Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 15:1 (2005) ► pp.89–107

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

Metalinguistic activity, humor and social competence in classroom discourse

Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 March 2005
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.15.1.04pov
This paper examines the role that humor plays during an episode of classroom interaction. Using concepts derived from the ethnography of communication and interactional sociolinguistics, it analyzes activity during a metalinguistic event in a kindergarten classroom and argues that verbal humor, in itself a form of metalinguistic activity, plays a crucial role in the modulation of children’s face demands. The analysis also shows how humor is the result of the shared history of participants. The findings highlight the importance of considering emergent and improvised goals during classroom discourse that go beyond the prescribed curriculum.
References (41)
Ashkenazi, O., & D. Ravid (1998) Children’s understanding of linguistic humour: An aspect of metalinguistic awareness. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/Current Psychology of Cognition 17.2: 367-387.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, R. (1977) Verbal art as performance. Prospect Heights: Waveland PressGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1986) Story, performance, and event: Contextual studies of oral narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beemam, W.O. (1999) Humor. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9.1-2: 103-106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borko, H., & R. Putnam (1996) Learning to teach. In D. Berliner & R. Calfee (eds.), Handbook of educational psychology. New York: Macmillan, pp. 673-708.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, P., & S. Levinson (1987) Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cazden, C. (1988) Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth: Heinemann.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1992) Whole language plus: Essays on literacy in the United States and New Zealand. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corsaro, W. (1994) Discussion, debate and friendship processes: Peer discourse in U.S. and Italian nursery schools. Sociology of Education 67.1: 1-26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dorr-Bremme, D. (1990) Contextualization cues in the classroom: Discourse regulation and social control functions. Language in Society 191: 379-402.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ely, R., & A. McCabe (1994) The language play of kindergarten children. First language 141: 19-35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erickson, F. (1982) Classroom discourse as improvisation: Relationship between academic task structure and social participation structure in lessons. In L.C. Wilkinson (ed.), Communicating in the classroom. New York: Academic Press, pp. 153-181.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1967) Interaction ritual. Garden City: Doubleday.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1981) Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gombert, J. (1992) Metalinguistic development. New York: Harvester/Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. (1998) Games of stance: Conflict and footing in hopscotch. In S. Hoyle & C. Temple (eds.), Kids talk: Strategic language use in later childhood.New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 23-46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. (1992) Contextualization and understanding. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 229-252.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1974) Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kantor, R; J. Green, M. Bradley, & L. Lin (1992) The construction of schooled discourse repertories: An interactional sociolinguistic perspective on learning to talk in preschool. Linguistics and Education 41: 131-172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992) Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1979) Speech play and verbal art. In B. Sutton-Smith (ed.), Play and learning. New York: Gardner Press, pp. 219-238.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1998) Irony, quotation and other forms of staged intertextuality: Double or contrastive perspectivation in conversation. InList: Interaction and Linguistic Structures 51 ([URL]).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1999) Coherent keying in conversational humour: Contextualising joint fictionalisation. In W. Bublitz, U. Lenk & E. Ventola (eds.), Coherence in spoken and written discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 125-150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McDermott, R. (1977) Social relations as contexts for learning in school. Harvard Educational Review 471: 198-213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mehan, H. (1978) Structuring school structure. Harvard educational review 481: 32-64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Monfort, M., & A. Juárez (1996) El niño que habla: El lenguaje oral en el preescolar, 6ª edición. Madrid: CEPE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nation, K., & M. Snowling (2000) Factors influencing syntactic awareness skills in normal readers and poor comprehenders. Applied Psycholinguistics 211: 229-241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newman, D; P. Griffin, & M. Cole (1989) The construction zone: Working for cognitive change in school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Osherson, D., & E. Markman (1975) Language and the ability to evaluate contradictions and tautologies. Cognition 31: 213-226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Phillips. S. (1972) Participant structures and communicative competence: Warm Spring children in community and classroom. In C. Cazden, V. John & D. Hymes (eds.), Functions of language in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 370-394.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1984) La representación del mundo en el niño, 6 edición. Madrid: Morata.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poveda, D. (2001) La ronda in a Spanish kindergarten classroom with a cross-cultural comparison to sharing-time in the U.S.A. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 32.3: 301-325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rockwell, E. (1999) Recovering history in the study of schooling: From the longue durée to everyday coconstruction. Human Development 42.3: 113-128. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rohl, M., & C. Pratt (1995) Phonological awareness, verbal working memory and the acquisition of literacy. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 71: 327-360. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1989) An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 337-357. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sebastián, M., & A. Maldonado (1998) La reflexión metalingüística: Algunas cuestiones teóricas y aplicadas. Estudios de Psicología 601: 79-94. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Snow, C; M.S. Burns, & P. Griffin (eds.) (1998) Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington D.C: National Academy Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsai, M., & G.E. García (2000) Who’s the boss? How communicative competence is defined in a multilingual preschool classroom. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 31.2: 230-252. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tunmer, W; C. Pratt, & M. Herriman (eds.) (1984) Metalinguistic awareness in children: Theory, research, and implications. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, R., & C. Adelman (1978) Fresas. In M. Stubbs & S. Delamont (eds.), Las relaciones profesoralumno. Barcelona: Oikos-Tau, pp. 149-168.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (14)

