2.Theoretical background

2.1Interpersonal relating

In pragmatics, relationships are either viewed in terms of exogenous relational categories or endogenous relational qualities (Obana and Haugh 2023Obana, Yasuko, and Michael Haugh 2023 Sociopragmatics of Japanese: Theoretical Implications. London: Routledge. ). If the latter, two key qualities are relational connection and separation. This is consonant with the goals of the present study, given that connection and separation are in line with the conflicting relational dynamics in amateur team sport. Arundale’s (2010Arundale, Robert B. 2010 “Constituting Face in Conversation: Face, Facework, and Interactional Achievement.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8): 2078–2105., 2020Arundale, Robert B. 2020 Communicating & Relating: Constituting Face in Everyday Interacting. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ) Face-Constituting Theory (FCT) is perhaps the most befitting framework dealing with these qualities.

FCT is a conceptual framework for examining the situated negotiation of relational qualities. The approach considers these endogenous to interaction (following Duck 1995Duck, Steve 1995 “Talking Relationships into Being.” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 12 (4): 535–540. ; Simmel 1950Simmel, Georg 1950 The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Translated by Kurt H. Wolff. Glencoe: Free Press.), inextricably tied to the practices through which relational processes are accomplished. As such, relationships are not reified as existing preformed in the psyche of individuals. Rather, they are interactionally accomplished via the negotiation of relational connection and separation.

Relational connection and separation comprise a nexus of different meanings and phenomena (Arundale 2020Arundale, Robert B. 2020 Communicating & Relating: Constituting Face in Everyday Interacting. Oxford: Oxford University Press. , 253–254). At a broad level, the two qualities exist as a yin-yang dialectic, termed the connectedness-separateness dialectic. Each relational quality mutually defines the other, at points merging into the same entity, while nonetheless remaining contradictory (Baxter and Montgomery 1996Baxter, Leslie A., and Barbara M. Montgomery 1996 Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics. New York: Guilford Press.). In practical terms, this means that, while one side may be voiced more strongly, connection and separation are both always present, operating in a perennial interplay. In essence, FCT understands the process of relating as two individuals perpetually connecting with and separating from one another, and thereby continually negotiating relational work. By doing so, participants are understood as interactionally accomplishing face, reconceptualised as a relational achievement in FCT (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Spencer-Oatey 2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)Politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2nd ed, edited by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.; Ting-Toomey 2005Ting-Toomey, Stella 2005 “The Matrix of Face: An Updated Face-Negotiation Theory.” In Theorizing about Intercultural Communication, edited by William B. Gudykunst, 71–91. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.). This reformulation obviates traditional notions of face in pragmatics, such as face-threat and support (see Arundale 2020Arundale, Robert B. 2020 Communicating & Relating: Constituting Face in Everyday Interacting. Oxford: Oxford University Press. , chap. 8).

While the process of accomplishing relational connection and separation, and, by extension, face is culture-general, it has culture-specific instantiations. These have been primarily linked to the relational import placed on certain practices in different cultures. For instance, Don and Izadi (2013)Don, Zuraidah Mohd, and Ahmad Izadi 2013 “Interactionally Achieving Face in Criticism Criticism-Response Exchanges.” Language and Communication 33: 221–231. and Izadi (2017Izadi, Ahmad 2017 “Culture-Generality and Culture-Specificity of Face: Insights from Argumentative Talk in Iranian Dissertation Defenses.” Pragmatics and Society 8 (2): 208–30. , 2018Izadi, Ahmad 2018 “The Epistemic Grounds of Face in Institutional Argumentative Talk-in-Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 134: 45–56. ) link interpersonal relating in Iranian culture to the national culture-specific construal of face, aaberu, which literally translates to ‘water of the face’. Aaberu is linked to one’s relationships with others in terms of the dialectic of bonding and differentiation. These authors explore the way in which different interactional practices are relevantly face-sensitive in the Iranian cultural context. Chang (2015)Chang, Wei-Lin Melody 2015 Face and Face Practices in Chinese Talk-in-Interaction: A Study in Interactional Pragmatics. Sheffield: Equinox. and Chang and Haugh (2011)Chang, Wei-Lin Melody, and Michael Haugh 2011 “Strategic Embarrassment and Face Threatening in Business Interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (12): 2948–2963. analyse Taiwanese business interactions. Both studies identify face practices which, in these settings, are linked to relational networks, or guanxi. Specifically, Chang identifies mianzi and lian as culture-specific construals of face, defined as social status and prestige, and one’s character in relation to others, respectively. The studies identify strategic embarrassment as a face practice which, in this cultural context, enacts these construals of face. Taking a different approach, Schröder (2018)Schröder, Ulrike 2018 “Face as an Interactional Construct in the Context of Connectedness and Separateness: An Empirical Approach to Culture-Specific Interpretations of Face.” Pragmatics 28 (4): 547–572. carries out a comparative study, investigating relational practices in both Brazilian and German cultural milieux. In lieu of emic notions of face, she focuses on disagreement strategies as relational, observing differences between the two cultural contexts. While the Brazilian participants place more value on indirectly disagreeing with the sentiments of others, the German participants orient to more overt strategies for disagreement. In each of these contexts, the interactional practices are viewed in specific cultural terms. Finally, Haugh (2010Haugh, Michael 2010 “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)Affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8): 2106–2119. , 2011Haugh, Michael 2011 “Humour, Face and Im/Politeness in Getting Acquainted.” In Situated Politeness, edited by Bethan L. Davies, Michael Haugh, and Andrew J. Merrison, 165–184. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.) conducts the sole research investigating conversational humour within FCT. He similarly does not identify an emic face construal, instead tying his analysis to the Anglo-Australian relational ideology of ‘not taking yourself too seriously’. In particular, he looks at ways in which jocular mockery, a subcategory of teasing, can be used to accomplish relational connection and separation, discovering that, while it is arguably a risky interactional practice, participants orient to it as relational in this cultural context.

Importantly, these studies have highlighted that it is not necessarily distinct practices which enact these construals of connectedness-separateness and face, but the cultural value placed on a practice vis-à-vis interpersonal relating. The present study develops this line of inquiry by investigating the relational dialectics of conversational teasing in an amateur sports team — a setting with unique relational ideologies.

2.2Conversational teasing

Teasing is characterised as a humorous remark which is interpretable as both (ostensibly) provocative and (ostensibly) solidaric (Haugh 2017Haugh, Michael 2017 “Teasing.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, edited by Salvatore Attardo, 204–218. London: Routledge. ), thereby comprising conflicting dual dimensions. The practice has long been an area of interest from a variety of disciplines, with several different facets being explored. For instance, there is a significant research tradition exploring the multifunctionality of teasing. From social psychology, Duarte and Zhang (2023)Duarte, Brent, and Jinguang Zhang 2023 “The Motive of Competition but Not Courtship Positively Correlates with Self-Reported Use of Aggressive Humor: A Critical Test of the Contests vs. Mate-Choice Hypotheses.” Frontiers in Psychology 13. note that teasing is an aggressive exclusionary practice, despite its often subtle enactment, which, in evolutionary terms, functions to limit competition among potential mates. The role of teasing as a means to enforce superiority and compete with others has also been documented (e.g. Gruner 1997Gruner, Charles 1997 The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. New Brunswick: Transaction.; Kowalski et al. 2007Kowalski, Robin, Elsie Howerton, and Michelle McKenzie 2007 “Permitted Disrespect: Teasing in Interpersonal Interactions.” In Behaving Badly: Averse Behaviours in Interpersonal Relationships, edited by Robin Kowalski, 177–202. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.; Tragesser and Lippman 2005Tragesser, Sarah, and Louis Lippman 2005 “Teasing: For Superiority or Solidarity?” The Journal of General Psychology 132 (3): 255–266. ). Insights from anthropological research highlight its role in interpersonal relationships, with teasing identified as a strategy used to manage group dynamics (e.g. Garde 2008Garde, Murray 2008 “The Pragmatics of Rude Jokes with Grandad: Joking Relationships in Aboriginal Australia.” Anthropological Forum 18 (3): 235–253. ; Radcliffe-Brown 1940Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred 1940 “On Joking Relationships.” Africa 13 (3): 195–210. ) and socialise children into acceptable ways of behaving (e.g. Schiefflin 1986Schieffelin, Bambi 1986 “Teasing and Shaming in Kaluli Children’s Interactions.” In Language Socialization across Cultures, edited by Bambi Schieffelin, and Elinor Ochs, 165–181. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.; Tholander 2002Tholander, Michael 2002 “Cross-Gender Teasing as a Socializing Practice.” Discourse Processes 34 (3): 311–338. ).

Research in pragmatics and sociolinguistics has also contributed to this line of inquiry. Haugh (2017)Haugh, Michael 2017 “Teasing.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, edited by Salvatore Attardo, 204–218. London: Routledge. separates the different functions of teasing into affective, instrumental and interpersonal. Affective functions include teasing for the sake of amusement and play (e.g. Haugh and Bousfield 2012Haugh, Michael, and Derek Bousfield 2012 “Mock Impoliteness in Interactions Amongst Australian and British Speakers of English.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1099–1114. ). Instrumental functions comprise the use of teasing to reinforce power relations, particularly in institutional settings. Scholars have found that the duality of teasing can be strategically deployed to subvert or reinforce existing institutional relations (Choi and Schnurr 2016Choi, Seongsook, and Stephanie Schnurr 2016 “Enacting and Negotiating Power Relations through Teasing in Distributed Leadership Constellations.” Pragmatics and Society 7 (3): 482–502. ). Finally, most pertinent to the present study, teasing frequently fulfils relational functions, such as the construction of inclusionary and exclusionary relational boundaries (Boxer and Cortes-Conde 1997Boxer, Diana, and Florencia Cortés-Conde 1997 “From Bonding to Biting: Conversational Joking and Identity Display.” Journal of Pragmatics 27: 275–294. ; Decapua and Boxer 1999Decapua, Andrea, and Diana Boxer 1999 “Bragging, Boasting and Bravado: Male Banter in a Brokerage House.” Women and Language 22 (1): 5–12.; Mills and Babrow 2003Mills, Carol, and Austin Babrow 2003 “Teasing as a Means of Social Influence.” Southern Communication Journal 68 (4): 273–286. ; Schnurr and Chan 2011Schnurr, Stephanie, and Angela Chan 2011 “When Laughter Is Not Enough: Responding to Teasing and Self-Denigrating at Work.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (1): 20–35. ). It has been noted that the interpersonal effects of teasing are dependent on both the interactional negotiation of the sequence and the broader sociocultural context (see Haugh 2017Haugh, Michael 2017 “Teasing.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, edited by Salvatore Attardo, 204–218. London: Routledge. ; Sinkeviciute 2022Sinkeviciute, Valeria 2022 “Teasing.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 25th Instalment, edited by Frank Bisard, Sigurd D’hondt, Pedro Gras, and Mieke Vandenbroucke, 156–176. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), particularly when relational qualities are understood as inextricable from interactional practices. Thus, the different forms that teasing sequences take are relevant.

There is a large literature exploring these different forms. Drew (1987)Drew, Paul 1987 “Po-Faced Receipts of Teases.” Linguistics 25 (1): 219–253. , for instance, discovers that a tease in first position is often rejected, along with its concomitant undesirable positions. This can be done in a ‘po-faced’ manner, with either explicit or implicit rejection, or in a way that suggests orientation to the tease’s jocularity. Other research, however, has found more variability in responses (e.g. Haugh 2014Haugh, Michael 2014 “Jocular Mockery as Interactional Practice in Everyday Anglo-Australian Conversation.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 34 (1): 76–99. ; Lytra 2007Lytra, Vally 2007 “Teasing in Contact Encounters: Frames, Participant Positions and Responses.” Multilingua 26: 381–408. ; Partington 2008Partington, Alan 2008 “Teasing at the White House: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Face Work in Performing and Responding to Teases.” Text & Talk 28 (6): 771–792. ). These can be separated into three broad strategies, each of which has different ramifications for the ongoing sequence: ‘go along with’, ‘elaborate’ and ‘counter’ (Haugh 2014Haugh, Michael 2014 “Jocular Mockery as Interactional Practice in Everyday Anglo-Australian Conversation.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 34 (1): 76–99. ; Sinkeviciute 2022Sinkeviciute, Valeria 2022 “Teasing.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 25th Instalment, edited by Frank Bisard, Sigurd D’hondt, Pedro Gras, and Mieke Vandenbroucke, 156–176. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). The first type involves the target either laughing, smiling, or following the tease’s sequential relevancies by, for instance, agreeing with the tease (see Glenn 2003Glenn, Phillip 2003 Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Holt 2011Holt, Elizabeth 2011 “On the Nature of ‘Laughables’. Laughter as a Response to Overdone Figurative Phrases.” Pragmatics & Cognition 21 (3): 393–410. , 2016Holt, Elizabeth 2016 “Laughter at Last: Playfulness and Laughter in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 100: 89–102. ). The latter two response types, ‘elaborate’ and ‘counter’, entail expansion of the teasing sequence. Elaborating a sequence involves supporting the initial tease and elaborating it by targeting oneself, while countering entails the target producing a second tease, which ‘turns the tables’ so to speak on the initial teaser.

While there has been substantial research at the nexus of the interpersonal functions and sequential forms of teasing, this work has not yet been applied to the relational qualities salient in amateur team sport. To that end, this article links these two strands of research into teasing with the growing field of sport linguistics and pragmatics. To access the interpersonal functions of teasing which are relevant for participants in a given setting, understandings of the broader sociocultural context are necessary. In the present study, access to this context was gained by an ethnographic methodology, along with my own experiences and understandings of footballing culture, which allowed a conceptualisation of relational connection and separation which is consonant with the sociocultural context.

3.1Participants

The research participants were members of a team within a male, amateur Australian football club. The team competes in the third tier of amateur football in Queensland, and as such, is considered ‘elite amateur’. Throughout the months of March to October, the team plays every Saturday, and trains twice a week.

I worked predominantly with the club’s first team, of whom the majority were in their twenties. The first team and Under 23s team form a single squad, who consistently train together, and play consecutively on matchdays. This single squad structure fosters significant competition between the players, as the make-up of the first team shifts frequently, with Under 23s members promoted to the first team if their performances warrant it. The entire squad consists of approximately thirty players, of whom there was a group of around ten who were consistently in the first team. These players formed the core group of participants.

3.2Data

Following ethnographic practice, in the present study naturally occurring interactions comprise the core data set, while observations and field notes are supplementary (ten Have 2004). Observations assisted in familiarising myself with the team community, which proved useful in determining the most fruitful areas in which to make recordings. Indeed, it was during observations that I witnessed that a particularly potent site of relational work was the period before a match, in which the players congregated to watch the preceding Under 23s game. Because of this, I focused my recording on this area, obtaining the core data set.

Data were collected across the whole season, from which I collated the core set of approximately seven hours of audio-recorded data. While video recorded data is naturally preferable, due to the particular areas in which recording took place (such as the changing room, and public settings in which consent could not be reasonably gained from everyone present), I was unable to video record. To attenuate this limitation, I was physically present during as much of the recording as possible, and recorded in field notes any embodied actions which might be relevant (Lazarro-Salazar 2013Lazzaro-Salazar, Mariana 2013 “Investigating Nurses’ Professional Identity Construction in Two Health Settings in New Zealand.” PhD diss. Victoria University of Wellington.). The data was collected with every participant’s informed consent. Before each recording session, I explicitly sought their consent, and gave them the option to pause or stop the recordings at any time if they felt uncomfortable (Marra 2008Marra, Meredith 2008 “Recording and Analysing Talk across Cultures.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 2nd ed., edited by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 304–321. London: Continuum.).

From the collected data and my own observations, I discerned that teasing was central to enacting relational camaraderie and competition. After noticing this, I began to collate a collection of candidate cases of conversational teasing (n = 53). These cases were transcribed according to conversation analytic conventions (Jefferson 2004Jefferson, Gail 2004 “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, edited by Gene Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ) and analysed to determine, in concomitance with my ethnographic observations, the procedural forms of relational camaraderie and competition in the local team context.

4.1Foregrounding relational competition

Given the relevance of relational competition typically seen in amateur football teams, it is unsurprising that this relational quality was frequently foregrounded in the team community. In this section, I examine two extracts of teasing in which relational competition was foregrounded via disalignment and disagreement (Harenberg et al. 2021Harenberg, Sebastian, Harold Riemer, Kim Dorsch, Erwin Karreman, and Kyle Paradis 2021 “Advancement of a Conceptual Framework for Positional Competition in Sport: Development and Validation of the Positional Competition in Team Sports Questionnaire.” Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 33 (3): 321–342. ).

In the first extract, Dylan,33.All participant names are pseudonyms. Colin and Jack are watching the Under 23s match before their match starts. All players are expected to arrive in time to watch the Under 23s play. Nathan, who is a good friend of Dylan’s, arrives late and is on the receiving end of a mocking reproach as a result.

In lines 1 and 3, Dylan jocularly reproaches Nathan in the form of a wh-interrogative (see Steensig and Drew 2008Steensig, Jakob, and Paul Drew 2008 “Introduction: Questioning and Affiliation/Disaffiliation in Interaction.” Discourse Studies 10 (1): 5–15. ), inserting a laughter particle in the final lexical item (Glenn and Holt 2015Glenn, Phillip, and Elizabeth Holt 2015 “Laughter.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren, 1–20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.), while delivering the turn in a smile voice (line 3) (Gironzetti 2022Gironzetti, Elisa 2022 The Multimodal Performance of Conversational Humour. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Colin then delivers laughter particles (line 4), before Jack produces a candidate answer (line 5), both of which are sequentially deleted (Schegloff 1987Schegloff, Emanuel 1987 “Analyzing Single Episodes of Interaction: An Exercise in Conversation Analysis.” Social Psychology Quarterly 50 (2): 101–144. ) by Dylan, who provides a second candidate answer (line 6). This candidate answer makes explicit the current time, underscoring Nathan’s lateness, and ascribing a transgressional position to Nathan. Nathan then humorously rejects Dylan’s jocular reproach and candidate answer (line 7), and by extension, the position that he was ascribed. After this, he jocularly abuses (Haugh and Bousfield 2012Haugh, Michael, and Derek Bousfield 2012 “Mock Impoliteness in Interactions Amongst Australian and British Speakers of English.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1099–1114. ) Dylan as part of his rejection. In the final line, Dylan produces laughter particles (line 8). Laughter in third position has a relationship with both the first and second position turns (Holt 2016Holt, Elizabeth 2016 “Laughter at Last: Playfulness and Laughter in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 100: 89–102. ). In this case, given that Nathan was initially set up as the target of the tease (lines 1, 3 and 6), we can view Dylan as ‘laughing at’ Nathan (Glenn 1995Glenn, Phillip 1995 “Laughing at and Laughing with: Negotiating Participant Alignments through Conversational Laughter.” In Situated Order: Studies in the Social Organization of Talk and Embodied Activities, edited by Paul ten Have, and George Psathas, 43–56. Lanham: University Press of America.). In doing so, he does not expand the sequence further, thereby implicitly rejecting Nathan’s jocular abuse.

By negotiating a sequence in which positions are jocularly ascribed and rejected, Dylan and Nathan interactionally accomplish relational camaraderie and competition. Dylan initially ascribes Nathan a negative position of transgression, thereby implicitly elevating himself above the latecomer. Nathan then rejects this position, along with Dylan’s implicit stance of superiority. By ascribing and rejecting these asymmetrical stances, the participants accomplish maximal relational competition, deriving from conflictual disalignment and disagreement (Harenberg et al. 2021Harenberg, Sebastian, Harold Riemer, Kim Dorsch, Erwin Karreman, and Kyle Paradis 2021 “Advancement of a Conceptual Framework for Positional Competition in Sport: Development and Validation of the Positional Competition in Team Sports Questionnaire.” Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 33 (3): 321–342. ).44.A reviewer notes that this type of teasing has affinities with performed masculinity. While this indexicality is arguably salient, it is not the core focus of the current study. However, Nathan utilises a smile voice and produces obscenities in his turn, thereby orienting the jocularity of Dylan’s tease. Moreover, in response, Dylan does not treat Nathan’s reply as a po-faced rejection, given that he laughs, orienting to the humorous nature of the insult. Therefore, the two also accomplish relational camaraderie. Given that Nathan only shows marginal orientation to the jocularity of each contribution while not elaborating the sequence, the relational camaraderie accomplished is at a minimal level.

Another strategy for foregrounding competition was by implicitly, rather than explicitly, rejecting the stance ascribed by an initial tease. The following extract exhibits this.

During this extract, several players are present, but only Jack and Sam contribute verbally. The players are both in their first seasons at the club, and are regular first team players.

The teasable (Haugh and Pillet-Shore 2018Haugh, Michael, and Danielle Pillet-Shore 2018 “Getting to Know You: Teasing as an Invitation to Intimacy in Initial Interactions.” Discourse Studies 20 (2): 246–269.) from Jack in lines 1 and 2 is an instance of over-criticising (cf. Haugh 2010Haugh, Michael 2010 “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)Affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8): 2106–2119. ). After collective laughter (line 4), Sam jocularly insults Jack by highlighting that he works at Dominos. In this way, Sam implies that Jack has a worse job, and as such, does not have the grounds to criticise those working at University Sport. Therefore, he places Jack into a negative category regarding his employment, and by doing so, implicitly displays superiority. Sam modulates the action with a turn-final address term (Rendle-Short 2010Rendle-Short, Joanna 2010 “ ‘Mate’ as a Term of Address in Ordinary Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 1201–1218. ) and, paradoxically, by upgrading its force via an obscenity (Beers Fägersten and Stapleton 2022Beers Fägersten, Kirsty, and Karyn Stapleton 2022 “Swearing.” In Handbook of Pragmatics: 25th Instalment, edited by Frank Bisard, Sigurd D’hondt, Pedro Gras, and Mieke Vandenbroucke, 129–155. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), both of which indicate jocularity. After upgraded collective laughter (line 6), Jack provides an account for his employment at Dominos, noting that it is a side hustle (line 10). The choice of phrase hints at jocularity in the form of importation from a different context (i.e., a professional one) into an ill-fitting one (Haakana and Sorjonen 2011Haakana, Markku, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen 2011 “Invoking Another Context: Playfulness in Buying Lottery Tickets at Convenience Stores.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5): 1288–1302. ), namely a job at a fast-food establishment. By providing an account Jack also implicitly rejects the category that Sam placed him into, thereby rejecting his display of superiority. In line 11, Sam provides an ostensible receipt of Jack’s account as new information (see Heritage 1984Heritage, John 1984 “Change-of-State Token and Aspects of Its Sequential Placement.” In Structures of Social Action, edited by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 299–345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.). However, due to the intonation and laughter particle, it is hearable as jocularly sarcastic. Jocular sarcasm implies a meaning which is contrary to the explicit propositional content of the utterance (Colston 2017Colston, Herbert L. 2017 “Irony and Sarcasm.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, edited by Salvatore Attardo, 234–249. Abingdon: Routledge. ). Therefore, Sam does not appear to accept Jack’s account as new knowledge, but to implicitly reject it, thereby positioning him as inferior.

In this extract, Sam and Jack negotiate a teasing sequence in which the latter places the former into a negative category, thereby implicitly enacting a display of superiority. Sam then rejects his placement into this category, and by extension, rejects Jack’s display of superiority. Based on this rejection, the two maximally accomplish relational competition, deriving from conflictual disalignment and disagreement. At the same time, however, the two also co-construct the sequence as jocular, by imbuing their contributions with humour, rather than giving po-faced rejections. This implies marginal orientation to the humorous nature of each remark, resulting in minimal relational camaraderie.

4.2Foregrounding relational camaraderie

It can also be the case that relational competition is significantly backgrounded, particularly when one participant supports, rather than rejects, an initial tease. When this occurs, relational competition takes on a different form, manifesting as one participant electing not to push back against the other’s disparaging remarks and implicit displays of superiority, resulting in the foregrounding of camaraderie. The following two extracts demonstrate this procedure.

In Extract (3), seven players are present, but only Colin, Joey and Jeff contribute to the interchange. Colin and Joey are both in their second season at the club, while Jeff is a player in his first and final season. Before the interaction, Joey begins drinking an energy drink, which prompts Colin to tease Joey about his energy drink consumption. This then develops into a sustained humour episode in the form of joint fantasising.

In lines 1, 4 and 5, Colin proposes that Joey should be exhibiting negative effects, thereby teasing him for his energy drink consumption. Colin expands his turn via a jocular claim that energy drinks are not that bad for you (lines 8, 9 and 11), jocularly mocking Colin’s health in the form of an ironic criticism (Colston 2017Colston, Herbert L. 2017 “Irony and Sarcasm.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, edited by Salvatore Attardo, 234–249. Abingdon: Routledge. ). In doing so, Colin puts Joey into the undesirable category of someone who makes poor health choices (see Haugh 2014Haugh, Michael 2014 “Jocular Mockery as Interactional Practice in Everyday Anglo-Australian Conversation.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 34 (1): 76–99. ), and sets up an implicit contrast between Joey’s poor health choices and himself. Joey then jocularly self-deprecates (Elden 2023Elden, Chilmeg 2023 “Jocular Self-Deprecation in Japanese Initial Interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 218: 45–61. ; Lampert and Ervin-Tripp 2006Lampert, Martin, and Susan Ervin-Tripp 2006 “Risky Laughter: Teasing and Self-Directed Joking among Male and Female Friends.” Journal of Pragmatics 38: 51–72. ) by proposing that he has not exhibited any adverse effects because the content of the energy drinks has become indelible in his DNA (line 12). By doing so, Joey not only accepts the terms and implicit contrast of Colin’s jocular mockery but elaborates on it, prompting an incipient humorous fantasy sequence (Stallone and Haugh 2017Stallone, Leticia, and Michael Haugh 2017 “Joint Fantasising as Relational Practice in Brazilian Portuguese Interactions.” Language & Communication 55: 10–23. ). Colin then delivers another tease (lines 14, 15 and 18), asserting that Joey would have such a large quantity of residual caffeine in his body from the energy drinks that it would prevent him from dying. As such, Colin picks up on Joey’s previous fantastical contribution to negotiate joint fantasising as the vehicle for teasing him. In this co-constructed scenario with an internal logic (Priego-Valverde 2003Priego-Valverde, Béatrice 2003 L’humour dans la Conversation Familière: Description et Analyse Linguistiques. Paris: L’Harmattan.), Joey is incapable of dying, given that the energy drinks have penetrated his DNA. Joey responds by self-deprecating, jocularly positing that he has immunity these days (line 19). He employs an ironic criticism (Colston 2017Colston, Herbert L. 2017 “Irony and Sarcasm.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, edited by Salvatore Attardo, 234–249. Abingdon: Routledge. ) by ostensibly complimenting himself while conveying the message that he makes unhealthy choices. In doing so, Joey perpetuates the fantasy scenario while self-deprecating, implicitly accepting the negative category into which Colin placed him, along with the implicit contrast. Colin then gives a jocular account (lines 20, 21 and 23) for Joey’s prior self-deprecation (lines 19), suggesting that the reason for Joey’s immunity is that he regularly consumes such a quantity of energy drinks that he has developed a tolerance to the caffeine and, consequently, needs to consume more to receive the same effect. Joey responds with the final addition to the teasing sequence, in the form of another jocular self-deprecation via an absurd proposal (line 24), namely that he will be so saturated with caffeine that he will need to ingest the raw powder from a pre-workout supplement.

In this extract, Colin and Joey negotiate a series of three mockery sequences (Schegloff 2007Schegloff, Emanuel 2007 Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). Each sequence comprises jocular mockery with responding jocular self-deprecation, both embedded within the vehicle of joint fantasising. Throughout the extract, Joey responds to Colin’s teases with an ‘elaboration’ strategy. In this case, the two co-construct a fantasy sequence, employing similar structures such as ironic criticisms and an absurd internal logic. In this way, they interactionally accomplish maximal relational camaraderie through structural alignment. At the same time, however, by jocularly mocking Joey, Colin enacts superiority, elevating himself above the target and setting up a hierarchical contrast. Rather than pushing back against this superiority, Joey accepts and supports the negative stances that Colin ascribes to him, thereby accepting this contrast. Because of this, the participants accomplish minimal relational competition.

Participants were also seen to foreground relational camaraderie by providing further information to support an initial tease, while displaying matching affective stances. In this extract, there are three participants, Simon, Zack and Tim. All participants are in their second season at the club, and are regular first team players with established relationships.

The first tease is in line 1, in which Simon jocularly mocks Zack by proposing that he should mark a five foot five player during corners, thereby implying that Zack’s defensive prowess only extends to defending against players of a shorter stature. Zack laughingly confirms this proposal (lines 2–3) (Stivers 2022Stivers, Tanya 2022 The Book of Answers: Alignment, Autonomy and Affiliation in Social Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ), before Tim expands the sequence through another tease, jocularly enacting Zack’s eagerness to mark the player in question (lines 4 and 5). Simon then delivers another tease (line 6), jocularly mocking Zack for his propensity not to defend corners adequately, instead preparing to counter-attack. Therefore, Simon disparages Zack’s ability, and by diminishing him indirectly elevates himself. Zack responds with a jocular self-deprecation which accepts and furthers the mockery (lines 10 and 11), relaying an instance in which he had prepared to counterattack from a corner, immediately after which his team conceded a goal. Simon laughs in response to this, which is followed by an extended insert sequence (Schegloff 2007Schegloff, Emanuel 2007 Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) in lines 13–17. Simon delivers another tease in lines 18 and 19, which is framed as a request for clarification, but implies jocular mockery directed towards Zack, centred on his defensive incompetence. Zack supplies the clarification (lines 21 and 22), relaying that he had already begun to run towards the opposition goal when his team conceded. Therefore, he adds more information to the interchange, furthering the sequence by elaborating. He orients to these past actions as humorous through a smile voice (Haakana 2010Haakana, Markku 2010 “Laughter and Smiling: Notes on Co-Occurrences.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (6): 1499–1512. ; Holt 2011Holt, Elizabeth 2011 “On the Nature of ‘Laughables’. Laughter as a Response to Overdone Figurative Phrases.” Pragmatics & Cognition 21 (3): 393–410. ), thereby jocularly self-deprecating. Simon then delivers another clarification request (lines 24, 25 and 27), which functions as a preface, setting the ground for the next tease proper. Here, Simon determines the event before which Zack undertook the counterattack. While doing so, he utilises a smile voice, indexing a humorous stance on the event. In between these lines, Zack elaborates the tease (line 26), noting that the ball sailed over his head. In this way, he further highlights his inapposite position while defending by providing additional information, before laughingly accepting the mockery (line 28), matching Simon’s humorous stance (Selting 2012Selting, Margaret 2012 “Complaint Stories and Subsequent Complaint Stories with Affect Displays.” Journal of Pragmatics 44 (4): 387–415. ). Simon then delivers the final tease in the sequence. He delivers another mockery-implicative interrogative, seeking an account for Zack’s premature counterattack (lines 29–30), framing the latter’s actions as derisive. In the final line, Zack provides a humorous account that he was anticipating the counter-attack. This serves as further elaboration via jocular self-deprecation, given the absurdity of anticipating a counter-attack while a team is at the risk of conceding a goal.

In this extract, Simon and Tim, take turns teasing Zack for his lack of defensive prowess. In the first part, this is accomplished by a hypothetical scenario. In the second section, it is enacted through the retreading of a past event, in which Simon highlights the absurdity of Zack’s past defensive actions, with the latter agreeing and elaborating by adding detail to the past events. Therefore, Zack supports the teasing by employing similar structures and indexing similar stances of humour towards his past actions. By doing so, he enacts interpersonal alignment and interactionally accomplishes maximal relational camaraderie with Simon. Dialectically linked to this is relational competition, which is accomplished to a minimal degree by Zack self-disparagingly accepting the mocking, unfavourable positions which Simon ascribes to him, and by extension, accepting his implicit displays of superiority.

4.3Shifting camaraderie and competition

Having presented extracts in which both relational competition and camaraderie are, respectively, at the forefront, I now analyse one in which the participants dynamically shift the balance of these qualities during a sequence.

In this example, there are eight players present, but the following interaction involves only three: Jeff, Jack, and Colin. All the players, except for Jeff, have been at the club for more than one season, so have established relationships. The interaction begins directly after I ask the players if they are happy to be recorded. After they gave consent, I placed the recorder on the bench between Jeff and Colin.

In lines 1–9, the participants jokingly propose to discuss serious topics, one of which Colin picks up in line 9, beginning to recount events involving American politician Nancy Pelosi. In a jocular political mode, he describes how Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is a milestone in light of the tension between America and China. By relaying this information, he indexes a knowledgeable stance (K+) (Heritage 2012Heritage, John 2012 “The Epistemic Engine: Sequence Organization and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language & Social Interaction 45 (1): 30–52. ), putting himself in a position which is superordinate to the other interactants.

After the telling Jeff jocularly criticises Colin’s jocular political mode (line 22). By employing a wh-question word, specifically who, Jeff appears to question the appropriacy of Colin’s mode, implicitly challenging his K+ stance and display of superiority. In response, Colin continues to voice a similar well-informed role (line 23). He first initiates repair on Jeff’s turn, which is hearable as a rejection of Jeff’s criticism of his K+ stance, treating the stance as not inapposite. He then counters Jeff’s tease via a yes-no interrogative (line 23), implicitly criticising it (Haugh and Chang 2019Haugh, Michael, and Wei-Lin Melody Chang 2019 “Indexical and Sequential Properties of Criticisms in Initial Interactions: Implications for Examining (Im)Politeness across Cultures.” Russian Journal of Linguistics 23 (4): 904–929. ). He constructs the interrogative with a candidate answer (Stivers 2022Stivers, Tanya 2022 The Book of Answers: Alignment, Autonomy and Affiliation in Social Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ) which presupposes that Jeff does not read the news, provisionally ascribing him a K− stance relative to his own K+ stance. Hence, Colin reaffirms his position of superiority.

In the interaction thus far, Jeff and Colin have negotiated a two-move teasing sequence. Colin countered Jeff’s initial tease (line 23), which provided space for the sequence to expand, accomplishing maximal relational camaraderie via interpersonal alignment. However, by rejecting Jeff’s challenge, the two also accomplish maximal relational competition. This derives from Colin’s turn treating his own K+ stance as not inapposite, thereby disagreeing with Jeff’s challenge, and by ascribing a K− stance to Jeff via the interrogative’s presupposition, enacting a hierarchical superiority distinction between them.

In line 25, Jeff responds to Colin’s questioning criticism in the negative. By doing so, he accepts its terms (Enfield and Sidnell 2015Enfield, N. J., and Jack Sidnell 2015 “Language Structure and Social Agency: Confirming Polar Questions in Conversation.” Linguistics Vanguard 1 (1): 131–143. ) while simultaneously orienting to it as a laughable. As such, he aligns with Colin’s prior action sequentially and orients to its playful aspects (Holt 2016Holt, Elizabeth 2016 “Laughter at Last: Playfulness and Laughter in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 100: 89–102. ), accepting the K− stance. By doing so, Jeff also accepts Colin’s display of superiority enacted through his K+ stance. Jack also responds to Colin’s criticism, but his response is not procedurally consequential. Colin then delivers another jocular criticism via a wh-interrogative (line 27). This interrogative has a candidate answer (Robinson 2006Robinson, Jeffrey 2006 “Soliciting Patients’ Presenting Concerns.” In Communication in Medical Care, edited by John Heritage, and Douglas Maynard, 22–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) which presupposes a level of uninformedness on Jeff’s part, highlighting his accountability in being uninformed. Consequently, it is hearable as a challenge (Hayano 2013Hayano, Kaoru 2013 “Question Design in Conversation.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, edited by Jack Sidnell, and Tanya Stivers, 395–414. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.) which re-ascribes the prior K− stance to Jeff, and reaffirms his own K+ stance and display of superiority. In the next line, Jeff accepts Colin’s prior jocular criticism, and by implication, an epistemic disparity between himself and Colin. The nature of this response can be said to further ‘play along’ with the tease by aligning with it sequentially in a smile voice (Holt 2016Holt, Elizabeth 2016 “Laughter at Last: Playfulness and Laughter in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 100: 89–102. ). At the same time, Jeff’s action accepts the K− stance that Colin ascribed to him, again accepting his superiority.

The second part of the interaction (lines 25–28) exhibits different levels of relational camaraderie and competition. Jeff provides two minimal responses (lines 25 and 28), thereby ‘playing along’ with Colin’s teases, sequentially aligning with them without elaborating the sequence. Thus, the relational camaraderie accomplished appears to be at a liminal level. In providing these minimal responses, Jeff also straightforwardly accepts the undesirable stances which Colin ascribes to him, thereby accepting the latter’s enacted superiority. This acceptance accomplishes minimal relational competition. Hence, this extract exhibits ways in which participants can dynamically shift the negotiated levels of relational camaraderie and competition. In this way, it is evident that micro-level interactional calibrations dictate the endogenous co-constitution of relational processes.