (.) and because we understand all the English words (.) that’s weird. (.)

In Lines 1 and 2, Frida describes the German-English variety spoken in Canada as fitting in with the overall French-English bilingual ideology. Through this description, she includes herself in the membership category of a Canadian German speaker. She compares this to Germany, where she expects to hear only German rather than a mix of German and English. Furthermore, in contrasting the two situations, she expresses the idea that this mix isn’t seen as a “mistake” (Line 2) in Canada. Through the contrast she implies that the same sort of mix is, in fact, a mistake in Germany. She then formulates two membership categories in sequence: relatives (Line 3) and fellow citizens (Line 4) (the original German term “mitmenschen” literally means “fellow people”). The laughter occurs within and immediately following the second category: fellow citizens. It fits Potter and Hepburn’s (2010, p. 1547) description of “interpolated particles of aspiration (IPAs)” which mark their referent as “insufficient or problematic”. The interviewer does not join in with Frida’s laughter, thereby making it Frida’s issue rather than treating it as a laugh invitation. Frida uses the laughter here “to manage potential problems in description” (Potter and Hepburn, 2010, p. 1549). These problems are indexed through the prolongation of the consonants that could be part of a repair initiation or a word search (Schegloff et al., 1977). Since there is nothing peculiar or idiomatic about the term “mitmenschen” itself, we may look for an explanation for the trouble in Frida’s identity construction. Frida includes herself in a s­ pecifically Canadian group of Germans designated through “wir” (“we”) in Line 2, excluding Germans in Germany, but then also includes herself among Germans in Germany by formulating “mitmenschen”. This contrast of two different identities within the same turn indicates that they are ambiguous identities for her on several grounds. First, while she does not live in Germany

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anymore as a result of having left Germany as a child, she does spend time in Germany at least occasionally and may feel other ties to Germany that, alongside her heritage and birthplace, would make her a local (i.e. a fellow citizen) there. Second, Frida speaks a mixed language, as she says in this interview, which sets her apart from the fellow citizens who she believes should follow a different language ideology that doesn’t allow mixing. Third, in Line 6, she positions herself outside of the group of Germans in Germany by assessing the hearing of a similar English-influenced mix in Germany as “komisch” (“weird”). Frida’s same turn laughter not only marks the formulation “mitmenschen” as laughable, but also implicates the identity construction that takes place in this turn. The formulation “mitmenschen” is then the culmination of her formulated—and in parts contradictory—identity construction. The laughter contextualizes “mitmenschen” as an insufficient choice among potential formulations. However, it allows Frida to persist in using this term while discrediting it through laughter. The self-initiated laughter is therefore a powerful tool for contextualizing the membership category, one that allows her to use that membership category at the same time that she acknowledges that it is conflicted and ambiguous.

Drawing attention to ambiguous identity construction through laughter The laughter in the second excerpt also draws attention to an insufficient or ambiguous identity construction. It differs in both the placement of the laughter and the involvement of the interactants, and as a result, it performs additional semantic functions. The interviewer is talking with the Canadian-born Sam whose parents emigrated from Germany in the 1920s. In the excerpt, Sam is just finishing filling in the questionnaire about his biographical background and his connections with German matters. Excerpt 2: “Fiedler’s delicatessen” 1 Int: keine andern dinge, [okay okay. no other things, okay okay. no other things, okay okay 2 Sam: [nein no no 3 Int:

ehm:::,



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4 Sam: other than going to Fiedler’s (0.2) delicatessen 5 Int:

hehe[hehehe

6 Sam:     [haha[haha 7 Int: [ja. das ist- das [macht haha sie zum [ha deutschen (.) [ja. hahaha    yes. that is- that makes haha you-formal to-a ha german (.) yes. hahaha yes. that is- that makes haha you ha German yes.    hahaha 8 Sam: [hahaha

[hehe [hahaha

9 Int:

ehm (.) fangen wir vielleicht bei ihren eltern an uhm (.) begin we perhaps by your-formal parents {sep. prefix} uhm (.) let’s perhaps start with your parents

10:

Sam: good

At the beginning of the excerpt, the interviewer initiates pre-closing of the activity of filling in the questionnaire by asking Sam whether there are any additional things he would like to mention—presumably those things that indicate Germanness, as he has responded to a call for participants for German immigrants and their descendants. In Line 2, Sam responds negatively to this question, and the interviewer starts a new turn with a filler in order to prepare for her next question. Sam modifies the negative response by adding one item: “going to Fiedler’s delicatessen”, which is a local store run by people who speak German and sell mainly German products. He sets this up as a punchline through the start of the turn (“other than” suggesting this is a minor issue) and the pause before “delicatessen”. The other-initiated laughter by the interviewer in Line 5 shows that she understands this as the punchline. Sam’s laughter in Line 6 aligns with her in treating this as a conversational joke (Boxer and Cortés-Conde, 1997). This agreement is also strongly suggested by the fact that Sam’s laughter (hahaha) is open and more forceful than the comparatively timid and careful laughter by the interviewer (hehehe). In fact, his laughter upgrades the laughability of the referent in ways that are similar to the upgrade of an assessment (Pomerantz, 1984). What they are assessing here is the relevance of “going to Fiedler’s delicatessen” to Sam’s Germanness as an identity-related category-bound activity (cf. Sacks, 1992). In fact, the interviewer explains this relationship in her turn starting in Line 7 by giving an account for why she laughed: going to Fiedler’s delicatessen makes him German because this is a “Canadian German” store. By formulating this activity as evidence of his Germanness, he draws attention to

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the fuzziness of his constructed Germanness, since this activity is a localized membership construction rather than one more generally accepted as marking German identity such as German heritage language. It is also localized in that the interviewer is expected to know what Fiedler’s delicatessen stands for and what its link to the membership categorization is. The interviewer’s laughter in Line 4 is then also an understanding display. The relative timidness of that laughter is upgraded through Sam’s laughter in Line 5 and through the interviewer’s comment in Line 7, which is then interspersed by laughter that is equally strong in tonal activity as Sam’s. What occurs is then a fine-tuning of intersubjectivity with the help of laughter in steps: Step 1: Sam: formulating a fuzzy identity construction. Step 2: Interviewer: other-initiated timid laughter to display an appreciation of this identity construction, similar to a first assessment. Step 3: Sam: stronger laughter to underline the identity construction, similar to upgrading through a second assessment. Step 4: Interviewer: formulating account for laughter, thus upgrading a previously timid assessment but drawing attention to the ambiguity of the identity construction through IPAs. Step 5: Interviewer: shared laughter acknowledging the ambiguity of identity construction. The IPAs in Step 4 have an important role to play: similar to those in Excerpt 1, they mark the identity construction as problematic by drawing attention to the fuzziness of the link between the activity of going to the store and Sam’s (or anyone’s) Germanness. Precisely where identity construction becomes relevant, the IPAs mark an insufficiency, thus modulating the identity construction and downgrading the positive assessment. Sam’s overlapping laughter in Line 8 underscores his identity construction on the basis of the category-bound activity of going to the store, but also modulates it by marking it as insufficient and ambiguous. The laughter here does not mark the identity construction as nonserious, but only as ambiguous. In other words, both Sam and the interviewer construct German-Canadian identity on the basis of going to a German store within the local context of Kitchener-Waterloo in Canada, a German hub in North America. At the same time, they use the laughter, especially the IPAs, to draw attention to the relative weakness or ludicrousness of that activity in a global context.



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Other-initiated solo-laughter prompting explicit identity construction The third excerpt also contains a local identity construction of GermanCanadians losing their active German vocabulary after having lived in Canada for some time. It contains other-initiated solo laughter by the interviewer, which is implicated in, indeed prompts, the explicit formulation of an identity. The interviewer and Peter, who came to Canada in 1998, are talking about German cultural days in Canada. Excerpt 3: “German days” 1 Peter: im zuge von german days hatten wer das mal [gemacht in-the course of german days had we that once done as part of german days we did that once 2 Int:

[hmm.

3 Peter: und son bisschen (.) ehm (.) tschuldigung. (0.3) eh nich unbedingt (.) eh reg and like a little (.) um (.) excuse-me. (0.3) uh not necessarily (.) uh reg and like a little (.) um (.) excuse me. (..) um not necessarily (.) uh reg4 5 Int: 6

also (.) reguLÄR [also wie heißt s- schön nochma also. so (.) REGular so how calls t- beautiful again so. I mean (.) ‘regulär’ so what’s the word for that again. [ja. ja. yes. yes. yeah. yeah. nicht regelmäßig? not regularly? you don‘t mean ‚regelmäßig‘?

7 Peter: regelmäßig [genau regularly exactly ‘regelmäßig’ exactly 8 Int: [ja. hhehehehe yes. hhehehehe yeah. hhehehehe 9 Peter: son paar [wörter eh f- die [fallen dann immer mal [wieder vergisst man. [((smiling voice)) such-a pair words uh f- that fall then always once again forgets one.

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a few words like that they d- they disappear then you forget them now and then 10 Int: [ja, hh ja, yes, hh yeah, hh

[ja. yes, yes. yeah, yeah

11 ja hahahehehe ja. yes hahahehehe yes. yeah hahahehehe yeah. 12 Peter: (obwohl) man so weiß aber die sind halt nicht im aktiven sp- eh (although) one like-that knows but they are simply not in-the active v- uh (even though) you know (them) but they’re just not in your active v- uh 13 sprachwissen. na jedenfalls eh hab ich son bisschen unregelmäßig das gemacht language-knowledge, well anyway uh have I such-a bit irregular that done vocabulary. anyway uh I did it kind of irregularly 14

aber dann war natürlich auch nicht die resonanz so da. but then was naturally also not the resonance like-that there. but then the resonance wasn’t really there of course.

The laughter in Line 8, which leads up to the identity work in Lines 9–11, is preceded by an other-repaired word search. The initiation of the word search (Lines 3 and 4) consists of hesitation and perturbation markers followed by the hybrid German-English form “regulär”. While “regulär” is in fact a German word, it is not the typical way of expressing the English word “regular”. Peter displays awareness of this as he asks the interviewer what the word is that he’s looking for. The interviewer then provides the more typical German term, “regelmäßig”. She does so in a try-marked format by negating the candidate (“nicht regelmäßig”), thus mitigating her suggestion and conveying some disbelief that Peter would need to search for this term. Then, after the repair outcome in Line 7 (where Peter confirms and repeats her suggestions), she laughs. Peter does not join this laughter, though he indicates some alignment through his smiling voice in Line 9. The interviewer’s solo laughter treats Peter’s struggle for finding the right word as laughable, and the linkage of this word search to a German-Canadian identity is made explicit in Peter’s next turn. The interviewer’s laughter prompts Peter’s account in Line 9: that there are words that he knows but which aren’t in his active vocabulary. Through this, Peter makes his place identity as a Canadian German relevant, specifically a recent Canadian German who still should know these words.



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The interviewer reacts to Peter’s positioning in Line 11 by confirming it with even stronger laughter. This time, the laughable is not (only) the repair per se but also Peter’s account. He does not laugh along with her, but instead provides another account that slightly qualifies his earlier one: he now positions himself as a Canadian German who still knows these words, but only temporarily forgot them. Only then does he finish the side sequence that he initiated in Line 3, which focused on the search for German words. He closes this side sequence with “well anyway” in Line 13 and continues with his original point about the German cultural days in Canada. Laughter draws attention to and modulates ambiguous identity constructions; it also prompts explicit formulations of identity construction. In this excerpt, explicit identity construction became an account for a laughable produced by a nonlaughing speaker. Comparing this to the second excerpt, we can note that the explicit identity construction can also be done by the person who initiated the laughter (the interviewer in Line 7). In both excerpts, however, the explicit identity construction was preceded by other-laughter (Line 6 in Excerpt 2 and Line 8 in Excerpt 3). In both instances, laughter prompts explicit formulation of an identity.

Shared laughter to construct identity inclusion and exclusion The final two excerpts (from the same conversation in the Saxony project) show laughter implicated in the construction of place identities. In contrast to the previous two excerpts, however, these last two involve self-initiated laughter which marks the laughable including the identity construction. Also in contrast, the conversation in which the last two excerpts are based involves four people, and the excerpts contain several instances of shared laughter, through which inclusion and exclusion are negotiated. The conversation takes place in Germany between the fieldworkers JD and GL, and the participants Ingo, who previously moved from western to eastern Germany, and his two sons Max (about 4) and Gerd (about 6), who were born in eastern Germany. Both excerpts are about a toy car that the fieldworkers gave to the children as a present. This car is a model of a Trabbi (Trabant), which was an East German-made car that became an East German icon after the fall of the Wall. There are several instances of laughter in this excerpt, all relating to the toy Trabbis the fieldworkers brought as gifts and ambiguously to the real car Trabbi as an icon, and all of which serve to construct place identities. Excerpt 4a starts immediately after Max had received his toy Trabbi from the fieldworkers.

Studies of Laughter in Interaction

248 Excerpt 4a: “Trabbi”

((Max running towards his dad with the toy car)) papa (.) papi papi papi:: [(.) ein trabb[i dad (.) daddy daddy daddy:: (.) a trabbi dad (.) daddy daddy daddy:: (.) a trabbi

1 Max:

2 Ingo: 3

[ja ja was ist das? yes yes what is that? yes yes what is this?

[n trabbi a trabbi a trabbi

[nhhe[hehehehe

4 JD:

[hhehe[hehe

5 GL: 6

[hhehehe sie ham zwar schon welche ham sie gesagt (.) hhehehe they have indeed indeed which have they said hhehehe they do already have some they said

[º(solln se ne garage baun)º º(should they a garage build)º º(but they can build a garage)º

7 Ingo: [ was macht man damit? what is a trabbi?> what makes one there-with? what is a trabbi? what do you do with it? (.) ((looks at Trabbi in his hands)) 8 Max: na fah::rn? well dri::ve? you drive it of course? 9 Ingo: [na [well DRI::ve eye gaze and smile to GL first and then JD> you drive it of course 10 JD: [hhehe[hehe 11 GL:

[hehehe

12 Ingo: wem ist eigentlich der grüne? (.) ist das deiner? [( ) der große whom is actually the green? (.) is that yours? ( ) the big whose is the green one? (.) is it yours?       the big one 13 Max:

[ja yes yes



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At the beginning of this excerpt, the younger son Max comes running towards his father to show his new toy car, the Trabbi. His excitement is evident in the fast repetition of “papa (.) papi papi papi”. When his father asks what the thing is that he is holding, the son answers: “ein trabbi” (a trabbi). Ingo repeats the word “trabbi” before he starts laughing. This repetition has the effect of specifying as well as appreciating the laughable (see Glenn, 2003, p. 114; Jefferson, 1972, pp. 300–1). It draws attention to this car not as any generic kind of toy car, but specifically as a Trabbi, as well as to the fact that the son called it a Trabbi rather than simply a car. The repetition by the adult indicates the correctness of the answer and appreciates Max’s immediate identification of the make of the car. While this kind of appreciative laughter is commonly indicative of laughing with (cf. Glenn, 2003, p. 114), the picture is more complex here, since everyone except Max laughs. After the repetition, Ingo starts laughing, JD joins in overlap and GL follows with shared laughter. The repetition creates a contrasting “voice” (in a Bakhtinian sense) of what this word means for the child in contrast to the adults. The adults’ laughter displays an awareness of the East German connotation for the car, including the nostalgia frequently connected with it after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The laughter marks the laughability of the child’s excitement and knowledge about the name of the car. The laughter may also draw attention to the difference between the connotations that the child has with those that the adults have. More specifically, the laughter marks a contrast between the child’s and the adult’s voice. In a Bakhtinian sense, the laughter marks recognition of the heteroglossia in the utterance, i.e. the way it ties to two different meanings. The laughter is then affiliative for the adults only, i.e. the eastern German membership categorization is constructed through the laughing among all adults. Max does not laugh along, and this reinforces the differential understandings. The adults link the laughable Trabbi to the membership category of eastern German, but Max does not do this. Because he does not show any indication of knowing what the reason for the adults’ laughter is, this suggests that for him, a Trabbi may simply be a car like any other. Ingo’s question in Line 7 is then an attempt to bring Max back into the conversation (i.e. make him not laughed at), but also to continue the conversation on the topic and the play with identities, as is typical for laughing at sequences (Glenn, 2003, p. 113). In Max’s answer in Line 8, he reduces the Trabbi to one function: “na fahrn” (“you drive it of course”), expressing surprise at his father’s question. Ingo repeats his son’s answer “na fahrn”, with emphasis on “driving”, making eye contact with GL and JD and smiling at the same time.

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Thus, he does an appreciative repeat for his son, positioning himself with the child’s perspective, i.e. as someone who sees only the toy car. At the same time, he indicates his orientation to the humorous, playful mode through his smile (cf. Haakana, 2010, p. 1505). Both JD and GL laugh in overlap with Ingo’s turn in Line 9, but Ingo does not laugh along. He thus keeps positioning himself with his son’s perspective without explaining his nonlaughter at this point, which may indicate that he is resisting the connection between the Trabbi and the eastern German membership categorization to some extent. In this multiparty conversation, affiliations are created through laughter and smiling based on identity categorizations. At the same time, nuances of laughing with and laughing at are created, though nobody is explicitly nominated as the “butt” (Glenn, 2003, Chapter 5). The laughing with among the adults is about the construction of an Eastern German membership category, which requires knowledge about eastern or even former East Germany. The laughing at is about the different ways the child vs the adults draw meaning from the Trabbi toy car—an interplay of place and age identities. It affirms Sacks’ (1978) observation of how different age groups react to certain jokes differently because the information contained in the joke may speak to certain experiences and age group characteristics. The laughter can be explained on the basis of the different child vs adult experiences with the same place linking to different transportable identities of eastern and western Germany.

Laughter constructing ambiguities in identity constructions Excerpt 4b continues shortly after excerpt 4a in the same conversation. Like in Excerpt 2, the laughter addresses an identity construction done by a previous speaker, and in doing so, draws attention to the identity construction through the laughter in the first place. Laughter here is a tool that doesn’t simply accompany an identity construction, but creates it in the first place. Excerpt 4b: “Trabbi” (continued) 19 Ingo: gibt’s die (.) in KANada, die trabbis ((looks at JD and GL and smiles)) gives-it those (.) in CANada, the trabbis ((looks at JD and GL and smiles)) do you have them in Canada, the trabbis 20 GL: [n(h)e: he[hehehehehehe [n(h)o: hehehehehehehe n(h)o: hehehehehehehe



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21 JD: [n(h)e: he[hehehehehehe [n(h)o: hehehehehehehe no 22 Ingo:

[(da fahrn ) hihihi [(there drive) hihihi (there go ) hihihi

23 GL: ne die ham wir nicht eingeflogen no those have we not flown in no we did not fly them in 24 Ingo: ºja es gibt ja kaum noch welche. (.) hmº ºyes it gives indeed hardly still some (.) hmº ºwell there are almost none nowº 25 GL:

ja aber man sieht se schon noch yes but one sees them indeed still yes but you can still see them

26 Ingo: ºaber ganz seltenº ºbut very seldomº ºbut it›s very rareº

Excerpt 5b starts with Ingo asking whether the East German Trabbi is also available in Canada. While this could be a serious question resulting from Ingo wondering how JD and GL came to acquire a toy Trabbi in Canada, the smile marks it as humorous talk. The smile, together with Ingo’s brief gaze to JD and GL checking their reaction, suggests that Ingo is assigning them a Canadian rather than an East German identity, thus contradicting their earlier attempt to assert an East German identity around their knowledge of the specifically local connotations of the East German Trabbi. A smile commonly leaves it up to the participants to decide whether or not to follow with laughter (cf. Haanaka, 2010, p. 1505), and both JD and GL follow it up with laughter. While they answer Ingo’s question in the negative, the laughter recognizes his play with the membership categories of (East) German and Canadian. Ingo joins their laughter (Line 22), making this a laughing with instance. Ingo’s laughter, “hihihi”, which is closer to a giggle, however, is recognizably different from both JD’s and GL’s laughter of “hehehe”. GL (who initiated laughter before Ingo) provides a joking answer in Line 23, and ties Ingo’s statement to her own and JD’s Canadian place identities, thus also providing an account for her laughter. In Line 24, Ingo suggests that you cannot find them in

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present-day (eastern) Germany anymore, referring ambiguously to both the toy Trabbis and the actual cars by using the nonspecific referent “welche” (some). This then becomes an account for his question whether JD and GL brought the toy Trabbis from Canada, since they couldn’t have bought them in eastern Germany. In these last two excerpts, laughter and related practices (e.g. smiles, giggles) manage identity moments. Here, these practices involved the identities of the child who did not grow up in East Germany and the identities of the fieldworkers as Canadian as well as (eastern) German.

Conclusion Laughter can serve an important role in the construction of identities in interaction. Focusing specifically on laughter in the construction of two place identities (Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and German immigrants and their descendants in Canada), we have shown identity constructions accompanied by laughter as well as those that were entirely actively constructed by laughter. Laughter acknowledges the fuzziness of identities that gets referenced implicitly or explicitly in interaction. The fuzziness arises out of migration where memberships become ambiguous and category-bound activities become localized to fit a certain membership. National identities and migration discourses become part of interactants’ meaningful positionings. They also affect the valence or stance the laughter assumes toward its referents. In environments of identity construction, laughter draws attention to ambiguous membership categories. More specifically, however, laughter disambiguates such ties and helps create more specific positionings. Laughter enables participants to treat a formulated membership category as conflicted while still allowing the speaker to index it. Because laughter may contextualize ambiguous categories, it allows participants to use these categories in identity construction even when their suitability is not clear-cut. Lastly, laughter is effective in negotiating alliances tied to constructed differences of membership categories based on particular voices and experiences with place identities. This is particularly evident in the case of ambiguous place identities. Migration makes place identities ambiguous; the sociopolitical context makes that ambiguity important, while the laughter both constructs the ambiguity and indexes the tension.



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We found that other-initiated laughter tended to demand that participants account for the laughable in some way. Self-initiated laughter, on the other hand, did not necessarily prompt this, likely because in self-initiated laughter, the laughter itself can serve as the explanation for the positioning. Self-initiated laughter is also a tool for participants to achieve alignment about the indexed identity (in that it provides a contextualization cue for the other interactants to interpret the laughable as such). Other-initiated laughter may prompt interactants to dismantle some of the ambiguities arising from the nonexplicitness of the laughable or the stance the laughter takes toward it. Second, instances of solo laughter resulted in responses by the nonlaughing participant addressing a potential understanding of the laughable. This involved resisting a membership category that one interactant was attempting to ascribe to a fellow interactant (cf. footnote 3 in Glenn, 2003, p. 175). In cases where laughter was used to mock constructed identities, we found shared laughter to play an important part in (re)establishing intersubjectivity. Shared laughter was also used to establish alliances and to construct common identities. Shared laughter may display shared alignment about the identity categories being indexed, while solo laughter can indicate misalignment. Laughing with (Glenn, 2003) can simultaneously be laughing at by establishing nonalliances leaving out those who are not involved in the laughter. This results in the simultaneous evocation of different membership categories for different participants. These findings raise the question of how laughter (compared to other conversational resources) distinctively contributes to addressing membership categories. Laughter is an ever-present and primordial part of conversation, and yet still elusive enough in terms of its precise connotation to create different meanings for different people or groups of people with different transportable identities or realms of experience. It is precisely because of the way laughter—in contrast, say, to pauses or most gestures—is inherently heteroglossic that it can play the roles it does in identity construction. The nonspecificity, implicitness, and unstatedness of the identity category help create its laughability in the first place. These findings suggest that a theory of laughter needs to consider identity (including the fact that laughter is implicated in managing delicate moments such as the foregrounding of ambiguous and changing identities). To understand laughter and identity, we need to examine laughables not only as single words or phrases, but also entire turns (cf. Archakis and Tsakona, 2005, p. 46), as well as turn-external membership categories and discourses. An investigation of the relationships between laughter and identity construction can contribute to a better understanding not only of identity construction, but also of the functions of laughter in interaction.

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*We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for financially assisting this research, specifically the projects “(Inter)acting identities in dialect and discourse: migrant Western Germans in Eastern Germany” (SSHRC#410–03–0378) and “German identity in urban Canada: A qualitative and quantitative study of language and discourse” (SSHRC#410–07–2202). We would also like to thank Thomas Spranz-Fogasy as well as the editors for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

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Interviewees Volunteered Laughter in Employment Interviews: A Case of “Nervous” Laughter?1 Phillip Glenn Employment interviews, it is widely assumed, can make job applicants feel nervous. The stress of producing a strong positive impression, the demands of talking about oneself in strategically effective ways, the awareness that one is competing for a position, and the sense of high stakes riding on the outcome may all contribute to increased anxiety. Evidence of such assumptions appears in a joking remark a recruiter makes at the end of a real-life employment interview. As the two parties are walking toward the door, the interviewer comments that she was “sweating” during the interview and attributes this to her being “nervous” (note that in the excerpts below the interviewers are ‘JILL’ Jill or ‘SHE’ Sheila): (I, 1, 17:47) JILL: Sweating in our inte [rview  an’n  I  w ]as BET: [.hh oh nah hah hah ] JILL: nervous=No just k[idding BET: [.hh eh JILL: Um hih hih .hh

Attributing sweating and nervousness to being in an interview plays on familiar expectations. The joke rests on Jill the interviewer being the nervous one, rather than the interviewee, Betty. Laughing (like sweating) is sometimes thought of as a manifestation of nervousness. Experts warn people going into job interviews against it: “Avoid jokes and nervous laughter since you must act mature in a professional environment” (Kennell, 2011); and, “Try to avoid nervous laughter and collect your thoughts” (Stafco.com, 2012). Freud (1938) advanced the argument that laughter results from an excess of energy needing release. Although he confined his analysis to the excess

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energy created by the condensation of meaning in jokes, one might argue that nervousness creates excess energy which gets released through laughing. In Milgram’s (1963) notorious experiments, some subjects who were instructed to administer increasingly severe punishments to a victim exhibited extreme levels of “nervous tension”, manifested by (among other markers) laughter. One study found that unsuccessful job applicants were more likely to exhibit nervous behaviors, including “inappropriate” laughter (Einhorn, 1981, p. 10). These conceptions treat laughter as an involuntary outward manifestation of an inner experience of nervousness, originating in the individual (see Glenn, 2003, p. 18). They disattend the ways in which laughter is intricately bound up with interactional work, precisely placed and instrumental in managing delicate moments. For example, speakers routinely invite recipient laughter by laughing first (Jefferson, 1979). They may also invite laughter through minimal or ambiguous laugh tokens, smiling, smile voice, marked vocal or embodied features, recognizable punchlines to jokes, and idiosyncratic or poetic wording (Ford and Fox, 2010; Glenn, 2003; Haakana, 1999;). However, not all first laughs get treated as laugh invitations (Jefferson, 1984; Haakana, 1999; Glenn, 2003), and without actual laughter there can be ambiguity in what marks an action as laughable. Even with laughter, other properties of a turn may modify its laughability (Holt, Chapter 4, this volume). Romaniuk (Chapter 10, this volume) shows how news interviewee laughter marks a critical stance towards unfolding or just-completed interviewers’ questions. Among studies of selfdirected laughs, Potter and Hepburn (2010) show how laughter can signal an insufficiency with a word the speaker is producing (See also Shaw, Hepburn, and Potter, Chapter 5, this volume). In brief, treating laughs merely as mood indicators overlooks the many and varied jobs that they do in interactions. What might lead observers to label laughter as “nervous” or “inappropriate”? One quasi-experimental study using nervous laughter as an indicator of stress operationalized it as laughing “in the absence of a joke or other appropriate event” (Sideridis, 2006, p. 7). Yet research on laughter in interaction reveals a broad range of laughable actions, from jokes to troubles-telling to complaints and more. Laughs do much more than merely respond to jokes or humor. We might look to another sense of “appropriate” in terms of sequential placement— perhaps a laugh that occurs “out of place” could be a candidate nervous laugh.2 Other clues surely lie in production features of laughter itself such as its length and acoustic shape. Terms like “giggle” or “chuckle” might point to what people think of as nervous laughter, contrasted with descriptors like “hearty” and “mirthful” to refer to laughs readily accounted for by amusement or pleasure.



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However, even a giggle may not mark nervousness but rather relationship: Provine (2001, pp. 29–31) argues for the universality of the “giggle” as selfeffacing behavior signaling lower status. How might nervousness be evident in interviewees’ communication? How might nervousness become interactionally relevant at particular moments? More to the point, in what ways might interviewee laughter be taken (by participants and analysts) as indicating nervousness? Clearly, not all laughter indicates nervousness. In the example shown above, Betty laughs in response to Jill’s joke, and Jill joins in laughing. Based on their placement, shape, and referent, these laughs do not seem to be strong candidates for “nervous” laughter. To ascribe the label “nervous”’ to any particular occurrence of laughter requires evidence of participant orientation to something that reasonably fits that label. The instances analyzed below may be good candidates for nervous laughter. In a corpus of videotaped employment interviews, interviewees routinely laugh at moments when there has been no explicit laugh invitation from their interlocutors and they themselves have produced no overtly humorous materials. More to the point, they routinely laugh in the vicinity of and indexing their own delicate actions. The work that laughs do in these environments, while not unusual, may be precisely what people think of as nervous, particularly in an environment such as the employment interview where attributions of nervousness are readily available. Before returning to the notion of nervousness—decidedly a psychological, not a sequential, phenomenon—I turn to sequential analysis of these laughs: their shape, their placement, and the work they do in modifying their referents. A label like “nervous laughter” forwards an explanatory account that requires no further analysis. However, inspection of these instances reveals a precise ordering to laughs that might otherwise be thought of as merely the outward manifestation of jitters. Some interviewee laughs occur within speech and draw no noticeable response from the interviewer (note that a more detailed analysis of all of these extracts will be presented later): Extract 1 (I, 1, 1:13) BET: A:nd (.) after fou(h)r years of classes I decided it wasn’t for me

Some occur within speech, near a transition relevance place, and are followed by interviewer speaking, not laughing:

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Extract 2 (III, 1, 1:55) MIR: So: obviously it’s so um (.) prestigious and so um far reaching it seems like a (.) very large c(h)ompany= JILL: =Yeah= Extract 3 (III, 2 16:22) SAR: but yeah I don’t wanna (0.3) be an °administrative assistant in a dental offihih [ce ] JILL: [Ok ]ay

Some appear immediately following utterance completion and are met with partially overlapping, nonlaughing talk: Extract 4 (III, 1, 1:49) MIR: but then to see Barrett Jones I was like ↑O:h. eh huh [.hh JILL: [Right!= Extract 5 (III, 2, 20:22) SAR: It’s true (.) People are always gonna need °text↑books [ehh heh heh ]heh JILL: [That’s right ] JILL: We’ll ↑never get rid of the textbooks Extract 6 (II, 3, 16:50) CLAR: °Well it’s an education company [y hhh° ] JILL: [mm ↑hm ] JILL: Yep Extract 7 (I, 2, 19:27) JILL: Any other questions? (0.3) MAYA: ↑Um: no.ehhuh [hh ] JILL: [O ]kay. Extract 8 (II, 3, 7:30) CLAR °That’s good hhh° ((open mouthed smile)) JILL: Well I have some questions for you

Some interviewee laughs occur further separated from the interviewee’s own preceding talk, such that they immediately follow a nonlaughing response by the interviewer:



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Extract 9 (I, 3, 22:34) ALAN: it’s not- it’s not out of the question that [ one ] day JILL: [Yeah ] ALAN: I’ll be running the show= JILL: =Yeah ALAN: Uhhuh [uh ] JILL: [And ] if you’re running the show … . Extract 10 (III, 1, 16:13) MIR: °Good thing to think about° JILL: Yea[h] MIR: [E]hhu (0.8) JILL: Any other questions?

Recurrently, these interviewee laughs do not follow explicit laugh invitations from the interviewers. In most instances the interviewer does not laugh along. The laughs are not treated as appreciators of humor or as occasions for affiliating through shared laughter. Specifically, these laughs mark delicate actions. Interviewees produce knowledge claims or assessments of the organization or the industry. They complain about previous jobs or organizations, self-deprecate, or self-praise, and they laugh in reference to their own talk that is hearably insufficient. In these moments, laughing enables interviewees to engage in delicate or potentially problematic actions while distancing themselves from those actions. Analysis of these matters in institutional interactions invites consideration of how participants may orient to their respective roles in such moments. Asymmetries in the sequential organization (as well as the frequency distribution) of laughter in various institutional contexts reflect participant orientation to the different roles they occupy (on asymmetries and institutional roles, see Drew and Heritage, 1992, pp. 47–53). In doctor-patient interactions, asymmetries are evident not only in the distribution of laughs and responses to laugh invitations but also in the kinds of activities to which laughter contributes. Many patient laughs occur within their own delicate activities and do not strongly invite laughing along (Haakana, 2001, 2002). Doctors display caution and neutrality as part of their role enactment, and they do not laugh much. In brief, “lay person and professional use laughter in different ways” which are relevant to their interactional identities (Haakana, 1999, p. 132). Asymmetries appear evident

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too in telephone survey interviews, where interviewers use “smile voices” and “quasilaughs” to strike a middle ground between seriousness and rapport (Lavin and Maynard, 2002). In employment interviews, shared laughter routinely comes about through a laughable and first laugh invitation produced by the interviewer and second laugh from the interviewee. These laugh pairs are brief; the interviewee does not extend the laughables or laughter or topical talk, and the interviewer leads them back to the task at hand. In these ways, participants orient to asymmetries in the roles of interviewer and interviewee (Glenn, 2010). Participant orientation to asymmetrical roles in employment interviews also is evident in studies of alignment talk (Ragan and Hopper, 1981), clarifications (Button, 1992), and orienting to interviewee files (Glenn and LeBaron, 2011). These previous studies call analytic attention to details of laughs, the laughables to which they refer, the social actions of the persons producing the laughables and the laughs, and the institutional roles to which these may contribute. The present study examines brief moments in employment interviews in which the interviewee produces a self-directed laugh, rarely shared by the interviewer.

Analysis The examples presented below illustrate a range of actions accomplished by interviewees’ self-directed, volunteered laughs and by the turns in which they appear. Particular attention is given to the placement and shape of the laughs, the interviewer’s response, and the ways they orient to social dynamics of the moment.

Knowing and assessing Interviewees sometimes laugh in reference to their own talk about the organization to which they are applying or the industry. The first two extracts below (shown in abbreviated version as # 4 and # 2 above) occur in close succession as Miranda recounts learning about the organization then assesses it: Extract 4 (III, 1 1:49) JILL: .hh Um well tell me a little bit about what got you interested in us today. (0.6)



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MIR: Um: well: as soon as I saw the announcement on the {university}: listserve (0.3) I was- I’m def initely interested in publishing and [to see ] ().6) ↑basically to see Barrett JILL: [ Okay ] MIR: Jones unde- I wasn’t real familiar with um Carson but then to see Barrett Jones I was like    ↑O:h. eh huh [.hh JILL: [Right! ((smiling))=

In response to Jill’s prompt, Miranda begins a story about her reaction upon noticing an announcement for jobs with this organization. She casts herself as interested in publishing, unaware of the name of the parent company (“Carson”) but aware of the reputation of one of its publishing imprints (“Barrett Jones”). She quotes herself producing an “oh” at the moment of recognizing the connection between the two names. This freestanding “oh” (see Heritage, 1984b) features a rising-falling pitch contour similar to those described by Local (1996) that indicate surprise. While producing this “oh” she tilts her head back with face upward, raising her eyebrows. Through these features—the freestanding “oh”, the rising-falling intonational contour, and the raised eyebrows—she performs herself as having been pleasantly surprised upon realizing that Barrett Jones representatives would be interviewing on campus. Gazing at Jill, she produces two laugh particles and an inbreath. Jill’s response (“right”) marks her as already-informed while her smile affiliates with the affective display evident in Miranda’s story. It does not forward Miranda’s laughter or topic. Miranda’s laughter occurs immediately following her performed state of pleasant surprise. At least two features of the story might warrant uptake. One is her expressed enthusiasm for the imprint. The other is her having been uninformed. This blend of knowledge and assessment gets marked with laughter. Immediately following, another instance of interviewee-volunteered laughter occurs: Extract 2 (III, 1, 1:55) MIR: =Definitely= JILL: =Yeah MIR: So: obviously it’s so um (.) prestigious and so um far reaching it seems like a (.) very large    c(h)ompany= JILL: =Yeah=

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MIR: =Um but I was just automatically interested. JILL: Oh good! So tell me why ↑publishing.

Miranda nonlaughingly reinforces her positive stance (“definitely”). Jill produces a minimal agreement. Miranda’s adverb “obviously” projects that what is to come is something that anyone would know (and perhaps shows uptake on Jill’s preceding responses). She states two positive attributes of the organization: “prestigious” and “far reaching”. The phrase “it seems like” downgrades certainty as she offers another characterization. There is a within-speech laugh particle in “c(h)ompany”. Jill agrees minimally with this assessment. Miranda shifts to past tense to assert that she was “automatically” interested. Jill assesses this response, treating Miranda’s turn as complete, and initiates a next first pair part question. Miranda’s single laugh particle occurs within speech. Jill speaks without laughing, deleting the relevance of further laughter. Miranda returns to accounting for her interest in the position. In assessing the company—Jill’s company—Miranda potentially enters delicate territory. Occurring where it does, the brief laugh particle marks her delicate, tentatively-stated knowledge claim, itself embedded within a delicate activity of reporting and accounting for having been under informed. A third example shows an interviewee claiming knowledge, this time about the industry. This too turns out to be a delicate activity in which epistemic rights (Heritage and Raymond, 2005) get negotiated and laughing marks the delicacy. Extract 5 (III, 2, 20:22) JILL:  Um so ↑there’s just a lot of exciting things that are happening. And the stability’s big (.) you know especially in this market u:m so (0.5) SAR: It’s true (.) People are always gonna need SAR: °£text↑books£ [ehh heh heh ]heh JILL: [That’s right ] ((smiling)) JILL: We’ll ↑never get rid of the textbooks

In a lengthy turn, Jill has described shrinkage in the publishing industry but ends with a more positive assessment that “exciting things” are happening. She notes the importance of “stability” in an organization. The stand-alone “so-” projects an upshot that does not follow (Raymond, 2004, p. 189). Following a pause, Sara takes the floor to align with this opinion while displaying her own independent stance which supports the notion of stability. The word “°£text↑books£” is done in a whisper and a high register, with smile voice. She follows it with four particles of laughter. In overlap with the first laugh particle, Jill agrees; smiling,



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she reformulates Sara’s opinion, preserving its extreme nature while shifting its stance from consumers (“people”) to producers (“we’ll”). Sara’s laugh comes at the end of a turn in which her opinion claims knowledge about the publishing industry, not as an insider but from a consumer’s perspective. It confirms what Jill has said while staking out an independent source of expertise. Its laughability may derive in part from the informal wording and the extreme nature of the formulation. Jill does not treat this as an occasion for shared laughter; rather, she aligns with the opinion (through similarly informal wording and a smile) while implicitly marking prior knowledge of it. Sara has not informed her of anything new but has displayed independent knowledge of her industry. In this and other examples, interviewees claim to know something or assess something about the organization or the industry. They laugh while doing so. The interviewer accepts these but does not align with their laughability. They align in treating this as a moment of marking the delicacy of the action to which the laughter points. Next we will see one that goes off the rails. Excerpt 6 (II, 3, 16:50) JILL: and then we have training .hh u:m technology training as well as professional skills training that helps you: ­not so much in your jo:b, yes in your job but like what are you gonna take with you if you ever leave with us like more skills °an [d   stu ]ff.° CLAR: [uh huh ] (0.5) CLAR:  (    ) °well it’s an education company [huh° ] JILL: [mm ↑hm ] JILL: ((head nod)) Yep (2.2) JILL: Well next steps for us just to let you know like what’s

Jill has taken a lengthy turn describing employee benefits, culminating in the passage shown which concerns opportunities for continuing education and training. Following a brief silence, Clarita says something (indecipherable), produces a “well” which projects nonalignment, then characterizes the publishing organization as an “education company”. This carries two possible interpretations: a company that publishes educational books and one that provides education for its employees. The implication is that doing the former

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explains, perhaps even necessitates, engaging in the latter.3 In this way, it may frame what Jill was describing not as voluntarily-provided benefits that should be appreciated, but as what an education company is supposed to provide. A gesture with her right arm, out and up, reinforces this reading—a gloss of it might be, “What would you expect?” She appends a single syllable of laughter, post-utterance. In overlap Jill provides a continuer that acknowledges the claim about the company. She follows this with an agreement token. Produced on its own, without an accompanying upgrade which routinely marks agreement with an assessment (Pomerantz, 1984), this closed-mouth “yep” comes across as nonaligning and topic terminal. She does not laugh or smile. After a silence, Jill opens up the closing part of the interview. Clarita’s formulation claims understanding about Jill’s company. By providing what is hearable as a counter-positional reformulation, stating the obvious rather than expressing appreciation, it also ambiguously assesses what Jill has been telling her. Jill does not align in affect or stance but minimally agrees with the formulation. Clarita has implicitly asserted rights to formulate and possibly assess Jill’s organization. Her post-utterance laugh particle works on this problematic moment.

Complaining and boasting: Talking about prior jobs and oneself Interviewees laugh when talking about themselves. The laughs occur at precise locations: near the end of TCUs in which their talk can be heard as complaining, self-deprecating, or boasting. These are potentially delicate moments, opportunities to present themselves as qualified and competent yet risking being heard as inappropriately critical or self-praising. In response to Jill asking what is most important to her in a position, Sara characterizes her own likes and dislikes, rooted in experiences from previous jobs. She has already stated the desire for a position using her education and skills. Extract 3 (III, 2 16:22) SAR: Um I mean I’m not- picky about it I- I photocopy I file I did all that other stuff (.) at my other job .hh um but yeah I don’t wanna (0.3) be an °administrative assistant in a  dental offihihi [ce ] JILL: [Ok ]ay SAR: Um second would probably be (.5) benefits and salary



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As the transcribed excerpt begins, her self-description includes a disclaimer and activities she has done (photocopying and filing) that would prove she is not “picky”. Following the contrastive conjunction “but”, she formulates what she does not want (which, arguably, is indeed a way of being “picky”). The last word “offihihi[ce]” contains two laugh syllables. Jill disattends the laugh particles but provides serious uptake on this self-report. Sara elaborates no further but continues her extended turn to start talking about a next desired feature. In describing what she is looking for, Sara has introduced a potentially snarky, dismissive assessment of holding a clerical position in a business outside of her chosen field. Laughing mitigates the negative force of this dismissive formulation. As applicants talk about themselves, they risk overselling or underselling the self. We can see examples of each, accompanied by small, volunteered laughs. Here is Betty telling a bit of her story: Extract 1 (I, 1 1:13) JILL: Um and so what ma:de you decide that you that You wanted to go into publishing=and I hope you don’t mind I’m just gonna take some note[s while we’re tal]king BET: [.hh  O h ↑sure] Yeah=yeah Um: .mt well: I thought I wanted tuh: go into uh T V broadcasting. JILL: Okay? BET:  A:nd (.) after fou(h)r years of classes I decided it wasn’t for me=I .hh I really enjoyed reading but I just didn’t want to (.2) write the news.

Jill begins a question; before completing it, she announces that she is taking notes and asks for Betty’s consent—which Betty readily provides. Keeping the floor, Betty begins a second pair part, with “I thought” projecting an upcoming realization and then reversal (see Jefferson, 2004b). Jill accepts this and Betty continues. A laugh particle occurs within the word “fou(h)r” as Betty tells of realizing that she did not want what she had majored in. The laugh particle appears precisely at the word that most marks the trouble in this narrative. A standard cultural script involves students settling relatively early in their college careers on a major that leads to a career path. To abandon a path after four

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years is hearably to have misspent a significant portion of one’s life, time, and education. The narrative creates an incongruity between the act of realizing and her taking so long to do so. Betty recounts this trouble spot in her autobiography; by not laughing along, Jill affiliates with her (Jefferson, 1984). It is potentially a delicate matter to self-deprecate in an interaction overtly intended to create a positive impression, and as this example shows interviewees sometimes discuss potential deficits in their histories. It can also be a delicate matter to praise oneself or overdo assertions of confidence. The next excerpt picks up during a lengthy, multi-unit turn by Jill devoted to, among other things, formulating different job possibilities within her organization. She suggests (hypothetically) Alan’s going into development as an alternative to sales. She follows this with suggesting that he might want to become an editorial director “some day”. On the phrase “manage a whole list” she opens her arms expansively and gazes at Alan with a smile: it is an invitation for him to dream big. Excerpt 9 (I, 3, 22:34) JILL: and if you ever wanted to move up quickly within the company you could always go the development route where you did- don’t need to go into outside sales .hh or if you did wanna become like an editorial director some day and really like [ just manage a whole list. ] [((arms open wide, smiling)) ] ALAN: W’you know I- I noticed that the um one a the one a the presidents: at Carson Ed did graduate UCC Campus [with an A ]merican Studies degree JILL: [ Mm hm↑ ] ALAN: [ so: ] it’s not- it’s ↑not out of the question JILL: [ Mhm↑ ] ALAN: question that [ one ] day I’ll be running JILL: [Yeah ] ALAN: the show= JILL: =Yeah ALAN:  Uhhuh [uh ] JILL: [And ] if you’re running the show you need to have sales experience

Alan responds by reporting having noticed that an executive with the company graduated from the same university and with the same degree he did. Jill



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produces two continuers. Drawing a comparison, he projects that in the future he too could be “‘running the show”. Jill produces two tokens of minimal agreement “yeah”. The first arrives early, not at a possible completion point in his talk (but perhaps projecting where it is going). The second “yeah” with no upgrade from the first accepts but does not appreciate Alan’s claim. Alan laughs, two brief syllables. Jill does not laugh along, but in overlap latches onto and appropriates his fantasy to put in a plug for him going into sales. By this she regains the floor to continue an extended action of portraying paths for him to follow in the organization. So: Alan has interjected a statement that, among other things, shows that he has done his homework (researched executives of the company) and expresses extreme self-confidence. Jill has responded minimally and with mild impatience (shown by the two pairs of continuers, with the first “yeah” placed prematurely). Alan’s laughs invite a reframing of his statement, after Jill’s serious and discouraging response. He presents an extremely positive self-assessment: she has proposed that he might someday “manage a whole list”; he has responded that he might one day be “running the show”. Furthermore, Jill’s prior turn proposed that he consider going into sales; his misaligned response leaps to a fantasy of running the company. In her next turn she pursues suggesting that he go into sales. In brief, Alan’s laughs mark a moment of delicacy: a possibly overbuilt expression of confidence, misaligned with her proposal, evoking minimal enthusiasm. Thus we see laughter operating post-hoc on potential interactional trouble.

Marking insufficiency of one’s own talk Interviewees will laugh following sequence-terminal or topic-terminal second pair parts and pauses, at moments when they hearably have “nothing more to say”. Laughing orients to the inadequacy of their own (absence of) a response. In the example that follows, Jill has completed a lengthy second pair part answer to a question, and Maya has thanked her. Exceprt 7 (I, 2, 19:27) JILL: Awesome. No problem. Any other questions? (0.3) MAYA:  ↑Um: no. ehhuh[hh] JILL: [O ]kay. JILL: ·hh Um if you do have other questions or …

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Jill’s question gives Maya another opportunity to ask a question.4 Maya offers a one-word, type-conforming response (Raymond, 2003). The pause and filler are characteristic of a dispreferred turn shape (Pomerantz, 1984); however, where an account might occur, Maya laughs, two syllables, post utterance. Furthermore, the pause projects a longer response, and perhaps makes the firm “no” delicate. In overlap and disattending the laughs, Jill accepts the “no” and initiates pre-closing actions. The laugh occurs right in the place where something is missing. It is potentially a delicate moment. The interviewee must show initiative and be ready to ask questions, while remaining sensitive to local cues and deferential to the interviewer’s hegemony as leader of the interaction. She has been asked if there are more questions, but contextual cues suggest that Jill is ready to move to closing. Maya’s “no” answer is type-conforming but abrupt. The laughter seeks to mitigate its potential inadequacy as a response.5 This is consistent with prior research showing how laughter can signal an insufficiency with a word the speaker is producing (Potter and Hepburn, 2010; Shaw, Hepburn, and Potter, Chapter 5, this volume). The next two examples show similar sequences in which interviewee laughs operate on their own possibly inadequate responses. In the first, Jill has described a recent reorganization and consolidation of company divisions, one consequence of which is enabling authors to purchase discounted products across divisions. She reaches possible completion, marked by a summary formulation of a company goal (note the “we” casting her as an institutional representative; Drew and Heritage, 1992, p. 30): Excerpt 8 (II, 3, 7:30) JILL: =you know professors can get discounts from ET! You know, the Economic ­News (.) the Capitalist .hh so it kind of all tries to- you know- we’re trying to bring it all together. CLAR: Oh okay (1.2) CLAR °That’s good hhh° ((open mouthed smile)) JILL: Well I have some questions for you [I’ll take you off of the ] hot seat but very CLAR:  [Eh heh heh heh heh . hh ] JILL: good questions I appreciate those .hh um ↑Tell me a little bit about what got you …



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Clarita responds briefly with a newsmark and acceptance. A substantial pause (Line 2) follows. Jill has invited questions; Clarita has asked one, gotten an answer, asked another, and now gotten an answer. The location suggests that it is Clarita’s move, to ask another question or to close down this portion of the interview. Clarita quietly produces a positive assessment followed by an exhaled laugh particle (“°That’s good hhh°”). Her open-mouthed smiling face confirms that she is laughing. Jill self-selects to announce that she has questions. The nonaligning “well” and the contrasting pronouns (I and you) imply an absence of questions from Clarita (e.g. “If you don’t have questions for me, I have some for you”). Clarita looks down and laughs again, this time a stream of five particles. Jill’s remark on the “hot seat” orients to the awkward moment that just occurred. The idiom “hot seat” suggests a position of pressure and scrutiny; as such, it may offer an implicit account for Clarita’s absence of a next action. Clarita might relevantly have provided some kind of assessment of what Jill told her; she might have produced a sequence-closing third turn. Initially she does the latter. The “that’s good” may do the former belatedly. Clarita smiles and laughs; she waits for Jill to move them along. The laughs occur precisely at this delicate moment. A similar example shows the interviewee Miranda laughing precisely following a possibly insufficient response to a suggestion by the interviewer. The issue concerns the possibility of going into “sales”: Excerpt 10 (III, 1, 16:13) JILL: Um o:r if you’re interested in sales you’ve Thought about it overnight you’re like ↑you know: I really wanna check that path out. Then we might be able to do some interviewing for you now, (0.6) [  be ]cause in MIR: O[kay ] JILL: August before the sales meeting that’s when we wanna hire everyone [because ] that’s when MIR: [°Right° ] JILL: you’ll get your training. MIR: °Okay° (1.1) MIR: °Okay° (0.2) MIR: °Good thing to think about° JILL: Yea[h]

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MIR:  [E]hhu (0.8) JILL: Any other questions?

Jill informs Miranda that if she is interested in a sales position there might be a position available now (otherwise, she will have to wait a few months), followed by an account. Her turn seems sequentially ambiguous: as an act of informing, it calls for a newsmark or acknowledgment; as an offer, it calls for acceptance, refusal, or at least an expression of interest from Miranda. Orienting to it as the former, Miranda accepts with a quiet “°Okay°”, which she repeats after a pause. Another brief pause occurs; Jill appears to be waiting. Miranda characterizes what she just heard as something “good” to “think about”, which suggests inaction (“thinking” rather than “doing”) and shows resistance to this suggestion. Jill agrees minimally, and Miranda follows closely with a freestanding laugh particle. There is another pause—Jill does not laugh or respond to the laugh—and Jill initiates a new, pre-closing action. Here is another delicate, awkward moment: Miranda responds less than enthusiastically about pursuing a job in sales. Her reluctance to embrace this suggestion potentially undermines impressions of eagerness for employment with this company. The laugh particle treats “good thing to think about” as laughable, orienting to its possible inadequacy or delayed production. In both of these instances, interviewees respond to information from the interviewer with weak “okay” responses; there is a pause; interviewees produce assessments, also somewhat weak and disengaged; and laughter follows closely, marking the awkward moment and signaling the closing down of an activity.

Discussion In all of these cases, interviewees volunteer laughter in reference to their own talkbased actions. The laughs mark their stance toward the talk they are producing. They occur at delicate moments, in which interviewees must manage multiple and sometimes competing strategic challenges. Interviewees are called upon to talk about the organization to which they have applied and the industry in which it operates. Their talk must show knowledge and awareness, and informing and assessing are ways to do this. However, claiming knowledge and offering opinions in the “world” of one’s interlocutor require negotiating epistemic rights and authority (Heritage and Raymond, 2005). Such matters become particularly



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delicate when the interlocutor is potentially judging one’s competence, with such competence demonstrated in these very practices. Interviewees are also called upon to talk about their own lessons learned, insights, and preferences, often located in stories about and assessments of previous jobs and employers. They must describe what they have learned and experienced in ways that position them as ready for this company—e.g. knowledgeable and aware—features potentially demonstrated through characterizing and assessing. Yet such talk carries the risk of being treated as complaining, unduly self-deprecating, or excessively self-praising. Interviewees must be ready to inhabit the turn space the interviewers allocate to them: to ask questions when invited to do so and respond appropriately to what the interviewers might say. In such moments, they must balance their temporary rights to lead with the primary rights of interviewers, and they must balance expressing their preferences with expressing enthusiasm for the interviewer’s suggestions. These are delicate moments, and they are moments when interviewees laugh. The laughs do not delete the sequential “seriousness” of the actions, but they modify the displayed stance toward those actions. In this way their laughter demonstrates interviewees carefully monitoring the talk, orienting to strategic considerations evident in the role of job interviewee. These laughs occur within speech near transition-relevance places, immediately post-utterance completion, or a short distance removed, after the interviewer has briefly responded. Their placements are consistent with what Jefferson (1979) described for laugh invitations. Jefferson’s analysis and examples depict a sharp distinction between within-speech and post-utterance sequential locations. Yet a number of instances here blur that distinction. Laughs occur between words but within turn constructional units; they occur within speech but in the final word or even final syllable of a unit; they begin with extra breath built onto the last syllable; or they occur in combinations. Rather than either/or, they reveal a progression of opportunities for laughing. The laughs examined here treat as laughable the interviewees’ own actions. Laughs derive meaning indexically; most commonly their referent is concurrent or immediately preceding. Yet some of these laughs occur at some remove from the interviewee’s own talk, placed immediately following an interviewer’s response such as “yeah” (in Extract 9). The participants seem to treat both the laugh and the “yeah” as responding to the preceding, overdone, laughable boast (“one day I’ll be running the show”). Alan’s laughter indexes his own talk, but it also indexes his own talk responded to in the way Jill responds to it. Participants orient to a distinction between laughs pointing to one’s own talk and those pointing to the other party’s talk. The issue is not whether the topic is

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of interviewer’s or interviewee’s making. The issue is what stands as the referent of the laugh. The placement of the laugh helps shape this. Post-utterance, however brief the utterance, makes it more likely self-directed. This stands alongside (and perhaps transcends) the volunteered-invited distinction first described in Jefferson (1979).

Nervous laughter reconsidered I began this chapter considering the lay notion of “nervous laughter” and whether analyzable features such as sounds, placement, and sequential environment might make some laughs more readily attributable to a presumed inner state like nervousness. The instances shown here might be good candidates for what people would consider as nervous laughs. Let’s revisit one example for the possibility of such clues. Recall that the interviewer is encouraging Miranda to go into sales: Extract 10 (III, 1, 16:13) JILL: Um o:r if you’re interested in sales you’ve Thought about it overnight you’re like ↑you know: I really wanna check that path out. Then we might be able to do some interviewing for you now, (0.6) [ be ]cause in MIR: O[kay ] JILL: August before the sales meeting that’s when we wanna hire everyone [because ] that’s when MIR: [°Right° ] JILL: you’ll get your training. MIR: °Okay° (1.1) MIR: °Okay° (0.2) MIR: °Good thing to think about° JILL: Yea [h] MIR:  [E]hhu (0.8) JILL: Any other questions?

Is this a nervous laugh? It points to Miranda’s own preceding talk. It appears slightly delayed post-utterance but still hearably linked to its referent. It is



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brief and gets disattended by the recipient. Whatever Miranda may have been “feeling” at that moment, there is a compelling case that the laugh, placed where it is, orients to the delicacy and possible inadequacy of her response to Jill’s suggestion to go into sales. That job, marking her delicate action, may make the laughter hearable as nervous. Such a hearing may be furthered by the asymmetry of the moment: that the interviewee performs such work on her talk, while the other does not.6 Another example of self-directed, volunteered interviewee laughter, not previously analyzed, presents even stronger evidence in that the interviewee characterizes herself as “nervous” just before laughing: Extract 11 (V, 2, 5:38) MAR: ↑first community was like a (0.2) middle aged (0.3) you know .hh um or early (.) thirties (.) like type (0.2) families and then the um next community I was put in was uhh= SHE: =Mhh Tha(h)t’s £funny you say£ that= middle age are(early) £thirtyh£ °hih hih° MAR: I’m nervous hih tuh [↑heuuhh which is so rare SHE: [((r. arm moving down))

Describing experiences to illustrate some of her positive qualities, Marissa selfrepairs a reference from “middle aged” to “early thirties” families. She stops talking as the interviewer (Sheila) laughs and assesses as “funny” her equating of middle age with early thirties. Marissa does not share Sheila’s laughter but instead accounts that she is “nervous”. She follows this with three particles of laughter, the third ascending in pitch, and asserts that such nervousness is rare for her. Sheila moves her arm and hand downward, in a reassuring gesture (i.e. “it’s nothing”). Moments later, she tells Marissa to “relax”. Marissa’s “I’m nervous” accounts for what gets treated as an error (that people in their early 30s are middle-aged). She orients to Sheila’s laughter as at her, not with her (Glenn, 2003); she does not join in laughing and she provides a po-faced response (Drew, 1987). Her laughter frames her own account as laughable. In this way, it is consistent with other examples shown in this article: the interviewee produces self-oriented laughter, marking a delicate moment. This would seem to be a good candidate case of nervous laughter. Its high pitch warrants the label “giggle”. It follows an error. She says she is nervous. Sheila treats her as nervous by offering a calming gesture and a directive to “relax”. The laughter acts as one of several ways in this moment that Marissa does “being nervous”.

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Thus the term “nervous laughter” may be to some extent a layperson’s gloss of exactly the kinds of laughs described here: laughs that work on one’s own actions in delicate environments and that are unlikely to be reciprocated. It may also index laughs that do not accompany humor but rather help manage interactionally delicate moments. In light of these considerations, “nervous laughter” may be a useful layperson’s category, but it does not stand up well for social scientific research trying to account for human conduct. Supposed “internal” emotions cannot stand as sufficient accounts for communicative behavior, which is always rooted in and oriented to interaction. Whatever persons may be thinking or feeling, through laughing they enact a wide range of social actions and stances. “Nervous” is an attribution people make of themselves and each other, based on situation, message, and context. It is a social construction, reflecting Gergen’s (1991, p. 6) insight that “without the language of the self—of our internal states, processes, and characteristics— social life would be virtually unrecognizable”. Useful as it may be in everyday talk, such language encourages an unduly narrow view of human action and behavior as (merely) reflecting internal states, which remain mysterious. The analysis here puts communication front and center. Interviewees laugh at precise moments. They laugh when showing their knowledge and opinions, they laugh when they are assessing themselves, and they laugh when their talk noticeably fails to produce what is relevant at a given moment. The interviewers don’t laugh along, but treat these as what they are—stance markers that create a bit of distance between the interviewee and her own talk. Whether such moments are prompted by nervousness or some (or many ) other ways of feeling, we can learn much by appreciating them on their own terms, as small but vital parts of the interaction order.

Notes 1 My thanks to Liz Holt and Rebecca Clift for close reading and helpful suggestions on this paper. 2 Similarly, Schegloff (1993, p. 104) notes that inappropriately-placed laughter has sometimes been cited for its “psychiatrically diagnostic import” or employed by actors to show insanity. 3 It may also manage a delicate response to an upshot of Jill’s information: that they expect their employees to move on. This could be delicate in that expressing too



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much enthusiasm at this news might be readable as not fully committed to the company. 4 However, this wording may discourage rather than encourage more questions. See Heritage, et al., 2007, on what happens when doctors ask patients if there is “something else” rather than “anything else” they would like to bring up. 5 It is also possible her stopping orients to her having already asked many (or enough) questions. In fact, a scan of the interview reveals that she asked two questions. It is possible that two are “enough” for these participants. Even so, her exit strategy without account comes across awkwardly, marked with laughter. 6 Additional research could investigate whether interviewees produce the types of laughs described in this paper much more frequently than do interviewers. If so, that might provide additional evidence that these laughs fit particularly closely with the interviewee role, perhaps even with attributions of “nervousness”.

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Index Adelswärd, V. 7, 19, 92, 103, 104 adjacency pair 11–14, 138 affiliation/disaffiliation 16–17, 19, 21, 21–2n. 3, 103, 122, 131–3, 151, 161–3, 168, 170–2, 176, 179–83, 195, 199, 201–19, 249, 259 alignment/non-alignment 16–17, 21–2n. 3, 131, 161–3, 165, 175, 176, 182, 199 Alter, K. 6 Arminen, I. 15–16 Asperger syndrome 137 aspiration 31–2, 40 asymmetry 18–19, 108, 126, 259 Auburn, T. 131–2 autistism 19–20, 131–2, 135–59 Bachorowski, J. A. 19, 136 Bateson, G. 70 Bysouth, D. 23 Canada 21, 237–54 Clark, T. 16 classroom interaction 132–3, 185–99 Clayman, S. E. 203, 205 Clift, R. 221 complaints 11, 19, 103, 221, 224–36, 264 context 17 conversation analysis (CA) 3–4, 17–18 and its focus on social action 3 Dailey-O’Cain, J. 222 Damico, J. S. 20 Darwin, C. J. 6 delicate/problematic moments 15–16, 19, 20, 21, 26, 65–7, 70, 71, 84, 86, 89, 104, 107, 131–2, 161, 162, 165, 171–2, 175, 180, 185–7, 195, 199, 221–2, 223, 253, 259, 262–74 dementia 20 Dietrich, S. 6 doctor/patient interaction 18–19, 21, 107–29, 132, 161–83, 259

Down’s syndrome 20, 136 Drew, P. 16, 17, 145, 208, 235 Dunbar, R. I. M. 20 Edwards, D. 92, 103, 232 embodiment 41, 47–51, 175 employment interviews 19, 222, 255–75 epistemics 185, 186–7, 189, 190–9, 226, 262, 270 face/face-threats 108, 133, 183, 185, 187, 189, 191, 193, 196, 198, 218 Fatigante, M. 132 focus groups 19 Ford, C. E. 41 Fox, B. A. 41 Freud, S. 255–6 Gavioli, L. 7 gaze 44, 143, 150, 151, 157, 158, 159, 176, 181–3 gender 20, 218, 221, 223, 237 Gergen, K. J. 274 Germany 21, 237–54 Glenn, P. 8, 15, 16, 17, 19, 25, 70–1, 84, 103, 135, 143, 162, 185, 203 Goffman, E. 40 Greatbatch, D. 16 Haakana, M. 13, 15, 16, 19, 92, 103, 104, 107 Halonen, M. 15–16 Hepburn, A. 5, 16, 23, 26, 66, 92–3, 104, 162, 205, 240, 241, 256 Heritage, J. 95, 97, 170, 226 Holt, E. 14, 17, 65, 66, 194, 204, 240 Hudenko, W. J. 19, 136 humor 2, 3, 25, 69, 91, 201–2, 204–5, 224, 259 identity 5, 17–21, 221–2, 237–53 ethnic 21, 223,

294 Index cultural 21, 237 national 21, 237 place 238 sequential/interactional 20–1, 223, 238 Ikeda, K. 23 impropriety 17 institutional setting 17–21 insufficiency 16, 37, 93, 244, 256, 267–70 interpolated particle of aspiration (IPA) 5, 16, 92–3, 205, 240, 241, 244 intimacy 5, 15, 17, 183 Italy, 163 Jacknick, C. 132–4 Jefferson, G. 4, 11–13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 25, 37, 52, 82, 91, 92, 103, 162, 223, 239, 271 jokes 19, 69, 92, 139–44, 162, 250 Kangasharju, H.19 Kovarsky, D.19 laughable 5, 7–14, 15, 21, 41, 56, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 83, 107, 131, 143, 144, 151, 158, 198, 203, 204, 209, 239, 253, 256, 260, 271, 273 laughing at 16, 113, 162, 171–2, 203, 249–50, 253, 273 laughing with 162, 171, 203, 250, 253, 273 laughter breathy 26 delayed 56–63 equivocal 6, 17, first position 8 “flooding out” 25, 26, 37 inviting 7, 8, 9, 11–14, 82, 138–44, 162, 186, 205 modulating 7, 37, 66, 91, 93, 95–105, 132, 138, 150, 247 “nervous” 20, 222, 255–60, 272–4 other-initiated 244, 245–7, 253 particles of 5, 26, 34–6 physical, psychological benefits of 2 post-completion 6–7, 36–7, 91, 93, 95–105, 132, 143, 204, 271 recipient/response 41–51, 77–80 and its referent 3, 8–9, 239 second position 8 self-initiated 162, 240–2, 247, 253

shared/reciprocal 15, 40, 82, 105, 186, 198, 247–50 stepped-up 52–6 in terminal position 6–7 third position 8 troubles-resistant 15 turn-initial 41–4, 51–63 voiced/unvoiced 136–7 volunteered 8, 51, 78, 110, 205, 222, 255–74 Lavin, D. 6, 19, Levinson, S. C. 40 Liebscher, G. 222 Markaki, V. 21 Maynard, D. 6, 19 meetings 19 Mehu, M. 20 Merlino, S. 21 Mexico 109 Milgram, S. 256 mitigation 16, 131, 193, 230, 252 Moerman, M. 108 Mondada, L. 21 Müller, N. 20 multimodality 41, 51, 63, 127, 135–6, 138, 175 Murray, A. 19 news interviews 133, 201–20 Nikko, T. 19 non-seriousness 7, 65, 66, 67, 69–74, 80–9, 217 Oloff, F. 21 Orletti, F. 132 Osvaldsson, K. 15, 19 participation framework, 40 pitch 30–1, 43, 54, 95, 97, 261, 273 “po-faced” 208, 217 Pollock, C. 131–2 posture 41, 63, 165, 175, 176 Potter, J. 5, 16, 26, 66, 92–3, 104, 162, 205, 240, 256 Provine, R. 257 rapport 17, 260 Raymond, G. 95, 97, 226

Index Reddy, V. 20, 136–7, 145 reported speech 193, 221, 223–6 resisting 16, 20, Robinson, J. D. 19 role 17–21 Romaniuk, T. 133 Rossano, F. 14 Sacks, H. 7, 17, 27, 52, 65, 70, 71, 239, 250 Schegloff, E. A. 7, 17, 52, 69, 85–8, 91, 93, 143, 175, 229, 235, 238, 239 Schenkein, J. 7, 162 Schiemer, C. 19 Schnurr, S. 92 self-deprecation 195, 259, 264, 271 self-praise 259, 264, 271 seriousness 65, 71, 74–5, 76–7, 80–9, 92, 109–10, 205–9, 216–19, 271 Shaw, C, 66 smiling 6, 19, 41, 143, 161–3, 168, 172–83, 180, 181, 182–3, 198 smile voice 6, 168, 176, 197, 235, 260 stance 7, 21, 103–4, 143, 157 Sterr, A. 6 Stivers, T. 14, 21–2n. 3, 161–2, 170 Stone, W. 19, 136 Szameitat, A. J. 6

295

Szameitat, D. P. 6 teasing 16, 17, 145–50, 159 telephone survey interviews 19 Ticca, A. C. 66 time-out 132, 172, 183, 189 Todt, D. 19 topic termination 194, 198 transcribing 4, 23, 92, 94–5 troubles-telling 26, 91, 92, 103, 162, 223 Varney, S. 23 Vaughan, A. 20, 136–7 Vettin, J. 19 Vöge, M. 19 volume 30, 40, 46, 51, 52, 54, 91, 170, 171, 197, Walker, T. 235 Watson, R. 170 West, C. 18–19 Wildgruber, D. 6 Wilkinson, R. 92, 104 Williams, E. 20, 136–7 Wilson, B. T. 20 Zayts, O. 92