Cited by 14 other publications

Feng, Min, Tommy Tanu Wijaya, Rizki Ananda & Wen Du
2025. Exploring factors influencing student satisfaction in mathematics education using PLS-SEM and fuzzy sets FsQCA. Scientific Reports 15:1 DOI logo
Fehrest, Fatemeh, Jenny Panchal, Anja Pabel & Laurie Murphy
2024. Incorporating humour in the educational journey of young tourists. The European Journal of Humour Research 12:2 ► pp. 145 ff. DOI logo
Johnsen, Ragni Vik
2022. “Quierojuksar en lajulaftenito” – Playfulness and metalinguistic awareness in translingual family interactions. Multilingua 41:1 ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Garrote, Marta
2021. Análisis del humor en un corpus de habla infantil espontánea. Spanish in Context 18:1 ► pp. 30 ff. DOI logo
Looney, Stephen Daniel & Yingliang He
2021. Laughter and smiling: sequential resources for managing delayed and disaligning responses. Classroom Discourse 12:4 ► pp. 319 ff. DOI logo
Larson, Joanne, Timothy Morris & Kristen Shaw
2019. Sarcasm as Pedagogy of Love: Exploring Ironic Speech Acts in an Urban High School English Classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 63:2 ► pp. 169 ff. DOI logo
Ayçiçeği-Dinn, Ayşe, Simge Şişman-Bal & Catherine L Caldwell-Harris
2018. Are jokes funnier in one’s native language?. HUMOR 31:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Looney, Stephen Daniel & Jamie Kim
2018. Humor, uncertainty, and affiliation: Cooperative and co-operative action in the university science lab. Linguistics and Education 46 ► pp. 56 ff. DOI logo
Kultti, Anne & Niklas Pramling
2017. Translation activities in bilingual early childhood education: Children’s perspectives and teachers’ scaffolding. Multilingua 36:6 DOI logo
Davies, Catherine Evans
2015. Humor in intercultural interaction as both content and process in the classroom. HUMOR 28:3 DOI logo
Åhlund, Anna & Karin Aronsson
2015. Stylizations and alignments in a L2 classroom: Multiparty work in forming a community of practice. Language & Communication 43 ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
POMERANTZ, ANNE & NANCY D. BELL
2011. Humor as Safe House in the Foreign Language Classroom. The Modern Language Journal 95:s1 ► pp. 148 ff. DOI logo
Mischler, James J.
2008. Expressive phonology as evaluative comment in personal oral narrative: The play frame and language learning. System 36:2 ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
de León, Lourdes
2007. Parallelism, Metalinguistic Play, and the Interactive Emergence of Zinacantec Mayan Siblings' Culture. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40:4 ► pp. 405 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue