Studies in Laughter in Interaction

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: contact@bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 175 Fifth Avenue

London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10010
UK 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 978-1-4411-
6280-9 (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 vii

List of author details viii
1 Introduction, Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt 1
Part 1 Varieties of Laughter 23
2 Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription, Alexa Hepburn

and Scott Varney 25
3 Laughter and Turn-Taking: Warranting Next Speakership in
Multiparty Interactions, Keiko Ikeda and Don Bysouth 39
Part 2 Laughs in Turns 65
4 “There’s Many a True Word Said in Jest”: Seriousness and

Nonseriousness in Interaction, Elizabeth Holt 69
5 Having the Last Laugh: On Post-Completion Laughter Particles,
Chloë Shaw, Alexa Hepburn, and Jonathan Potter 91
6 Laughter in Bilingual Medical Interactions: Displaying Resistance to
Doctor’s Talk in a Mexican Village, Anna Claudia Ticca 107
Part 3 Laughs in Sequences 131
7 Laughter and Competence: Children with Severe Autism Using

Laughter to Joke and Tease, Timothy Auburn and Christianne Pollock 135
8 Laughter and Smiling in a Three-Party Medical Encounter:
Negotiating Participants’ Alignment in Delicate Moments, Marilena
Fatigante and Franca Orletti 161
9 “Cause the textbook says …”: Laughter and Student Challenges in
the ESL Classroom, Christine Jacknick 185
10 Interviewee Laughter and Disaffiliation in Broadcast News
Interviews, Tanya Romaniuk 201
vi Contents
Part 4 Laughter and Identity 221
11 No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction

of Identity, Rebecca Clift 223
12 Constructing Identities Through Laughter, Grit Liebscher and
Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain 237
13 Interviewees Volunteered Laughter in Employment Interviews: A
Case of “Nervous” Laughter?, Phillip Glenn 255
References 277
Index 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.
<yes> 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, T.Auburn@plymouth.ac.uk
Don Bysouth, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Human

Sciences, Osaka University, Japan, don.bysouth@gmail.com
Rebecca Clift, Senior Lecturer, Department of Language and Linguistics,

University of Essex, UK, rclift@essex.ac.uk
Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain, Associate Professor of German Applied Linguistics,

Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of
Alberta, Canada, jenniedo@ualberta.ca
Marilena Fatigante, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, Department of

Social and Developmental Psychology, “Sapienza” University, Rome, Italy,
marilena.fatigante@uniroma1.it
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, a.hepburn@lboro.ac.uk
Elizabeth Holt, Senior Lecturer, School of Music, Humanities, and Media,

University of Huddersfield, UK, e.j.holt@hud.ac.uk
Keiko Ikeda, Associate Professor, Division of International Affairs, Kansai

University, Japan, osakakeiko@hotmail.com
Christine M. Jacknick, Assistant Professor, Department of Developmental

Skills, Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, NY, USA,
cjacknick@bmcc.cuny.edu
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, orletti@uniroma3.it<mailto:orletti@
uniroma3.it
Christianne Pollock, Ph. D. student, School of Social Science and Social Work,
Plymouth University, UK, catranscriptionservices@gmail.com
Jonathan Potter, Professor of Discourse Analysis and Dean of the School of

Social, Political, and Geographical Sciences, Loughborough University, UK,
J.A.Potter@lboro.ac.uk
Tanya Romaniuk, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication,

Portland State University, Oregon, USA, romanta@yorku.ca
Chloe Shaw, Postgraduate researcher, Department of Social Sciences,

Loughborough University, UK, c.b.shaw@lboro.ac.uk
Anna Claudia Ticca, Post- Doc researcher, ASLAN – ICAR lab, University of
Lyon, France, anna.ticca@ens-lyon.fr
Scott Varney, Postgraduate researcher/Ph.D. student, Loughborough

University, UK, S.Varney@lboro.ac.uk
Contact details accessible 1 March 2003.

1
Introduction*
Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt
Why laughter?
Since this is a collection of studies of laughter in interaction, we begin with the

question—why study laughter? There are several compelling rationales for doing
so. First, it is pervasive in human interaction. Big, hearty laughs routinely mark
certain kinds of events (comedy, storytelling, cracking up), but more common
and more widespread are the countless, small moments of laughter that occur
throughout conversations, meetings, interviews, and more. Many of these pass
below the radar as we live our lives, but they are there—listen carefully in any
conversation, review a recording, and you will notice them. Laughter is also
universal; while we do not rule out some cultural variation in its uses, it’s safe to
say that any two persons on earth could likely recognize each other’s laughter.
A second reason is that laughter operates in a liminal space between tradi-
tional scholarly categories. It is not linguistic but it accompanies language
use, often intertwined with speech, shaped by and shaping speech sounds. Its
acoustic properties are crucial to what it does, but it is also visual, in its most
intense forms marked by shaking, doubling over, rapid breathing, and tearing of
the eyes; in its less overt forms, closely it is linked to and often accompanied by
smiling. It is one of the few sounds that both human and nonhuman primates
produce, in roughly similar situations (e.g. chimpanzee reiterated “ah-ah-ah”
sounds occur during rough-and-tumble play; van Hooff, 1972). Finally, it
invites both naturalistic and socially-based explanations, as a mood indicator
outwardly manifesting an inner emotion or as a signal that can be employed
strategically.
A third significant aspect of laughter lies in its versatility, moving
between polarities of serious and not serious, hostile and affiliative, self- and
2 Studies of Laughter in Interaction
other-referential. Studying laughter invites us to address some of the funda-

mental questions concerning the way social action is constructed on a moment
by moment basis. It lies at the center of ongoing negotiations of relationship
that infuse human interaction. Broadly speaking, laughter shows up time and
time again in two kinds of environments: celebrations and trouble. In moments
of celebration, it allows people to laugh together, appreciate, affiliate, and
even claim a kind of intimacy. In moments of trouble, it provides a resource
for aligning, modifying actions, and mitigating meanings. In the following
discussion, we will have more to say about both kinds of moments.
Fourth, it directs us to another central human mystery, humor–the remarkable
notion that as we go through our lives together, we sometimes find things funny
and make things funny.1 Laughter is the most common, overt indicator of the
presence of humor, although that is not its only job. Much laughter occurs
without anything noticeably humorous nearby, and much that people think of
as humorous occurs without laughter. We might think of laughter and humor
as siblings who share a close, though complicated, relationship.
Fifth, many people believe in laughing, for its physical, psychological,
spiritual, and relational benefits. It is the cost-free medicine that can release
endorphins helping us feel good, exercise our muscles and breathing like yoga,
help us lighten moods and cope with problems more readily, and strengthen
social bonds. Although such claims are sometimes overstated, there is now
enough research to take them seriously (Westburg, 2003; Mora-Ripolia, 2010).
Clearly, for human beings, laughing matters.
A few years ago, we might have added that it is mysterious and little under-
stood but that is no longer the case. The present book draws on decades of
studies across a number of disciplines that have yielded durable and significant
findings about laughter’s role in human communication. It also introduces new,
ground-breaking research, yielding compelling findings about the ways laughter
shapes unfolding social dramas, from everyday talk to broadcast news inter-
views, from employment interviews to medical examinations. The discussion
that follows weaves previous research with findings from the chapters in this
volume to present a comprehensive overview of how laughter operates in social
interactions.
Introduction 3
Assumptions and methods: Conversation analytic approach

to laughter
The chapters in this volume, as well as most of the studies reviewed, reflect
the research commitments of conversation analysis (CA) in the ethnometh-
odological tradition.2 One central CA commitment is to an action conception
of meaning. What something means is what it does, in its sequential location, in
interaction. This is not to deny pre-existing meaning (in the sense that “yes” is an
English word meaning agreement) but to foreground the ways by which people
use language and other communicative signals in doing whatever they do.
A first, casual answer to “what does laughter do?” might be that it signals
that something is funny to the person(s) laughing. However, most of the
chapters in this volume feature moments of laughter far removed from overt
humor. An interest in social interaction compels us to account for why that
now?—why this laughter, in this form, at this moment, following and followed
by other communicative signals. From this perspective, it is crucial to note
that laughter is indexical: when it occurs, people hear it as having a referent,
pointing to something in the immediate environment, typically just preceding
or concurrent (Glenn, 2003, pp. 48–9; Sacks, 1974, p. 348; Schenkein, 1972,
p. 365). Laughers will do things that mark the referent of their laughs; other
participants noticeably orient to identifying what that referent is. On occasions
when it isn’t clear, participants may overtly ask, “What are you laughing at?”
Laughing can become a negotiable, accountable matter. Perhaps more than
many elements of interaction, it demonstrates how actions are inextricably
located in ongoing courses of interaction, whose meanings are worked out
moment by moment, continuously.
Resonant with an action-centered treatment of meaning, CA research starts
from an assumption that interactions are orderly and seeks to explicate peoples’
practices for achieving that order. Analysis proceeds inductively, documenting
in single instances how people do whatever it is that they do. There is an
inevitable reflexivity between analytic claims about what people are doing and
descriptions of how they are doing it. From single instances, analysts build
collections of recurrent phenomena. A large collection of similar instances
increases confidence in the core pattern as well as allowing for consideration of
variations and exceptional cases. The “proof procedure” of CA involves showing
how the phenomenon under investigation is constituted and oriented to as such
by the participants themselves in the organization of their conduct.
CA research relies on recordings with transcripts of actual interactions.

Recordings allow for repeated listening and viewing, enabling the noticing of
details that might otherwise escape attention. This work is enhanced by the
creation of transcripts showing words, paralinguistic features such as emphasis
and intonational contour, and timing features such as pauses and overlaps. Gail
Jefferson developed the transcription system widely used in CA research and
instituted the practice of not only noting the presence of laughs but also actually
transcribing them. Her 1984 article makes a compelling case that transcribing
laughs opens up a wealth of possible noticing about how the acoustic shape,
duration, variation, and placement of laughs relative to talk shape meaning and
social action. For example, the following brief excerpt of conversation shows
several kinds of laughs.
(1) Hyla and Nancy 12.01: 18

1 Nancy: It wasn’t fu(h)u(h)nn(h)y
2 (0.2)
3 Nancy: [.hhhhhhh
4 Hyla: [I’m not laughing. [.hhhh
5 Nancy: [I kno:w,hh [hhh
6 Hyla: [he:h huh,
In Line 1, Nancy produces several bursts of laughter within the word

“fu(h)u(h)nn(h)y”. After a brief pause, she draws an audible inbreath (Line
3), possibly laughter. Hyla produces an inbreath (again, possibly laughter)
following her (Line 4) denial that she is laughing. Nancy laughs at the end
of Line 5, overlapped by Hyla’s two particles of laughter. In these few moments,
the participants laugh within speech, following speech, through inbreaths and
outbreaths, alone and together. Without providing detailed analysis here, we
hope that this excerpt illustrates variations in laughter’s sound and placement.
Transcribing laughs can be a daunting task. Hepburn and Varney (Chapter 2,
this volume) provide a brief guide to help researchers transcribe laughter and
link variations in laughs to analytic observations.
CA studies produce descriptive accounts of the forms and varieties of laughs,
aspects of their placement and timing that crucially shape the work they do,
and how through such features laughter contributes to identities, roles, and
relationships. In refining the focus of this book to CA studies of laughter, we
do not discount the value of other approaches that yield other insights; rather,
we foreground a research tradition that has produced a vital, coherent body
of findings. The review that follows begins by considering the smallest units
Introduction 5
of analysis—actual laugh particles. We then consider how laugh particles are

embedded in and related to turns at talk. Broadening focus, we next consider
the interplay of laughs with their referents—laughables. This takes us next to
consideration of the sequences in which laughable and laughter occur: laugh
invitations, invited laughs, volunteered laughs, and second laughs. Through
laugh sequences people shape displays of alignment, affiliation, shared laughter,
intimacy, and resistance—and these jointly-produced actions are the focus of
the fourth section. The last section shifts attention to how laugh-infused social
actions produce environments in which participants actively mark and shape
identities. The notion of “identity” is malleable; here we focus on how laughs
contribute to features attributed to individuals such as a complainer (Clift,
Chapter 11, this volume) or “nervous” (Glenn, Chapter 13, this volume), as
well as more stable national or ethnic identities (Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain,
Chapter 12, this volume).
Varieties of laughter
As a starting point, we attend to laughter in all its human forms, unified by

certain distinctive features. Canonically, it is the presence of reiterated, rhythmic,
aspirated “ha ha”-type sounds and their accompanying visual manifestations
that most people can recognize immediately as laughter. However, the apparent
unity and clarity of this subject matter begins to blur upon closer examination.
There are free-standing laughs and laughs embedded in speech. There are
large, hearty, prolonged laughs and small, scarcely-noticed particles. There are
inbreaths and outbreaths that may be nascent laughs; but sometimes, as the
song lyric goes, “a sigh is just a sigh”. Shaped by recipient response, “equivocal
laughs” (Jefferson, 1979) may get transformed into clearer laugh particles.
Laughter can sound and look similar to crying (Hepburn, 2004), panting, and
heavy breathing. Potter and Hepburn (2010, p. 1543) argue that “there are still
questions about the technical sense of this vernacular category, and particularly
the prosodic and interactional boundaries of the phenomenon and the different
styles of sound, breathiness and so on that may or may not be treated as laughs
and laughter”. In light of such questions they suggest an alternative term,
“interpolated particle of aspiration”, or IPA, for potential laugh particles within
words. It is an open question to us whether the range of phenomena that people
consider as “laughter” merit unified treatment. Laughter is a members’ category
and we take this as a reasonable starting point. Nevertheless, we exercise caution

in using the term.
Although laughter lacks semantic or linguistic content, variations in its
production contribute to its communicative value. Szameitat et al. (2009) found
in a laboratory study that subjects could recognize emotions conveyed by laughs
based solely on acoustic properties (see also Milford, 1980). In an experimental
study, Kipper and Todt (2003) found that acoustic properties of laughs affect
both the perception that they are laughs and assessment of their quality. The
chapters in this book demonstrate how the production features of laughs
contribute integrally to what they display and how they are taken up.
The term “smile voice” (transcribed as speech bracketed by pound signs
£) captures a sometimes raspy way of speaking that correlates with smiling,
nearly laughing, or preparing to laugh. Lavin and Maynard (2001) mention
both equivocal laughs (which they term “quasi-laughs”) and smile voice as
ways that telephone survey interviews manage the balance between responding
to the laughter of their interlocutors and maintaining their own professional
demeanor. Laughter communicates visually as well as aurally. Participants may
have mouths open in the appearance of laughing yet produce no sound. Smiling
often occurs in proximity to laughing and in some situations may substitute for
it (see Haakana, 2002).
Laughs in turns
Laughter can occur before, after, or during talk. Turn-final or “post-completion”

laughter is particularly common in interaction. Laughter alone can also constitute
an entire turn, generally as a response to a preceding turn. On occasion laughter
occurs after a pause or a turn by another participant where it appears to orient
to a prior turn by the laugher. The following extracts exemplify each of these
three positions respectively.
(2) [Rahman B.2.IV; 1.10, P2] (From Chapter 5)

Jen: → [Yeh James’s a little] divil ihhh ↑heh heh
Ver: [That-
Jen→: huh .HHH He:-
(3) [Heritage:I:3:1] (From Chapter 4)

Lisa: You c’d hear’er in th’nex’
county? b[‘t she’s]done.
Introduction 7
Ilene:→ [e h h h!]
Ilene:→ Yheh-heh-heh-heh-heh he-he-he-
→ .hehhhh She’s a terrible fuss
over[her fee:]t.hh .hhh
(4) [I, 3, 22:34] (From Chapter 13)

ALAN: it’s ↑not out of the question that [ one ] day
JILL: [Yeah ]
ALAN: I’ll be running the show=
JILL: =Yeah
ALAN:→ Uhhuh[uh ]
How laughter modifies or modulates the talk that it targets is shaped in part by its
sequential position (for example, whether in the first turn or as a response). Thus,
within the same turn, “we use laughter to signal that we are aware of a tension
between what we say, how this could be interpreted by others and what we mean”
(Adelswärd, 1989, p. 124). Laughter in terminal position can modulate a (potentially
or incipient) disaffiliative action (Shaw, Hepburn, Potter, Chapter 5, this volume)
or as a “post-completion stance marker” (Schegloff, 1996) can convey stance in an
embedded fashion (Ticca, Chapter 6, this volume). One of the clearest and most
recurrent operations that laughter may accomplish is to adjust the seriousness of
its referent (Holt, Chapter 4, this volume; O’Donnell-Trujillo and Adams, 1983,
Romaniuk, chapter 10, this volume; Schegloff, 2001; Schenkein, 1972). According to
Sacks, a turn built in this way is appropriately responded to by some acknowledgment
of its nonseriousness rather than the kind of response that it might otherwise invite
(for example, a nonserious request might invite laughter rather than an acceptance
or declination). Schenkein (1972, p. 366) writes, “hehe can be tagged on to the end of
an utterance as some kind of insurance that the utterance will not be taken seriously,
literally, or in its more typical senses”. Portraying an action as, at least in part,
nonserious can be useful; for example laughter in employment interviews allows
interviewees to make positive claims about self but do so modestly (Adelswärd, 1989;
Glenn, Chapter 13, this volume). Laughter at the end of a turn may also “acousti-
cally highlight a first speaker’s transition-relevance place…” (O’Donnell-Trujillo
and Adams, 1983, p. 179). Finally, at least one study suggests there may be cultural
variation in placement of laughs relative to turns. Gavioli (1995), in an analysis of
dispreferred turns in response to customer requests in bookshop encounters, found
turn-initial laughter tended to be used in English data, turn-final in Italian data.
A variety of different terms have been used to refer to where laughter occurs
in relation to turns and the laughable. For instances, laughter in the same turn as
the laughable can be referred to as “first position” laughter, in the turn following
the laughable as “second position” and laughter following a pause or a response
by another participant after the laughable as “third position” laughter (Jefferson,
1979; Markaki et al., 2010; Shaw, Hepburn, and Potter, Chapter 5, this volume).
While this scheme offers elegance and clarity, it may not encourage inspection of
the position of laughter within the turn; laughter before, within, or following the
laughable may be performing rather different actions. Determining which terms
may be most appropriate requires careful analysis of instances. Similarly, as
discussed below, applying widely used terms such as “laugh invitation”, “invited
laughter”, and “volunteered laughter” (Jefferson 1979) without sufficient analysis
of specific instances can import assumptions, leave issues unaddressed, and
create analytic difficulties. The analytic vocabulary for capturing the sequential
position of laughter and its relationship to the talk is still evolving.
Laughs in sequences
In CA components of talk are considered in terms of their relationship to the

ongoing sequence. This makes it a valuable approach to use when considering
laughter, because what laughter is doing is only discoverable in terms of its
relationship to the surrounding talk (usually the prior turn for laugh responses
or talk within the same turn for laughter that accompanies lexical items).
Thus, we must consider the sequential location in which the laughter occurs,
beginning with the immediate sequences (focusing particularly on turns and
pairs of turns), then considering longer courses of joint action and the interac-
tional environments to which they contribute.
The indexicality of laughter leads us to consider the reflexive relationship
between laughter and its referent. The range of possible referents is wide, perhaps
as wide as communication itself, for laughter is omnirelevant. Nevertheless,
analysis compels us to come to grips with regularities in the kinds of things to
which laughter points.
Conversation analytic studies began with the reflexive, agnostic notion of a
laughable. According to Glenn (2003, p. 49), “placement of a laugh relative to
its laughable displays precisely what the referent, or laughable is, typically via
placement concurrent with or immediately following the object”. Using the term
laughable avoids the assumption that there is anything necessarily humorous
about the referent of the laughter (see Provine, 2000, p. 40). At its most basic
Introduction 9
level, a laughable simply designates laughter’s referent. This steers analysis away
from claiming intentions that cannot be supported by the details of sequential
analysis. It also keeps analysis open to the range of things that draw laughter.
However, remaining in the safety of this reflexive harbour keeps at bay
some compelling phenomena. While in principle people can laugh at anything,
clearly some things are done in ways that make laughter easier, relevant, or even
expected. Turns can have recurrent properties in terms of their design, delivery,
sequential position, and multimodal aspects that are regularly treated as laugh-
ables. Laughter within or appended to these turns by the same speaker can be
particularly salient in terms of inviting recipient laughter (Jefferson, 1979). Even
without explicit laughter by the current speaker, the presence of other linguistic,
semantic, paralinguistic, embodied, or pragmatic features may make recipient
laughter relevant (Drew, 1987; Ford and Fox, 2010; Glenn, 2003; Haakana and
Sorjonen, 2011; Holt, 2000, 2011).
In the example below, Dale calls Matt about some work Dale is doing on
the apartment complex that Matt manages. They begin with a playful flurry of
greetings and inquiries. At Line 19, Dale shifts to an incongruous “reason for the
call” by placing an order as if this were a fast-food service encounter. He does
not laugh but Matt responds with a stream of laughter (Line 20) then reports
that he intended to call Dale.
(5) UTCL L 17
1 Matt: Hello-
2 (0.2)
3 Dale: Hey
4 (0.2)
5 Matt: He:y.
6 Dale: He:y.
7 Matt: What’s happenen=
8 Dale: =Hey buddy?
9 Matt: Is this my buddy?=
10 Dale: =E:h you ain’t got no bud [dies
11 Matt: [What’s happenen.
12 Dale: Hey.
13 (0.2)
14 Matt: He:y=
15 Dale: =Did u::h
16 Matt: You ready for thanksgiving?
17 Dale: Ye::s.
18 Matt: Aw:r:[ight.
19 Dale: [Want some cheesebugers and some- some
20 onion rings please
21 Matt:→ hh heha hhh huh huh huh .hhh well ah was funny
22 I was gonna call you: uh myself.
23 Dale: Uh were you?
24 Matt: Ye:s. [and na- here I am, callin you-
25 Dale: [I tried- (to get ya)
26 Matt: No you’re callin me I guess
Matt’s laughter in Line 21 treats Dale’s turn (Lines 19–20) as laughable. There
is no laughter in Dale’s turn; however, it is clearly designed to be nonserious: it
borrows from the realm of ordering fast food to create a highly incongruous
contribution (see Haakana and Sorjonen, 2011).
Properties other than first laugh that mark laughables also appear promi-
nently in public speaking situations such as lectures, press conferences, and
stand-up comedy. Similar to techniques for inviting audience applause, standard
laughable formats include contrasts, punch lines, and lists of three (Atkinson,
1984; Jefferson, 1990). In addition, projecting that something humorous is
coming up and employing comic facial expressions, gestures, or prosody can
mark a speaker’s own turn as laughable (Greatbatch and Clark, 2003; Clayman,
1992a). Joking versions of relevant speaker actions (such as answers to questions
at a press conference) can draw laughter, marking a shift from getting business
done to foregrounding relationship and playful framing (Partington, 2006,
2011).
It may make sense to think of a rough gradation of features that mark some
communicative action as built to make laughter relevant. If we imagine a
continuum like the one below, we can show the features that more likely cluster
at the laughable end:
Likely not laughable ------------------------------ Likely laughable

Laughter, smiling, winking
Exaggerated performance
Irony, incongruity, word play
Laughable environment
(joke telling, comedy;
previous laughables/laughter)
The single or combined presence of the features on the right side provides an
increasingly clear indication that recipient laughter is relevant. Further evidence
Introduction 11
may lie in the first speaker’s pursuit of laughter if it is not initially forthcoming
(Glenn, 2003, pp. 139–41; Jefferson, 1979). Nevertheless, caution is warranted.
The laughable features are not additive: there is no claim that, say, three of them
get us closer to clear laughability than two. Second, an utterance may derive
its laughability from taken-for-granted shared knowledge, memory, or under-
standings between speakers that may be invoked but remain obscure to analysts
(and indeed to other participants). Third, laughter may respond not just to the
preceding or concurrent talk but to something else instead or alongside. Fourth,
respondent laughter may operate somewhat independently of these features; we
take up this issue next.
A distinction can be made between using the term laughable to describe
actions built to make laughter relevant (as in the preceding example and
discussion) and using it to refer to a turn that is accompanied with, followed
by, or responded to with laughter. Actions can be treated as laughable that do
not appear to be built to invite laughter. For example, utterances that escalate
an ongoing complaint can be responded to with (minimal and sometimes
equivocal) laughter, as the following extract shows (see Holt, 2012 for a fuller
account).
(6) [Holt:X(C)1:1:1:29]
(The “her” referred to in Line 1 is Lesley’s mother-in-law.)
1 Mum: Will y- ( ) ↑tell her we’re having
2 a memorial service f ’r Louisa
3 Les: No I won’t. becuz uh we’ll have a big (0.4)
4 lamentation then,
5 (0.5)
6 Mum: Ah [:.
7 Les: [th’t she wasn’t [the:re,
8 (M): [( )
9 (1.2)
10 Mum: (↑who wasn’t there) (Honestly! .hhh)
11 (0.8)
12 Mum: ↑How dare she expect t’be there.
13 Les: £I kno:w ye:s,£
14 Mum: She wz so wicked to Lou:isa.
15 (0.6)
16 Les: → Mm h(h)m (h)m
17 Mum: All those years ago.
18 Les: Ye:s.
19 (.)
20 Les: O[↑ka:y love ]
Here, Mum and Lesley are complaining about Lesley’s mother-in-law. Mum
escalates the complaint in Line 14, describing her as “so wicked to Lou:isa”.
This turn does not appear to be built to invite laughter. However, after a pause,
Lesley responds with three disengaged sounding laugh particles. Thus, she treats
Mum’s prior turn as a laughable even though there appears to be nothing about
the design that invites such treatment.
In sum, a number of issues can be considered when analyzing laughter in
interaction. In order to explore the role of the laughter it is necessary to consider
its relationship to its laughable. Thus, a first step is to consider whether the
immediately prior talk (whether in the same turn or a previous one) appears to
be targeted by the laughter. Analysis of candidate laughables invites attention to
the array of properties to which laughter is a recurrent response. Such consid-
erations may but do not necessarily lead us to analysis of humorous elements in
human communication.
The indexical relationship between laughter and its laughable makes clear that
neither one alone determines meaning or action. More than that, both do what
they do in reference to and shaped by surrounding actions (Markaki et al., 2010).
In studying laughter, we confront ambiguities of meaning, referent, and action
that are part of—at times, essential to—how people communicate through it.
Considering turns that are built “to make laughter relevant” opens up the
question of how to characterize associations between actions produced by
different persons, and the relationship between those contributions. A conver-
sation analytic perspective shies away from claims of causality but attempts
to account for how some action constrains and enables a next action. The
strongest connection between actions by different speakers is the adjacency
pair (Schegloff, 1968), a sequential relationship in which occurrence of the
first item makes the second relevant and, if not provided, noticeably absent.
Adjacency pairs include such items as question-answer, greeting-greeting, and
offer-response. It has been suggested that laughter may, on occasion, occur in
an adjacency pair relationship: in other words, as the preferred second pair part
following, for example, a joke (Gavioli, 1995, p. 373; Sacks, 1974).
A related observation is the idea that laughter itself can invite a laugh
response (Jefferson, 1979) as shown in the following example:
(7) [From Jefferson, 1979:81]

1 Ellen: He s’d well I am cheap he said, .hh about the
Introduction 13
2 big things he says but not the liddle things

hhhHA HA [HA HA HA
3 Bill: [heh heh heh
Ellen laughs at the end of her turn and Bill treats this as an invitation by joining
in after two beats. Thus, Bill’s laughter is invited by Ellen’s, which it overlaps,
resulting in simultaneous, shared laughter (Jefferson, 1979).
On receipt of an invitation to laugh, it is not enough for a recipient to simply
not laugh in order to turn down the invitation; according to Jefferson (1979),
this may draw further attempts to initiate shared laughter. Instead, a participant
must terminate the relevance of laughter by, for example, starting to talk—
pursuing topical matters raised in the turn containing the laugh invitation:
(8) [From Jefferson, 1979:84]

1 Gene: So that shook the old (h)house(h)hold up fer
2 a(h)whi(h)le heh [
3 Patty: [Oh yes I c’n imagine
Laugh particles within Gene’s turn, and a beat of laughter at the end are followed
by Patty’s overlapping elaborate affiliation.
Besides laughter responding to a prior laugh invitation, it may be volun-
teered, and this might be oriented to as a laugh inviting further laughter
(Jefferson, 1979). However, analytic caution must be applied when treating
a first laugh as an invitation. According to Haakana (2002, p. 223) while
Jefferson pointed out that laughter can invite laughter “nowhere in her work
does she claim that this is what laughter always does”. Recurrently laughter is
not reciprocated (Adelswärd, 1989; Haakana, 2002, p. 216). Laughter serves as
an invitation only under certain circumstances; for example, Jefferson (1984)
showed that laughter in troubles-tellings is not an invitation to shared laughter.
Analyzing sequences can reveal why participants might resist treating laughter
as an invitation (Auburn and Pollock, Chapter 7, this volume). Furthermore,
as laughing together is a joint accomplishment, identifying a specific laugh
invitation can be problematic (Haakana, 2002, p. 216).
Considering whether or not a first laugh is an invitation requires exploring
the same issues that are pertinent to exploring whether a laugh response and the
preceding laughable take the form of an adjacency pair. The answer lies in analyzing
various elements of the laughable turn and its wider sequential environment.
Recent work on adjacency pairs has suggested that whether a potential first pair
part is treated as such may depend on a cluster of elements. In analyzing initial
turns such as announcements and assessments, Stivers and Rossano (2010) argue
that “speakers mobilize response through the combination of multiple resources
employed simultaneously: through the social action a speaker produces, the
sequential position in which it is delivered and through turn design features that
increase the recipient’s accountability for responding” (p. 4).
Considering whether laughables operate as first pair parts of adjacency pairs,
and whether the presence of laughter constitutes an invitation to reciprocation,
suggest a gradational approach whereby various aspects of the turn (including
its part in the ongoing sequence) may push towards treatment as a first pair part,
and an invitation to respond with laughter. Such an approach seems commen-
surate with that suggested by Jefferson (1979). It appears that Jefferson (1979),
in using the term “candidate laughable” had in mind that other properties as
well as, or rather than, laughter can invite laughter:
It appears, then, that the order of alternative responses to a candidate laughable

is not organized as freely as one might suppose; i.e., the issue is not that
something should occur, laughter or whatever else, but that laughter should
occur, on a volunteer basis or by invitation. (1979, p. 83, our italics)
Whether participants orient to a potential laughable as inviting a laugh response

will depend on a wide range of conditions including the wider sequential
environment, the design and delivery of the immediately prior or accompa-
nying talk, and the possible presence of laughter and multimodal elements
(such as smiling) (Ford and Fox, 2010; Holt, 2011). According to Holt, “(t)urns
characterised by several elements recurrently associated with laughables may be
more likely to be seen as inviting laughter, and therefore as a noticeable absence
if not forthcoming” (p. 408). On the other hand, turns that are otherwise
serious, but have laughter as a component may be unlikely to be responded to
with laughter (though the laughter may still convey the merest hint or shadow
of an invitation to reciprocate).
Thus, in order to establish whether laughter is an invitation to shared
laughter, it is necessary to consider other properties of the turn and sequence to
build a supporting case.
Shared laughter
When a first laugh is reciprocated, participants share laughter. Although

shared laughter is not necessarily concurrent laughter (Jefferson, Sacks and
Introduction 15
Schegloff, 1977, p. 2), one of laughter’s distinctive attributes is that people can
do it together, in contrast to talk where participants strive for one party taking
a turn at a time (Sacks, 2004, p. 37). In fact, in some environments simulta-
neous laughter by all/both parties is the achieved and often preferred outcome
of the participants’ actions. According to Haakana (2002, p. 209), shared
laughter is usually seen as “a valuable phenomenon”: “(s)haring laughter is
seen to exhibit such positive interactional features as intimacy, affiliation and
alignment and to be sharing of a similar sense of humour, a similar attitude
towards something”. However, he also questions what counts as reciprocation,
arguing that it may involve a more varied range of actions than just laughter
(p. 218).
Given that shared laughter is recurrently oriented to as a positive experience,
it is not surprising that participants can, on occasion, work to extend such
sequences. Glenn (2003, pp. 73–84) explores three ways in which shared
laughter may be continued: renewing laugh units as they wind down, reinvoking
a laughable, or providing a next, relevant laughable.
Laughter and delicate moments
As much of the research reported here and elsewhere shows, there is a

recurrent relationship between laughter and environments which are in
some sense delicate, tricky, dispreferred, or in some other way problematic.
Routinely, speakers recounting troubles will laugh as a way of exhibiting
“troubles-resistance” (Jefferson, 1984). In her study of meetings in a youth
detention home, Osvaldsson (2004, p. 524) found laughter regularly used “in
the midst of problem formulation or the reporting of assessment results” (p.
524). Laughter has recurrently been identified as occurring in dispreferred
turns (for example, Gavioli, 1995; Haakana, 2002; Vöge, 2010). In meetings
where the therapist confronts clients at an inpatient clinic for addicts, Arminen
and Halonen (2007) found “laughter marks and reflects the sensitivity and
delicacy of confrontational practices” (p. 508). They identified three roles for
laughter:
1. laughing off (reframing) the patient’s troubles;

2. inviting other patients to laugh at a problem that the patient will not
recognize (this embodies the therapeutic technique of “mirroring”);
3. ameliorating a confrontation.
As well as attending to more global considerations in terms of occurring in

delicate actions or sequences (for example, in employment interviews [see
Glenn, Chapter 13, this volume]), laughter may also attend to more local
problems such as marking an insufficiency with a word or phrase. According to
Potter and Hepburn (2010), interpolated laugh particles “can manage descriptive
trouble of some kind and maybe head off incipient actions” (p. 1546).
There are many reasons why laughter is such a powerful device in these
delicate moments. One has to do with the ambiguity and implicitness of the
action of the laughter (Vöge, 2010). A second is its ability to modify or mitigate
potentially problematic actions. A third is the association between laughter and
affiliation or alignment. For example, in using laughter in a turn that is poten-
tially boastful during an employment interview, an interviewee may attempt
to maintain the interviewer’s affiliation while at the same time, highlighting
positive attributes (Glenn, Chapter 13, this volume). It is to affiliation and
alignment that we next turn.
Laughter, affiliation, and alignment
When laughter is invited or made relevant as one of a range of possible responses,

second laughter routinely gets treated as affiliative or aligning (Clarke and
Wilkinson, 2009; O’Donnell-Trujillo and Adams, 1983; Osvaldsson, 2004;
Schenkein, 1972; Vöge, 2010).3 However, there are times when laughter can be
neither of these (Markaki et al., 2010; Rees and Monrouxe, 2010). On occasions of
“laughing at” (Glenn, 1995) and teasing (Drew, 1987), laughter may be perceived
by the target as highly disaffiliative. Furthermore, there are occasions where “not
laughing is the perfect indication of alignment with the laugher” (Haakana, 2002,
p. 226). Laughter can fall somewhere in the middle of a continuum between
affiliation and disaffiliation, alignment, and nonalignment, and can constitute
“‘resisting” (Glenn 2003, chapter 6, Romaniuk, Chapter 10, this volume). In their
analysis of the speeches of management gurus, Greatbatch and Clark (2003)
found that audience laughter was ambiguous as affiliation and did not necessarily
show endorsement of the gurus’ ideas. As a response to complaints, minimal,
sometimes equivocal laughs display a somewhat disaffiliative stance in response
to a complaint (Holt, 2012). They fail to align with the activity of complaining, at
the same time disengaging from the topic and contributing to topic termination.
In a study of laughter in sequences involving impropriety, Jefferson et al. (1987)
found that laughter occupied a midpoint on a continuum of responses ranging
Introduction 17
from the most affiliative to the least. Further, in response to teases, laughter
recurrently precedes a serious rejection of the tease (Drew, 1987). Glenn (2003,
Chapter 6) shows how laughing offers a basis for resisting an activity not overtly
but subtly while allowing for continued affiliation.
That laughing can be affiliative/disaffiliative, aligning/nonaligning or
somewhere between these poles demonstrates both the complexity and multi-
faceted nature of laughter, and the need to analyze individual instances in terms
of the wider sequence. Laughter can provide subtle ways in which recipients can
maintain social concordance, while at the same time, avoid fully collaborating
in a delicate activity.
Closely linked to issues of affiliation and alignment are intimacy and rapport.
Sequences involving laughter and laughables have recurrently been linked to
the creation of these, whether between acquaintances or strangers (such as in
institutional settings).
In circumstances such as the survey interview, in which participants are previ-

ously unacquainted, laughter may not indicate intimacy or any kind of strong
alliance as such, but it can show affiliation or momentary rapport between the
individuals. (Lavin and Maynard, 2001 p. 456)
In interactions between acquaintances, Jefferson, et al (1987) showed that the

occurrence of impropriety can be associated with an increase in intimacy.
Laughter can be a midpoint between fully affiliative and nonaffliative responses.
Responses range from disaffiliating with the impropriety at one end, to escalation
at the other. Thus, laughter in these sequences can contribute to affiliating and
aligning with talk that is both potentially problematic but also can constitute a
moment of heightened intimacy.
Laughter, role, and identity
What part does laughter play in participants’ understandings of their situation,

what they are doing, and who they are? In other words, how does laughter
contribute to or instantiate context? From a CA perspective, talk (including
laughter) is both context-shaped and context renewing (Drew and Heritage,
1992, p. 18; Heritage, 1984, p. 242). Each action displays and contributes to
the unfolding sense of what is going on. At the same time, participants’ under-
standings and expectations shape actions and thus features of context may
persist. Previous research, as well as the chapters in this volume, advance our
understandings of how the presence (or noticeable absence) of laughter reflects

and constitutes environments, roles, relationships, and identities.
The presence and workings of laughter in various institutional settings have
drawn considerable research interest. We present this partial listing of the
settings where laughter has been studied not only to demonstrate the wide
range, but also to help researchers who hold an interest in a particular kind of
setting:
Business Meetings (Kangasharju and Nikko, 2009; Markaki, Merlino, Mondada,

and Oloff, 2010; Osvaldsson, 2004; Vöge 2010)
Medical encounters (Fatigante and Orletti, Chapter 8, this volume; Haakana,
2001, 2002; Rees and Monrouxe, 2010; Ticca, Chapter 6, this volume)
Telephone survey interviews (Maynard and Lavin, 2001)
Qualitative interviews (Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain, Chapter 12, this volume)
Focus groups (Robinson, 2009)
Group therapy sessions (Arminen and Halonen, 2007; Sacks, 1974)
Speech therapy sessions (Kovarksy, Schiemer, and Murray, 2011)
Service encounters (Haakana and Sorjonen, 2011)
Superior-subordinate workplace interactions (Schnurr and Chan, 2011)
Employment interviews (Glenn 2010; Glenn, Chapter 13, this volume)
Public lectures (Greatbatch and Clark, 2003)
Press briefings (Partington, 2006, 2011)
Broadcast news interviews (Romaniuk, Chapter 10, this volume)
Televised political debates (Clayman, 1992a)
Teacher-Student classroom interactions (Jacknick, Chapter 9, this volume)
Across these studies, there is interest not only in how laughter operates, but
more fundamentally how the presence of laughter constitutes these as distinctive
environments and kinds of interactions. Many researchers have noticed and
taken an interest in asymmetries of laughter that reflect role and environment.
Institutional interaction may be distinguished in part by the presence of
constraints on the turn-taking system guiding ordinary conversation (Sacks
et al., 1974); these constraints routinely take the form of asymmetrical rights
to manage topic or activity (Drew and Heritage, 1992, p. 19; ten Have, 1991).
West’s (1984) claim that patients laugh much more often than doctors drew
partial confirmation and elaboration in Haakana (2001, 2002). Patients laugh
more, often directed toward their own delicate activities. Doctors will “laugh
off ” problematic activities by patients. First laughs by either party are rarely
reciprocated by the other. Asymmetries were evident in the laugh patterns of
telephone survey interviewers and their subjects (Lavin and Maynard, 2002).
Introduction 19
Similarly, Kovarsky et al. (2011) document speech and language therapists

producing minimal laughs while otherwise marking disaffiliation as a client
produces a series of sexual jokes. In these encounters, the institutional agents
laugh less, exercising restraint. As the researcher leading a focus group with
low-income, female smokers who were joking and laughing, Robinson (2009)
describes wanting to laugh along yet feeling the need to maintain her profes-
sional stance, “prompted by this, I tried to suppress my laughter as much as
possible, usually only smiling, or looking down to refer to my focus group
schedule. Therefore despite ‘joining in’ the laughter, there were boundaries that
I sought to maintain, such as never responding with a joke, or never introducing
a joke, and so distancing myself from the actual production of humour” (p. 274).
Such restraint does not apply to all institutional roles and is shaped by activity as
well as role. Glenn (2010) shows that employment interviewers routinely initiate
shared laugh sequences. The asymmetrical organization of these sequences
(interviewers laugh first, may extend the laughable topic, and return talk to the
business at hand) reflects participant orientation to their respective roles.
Asymmetries can appear not only between institutional representatives
and nonmembers, but also between persons of different institutional status.
Adelswärd (1989, p. 124) found that in organizational talk, subordinate parties
tend to laugh more. Vöge (2010) found different practices of laughter in
complaints depending on whether the recipient is an equal or an inferior.
Persons occupying different roles may use laughter to accomplish different
outcomes. Osvaldsson (2004) shows how the person chairing a meeting uses
laughter and joking to help manage the flow of talk. Similarly, Kangasharju
and Nikko (2009) show a meeting leader initiating shared laughter early in the
meeting, with the shared laughter serving as a rapport display.
Besides indexing institutional role, how might laughter contribute to our
sense of individual identity? There are common lay notions that individuals have
signature laugh patterns, and some people may be known for their distinctive
laughs. However, Vetting and Todt (2004) found (as predicted) much greater
variation among the laughs of individuals than between individuals. There
has been some interest in studying the laughter of persons with disabilities
that influence communication. Hudenko et al. (2009) concluded that autistic
children produced “voiced” laughs associated with positive affect but almost
no voiceless laughter associated more with social interaction. Similarly, Reddy
et al. (2002) argued that Down Syndrome children share humor and laughter
much like “normal” populations, but that autistic children were less likely than
normal to produce what they call “social” laughs. These themes are taken up
and extended in Chapter 7 (this volume). A question through these and related
studies is whether (or to what degree) persons with various disorders laugh
like “normal” persons or accomplish the same things through their laughter. A
case study (Wilson et al., 2007) shows how a person classified with “dementia”
accomplishes through laughter much of what “normal” persons do: laughing to
cue how a message should be taken, as a display of hearership, and as an affili-
ative move. Thus persons’ identities as “normal”, “demented”, “autistic”, etc. may
be shaped in no small measure by the ways they laugh.
We ascribe emotions and mental conditions to people based on their laughter.
In Chapter 13, Glenn takes up the lay notion of “nervous” laughter, analyzing
moments in employment interviews where interviewees laugh while managing
delicate moments. The closing discussion suggests that such moments may be
what people think of as “nervous” laughter, but that in fact the laughs (like all
laughs) perform precise operations on the unfolding talk.
In addition to conceptions of “normal”, constructions of gender may
also be shaped by laughter. We do not here review studies concerned with
connections between gender and humor, which are numerous (see a brief
review in Glenn, 2003, pp. 151–7). Some studies suggest gender-based
laugh differences. Mehu and Dunbar (2008) claim that young women laugh
more in mixed-sex groups in bars. Worth noting as a CA study of laughter
is Jefferson’s (2004a) analysis leading to her conclusion that, in mixed-sex
interactions, males are more likely to laugh or not laugh in ways that mark
“resistance” and females are more likely to laugh or not laugh in ways that
mark “receptiveness”. Although intriguing, such findings are preliminary
and only describe general tendencies. Furthermore, the starting point of
assuming and searching for gender difference begs the more fundamental
question of how laughter might display gender in the first place (see Beach
and Glenn, 2011; Glenn, 2003, pp. 158–61).
Another conception of identity, perhaps more local and variable, lies in
sequential role. In public speaking situations, audiences and speakers organize
their vocal behavior (including laughter) in ways that reflect their respective
sequential identities (cf. Clayman, 2002; Greatbatch and Clark, 2003). Ikeda and
Bysouth (Chapter 3, this volume) show how the placement and form of laughter
marks incipient role, projecting either taking the floor to speak or remaining as
an observing but nonspeaking spectator in small group interactions.
Patterns of laughter may also instantiate membership in particular ethnic,
cultural, or national groups—another facet of identity. Markaki et al. (2010)
analyze group laughter over pronunciation of a name in a meeting among
Introduction 21
participants from varied linguistic and national backgrounds. In this volume,

Ticca (Chapter 6, this volume) examines delicate moments between mothers
and doctors using different languages and carrying different cultural inter-
pretations. In the moments analyzed, the doctors take sharply critical stances
towards the mothers, and the mothers laugh while resisting what the doctors are
saying. Nationality identities are foregrounded in Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain
(Chapter 12, this volume), where laughter precisely marks affiliation and stance
as expatriates talk about what it means to be German in Canada, or family
members celebrate artifacts that carry particular symbolic value for those hailing
from (or identifying with) the former East German Democratic Republic.
The chapters that follow reflect the progression we have adopted in this
review chapter. We began with a micro-level focus on laughs themselves,
attending to their commonalities and their varieties. We considered their place-
ments: freestanding, within turns at talk in different locations, or following talk.
We have given considerable attention to laugh sequences including laughables,
laugh invitations, shared laughter, and resistance. We have discussed the ways
that laugh sequences contribute to displays of alignment or resistance, affili-
ation or disaffiliation. Finally, attention has been given to the ways that laughter
plays a part in the construction of contexts and identities. Through the organi-
zation of laughter, people show themselves to be participating in different kinds
of events and settings. Whether conceived of in terms of institutional role,
individual difference, gender, or nationality, who we are is in no small measure
built out of small moments of laughter—distinctively produced, precisely
placed, systematic, and specific in what it accomplishes.
*We are grateful to Rebecca Clift for comments on an earlier version of this
chapter, and to Paul Drew for help in the initial stages of this project.
Notes
1 This volume focuses on laughter rather than humor (though there is some
discussion of attributes of laughables that may contribute to them being deemed to
be humorous). For overviews of contemporary research on humor in interaction,
see, for example, Attardo, 1994, 2005.
2 For more information on CA see Heritage, 1984a; Psathas, 1995; and Sidnell, 2010.
3 Stivers (2008) distinguishes between aligning and affiliating in storytelling. Aligned
responses support the “structural asymmetry of the storytelling activity: that a
storytelling is in progress and that the teller has the floor until story completion”
(p. 34). Disaligned responses “undermine this asymmetry by competing for the
floor or failing to treat a story as either in progress – or at story completion – as
over” (p. 34). Affiliation concerns the stance taken in the telling. With an affiliative
response, “the hearer displays support of and endorses the teller’s conveyed stance”
(p. 35).
Part One
Varieties of Laughter
We tend to think and speak of laughter as a unitary phenomenon, but close

examination reveals a wide range of production features that go into what
people treat as laughter. Laughs vary in location (relative to talk and to their
referent), duration, acoustic contour, volume, intensity, facial expression, body
position, movement, and more (see Ford and Fox, 2010, for a particularly rich
and precise characterization of variations in laughter). Such differences are
interesting in their own right. More germane to the focus of the chapters in
this book, such differences matter in social life: they shape the meaning of and
actions accomplished by laughter. The two chapters in this section contribute to
richer understandings of how varieties of laughter work in interaction.
“Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription” by Hepburn and
Varney offers a first-of-its-kind guide to transcribing laughter. Building on
Jefferson’s (1984) persuasive case for what transcribing laughter can yield, the
authors show analysts how to represent laughs in ways that foreground auditory
features as well as timing and sequential location. In the course of this demon-
stration the authors make a number of intriguing analytic observations about
the transcript examples shown. In this way, they tie transcription to analysis,
showing convincingly that transcription enables careful, detailed insights about
how laughs contribute to sequences and unfolding courses of action. Indeed,
the remarkable findings presented in the rest of this book only become available
when laughs are transcribed in careful, precise detail. This chapter will aid any
scholar interested in analyzing laughter in interaction.
The third chapter, “Laughter and Turn-Taking: Warranting Next Speakership
in Multiparty Interactions” by Ikeda and Bysouth examines how laughs project
speakership in complex moments of storytelling and response in Japanese-
language, multiparty interactions. As a current speaker produces laughable talk
and multiple others respond, individuals may laugh in ways that show them
getting ready to take a next turn at talk. They may also laugh in ways that display
passive participation, appreciating the talk but not taking a next turn. We might
think of laughter as indexing mirth, e.g. the more one laughs, the more amused
one is. In contrast, the analysis demonstrates that variations in the production
features of laughs correlate with their sequential roles.
2
Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes

on Transcription
Alexa Hepburn and Scott Varney
Before embarking on the painstaking and time consuming task of transcribing

laughter, we have to be sure that it’s worth the effort. And indeed sometimes it’s
not; for example, it’s not clear what analytic benefit there would be in attempting
to transcribe the wide range of sounds that make up audience laughter, so it is
usually enough to simply describe its occurrence and indicate its duration, as
below:
01 Aud: [ ((laught[er)) ]
02 [ (10.5) [ (1.5) ]
03 Blair: [And the con]servatives…
In this (invented) example we can see a total of 12 seconds of audience laughter,

overlapped at 10.5 seconds by the speaker on Line 3. This clearly marks the
onset and offset of audience laughter, in overlap with both talk and silence,
and times its duration. Where individual laughter is not distinguishable, and
therefore its placement and interactional role is not relevant, this is sufficient.
As Phillip Glenn (2003, p. 42) has noted, reproducing someone else’s talk as
if word for word is a common practice in everyday talk, and yet people make
no attempt to reproduce all the “ha ho heh” sounds when reporting laughter.
To do so would sound odd (or maybe sarcastic). This may be because laughter
doesn’t do action in the way other elements of talk do. Laughter does not have
propositional content—it cannot be unpacked into a set of discrete words or
phrases; rather it is something that is treated as accompanying talk or even as
“flooding out” in response to “humor”. Given this, when and why is it important
to transcribe laughter?
Pioneering work by Gail Jefferson (1979, 1984, 1985, 2010; Jefferson et al.,
1987) has shown how laughter can be approached as an ordered interactional
phenomenon. Like other elements of talk, Jefferson argued that laughter is “a

systematically produced, socially organized activity” (Jefferson et al., 1987,
p. 152). Her meticulous transcription and analysis showed laughter to be
typically more than an uncontrollable expression of amusement, and instead
something which is closely interactionally coordinated and used to accomplish
specific interactional tasks (e.g. see Glenn, 2003 for a summary, and chapters
in the current volume). In her paper on laughter in troubles-telling, Jefferson
notes that laughter may display the teller’s “good spirits” and bravery, so is
“troubles-resistive” (Jefferson, 1984, p. 367). Jefferson (1985) also discussed the
value of transcribing laughter where it is interpolated within words (see below
for examples) to manage delicate tasks, such as the saying of an obscenity. Even
with shared laughter, Jefferson demonstrated that this is a highly ordered event
which is co-ordinated by recipients in relation to rhythmic pulses of laughter
(Jefferson et al., 1987). She also showed the value of attending to the exact
placement of laughter in particular words, as well as its prosodic features.
Recent work (e.g. Jefferson, 2010) has further refined the way the fine
placement of the kinds of particles of sounds and aspiration that are conven-
tionally glossed as laughter can have interactional significance. Potter and
Hepburn (2010) demonstrated how laughter can interlace speech so that
laughter particles are produced simultaneously with talk. Further, Shaw et al.
(Chapter 5) show that there may be a small number of particles (typically 1–3)
in post-completion position. In these positions either within or immediately
following talk, laughter particles may be one or more elements of “plosive”
aspiration (how “explosive” the particles sound, indicated by parentheses).
Particles may also be simply breathy. Shaw et al. (Chapter 5) also show that it is
also important to capture the quality of delivery in post-completion position, as
sometimes laughter particles can be designed as either “raucous” or minimal,
depending on the interactional work being done. Once we start to realise the
import of these subtle distinctions between different kinds of laughter delivery,
we need to reliably capture them in transcript.
In this short chapter we will lay out some of the features of laughter, and
explore some reasons why, even when laughter appears to be “flooding out”,
it is still important to capture its often subtle interactional features. There will
not be space here to cover all the possible features of laughter, nor the interac-
tional significance of doing it one way rather than another. Nevertheless, we
will attempt to provide some basic methods for hearing and transcribing that
will draw on and develop the basic transcription conventions designed by Gail
Jefferson (see Transcription Notations).
Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription 27
Distinguishing different types of laughter
There are numerous English vernacular terms that describe different forms of
laughter, e.g. giggle, chuckle, guffaw, snigger, hysterical or raucous, or fits of
laughter. There are even different words for the facial contortions that might
accompany amusement—smirk, grin, smile, simper, and so on. These vernacular
words for categorizing laughter often carry some positive and negative valence,
for example describing someone as smirking or sniggering could be part of
building a negative description or complaint. They also suggest that people may
orient to, and find significant, different ways of laughing, and different ways
of incorporating laughter into interaction. However, such mundane descrip-
tions do not themselves specify the precise sounds that are made. Nor do they
say much about the interactional relevancies of different forms of laughter in
different positions in interaction. If we want to move beyond the vernacular and
start to address these issues systematically then it will be important to work with
an agreed set of conventions for transcribing the sounds involved. Here we set
out some of the different ways to capture features of laughter that are potentially
interactionally consequential.
Transcribing laughter will seem difficult at first because of the unfamiliar
sounds and forms of representation, and because, as Sacks’ rule of “not more
than one party at a time” does not apply with laughter, overlap is a common
feature (e.g. see Extract 1 below). The only solution is practice. However, be
assured that once that practice has bedded in, it is possible to reliably distinguish
the different sounds of laughter and to accurately represent them orthographi-
cally. As with transcription of other materials, especially of more complicated
sequences of interaction, one useful device for capturing the diverse range of
sounds is to incrementally add layers of detail, where you can go back to a clip
and listen for each different feature (see Hepburn and Bolden, in prep). To
facilitate this, examples of the different features of laughter are presented below.
Components of laughter
Laughter is typically made up of pulsed outbreaths, which can be delivered quite

quickly, for example “ahHAH HA HA HAH” from Example 1 below. They may
also occur as standalone particles, as the following extract, from a corpus of
recordings of people watching comedy programs, shows:
1. One Foot in the Grave

01 TV1: Margaret where the hell di you put my ca::r keys?
02 (0.5)
03 ((TV1 puts his hand in his pocket and finds keys))
04 TV1: How did they get in there, I never put them there.
05 Graham:→ [ Hhuh ]
06 TV2: [You know] (.) that Derek Gibson.
Here a somewhat amusing turn on the TV elicits a single particle from

Graham on Line 5. While single laugh particles are common markers of action
modulation in both interpolated and post-completion positions, it may also be
useful to track their occurrence as standalone particles, where they are in some
way responsive to some prior turn.
Each pulse or particle of laughter should be transcribed, and their sheer
speed of delivery can present the first major obstacle to the transcriber. One
solution is to slow down the sound, which can be done with software such as
QuickTime, Adobe Audition, or Audacity, the latter of which is available to
download for free1. This allows a more careful consideration of both the type
and number of laughter particles present. Slowing the tempo also facilitates a
clear sense of overlap onset and offset.
Voiced vowels
Laughter can be combined with different voiced vowels, resulting in characteristic

particles such as huh/hah/heh/hih/hoh. These can be interspersed with audible
inbreaths, which may themselves contain voiced vowels (e.g. “hih” and “ha” on Line
5). As Line 2 and 5 below shows, the same interlocutor may use a variety of forms.
2. Location, Location, Location

1 Bill: Th [e shed- ]
2 Kirsty: [H H h i ] h [h h u h h huh hhah hah ]=
3 Phil: [I don’t [think you’re gonna give ‘im ]=
4 Hazel: [a h H A H H A H A HAH ]=
5 Kir: =[hih ha hah hah ha .h ] [i.h] h h ]=
6 Phil: =[a MO:MENT’S CHOI:CE:! ] [Hh ]
7 Haz: =[ahah hah ha hah .hh ] [h h h ]=
8 Bil: [hihyeahh ]=
9 Phi: =[.Hhugh I thi(h)nk you’ll gedover it W:ON:’T
10 you:!]=
The presence of “voiced vowels” can be a clue to how plosive the laughter is,
as it often seems that more plosive laughter is more likely to contain a voiced
vowel. This could be due to the shape of the open mouth, which seems to give
the expelled air (which often includes a vocal accompaniment with varying
degrees of volume) a vowel-like quality, whereas a closed mouth or throat would
more likely add consonants, e.g. “tsshh” or “khuh”, of which, more later. It’s
also important that the transcript can represent clearly situations where voiced
vowels are not present, as the section below on “‘aspiration” will demonstrate.
Vowel placement
Listening out for the placement of vowels relative to aspiration can be a
challenge. Consider an example of a laughter particle in which the vowel
appears prior to the aspiration.
3. Holt: J86:2:1:2–3 (transcript modified)

01 Les: =D’you fly: (.) °o:[r (.) g[o (.) °with°
02 Fos: [.hhh [We go by helicopter
03 fr’m Penzanc [e to: to Tresco: yes.=
04 Les: [Yes.
05 Les: =Yes.=
06 Fos: =’t’s only a (0.4) quarter’v’n hour fli:ght °but uh°
07 (0.2)
08 Les: .hhhh expens [ive.
09 Fos: [interesting .hhhh
10 (0.2)
11 Fos: We [ll I yes I s]poze ihiit’s: uh:: it’s about forty=
12 Les: [ehh heh heh ]
13 Fos: =pou:nds retu:rn.
14 Les: Yes:. Yes.
On Line 8, Lesley completes Foster’s turn in a way that then makes him
accountable for the expense of his helicopter flight. Her first laughter particle
on Line 12 starts with a vowel sound “ehh”, and the second is given extra plosive
force “heh”. These differences are marked by the lack of “h” at the start, and
by the underlining. The inclusion of more vowel sounds and a plosive middle
particle amplifies the delivery of the laughter, which may relate to Lesley’s need
to manage what turns out to be her rather non-affiliative completion2 of Foster’s
prior turn on Line 6.
Volume
It is conventional to represent moderately increased volume by underlining.

When transcribing laughter, underlining can also mark more plosive aspiration,
which will of course sound louder. This use of underlining allows capitals to be
reserved for laughter particles which are delivered at a notably higher volume.
Thus in:
01 Jen: [Yeh James’s a little] divil ihhh ↑heh heh
We see the underlining marking the increased volume and plosiveness. And in:
04 Hazel: [a h H A H H A ↑HA ↑HAH ]=
The voiced vowel with marked elevated volume (no doubt due both to its status
as overlapping, but also to the management of a strongly disaffiliative turn by
Hazel3) is shown by the capital letters.
Pitch
In addition to variations in the volume of each laugh particle, the pitch of

laughter can also vary, and transcription of this follows Jefferson’s normal
conventions, for example, underlining and arrows. In Extract 4 below on Line
7, Lesley’s laughter is both high pitched with elevated volume and plosiveness.
4. Holt:M88:1:5:12
01 Les: [Eh: ↑WE:LL eh ↑WHAT I RANG up ↓about was ehm
02 di↑did you have ↓anybody want a photogra:ph?
03 (0.5)
04 Rob: I’ll be honest with ↑you
05 Les: No.=
06 Rob: =haven’t a:sked ↓th'm.
07 Les: Oh: that’s alrigh [t ↑hhah hah hah hah↑ [.ah
08 Rob: [( ) [C'n I leave
09 it another wee:k,
On Line 7, arrows surrounding "↑hhah hah hah hah↑" indicate elevated pitch,
and the underlining indicates plosive delivery as well as delivery that is moder-
ately louder than the surrounding talk. Here Lesley preempts a dispreferred
response on Line 5, and her laughter manages both the interactional trouble
created by Robbie’s failure to grant an earlier request, and, as with Extract 3, her
own problem in wrongly preempting Robbie’s turn.
To illustrate some different pitch movements, consider the following extract
from a radio show. Frank is telling his listening audience and co-presenters
about a photo that was recently published in a daily newspaper featuring him
holding his newborn baby, while his girlfriend Cath is in the background on
her mobile phone. On Lines 1–3 Frank reveals that the reason that Cath was on
her phone was because she was attempting to arrange an appointment with her
doctor.
5. Gastroenteritis
01 Frank: She was actually: erm (.) phonin the do:ctor to see
02 if she could come in and see him that morning aboud
03 ‘er gastoenteritis.
04 (0.2)
05 Alun: Khn [hhhuhh [ °hh-hh° ]
06 Emily: [O::h. ]
07 Frank: [↓She’ll lo]ve me↓=
08 =[↓fer (.) telling you [that,↓]
09 Emily: =[ Hn-hn-hn-hn ]
10 Alun: [↑Hhah ] ↑hhah [º↑↑.hhih]
11 Frank: [ Hhnh ]
On Line 7, Frank sarcastically remarks that “she’ll love me for telling you that”,
which both co-presenter Alun and guest Emily respond to with laughter (Lines
9–11). The high-pitched, elevated volume and plosive quality of Alun’s laughter
helps him to characterize Frank’s utterance as extremely humorous (compare
with “Hhuh” in Extract 1). By contrast, Emily’s laughter is much more subdued
and possibly done through a closed mouth, resulting in the “hn” sound.
Aspiration
Laughter may contain differing degrees of aspiration, and in some cases be

composed entirely of breathy sounds. For example, in the following extract,
laughter is hearably present, but without the voiced features.
6. Hyla and Nancy

01 Nancy: Didja a’ready get the mai:l,=
02 Hyla: =.hhhh Yes, hh-hh-h [h,
03 Nancy: [ Oh, hhhmhh [hh

04 Hyla: [hh-hh
05 (.)
06 Nancy: Sorry I brought it uhhhp
Here Hyla’s response on Line 2 reveals a painful lack of correspondence from her
boyfriend. The breathiness of her delivery is conveyed by “hh” without a voiced
vowel, and the cut-off indicates that the particles are clearly separated—“hh-hh-hh”.
Compare this with Nancy’s breathy laughter in the post-completion slot on Line 3.
Here a single extended breathy particle is hearable. The value of this type of delivery
may relate to Shaw et al.’s (Chapter 5) suggestion that more muted delivery seems
more appropriate when mitigating actions that have the potential for being in some
way interactionally troublesome. Were Nancy to do something more raucous here
she would risk sounding callous, or as if she were reveling in her friend’s discomfort.
How many “hhs”?

In general when transcribing aspiration of any kind, one rule of thumb for how many
“hhs” to include is to time the aspiration and add one “h” for every “beat” of silence
(which is usually somewhere in between 0.1 and 0.2, depending on the relative speed
of the talk, see Hepburn and Bolden, in press, for ways of counting or measuring
this). Where laughter is very breathy, this may be a useful guide. Another would be
to compare different examples of laughter that have been transcribed by experts. For
example, compare Jenny’s post-completion laughter managing her troubles telling:
Jen: No I’ve gotta pimple on my chin en one on my

eyebrow so ah ha ha ↑ha
With the Charlie’s more breathy laughter below, managing what will become,
following various hedges and false starts, the delivery of bad news:
Cha: Hi howuh you doin.

Ile: Goo:: [d,
Cha: [hhhe:h heh .hhhh I wuz uh:m: (·) .hh I wen’ ah:-
And also in Hyla’s laughter below, compare her particles in Line 6 with the later
ones in Line 12, which are delivered with marginally less aspiration:
7. Hyla and Nancy 12.01: 18

01 Nancy: It wasn’t fu(h)u(h)nn(h)y
02 (0.2)
03 Nancy: [.hhhhhhh
04 Hyla: [I’m not laughing. [.hhhh
05 Nancy: [I kno:w,hh [hhh
06 Hyla: [he:h huh,
07 (0.2)
08 (Nancy): .hhh
09 (0.5)
10 Nancy: A::nywa::y,
11 (·)
12 Hyla: eh-eh .hhhhhh Uh::m,
On Line 6 the laughter particles are enclosed by “h” and in the turn initial
particles on Line 12, they aren’t.
Audible inbreaths can also accompany episodes of laughter, and seem related
to the plosive exhalations that precede them, as the above example shows. Line
3 sounds like the inhalation from Nancy’s laughter particles through “funny” on
Line 1. Similarly Hyla’s inbreath h on Line 11 sounds like the aftermath of her
bout of laughter that starts on Line 6 and is finished on Line 11, although it’s
difficult to hear any intervening laughter.
Distinguishing laughter from different sounds
Sometimes when we just have a transcript, it can be hard to tell laughter from
other practices4 such as crying or coughing, for example:
FAN: Yeah. .hh uh-hhu-uh: how d’d they live uh lately.=
Here the speaker has a couple of aborted attempts at “uh: how”—we can hear the
cut off sounds and the “hhu”-sound headed for “how”. The result is something
that looks like laughter, but sounds very different. Sometimes the only way to
check is by listening to the recording, or here analysts might rely on features of
the context—speakers are discussing the death of a mutual acquaintance, and
the sounds are compatible with a word search.
Laughter composed solely of aspiration is also in danger of not being seen as
laughter by analysts working with transcript alone. If this runs the risk of gener-
ating confusion then it may be important to add a description, such as ((breathy
laughter)). In order to distinguish breathy laughter from outbreaths where it has
the characteristic “staccato” delivery, separate out the particles with the “cut-off ”
symbol, as with Extract 5 “hh-hh”:
06 Alun: Khn[hhhuhh[ °hh-hh° ]
And Extract 7:
02 Hyla: =.hhhh Yes, hh-hh-hh,
Consonants
Laughter isn’t simply composed of voiced vowels such as huh/hah/heh/hih/hoh.

These sounds are often transformed into sounds that are more like consonants
through the speaker’s use of some combination of larynx, mouth tension, and
nose.
A common feature of laugh particles is a guttural quality. This is a distinct
back of the throat quality that modifies the resulting laughter, such as the ”g” in
Phil’s “.hhugh” in Extract 1, Line 9 (see Jefferson, 2010, for useful discussion of
guttural laughter particles).
Just as “g” can be used by transcribers to record the guttural sound, so too can
a “‘k” be used for another back of the throat quality that is audible in laughter.
This might be characterized as snorty. For example, returning to Extract 5:
06 Alun: Khn[hhhuhh[ °hh-hh° ]
Alun’s laughter begins in a snorty way, as if suppressing some other sound.

In Extract 6, we noted that Nancy’s laughter was managing her having placed
Hyla in an uncomfortable position. We noted the lack of voiced vowels as a
useful device to deliver laughter in a more downplayed way.
03 Nancy: [Oh, hhhmhh[hh
Whereas the aspirational elements can be produced by the mouth, which may
be open to deliver vowel sounds or snorts, where laughter takes on a more
stifled quality, through a more closed (leaving only the nose) or tensed mouth,
it makes other consonants such a “n”, “m” or “l” audible.
Laughter particles within talk
Laughter may interlace speech so that laughter particles are produced simulta-
neously with talk, or there may be a small number (typically 1–3) of particles
in pre- or post-completion position. As Potter and Hepburn (2010) showed,
§how “explosive” they sound, indicated by parentheses, such as in “thi(h)nk” in

Extract 1, Line 9:
9 Phi: =[.Hhugh I thi(h)nk you’ll gedover it W:ON:’T you:!]=
They may also be simply breathy, as in “yeahh” in Extract 1, Line 8:
8 Bil: [hihyeahh]=
The usefulness of laughter for speakers engaged in a range of actions and

emotion displays is revealed by the many ways it can be inflected in talk.
For example, sympathy is audible in Nancy’s uptake to Hyla’s confession on
Line 4:
8. Hyla and Nancy

01 Hyla: Hu:h?
02 Nancy: C’djih tell iz vo[i:ce, ]
03 Hyla: [Y e a ] :h, I knew iz voice,=
04 Nancy: → =Oha:::[w,
05 Hyla: [hhhih .hh=
The laughter works here because sympathy on its own would be to cast Hyla too
far into the role of rejected girlfriend.
For a more exaggerated example of this, see Mum’s turn below, where she is
responding to Sarah’s story about how her young son (Mum’s grandson) became
upset.
9. Shaw PC
Sarah: And he got him£self all upset£=‘cause he thought I’d
tell him off= [because he didn’t have his jum ]per,
Mum: [Oh~:: bless °him° ]
Sarah: Hh [hh ]
Mum: → [Tch ohhh] hoh hoh hoh hoh [.HiUHH
Sarah: [.HHH
In the following extract, Caroline is watching TV with her friends, one of whom
is from India.
10. Shock
06 TV1: =you take the phone for a bit and let me know if
07 any re:al people come on.
08 (.)
09 TV3: Indians are real people dad.
10 ((Doorbell rings on-screen))

11 Barbara: Mphuh
12 Caroline: ↑Ehohh!
13 Denise: Ohkh=
14 Annette: =↓Owh>hoh 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
2 Ver: [T hat-
3 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 devel-
opment, suggested by many of the chapters in this volume, is laughter in action
formation and action modulation.
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 huh/hah/heh/hih/hoh

Elevated volume H A HA
Reduced volume °huh hih°
Pitch shift, moderate hah hah
Pitch shift, marked ↑hhah ↑↑.hhih
Plosive particles heh heh
Plosive interpolated particles fu(h)u(h)nn(h)y
Breathy interpolated particles uhhhp
Breathy hhhe:h
Breathy, hearable particles hh-hh-hh
Consonant sounds 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 turn-
allocation 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 partici-
pation 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
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 “excla-
mation 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-occur-
rences 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 partici-

pants 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
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 partici-
pation 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.
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 impor-
tantly 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

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.
5 hatsuonno shikata mo zenzen chiau.

Pronunciation GEN howalso at all differ
Pronunciation also differs too.
6 (.5)
↓uchi no obaachan to >hanashiteru to< (.)
7 F:
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
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”).
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-(.)
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.
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
*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
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 partici-
pant’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 simul-
taneously 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
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.
minna insei shitsu(.) insei shitu >kite< minna

1 G:
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:
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˚<=
all togetherPT all night COP work-let’s QT QT
9 =sootoo *2kooritsu warui n da [yo n(h)e. heh
quite productivity bad NM COP IP IP
*2-------------------------------------------------*
Let’s write the paper together, all night long!, we’d say—quite unpro-
ductive, it was.
10-> 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
*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)
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 inter-
actional 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 coinci-
dently 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<=*4/*5↑HONTO:? ]↑HONTO:?
really really
*4 ---------------*
*5 ------------------------->
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.
*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,
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
suburban area in Tokyo. C is describing an activity which C has assigned her

students to do: a quiz-show game.
>nanka<bakabaka kuizu ja nakutte

1 C:
HES stupid quiz COP NEG
2 nan [dakke
what COP IP
Not a stupid quiz show (trying to remember a name).
3 D: [nan dakke ˚bakabaka:˚

What COP IP stupid:
What was it, stupid.
4 G: atta ne ↓nanka:
exist IP HES
There was something like that.
bakabaka nantoka tte yuu no de: ano

5 C:
Stupid something QT say NM COP HES
6 kuizu shoo keeshiki(.)ni shite
quiz show format PT make
7 kudasranai- kudaranai kuizu o:dashite=kudaranai
ridiculous-ridiculousquiz O propose ridiculous
8 kotae o (.5)ga kuru no ne?
answer O S make NM IP
So like that stupid quiz show format, (the students) pose some
ridiculous question and others answer it, you know?
9 B: un
Yeah
Yeah.
10 C: >↑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˚˚
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.
21-> B: [nande Takao san?

Why Mt. Takao
Why Mt. Takao?
datte hora:: IBU dakara sa: Takao yuki [no :

22 C:
CAU you see IBU CAU IP Takao bound GEN
Because you see, IBU campus area has things bound to
Mt. Takao.
23 B: [ah:: uhm ]
oh:: HES
24 Oh: well.
ER: huh heh [ heh heh heh ]
25 C: [>kisha ya ressha aru ja nai< ]↓Takao san

Steam train and trains exist COP NEG Mt.Takao
26 tte no ga.
QT NM S
There’re trains which go to Mr. Takao, right.
*1 L: ER looks at C.
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 turn-
initial 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=
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-------------------->
14 * (.)
5
*5--->
15 D: heh=&sore d(h)e tte >yuu no ha[yai<&
That COP QT say NM early
Too early to conclude like that.
16 I: [*6heheh!.hh ( ) *7/*8zettai
Absolutely
*6------------------------------------>
*7---------->
nai to omou
NEG QT think
I would think it’s absolutely not likely.
17 T: [˚heh heh˚
18 H: [˚˚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.
T 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 disen-
gages 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
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 distin-
guish 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
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, affili-
ation/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 nonse-
rious 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
a country dance; showing up without a promised comestible and then negoti-

ating 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 speci-
fying 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 physi-
cian’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
Laughs in Turns 67
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 situa-
tions 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 nonseri-

ousness, 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 nonse-
riousness. 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
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 collabo-
ration of participants. Consideration of this negotiation of the nature of actions
(i.e. whether they are to be treated seriously, nonseriously, or by some combi-
nation) 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 nonse-

rious 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 metacom-
municative signals which frame or bracket messages as nonserious” (p. 137).
“There’s Many a True Word Said in Jest” 71
Thus: “(f)ramed as play, a conversational act does not carry the ‘serious’ conse-
quences 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.
(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 illus-
trated 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
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 nonseri-
ousness 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.
(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
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 [: Thursday-
3 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)
17 this wretched old thing in your hou:se

18 (0.5)
19 Lesley: 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: [Mh-
7 Frank: Huh?
8 Jim: Whuddiyih kno:w.
9 (0.3)
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, ]
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.)
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-he-
19 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 consid-
ering 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
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 collab-
orate 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 ththey’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 ( ) ]=
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 combi-
nation 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-]
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 repro-
duced 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 recip-
rocating 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
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
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 partici-
pants 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 one-
you 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 poten-
tially 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 nonse-

riousness 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 subse-
quent offer.
(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,
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:.
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’m-
28 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
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 arrange-
ments 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 implica-
tions 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
entwined in interaction. Such sequences can be extremely useful in environ-

ments 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 require-
ments. 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
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 “embar-
rassed”. 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 interac-
tional 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
Having the Last Laugh: On Post-Completion Laughter Particles 93
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 expres-
sions, 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.
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,
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 hat-
3 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
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 hat-
12 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 conversa-
tionally 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 inter-
action; 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.
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
20 (0.5)
21 Gor: Yeah. Proba’ly,
22 Eve: .h Yeah I’ll do that the:n, .hh uh:m wuhwhat time
23 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 progres-
sivity 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
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 young-
adult 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
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 trans-
gression 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.
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: <I’m surprised that they: (0.8) do it in a: health center.
30 ((conversation continues about the health center))
In Lines 9–10, Sinitta displays a casual disregard for her Mum’s voicing of her
father’s concerns about the health risks from sunbeds. Mum issues the warning
that “it’s dangerous” (Line 8) and in this sense her turn can be heard as delivering
advice on Sinitta’s future conduct. Sinitta’s “Oh wel]l:” both displays receipt of
the concern and marks her disinterest in engaging with it. She then asserts her
specific defiance of the health warning by reporting that she is still intending to
use sunbeds. Note that she neither mitigates this defiance by delaying the turn
nor does she provide an account for this defiance. Note also that she treats the
reported concern as one shared by her mother (e.g. Line 26), and the self-repair
on Line 8 from “Becau::s:e” it’s dangerous to “in cas:e” it’s dangerous suggests
that Mum is managing her footing to avoid a direct confrontation. The defiance
is intensified by Sinitta coming in early on Line 9, in overlap with the end of
Mum’s turn, while also speeding up her delivery. Furthermore, the rejection of
Dad’s/Mum’s concern is not qualified and there is no display of appreciation. All
of this marks Lines 9–10 as somewhat disaffiliative.
The laughter in post position on Line 10 modulates this disaffiliating rejection
of concern. It displays Sinitta’s understanding that this utterance may indeed
be blunt and defiant and perhaps softens that defiance, or at least softens the
response requirement. Again, laughter fills the transition space where delay may
have arisen as a sign of trouble. The laughter is in the form of a single particle,
and is slightly more plosive than a normal outbreath—similar to Extract 3. This

fits with the action underway, where a more raucous form of laughter could
have been heard as further undermining the advice and concern.
Mum’s turn in Line 11 shows some orientation to the modulating work of the
laughter. Her questioning “yeah” seeks confirmation of this decision, and at this
point Sinitta does produce an account for her defiant course of action. Although
Mum is checking out Sinitta’s decision, there is no sign of trouble between the
recipients. Mum does not appear to be displaying any sign of offense at Sinitta’s
disregard for her concern, for example.
Discussion
Let us start by summarizing our claims with respect to post-position laughter

particles. We propose that:
1. Laughter particles can be produced after disaligning or disaffiliative actions

where they work to soften or otherwise modulate the action.
2. Although they modulate or disarm the action it is still held in place—the
use of this practice is distinct from repair or retraction (although in some
cases these may be relevant alternatives).
3. The use of laughter tokens in these environments largely preserves the
progressivity of the interaction. This contrasts to relevant alternatives such
as repair procedures or retraction.
4. In terms of its sequential position, the post position is live as the action
is fully realized for speaker and hearer. It is the most relevant place for its
modulation. In Schegloff ’s terms, the laughter will have a retroactive role,
changing the action even after it has been delivered (1996).
5. Laughter tokens in post position also fill the transition space and therefore
the space where delay may have ensued. In this way they soften the
hearability of possible interactional trouble that would be suggested by
delay following a hearably disaligning or disaffiliative action. They manage
incipient dispreference marking.
6. We have also shown how the prosody and extension of the laugh particles
are closely calibrated for the particular actions they are modulating.
The general point here is that laughter is analyzable for its contribution to
finessed interactional work. We do not need to invoke notions of humor
or joking to explicate its role. Indeed, in none of the examples above is an

obvious interactional “funny” identifiable. Here we are picking up the tradition
developed by Adelswärd (1989), Haakanna (2001, 2002), Edwards (2005), and
other interaction researchers. It should not need repeating; and yet as Glenn
(2003) shows, the connection between laughter and humor is pervasively
presupposed across social science.
The analysis has shown how laughter can be used in terminal position to
modulate a (potentially or incipient) disaffiliative action. It provides a way for
the action to be cushioned so that it heads off any relational trouble that may
have arisen between the recipients, yet the action is still held in place. In Extracts
2, 3, and 4, this modulating work is specifically made evident by considering the
design of the responding turn being modulated. Not only did these extracts
include disaffiliative actions, but disaffiliative actions which were not designed
as dispreferreds, for example with delays, accounts, etc. By adding laughter
particles at the end of a (potentially) disaffiliative action, the speaker is able to
provide a cushion for the action which would have otherwise been provided by
features of preference organization. Furthermore, laughter in terminal position
provides a way of filling any gap that may have arisen as a precursor to inter-
actional trouble. As such, laughter can be seen here as related to both sequence
and turn design. Furthermore, this terminal position of laughter nicely empha-
sizes how turns are carefully monitored as they unfold.
The analysis shows the importance of focusing on the specific actions and
specific words that are being accompanied by laughter. Only once the action is
explicated, can we get a handle on what laughter is actually doing in interac-
tional terms. Furthermore, part of the process of understanding the role that
laughter plays requires focusing on the implications of the laughter for the
interaction; how the action being accompanied is changed for the recipient.
Jefferson (1984) for example, shows how accompanying a troubles-telling with
laughter has implications for how it is responded to. Specifically, by laughing,
troubles-tellers display troubles resistance, making relevant a troubles-receptive
response. The laughter therefore has implications for how the trouble is
responded to. Similarly, by placing laughter with an indirect complaint, the
speaker is considered to be managing the current interactional relevance of the
complaint (Edwards, 2005). The laughter orients to the complaint as having past
rather than current relevance, which might otherwise make advice giving an
appropriate action from the recipient (Edwards, 2005).
Although “stance” is useful in capturing the speakers’ retrospective alignment
with the action that has just been delivered (Schegloff, 1996), the above
discussion suggests that this alone doesn’t capture the interactional work
which is accomplished by laughter in this post position. In line with Potter
and Hepburn (2010), the analysis has shown that “laughter” is prospectively
attuned. It is forward facing rather than just backward facing. Furthermore,
by modulating the action, it can also be argued that laughter is built as part
of the action, rather than a stance towards it. This suggests we need to be
cautious over the terminology we use for describing the action orientation of
laughter. While we recognize the ubiquity of the term “stance” in conversation
analysis, we suggest a more accurate label for this type of laughter would be
“‘Post-completion action modulators” (PCAMs). Indeed, Potter and Hepburn
(2010) have argued that “stance” is limited in characterizing the range of
modulating work of interpolated laughter, and our analysis suggests that this
can hold for the modulating work of laughter in post position too.
Our analysis has also shown the importance of capturing the quality and
extension of laughter. Whilst the actions are calibrated by the laughter in
terminal position, the laughter itself is calibrated by the action it belongs to.
There is a close reflexive relationship between the two. The laughter appears
to be finely coordinated with the specific nature of the action in play. So, the
analysis goes beyond specifying that the action being accompanied is disaffili-
ative, to specifying how the action implicates the recipient, with the laughter
being calibrated to this finely grained level of action analysis. As such the
analysis illuminates a finely tuned moment of recipient design.
We have attempted to show how the recipients themselves orient to the
modulating role of laughter, by paying attention to the specific formation
of the action being accompanied, as well as considering how the laughter
is treated in the next turn. However, as Haakana (2002, pp. 212–13) points
out: “Part of the interactional power of laughter is that it is an implicit way of
dealing with delicate interactional business, and it is possible that these kinds
of delicate activities are preferably dealt with in more implicit ways.” Therefore
its nonpropositional nature can be seen as a resource in interaction. As such,
laughter provides a way for prioritizing progressivity whilst concurrently being
other attentive.
Our analysis also suggests a development from researchers such as Adelswärd
(1989), Haakana (2001), and Wilkinson (2007), who treat the laughter as an
indication of embarrassment, marking an awareness of something problematic
while fixing it. For example, taking Haakana’s (2001) work, rather than seeing
the laughter as managing the patient’s problem of putting themselves in “an
unfavourable light” (p. 196), our analysis would suggest that when patients
correct doctors this might be heard as an incipient complaint. The insertion

of laugh particles in the position following the incipient complaint both retro-
actively modulates the action and proactively heads off the kinds of doctor
actions that might be diverted to focus on the complaint. It has the effect of
refocusing on the main business of the consultation, and thus it supports rather
than counters this business, while leaving the correction in place. Whether the
patient might have particular feelings that might be glossed as embarrassment
is a different matter—our attention is more usefully focused on the interactional
sequelae.
The modulating work of laughter in post position as well as interpolated
into words, suggests that these are alternative possibilities for the same kind
of work. Whilst interpolated particles are useful in marking out words which
clearly work in the service of a specific action, post-completion laughter may
be useful in modulating an action which encompasses a whole turn at talk. In
broader terms, the modulating work that laughter has been shown to do in these
different positions shows the value in cautiously approaching instances where
recipients both laugh, because “joining in” may not always capture what is going
on in action terms. This suggests a broader project of unpicking the detailed
unfolding of “laughing together” and how it manages the calibration of actions
and incipient actions.
*We would like to thank the audience members at the Boston conference
on Laughter and Humor in Interaction, June 2011, and the International
Pragmatics Association conference, July 2011 in Manchester for constructive
feedback on earlier versions of this work. We would also like to thank the editors
of this volume for thoughtful and instructive comments.
Notes
1 i.e. not in response to any turn by Vera.

2 The action of requesting is itself considered to be a dispreferred first pair part
(Schegloff, 2007a) and in this instance it is done in a bald manner, with few
mitigating features. Gordon’s laughter in Line 4 therefore appears to be responsive
to this dispreferred action being done in a nonmitigated way. It works to do Eve’s
post-positioned laughter on her behalf. As such, it does the same work of softening
the dispreferred action. It also functions as pre-positioned laughter to Gordon’s
responsive turn. In particular, it delays a dispreferred SPP with laughter. Similarly,
Gordon’s laughter in Line 9 appears to fill the transition space where delay may have
arisen as a marker of interactional trouble. So, laughter which occupies a whole
turn of talk can similarly work to modulate dispreferred actions and therefore head
off relational trouble.
3 The quality of Gordon’s turn may be partially a consequence of him having
to manage the reporting of the trouble the small chicken generates for a
straightforward request acceptance. Of course this doesn’t affect our analytic
observation that there is a troubling action to be reported, which is managed
post-completion by laughter tokens.
6
Laughter in Bilingual Medical Interactions:

Displaying Resistance to Doctor’s Talk in a
Mexican Village
Anna Claudia Ticca
This article examines sequences of talk and conduct in bilingual medical consul-
tations where patients1 laugh in response to doctors’ questions or criticisms. In
this sequential position laughter recurrently displays the patients’ resistance to
engaging with or replying to the doctors (see also Ticca, 2011). Laughter can be
produced either as laugh particles within speech or as isolated items after turns
that project the relevance of second pair parts (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973). The
analysis will show that laughter typically signals either a contrast or an emerging
conflict, occurring at moments when doctors call on patients to change or
account for their everyday practices, which include nursing practices, child care,
and eating and cooking habits. In this context, laughter is used to disalign from
the current course of action and to disaffiliate with the doctor’s stance. A similar
pattern is described by Haakana (2001), who has shown how the patient’s
laughter signals some kind of “discrepancy” between the doctor’s advice and
the patient’s conduct. He also shows that laughter occurs in sequences of talk
where patients display their disalignment with the doctors. From the present
study it emerges that laughter is a resource mobilized to deal with delicate issues
in the medical consultation. But unlike what is described in Haakana’s study,
where patients do eventually respond to the doctor’s questions and advice and
offer an account for their disalignment, in the consultations examined in this
study laughter not only marks the talk as “delicate” and problematic, but it also
displays the patients’ refusal to provide a complete response to the doctor’s
questions or actions. This is clearly visible when laughter occurs in isolation, as
a sole response to a previous action.
Scholars interested in the phenomena of laughter in conversation make
reference to a laughable event, whether talk or action, signalled as such by
the current speaker laughing. The laughable event typically occurs prior to or
concurrent with the laughter (Jefferson, 1974, quoted in Jefferson, 1979), but it
can also be projected as forthcoming (Glenn, 2003). In general, studies of shared
and solo laughter in conversation have shown that its occurrence responds to
the sequential and interactional environment in which it is produced, and that
its production contributes to the progression of the talk and the action type
in which laughter is embedded (see among others Glenn, 2003; Holt, 2010;
Jefferson et al., 1987). If it’s true that laughability is interactionally emergent and
responds to contingences of the interaction, it is also true that laughability can
be anchored in culture-specific interactional and communicative norms (see on
this topic West, 1984, p. 121), and that it can rely on cultural understandings
often taken for granted by both the speakers and the analyst (Haakana, 1999).
This is more clearly evident when we observe multilingual interactions, where
phenomena such as humor, amusement, and delicacy, are treated and displayed
through linguistic forms (i.e. talk) and where multimodal practices can vary
depending on the language spoken and on the cultural differences between
participants. As Moerman (1988, p. 49) argues, if we are to understand what is
said (and done), we must take into account the particular socio-cultural setting
in which talk occurs.
This study then will analyze the details of the moment by moment unfolding
of the interaction, together with the details of the cultural practices made
relevant by participants during their interaction. The aim is to achieve a
better understanding of how laughter is used and responded to in problematic
sequences of talk during medical consultations between participants from
different linguistic, social, and cultural backgrounds.
Laughter in the medical consultation
Prior research on medical interactions has found that laughter is recurrently

used as a resource to exhibit (Francis et al., 1999; West, 1984) or reduce (Rosner,
2002) social asymmetries, as well as to alleviate social stress (Francis et al., 1999;
Haakana, 2001), express individual feelings (Francis et al., 1999; Ragan, 1990),
and limit face threats (Huang and Lu, 2007). These interactional meanings
of laughter are dynamic or emergent, and they depend on the positioning
of laughter within sequences of talk and on its contextualization within the
ongoing activity. Such meanings are also subject to negotiation among partici-
pants (Glenn, 2003; Haakana, 1999). Also, laughter does not occur in isolation
Laughter in Bilingual Medical Interactions 109
but is often accompanied by other activities that help shape interaction. Heath
(1988) has explored manifestations of embarrassment during the medical
inspection and shown that they are exhibited through laughter as well as with
gaze, gesture, body movement, and so on.
These studies of medical interactions, although approached through different
methodologies (from granular analysis of naturally occurring interactions to
interviews and participant observation), have in common not only the idea that
laughter does more than exhibit amusement, but also that its uses vary greatly
depending on the contingencies of the ongoing interactional activities as well as
of the setting of the interaction. The present study aims to go beyond this initial
understanding that laughter responds only to interactional factors, related to its
sequential position within turns at talk as well as its position within the turn,
in order to suggest that it can also index the (socio-cultural and linguistic)
backgrounds of the participants.
Data and method
The data used for this study are drawn from a corpus of 90 video-recorded
medical consultations in a rural clinic and a hospital in Yucatan, Mexico2 during
several field trips (2006–7, 2009, 2011). In this region of Mexico two languages
are spoken, Spanish and Yucatec Maya (YM), an indigenous language. In the
majority of the cases doctors, who come from different areas of the country, are
Spanish monolinguals,3 whereas indigenous patients can be either monolingual
(YM) or bilingual speakers.4 When doctors and patients do not share a common
language, or when difficulties in understanding each other emerge, untrained
interpreters (e.g. employees of the clinic, the patient’s family members, or
acquaintances) participate in the consultations.
In addition to interaction multimodal analysis of the video and audio materials,
ethnographic data derived from participant observations, semi- and unstructured
interviews, are used to understand meanings associated with laughter.
Laughter in a serious environment
This paper focuses primarily on moments of the interaction where the laypersons’
laughter occurs in an interactional environment that does not typically project it
as a relevant next action. Previous studies (see the Introduction to this volume)
have distinguished invited, or reciprocal, from volunteered, or nonreciprocal,
laughter (Glenn, 2003; Haakana, 1999, 2002; Jefferson, 1979; West, 1984). The
following analytical section will describe the features of volunteered laughter in
these medical interactions and how it both signals and constitutes problematic
responses. The analysis will also suggest that interpreting these meanings
depends on understanding the interaction in its communicative and cultural
context.
Laughter in response to doctor’s questions and criticisms
This study examines sequences of talk where the doctor’s “lifestyle questions”
(Heritage, 2010, p. 22) are responded to with laughter. The questions analyzed
focus on the laypersons’ social habits and general care practices. When
questioned about these practices, laypersons consistently reply with smiles and/
or laughter, signalling some problem in the prior turn or activity. In all the cases
analyzed, laughter highlights cultural differences between the understanding
and practices of the medical world and the observed Maya community’s beliefs
and lifestyle.
The first set of extracts explores the use of laughter in response to child
healthcare questions. Laugher is produced within speech as well as in single
turns at talk as laugh particles, and it is not reciprocal, that is, the doctor does
not join in the laughter.
Extract 1 draws from a bilingual visit, where both Spanish and YM are
spoken. The patient is a sick child, accompanied by his mother (MOT). The
doctor (DOC) has just examined him and they are now in the information
gathering phase (see Robinson, 2003, for a description of the structural
organization of the medical visit). An interpreter (INT) also participates in the
consultation.5
1. Extract 07SIS_PAHE_1_A
1 (0.9) +(1.1) +(0.7)
D +gazes at the baby-->
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-->
D -->+away-->
M -->+,,,,,,,,,,,,+at DOC-->
3 (0.3) +(0.3) 
I -->--+at the baby-->
fig 61
4 DOC no lo +baña +s?
don’t you bathe him
D --> +at baby-->
I --> +-DOC +-MOT-->
5 +(0.6)
D --> +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 <no £lo baña£ porque *dice que tiene£

she £doesn’t £ bathe him because she says he has£
M -->---- £,,,,,,, £ £-->>
I *makes a grimace-->>
10 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
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
(<no lo baña porque dice que tiene tos por eso no lo [baña> / “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’
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 £(0.3)
M -->££-->
21 MOT £ha +haha ’h [ha ha £ha

£ha haha h ha ha £ha ((laughs))
M -->+gazes at INT-->>
D £-------------------££-->>
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.</“he is
prettier filthy”). In this case the mother’s resistance to engage with the topic at
talk is responded with a sarcastic turn construed around the association of two
contrasting items (pretty/filthy), which attributes to the mother a preference for
a filthy child. Given that cleanliness is important also among Maya and can be
even related to beauty, implying that the child’s dirtiness is a choice rather than
a necessity is potentially insulting. The mother and the interpreter both respond
to this turn with smiling and laughter (Lines 20–2). The sequence ends with the
doctor’s advice uttered (in line with the amusement of her coparticipants) with a
smiling voice (pues no/tú lo tienes que baña:r?/“but no you have to bathe him”,
Line 23), after which she resumes her prior activity (data not shown). In short,
this instance displays the mother’s reticence to engage with the doctor’s interac-
tional activity. It also marks a point of cultural difference in understanding how
to respond appropriately to the child’s illness. Finally, it marks a social asymmetry
as the mother’s laughter as the sole response suggests her resistance to either
accepting or confronting the doctor’s mockery and implied criticism.
Laughter in response to the doctor’s criticism is a recurrent feature in the
sequences analyzed, as illustrated in the next extract. But unlike the prior case,
here the coparticipant’s laughter is overtly problematized by the doctor. During
the visit to a sick child, the doctor notices some pimples on the patient’s face,
and asks the mother for information about their history. Extract 3 refers to
a sequence where the three participants (a fourth one, the interpreter, is also
present but does not visibly participate in the excerpt selected) are physically
close to one another and the doctor is examining the child.9
3. Extract 07SIS_PCS
1 DOC mira >mira sus oi- sus orejas ya vió?<

look look at her ea- her ears did you see (them)
2 *(0.3)
M *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
7 MOT [( ) le grahnoso’hh [( )
the pimhpleshh
8 DOC [+no. >tiene granos pero

D -->+at the child-->
no she has pimples but
9 tiene mugre< también [no lo ve:

she has grime too don’t you see it
10 MOT [(º º)
11 (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
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-->
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 £(0.5)
M £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 acknowl-
edges 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 recipro-
cated 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
as a response to criticism, and it serves to display resistance to engage in the

progression of the activity.
This case illustrates how laughter in a serious environment can mark an inter-
actional 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 recommenda-
tions 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))
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 -->----£
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
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 recom-
mendation (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.
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-->
I +gazes at DOC-->
P +gazes at DOC-->
2 +(0.3) +(0.7)
I +….. +--gazes at PAC-->
3 INT sáam a jaankech +beoras[ae’

have you already eaten just now
4 PAC [sáamej•
(I) have already
fig 6•7
5 INT y [a
already
6 DOC [sí:?
yes
7 (0.3)
8 PAC [°ja:j°
yeah
9 DOC [qué comíste?

what did you eat
10 (0.3) +(0.4)
P -->--- +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
another to you she says

P +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 (0.3) +
D --> +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
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 dispre-
ferred turn design: it contains a prefacing loud nose inhalation (sniff/“sniff ”),
a hesitation token (°jum°/“hum’”, a syllabic lengthening (jun::/“one”), an intra-
turn 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 copartic-
ipants. 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 inter-
preter’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
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 cross-
cultural context can be misinterpreted by patients as socially inappropriate
thereby occasioning a momentary fragmentation in the ongoing course of
action.
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 inter-
locutor’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
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 infor-
mation, 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 expecta-
tions 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 simultane-
ously 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 praxe-
ologically 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 interac-
tional and the ethnographic dimensions of analysis should interact to provide
a better understanding of the emergence of laughter in these medical interac-
tions. 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.

≠ squeaky voice
‘h inbreath
h’ outbreath
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
“cold”, and hence bad for an ill child, nor would bathing the evening before assure
cleanliness for a visit to the doctor.
8 The content of this utterance is not totally clear, and this might be due to the speed
with which it is proffered.
9 The mother is positioned just in front of the camera, often showing her back to it,
which impedes monitoring her gaze movement.
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
13 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.
14 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 under-
standing 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/disaffili-
ation 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
problematic environments, pursuing a request for more biscuits, providing a

teasing answer in a structured therapy environment, and declining to partic-
ipate 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 demon-
strated, 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
Laughs in Sequences 133
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 disaffili-
ation 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 compe-
tencies, social engagement, and development compared to children diagnosed
as higher functioning (Chiang, 2008).
Here we focus on how such children manage their participation in interac-
tions 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 interac-
tions, 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
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 interac-
tionally. Hudenko et al. (2009) compared voiced and unvoiced laughter, voiced
Laughter and Competence 137
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 coopera-
tively 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 conversa-
tional 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 limita-
tions in conventional communication often displayed by these children, it is
important to examine systematically the organization of laughter from a multi-
modal perspective (e.g. Streeck, 2002).
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 partici-
pants 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 specifi-
cally 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 partici-
pation 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.
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
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_____________________________________________________,,
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
Image 7.1.1 Image 7.1.2 Image 7.1.3

Image 7.1.16 Image 7.1.17
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
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 partici-
pants 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
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.
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 opera-
tions. 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 under-
standing 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 inten-
tions, 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 commu-
nicatory 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).
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
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 goo-
16b T Packages___
16c A ..Choc Powder___
16d A switches reach for chocolate powder
Image 7.2.10
17a A eh >hehheh<=
17b A Choc,, ..M_____
17c T Packages_______
Image 7.2.11
18a T =NO:HHOHOHoho::
18b T ..A_______________
18c T _____________
18d A M_________, .Powder__
Image 7.2.12
19a T n(h)o(h): ↑you looked at it first of a:ll.

19b T A_________________________________________________
19c T ________________________________________________
19d T leans in shakes finger
19e A Powder_________,,,
19f A ___
Image 7.2.13
20a T and then you thought >I’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

Image 7.2.16
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 comple-
mented 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
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 organi-
zation 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 simultane-
ously 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.
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 copar-
ticipant 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
6a M .hhhaah (0.3) <[whhe::ghll (.) do:::ne> =

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 = <match> (.) 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__
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

19b M >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
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 7.3.19
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) —evalu-
ation (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
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 formu-
lation 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 predi-
cated on the principle that laughter is a joint accomplishment and hence not
dependent exclusively on the competencies of one party. This answer would

be commensurate with the large body of evidence which shows that interac-
tions 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 inter-
action 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 diffi-
culty 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
interviews) at the expense of locating this information in the recipient design-

edness 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 compe-
tencies 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.
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.
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 affili-
ating (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
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 affili-
ation. Doctors most often decline to laugh (West, 1984; Haakana, 2002) in
response to the patient’s laughter. This is so because in doctor-patient inter-
action, 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 affili-
ating participants and the other(s) are also volatile.
Whereas laughter can also be read as disaffiliative, smiling has been consist-
ently described as a marker of both alignment and affiliation. Early experimental
Laughter and Smiling in a Three-party Medical Encounter 163
studies (Kraut and Johnson, 1979) interpreted smiling as the listener’s oppor-
tunity 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 under-
standing, 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-patient-

nurse 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 compe-
tence 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 partici-
pants’ 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 consulta-
tions, nurses may leave the room, in order to check whether the next patient
has arrived in the reception area. The gynecological consultation is charac-

terized 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

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 align-
ments 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 [te-
2 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))
8 ((DOC turns toward PAT and looks at the paper; PAT continues smiling  (1.5)
looking at the form))

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?
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
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 inter-
locutor, 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
(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)?
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
(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 consid-
ering 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 interac-
tionally 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
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 institu-
tional 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 affili-
ative 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
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))
((PAT continues smiling, looking downward))

11
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

Figure 8.2.3. DOC continues to smile Figure 8.2.4. PAT starts smiling
Figure 8.2.5. DOC downcast gaze, Figure 8.2.6. NUR enters scene
PAT smiling
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
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 inter-
actional 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
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 recon-
struction 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
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
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)? Figure 8.3.2. NUR it came off. £hm
(Line 1) (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) Figure 8.3.6. (Lines 11–13)

DOC it’s an extra £pie↑[(hh)ce. NUR £Hhh £Hhh £Hhh
NUR [ £Hhh ↑Hhh
Figure 8.3.7. (Lines 15–16) Figure 8.3.8. (Line 19)

NUR we’re £being rec↓ord[ed, DOC it came *o:ff, sorry
DOC [h(h) hh↑
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
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:
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 under-
stand 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
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 inter-
fering 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.
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 exami-
nation (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.
9
“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 institu-
tional 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 occur-
rence 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 inter-
action. By examining laughter following student challenges, this analysis identifies
how laughter indexes resistance on the part of the students as well as the teacher.
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;
“Cause The Textbook Says …” 187
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 interac-
tional 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 <not read> an old newspaper because
3 those jobs can already be taken.
4 T: >okay<, I advise you (.) not, not to read, right?
5 not to read.
6 Florence: to [read? ]
7 Ss: [˚to re ]ad˚?
8 Ss: hhhHHh-h (0.4)=
9 Nobu: =not read. (0.2) without ( ).
10 T: I advise you to not read,
11 Nobu: not read.
12 S?: yeah.
13 T: you need the infinitive there. you need the to so
14 I advise you (.) to not read or I advise you not
15 to read.
16 (1.0)
17 Florence: which one, (.) not read?
18 (0.8)
19 T: not to read.
20 Florence: but- but it’s the subjunctive hhhere,
smile
21 T: um? yeah it is the subjunctive,
22 Nadia: or maybe like uh, after advise that, I advise
23 that,
24 T: right. I advise, if it’s I advise you, I advise
25 that you not read.
26 (0.6)
27 T: ye [ah. ]
28 Rodrigo: [so ] we need that or to,
29 T: yeah.
After Nobu1 reads the correction of the sentence aloud in Lines 2–3, the teacher
acknowledges his turn (>okay<) and begins to repeat his answer in Line 4.
Her micropause before not indicates some trouble upcoming, and she does
in fact correct Nobu’s answer, emphasizing the missing to, and producing a
tag question (right?) before repeating the corrected phrase again. Following
this repetition, in Line 6 Florence first initiates repair by repeating the verb
in question (to read) overlapped in quick succession by a chorus of identical
repair initiations by other members of the class in Line 7. While other-initiated
repair in the classroom is most often associated with the teacher repairing some
student talk (Jung, 1999; McHoul, 1990), in this case, the students are pointing
to the teacher’s correction as problematic in some way. Because the students all
produce the target phrase exactly as the teacher does (to read), they clearly mark
this not as a hearing problem but as questioning the content of the teacher’s
turn itself. As such, these student other-initiations of repair are potentially
face-threatening to the teacher because they call into question her epistemic
authority. Further evidence that this is the case can be seen in the quiet laughter
shared by the class following, orienting to the interactional trouble occasioned
by these student challenges. The teacher does not acknowledge the laughter,
responding instead to Nobu’s continued confirmation checks.
Nobu twice asks for confirmation (Lines 9 and 11), which the teacher
provides by repeating the phrase (Line 10) and offering a longer explanation in
Lines 13–15. This explanation proves insufficient: the students do not accept it
and the discussion continues as Florence asks for clarification in Line 17 (which
one, (.) not read?). Following a short pause, the teacher again repeats the target
phrase with emphasis on the missing to (Line 19). The teacher’s utterances to
this point display no degree of uncertainty indexing less than full epistemic
authority. However, while Florence has thus far produced questioning turns,
orienting to the teacher as having greater epistemic status, in Line 20, she shifts
her epistemic stance with an overtly challenging statement including marked
disagreement (but) and a justification for her challenge (it is the subjunctive).
She also smiles and laughs through her production of here, highlighting the
interactional trouble occasioned by her challenge and possibly orienting to its
face-threatening nature, using laughter to soften the challenge and mark it as
nonserious. The teacher’s response in Line 21 orients to the dispreferred nature
of Florence’s challenge, beginning with the hesitating preface um (Pomerantz,
1984) uttered with rising intonation. The teacher then goes on to confirm
Florence’s claim, that this form is indeed the subjunctive. Florence’s challenge
goes unresolved beyond the teacher’s confirmation—the teacher does not treat
Florence’s assertion as incompatible with her own, and so there is no attempt at
further resolution. This lack of resolution persists as two other students ask for
clarification (Lines 22–9), redirecting the talk to new issues.
The student laughter in the excerpt thus far demonstrates at least some
students’ orientation to student challenges (whether other-initiated repair of
the teacher, or more overt challenging statements) as problematic, reflecting
their secondary epistemic rights. As the excerpt continues, however, the student
laughter orients toward institutional roles in a different way. At the end of the
excerpt above, the teacher addresses these two student requests for clarification,
and in Excerpt 1b, Nobu asks about the rules for including “that” when using
the subjunctive.
Excerpt 1b
30 Nobu: so when I use subjunctive, we need differently
31 that before (.) the clause or not,
32 T: in ↑this case you do [need] (.) that,=
Nobu smiles
33 Nobu: =eh hu[huhhuh]
smiling
34 T: [ yeah. ]
35 Florence: if I don’t need that, you have to use not to
36 read?
37 T: ˚yeah˚.
38 (2.0)
39 T: I advise you not to read, to not read.

40 [I advise you not to read or to not read.]
Nobu smiling throughout
41 T: okay, [but if we had said ], I advise that you not
42 Nobu: [h-h-h—h-h-h-h-h-h ]
43 Florence: [h-h-h—h-h-h-h-h-h ] (0.2)
44 T: read, that’s fine.
45 Yasuko: so every time we have to use that, maybe [use,]
46 S?: [yeah]
47 T: it’s a little strange cause you don’t need it all
48 the time. like in speech, people drop the that
49 all the time. so like, you know, we could say um
50 I suggest you look instead of I suggest that
51 you look. we don’t always use that. because we
52 drop it.
Following Nobu’s query in Lines 30–1, the teacher provides a qualified answer,
explaining that in this case, “that” is needed (Line 32). Nobu’s question, formu-
lated in the present tense, is directed towards the establishment of a general
rule (so when I use subjunctive), but the teacher’s response fails to provide this
kind of information. As she finishes her explanation in Line 32, Nobu begins to
smile and then laughs latched with the completion of the teacher’s turn. It comes
not after he delivers his own question or following a challenge from another
student, but in response to the teacher’s answer. Whereas earlier student laughter
oriented to the problematic nature of their challenges, here Nobu’s laughter
appears to be a problematic action—casting the teacher’s response as laughable.
The teacher’s epistemic stance, as reflected in her own talk, does not noticeably
change: she does not orient to Nobu’s smiling or laughter, and instead produces
confirmation of her own explanation in overlap with the laughter with yeah in
Line 34. Florence again asks for confirmation in Line 35, and the teacher again
confirms her already oft-repeated explanation. Nobu begins to smile during the
teacher’s turn; during the end of the explanation, Nobu and Florence, seated
next to one another, laugh quietly together in overlap of the teacher’s turn (Lines
42–3). Nobu and Florence have, together, challenged or queried the teacher eight
times in a few seconds of interaction, and their persistence in pursuing clarifi-
cation forestalls closure. Their laughter here, produced quietly while the teacher
is talking, again indicates resistance on their part. They have challenged the
epistemic authority of the teacher without success, and in the face of the teacher’s
certainty, they abandon their overt challenges and laugh quietly together.
While the laughter produced by students earlier in the excerpt, and finally by
Florence and Nobu at the end of the excerpt, represent different actions (orien-
tation to/mitigation of a problematic act on one hand, and a problematic act
itself in the other), both mark interactional trouble related to institutional roles
and face concerns. In this case, the teacher’s primary epistemic status, while
challenged by some students, is not ultimately compromised. However, in the
next excerpt, the teacher’s epistemic authority is again called into question, and
laughter, this time by the teacher, again marks interactional difficulty.
Excerpt 2: Cause the textbook says

In this lesson, the teacher is reviewing the answers to a workbook activity the
students have just completed in class. They were given a passage related to
chronobiology and instructed to choose “the correct form” (Gordon, 2003, p.
58) of the verb given to them for each sentence (either the gerund or infinitive).
A sample item is presented below:
According to a recent book, (3. pay) __________ attention to our body’s

symptoms and (4. note) __________ the time of day when they occur can be vital.
The following analysis will show how laughter, in particular by the teacher,
marks interactional trouble in the whole-class review of this grammar exercise.
In addition, the interactional consequences of laughter reveal participants’
negotiating their institutional roles.
Excerpt 2a begins in the middle of the review, following a great deal of
discussion on different exercise items. In this case, the sentence “Asthma sufferers
report more attacks (occur) during the night” is the focus. A student answered
“occurring”, but after consulting the answer key, the teacher maintained that the
correct answer was “to occur2”. This declaration was followed by several student
initiations questioning this answer, including Amelie’s assertion in Lines 8–9
below.
Excerpt 2a
1 T: >to occur during the night.< >let me see<. I
2 think it, yeah, it’s to occur.
3 S?: what?=
4 T: =yeah.=
5 Amelie: =w[hy.]
6 Rodrigo: [rea]lly?
7 T: yeah.
8 Amelie: but occur, what does it mean to occur, it’s
9 like, it’s ↓happening right?

10 Clara: yeah.
11 T: ye[ah.]
12 Amelie: [so ] if it could happen, so it’s better to say
13 happening during the night. I mean,
14 T: uh-huh,
gaze to Amelie, backing away while facing her
15 Nobu: no, if you look up the uh, the end of this
16 textbook,
17 T: uh-huh,
18 Nobu: report, the verb, are just “i-n-g.”
19 gerund.
20 Florence: report more attacks, ( ).”
21 T: >okay<, so it’s=
standing near Nobu, gaze to text ((reading))
22 Nobu: =yeah.=
23 T =asthma sufferers
turns head slightly towards Nobu, still reading from text
24 report more attacks to occur, right?
walks to look at Nobu’s book
25 (2.0)
26 T: [is it ] occurring?
27 Nobu: [yeah. ]
28 T: cause the tehhxtbhhook? sahhys to occur.
walks to desk to look at T edition, small smile throughout
29 yeah.
30 Rodrigo: but this is, (1.0) °↑yeah. followed by
31 gerund.°
32 Nobu: yeah.
33 Rodrigo: yeah it’s gerund.
34 Nobu: because this:,=
35 T: =occurring?
Amelie’s utterances in Lines 8–9 and 12–13 challenge the teacher’s version,
beginning with the contrastive but and ending with a summative claim to
epistemic access (so it’s better). Following this claim, the teacher produces a
continuer (uh-huh, Gardner, 2001), passing a turn at talk (as well as an oppor-
tunity to take up the challenge) and indicating with her utterance as well as her eye
gaze that Amelie may continue. Instead, two other students join in the challenge
sequence, with Nobu in particular marking his claim to epistemic authority in
Lines 15–16 with reference to the student textbook. Nobu’s utterance highlights
the teacher’s lack of access to the information he holds, directing her attention to
his textbook by setting up a hypothetical (if you look up the end of this textbook)
in which the teacher will see that his answer is correct. The teacher’s uncertainty
is clear in Lines 21 and 23–4 where she asks Nobu to confirm that her answer is
the correct one. While her gaze is to her textbook, her proximity to Nobu and
her movement towards him select him as next speaker. Her statement in Lines
21 and 23–4, followed by the tag question right?, downgrades her epistemic
claim (Heritage and Raymond, 2005) and positions the recipient(s) as likely
knowing the answer (Heritage and Raymond, 2012). The design of the question
invites confirmation from the students, but none is forthcoming. After looking
at Nobu’s book and failing to receive confirmation, she switches her question to
ask whether the students’ answer is the correct one, and changes from a polar
question (It’s X, right?) in Lines 23–4 to a more open-ended design (Is it Y?) in
Line 26. Both the change in question design and in the focus of the question
downgrade the teacher’s claim to epistemic authority.
When Nobu confirms that the answer is “occurring” in Line 27 in overlap with
the question itself, the teacher makes a similar claim to epistemic authority as
Nobu made earlier in Lines 15, 16, and 18, saying that her textbook gives the other
answer. Her claim is marked by a within-speech laughter invitation in textbook
says in Line 28. No students laugh along or otherwise orient to her laughter, and
instead, Rodrigo’s pursuit of the challenge in Lines 30–1 is marked as contrastive
(but), and references the fact that their textbook indicates that the verb “report”
is followed by gerund. Nobu and Rodrigo confirm their position that “occurring”
is the right answer in Lines 32–3, and the teacher again marks her uncertainty in
Line 35, asking for confirmation that the students’ answer is correct.
The teacher contradicts the students’ answer in Line 28, using reported
speech to clearly attribute the trouble to the book itself. The teacher’s within-
speech laugh invitation in Line 28 occurs within a word that implies a contrast
(say versus do), and the laughter may highlight the discrepancy without being
confrontational. Along with the use of reported speech (the textbook says),
the laughter allows the teacher to distance herself so that she is commenting
on rather than explicitly contradicting the students. The students’ claims to
epistemic authority in their challenges of the teacher represent an inversion
of traditional teacher-student interaction in the classroom, and this reversal
of expectations may provide a warrant for laughter.3 However, in line with
the analysis of Excerpt 1 above, the teacher’s laughter may also serve to
mitigate the face-threatening nature of the student challenges and her own
uncertainty.
The teacher’s laughter distances her from commitment to her answer, while
simultaneously providing justification for her (possibly) incorrect answer
(i.e. her textbook supports her answer). The lack of student laughter also
extends the sequence, because the matter must be resolved before it can be
brought to a close. Holt (2010) argues that shared laughter often implicates
topic termination, but only when there is resolution of the matters at hand;
there is no resolution here yet. Rodrigo does in fact continue to pursue the
topic, rejecting the possible termination that might have come with shared
laughter.
As the discussion continues in Excerpt 2b, several students respond to the
teacher’s question, and she concedes the point to the students, saying in Lines
47–8 I’m not gonna listen to the book anymore including a within-speech laugh
invitation, which this time is reciprocated by Nobu, though other students
continue to pursue the challenge.
Excerpt 2b
36 Nobu: in this [ case, ] the verb is
37 Clara: [>cause 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, >okay<,
47 I’m not gonna listen to the book
smiling, dismissive swat with left hand
48 hh ahhnymore, [ >okay< ] 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
The teacher pursues affiliation with the students by identification with their
perspective (I see what you guys are saying, Line 46) and through her within-
speech 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: <ye:s,>=
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,
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 whole-
class 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
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
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 interac-
tional 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 inter-
actional 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 acknowl-
edgment (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
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.
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 paren-
theses 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.
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 talk-

in-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 presi-
dential 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.
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
Interviewee Laughter and Disaffiliation in Broadcast News Interviews 203
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 partici-
pants 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
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-by-
moment 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
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 inter-
viewer’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 legit-
imacy 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).
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 impli-
cates 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
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: =Who else would you put in that category:,

26 Who=what other names(‘d) you a:dd as the future
27 of the party Sarah Palin for example,
28 IE: [hh heh heh heh heh huh .hh (0.3)]=
29 [((IR remains po-faced ))]
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 Jin-
33 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 <it is indeed> 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 immedi-
ately 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
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).
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 copartici-
pants 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.
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: >Uh<-we’ve already been told this evening
15 tha:t the: National Republicans, the party
16 organization that often f:unds campaigns like
17 yours is not going to fund [yours. [.hh
18 IE: [((smiles)) [heh
19 IR: Uh: [and that many National Republicans have]
20 IE: [((laughs ))]
21 IR: [said simply: (0.2) you cannot win in November.]
22 IE: [((raises eyebrows; continues smiling ))]
23 IR: D’you need their money? Can you win without it?
24 IE: Well, go:od=They don’t have a winning track(h)
25 r(h)ec(h)ord heh huh .hh= b’t y’know […]
In Lines 14–21, the IR delivers a question preface that announces two rounds
of bad news regarding O’Donnell’s candidacy for the general election: first,
that she will not receive financial support from the National Republicans; and
second, that many of those same people doubt her ability to win. It is precisely
at the point when she is told her campaign will not be funded that O’Donnell
begins to smile (capture 1). Then, at a hearable break in the IR’s turn-in-progress
(marked by the pre-continuation inbreath at Line 17), the IE produces a single
laugh particle but continues laughing6 as the IR proceeds to report the speech of
the National Republicans: “you cannot win in November” (Line 21). Although
we do not have visual access to the IR in this case, and therefore cannot say too
much about her response, it is at least hearably evident that O’Donnell’s display
does not disrupt the IR’s delivery of the question preface, and with serious
pursuit of the question proper the IR not only declines producing responsive
laughter, but also terminates its relevance at that point. Throughout the IR’s
delivery of both negative components of this question preface, however, the IE’s
embodied stance display disaffiliates from the National Republicans’ position as
formulated by the IR.
What evidence is there that her smiling and laughter are disaffiliative?
Before responding to the IR’s summative yes-no interrogatives, “Do you need
their money? Can you win without it?” (Line 23), O’Donnell’s verbal response
violates the preference for contiguity (Sacks, 1987) by first addressing the
National Republicans’ criticisms introduced in the preface in a way that reveals
her negative stance toward their position. First, her “Well good” offers a positive
assessment in contrast to what has been offered as “bad” news, showing herself
essentially not to care; and, second, she immediately counters their ideas by
offering a negative assessment of her own that discredits them, “They don’t
have a winning track record” (Lines 24–5). Crucially, this criticism is interpo-
lated with particles of aspiration and further laughter, which suggests that this
negative stance is the same one she began by smiling and laughing during the
question preface. In this example, then, smiling, momentarily laughing, and
then continuing to laugh visibly, though to a lesser extent audibly (for reasons
outlined above), allows this IE to take up a position toward her critics that
disaffiliates from their critique as it is being produced on their behalf by the
IR. Indeed, O’Donnell (at least visually) projects this position to the viewing
audience well before she is actually provided an opportunity to respond verbally.
There is one additional dimension to the precise placement of laughter in
this third example that warrants mention. In this case, and others like it, the
IE’s laughter is responsive to specific components of question prefaces: that
is, statements that occur prior to the question proper and whose apparent
function is to contextualize and provide the relevance for the question that
follows (Clayman and Heritage, 2002). Prefatory statements can also be used
by journalists to set more complex, constraining, or problematic agendas
of their questions (ibid), and this is precisely what happens in Excerpt 3.
Specifically, the IR produces two prefatory statements that are problematic for
the IE (a politician who had quite literally just won a primary election): her
state campaign will not be funded and her own party does not believe she can
win. This preface clearly contains problematic propositional content that is
then presupposed in the questions proper (“Do you need their money? Can
you win without it?”), which makes it a significant component to counter from
O’Donnell’s perspective. Thus, by laughing while the preface is being produced,
O’Donnell foregrounds the problematic elements as something more prominent
than they would be otherwise, and accordingly, as elements significant enough
to be responded to in their own right. O’Donnell’s subsequent verbal response
does not in fact actually answer the IR’s question (since that would require her
to confirm the truth of those unfavorable propositions); instead, it addresses
the content of the question preface. In particular, O’Donnell’s “Well good they
don’t have a winning track record” takes issue with the National Republicans,
whose negative perspective had been put forward in the IR’s question preface.
Laughing in response to precisely those components of the IR’s questioning
turn, then, helps license the IE’s verbal response that follows, which in fact
addresses the preface and not the question.
The final example represents the more explicit end of the continuum, both in
terms of the IE’s series of (non)verbal stance displays that are taken up toward
the IR’s talk-in-progress, and in terms of the verbal interjections that actually
disrupt that talk and elicit explicit orientations from the IR as a result. Of course
it is important to keep in mind that the range of these displays and the sheer
amount of time spent laughing in this example are, in fact, quite rare in the
context of BNIs, at least in the US. In Excerpt 4, over the course of an elaborate
question preface, the IR (Tim Russert) develops a portrait of Republican presi-
dential candidate at the time, Rudolph Giuliani, as having questionable ties to
undesirable political leaders.
Excerpt 4 2007Dec09-Meet The Press–7: Serious accusations, pt.1

IR: Tim Russert; IE: Rudolph Giuliani
01 IR: People are calling into question yer judgement=
02 =they a:lso (.) c [ite that yer law: firm, (0.2)
03 IE: [h°T(h)im.°
04 IR: your law firm, uh did (.) w-work for: Hugo
05 Chavez. (0.2) the head of Venezuela.=
06 IE: =[(Th-)hhehh T(h)im ]
07 IR: =[They- they’ve now- ] they’ve now quit that,
08 but they [did represent CIT [GO,=
09 IE: [( ) [hihu=
10 IR: = [ which is ru ]n by Hugo C ]ha:vez,=
11 IE: [huh huh °huh ]huh huh° Hahh ]
12 =T(h)im th(h)at’s a st(h)re(h)tch, hh […]
At Line 1, Russert introduces a general criticism leveled against the candidate,

“people are calling into question your judgment”, and then begins citing a
specific example of questionable associations. The first unequivocal, and thus
explicit, burst of laughter occurs at the completion of this specific example,
namely that Giuliani’s law firm worked for Hugo Chavez, whose status is
offered incrementally (i.e. “the head of Venezuela”), perhaps for the benefit
of the overhearing audience.7 Being a vocal critic of US foreign policy and an
ally of Castro’s socialist Cuba, Chavez is not someone a presidential candidate
like Giuliani would like to be associated with. Thus, it is precisely at the point
where this association is made that the IE produces a single breathy pulse of
laughter, followed by another address term through a single laugh particle
(Line 6), thereby hearably summoning the IR to desist. Although the IR
retreats somewhat from his initial formulation of this association (“they’ve
now quit that”; Line 7), which is to some extent hearable as orienting to the
IE’s response, he nevertheless provides a justification for it (i.e. “your law firm
did work for Hugo Chavez” becomes “they did represent CITGO, which is run
by Hugo Chavez”; Lines 8–10), thereby holding to the criticism. However,
because laughter is not turn organized (Sacks, 1992 [Fall, 1967], p. 745), the
IE manages to laugh throughout this modified description of his affiliation
with Chavez (Lines 9, 11), treating it as a joke rather than a serious criticism.
Note also that when the IR comes to syntactic completion, the IE immedi-
ately offers a negative assessment of this criticism through a series of laugh
particles (“Tim that’s a stretch”; Line 12), which counters the IR’s charac-
terization and challenges its authenticity. This negative assessment performs
a similar action to the responsive one O’Donnell produced in Excerpt 3,
which was also interpolated with particles of aspiration, and, in both cases,
the assessments mitigate the force of the critique. It is also noteworthy that
the IE’s turn at Line 12 is prefaced by a turn-initial address term, which is a
common environment for disaligning actions such as non-type conforming

ones (Clayman, 2010).
In Excerpt 5, following a brief back and forth regarding this overt challenge
and an attempt by the IE to halt the IR’s action-in-progress (i.e. “no=no=no”, Line
15; on multiple sayings like this, see Stivers, 2004), the IR disattends Giuliani’s
subsequent laughter by continuing to speak unfettered through “one more”
example of questionable ties, this time to North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il.
Excerpt 5 2007Dec09-Meet The Press–7: Serious accusations, pt.2

IR: Tim Russert; IE: Rudolph Giuliani
13 IR: […] It’s no:t-

14 IE: It’s-No=no=no, there’s (o:ft’n)-
15 IR: A:n->no 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 [about-
27 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
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
humor or as a display of affiliation. Perhaps more significantly, it highlights the

important relationship between affiliation/disaffiliation and the serious/nonse-
rious distinction. As the quotation at the beginning of this chapter indicates,
while a speaker can always propose a serious or nonserious definition-of-
the-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
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
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
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.
5 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).
6 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.)
7 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.
8 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 partici-
pating 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 affili-
ation by doing identity work, i.e. by heading off negative attributions that may
be made as a result of reporting oneself complaining.
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 contrib-
uting 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 demon-
strating 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 interac-

tional 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
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: (J=Jenny; A=Ann)

30 J: → =i-Ye:s. Well that’s uh yihknow Fazil said [(well I=
31 A: [Mm.
32 J: A: → =well I I(h)h Ih(h)’m payin money I’ll n(h)ot heh
33 A: → (sort’ev) e[h .hehhhhhhhh
34 A: B→ [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.
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 formu-
lation: “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 compe-
tition 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: You see(th) (0.2) they said apparently thehthet that

2 the:y(p)(1.2) they wuhr the furst (0.4) one wihhhh
3 hoooooooooo wuh- ones tih put me in contact
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
10 though, [Faz’l [w’d nevuh=

11 A: [No:, [well he-
12 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
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 acknowl-
edgement 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
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 compet-
itive—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.
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-by-
step 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 obser-
vation, notes that “if you don’t want your complaining to be the topic, then
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
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”).
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: Thursday-
3 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.
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 demon-
strating 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,
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 question-
naire about personal information, language exposure and German contact).
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
Constructing Identities Through Laughter 239
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 specifi-
cally address them.
Laughter plays a crucial role in constructing place identity categories, specifi-
cally 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.
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 distinc-
tions 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
3 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
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 formu-
lations. 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:::,
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 delica-
tessen” 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
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 inter-
viewer’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 previ-
ously 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.
Other-initiated solo-laughter prompting explicit identity construction

The third excerpt also contains a local identity construction of German-
Canadians 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 reg-
4 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.
5 Int: [ja. ja.

yes. yes.
yeah. yeah.
6 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.
a few words like that they d- they disappear then you forget them now
and then
10 Int: [ja, hh ja, [ja.

yes, hh yes, yes.
yeah, hh 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.
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.
Excerpt 4a: “Trabbi”
((Max running towards his dad with the toy car))

1 Max: papa (.) papi papi papi:: [(.) ein trabb[i
dad (.) daddy daddy daddy:: (.) a trabbi
dad (.) daddy daddy daddy:: (.) a trabbi
2 Ingo: [ja ja was ist das? [n trabbi

yes yes what is that? a trabbi
yes yes what is this? a trabbi
3 [nhhe[hehehehe
4 JD: [hhehe[hehe
5 GL: [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
6 [º(solln se ne garage baun)º

º(should they a garage build)º
º(but they can build a garage)º
7 Ingo: [<<to Max> was ist n trabbi?> 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 <<fAH::rn> eye gaze and smile to GL first and then JD>
[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
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 speci-
fying 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 catego-
rization 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 conver-
sation 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.
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) obser-
vation 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
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
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 field-
workers as Canadian as well as (eastern) German.
Conclusion
Laughter can serve an important role in the construction of identities in inter-

action. 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 member-
ships 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 disam-
biguates 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.
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 inter-
actants 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 conver-
sational 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.
*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.
13
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
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 self-
directed 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.
Interviewees Volunteered Laughter in Employment Interviews 257
However, even a giggle may not mark nervousness but rather relationship:
Provine (2001, pp. 29–31) argues for the universality of the “giggle” as self-
effacing 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 inter-
locutors 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:
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:

MIR: but then to see Barrett Jones I was like
↑O:h. eh huh [.hh
JILL: [Right!=

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:
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)
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 poten-
tially 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
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 inter-
views 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 organi-
zation 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:

JILL: .hh Um well tell me a little bit about what
got you interested in us today.
(0.6)
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:

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=
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.

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,
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
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, opportu-
nities 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.

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
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
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 autobiog-
raphy; 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 inter-
viewees 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
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 discour-
aging 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 …
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 poten-
tially 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 …
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)
JILL: Yea[h]
MIR:  [E]hhu-
(0.8)
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 free-
standing 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 talk-
based 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
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 inter-
viewers 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, immedi-
ately 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
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 inter-
viewer 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)
JILL: Yea [h]
MIR:  [E]hhu-
(0.8)
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
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 self-

repairs 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”.
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 recipro-
cated. It may also index laughs that do not accompany humor but rather
help manage interactionally delicate moments. In light of these considera-
tions, “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 inter-
viewers 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
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”.
References
Adelswärd, V. (1989), “Laughter and dialogue: The social significance of laughter in

institutional discourse”. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 12, 107–36.
Anderson, L. (2000), “Audience participation and the representation of the political process
in two British talk shows”. In M. Coulthard, J. Cotteril and F. Rock (eds), Dialogue
Analysis VII: Working with Dialogue. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, pp. 53–99.
Antaki, C. and Widdicombe, S. (1998), Identities in Talk. London: Sage.
Archakis, A. and Tsakona, V. (2005), “Analyzing conversational data in GTVH terms: a
new approach to the issue of identity construction via humor”. Humor, 18, 1, 41–68.
Arminen, I. and Halonen, M. (2007), “Laughing with and at patients – the roles of laughter
in confrontations in addiction therapy”. The Qualitative Report, 12, (3), 483–512.
Atkinson, J. M. (1984), Our masters’ voices: The language and body language of politics.
London: Metheun.
Attardo, S. (1994), Linguistic theories of humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
—(2000), “Irony as relevant inappropriateness”. Journal of Pragmatics, 32 (6), 793–826.
—(2005). “Humor”. In J. Verschueren, J Ostman, J. Blommaert, and C. Bulcaen (eds),
Handbook of Pragmatics (2nd edn). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 1–18.
Bachorowski, J. A., and Owren, M. J. (2001), “Not all laughs are alike: Voiced but not
unvoiced laughter elicits positive affect in listeners”. Psychological Science, 12, 252–7.
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M. and Frith, U. (1985), “Does the autistic child have a
‘theory of mind’?”. Cognition, 21, 37–46.
Bateson, G. (1972), “A theory of play and fantasy”. In Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New
York: Ballentine, 177–93.
Beach, Wayne A. (1993), “Transitional Regularities for ‘Casual’ ‘Okay’ Usages”. Journal
of Pragmatics, 19, 325–52.
Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006), Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Birkner, K. (2010), “Multimodal laughing. Comments on Cecilia Ford and Barbara
Fox ‘Multiple practices for constructing laughables’”. In D. Barth-Weingarten,
E. Reber and M. Selting (eds), Prosody in Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
pp. 369–72.
Bloch, S. and Wilkinson, R. (2009), “Acquired dysarthria in conversation: Identifying
sources of understandability problems”. International Journal of Language and
Communication Disorders, 44, 769–83.
Bolden, G. B. (2009), “Implementing incipient actions: The discourse marker ‘so’ in
English conversation”. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, (5), 974–98.
278 References
Bolden, G. B. and Robinson, J. D. (2011), “Soliciting accounts with why-interrogatives

in conversation”. Journal of Communication, 61, 94–119.
Bondy, A. S. and Frost, L. A. (1994), “The picture exchange communication system”.
Focus on Autism and other Developmental Disabilities, 9, 1–19.
Bondy, A. S and Frost, L. A. (2001), “The picture exchange communication system”.
Behavior Modification, 25, 725–44.
—(1997), “From bonding to biting: Conversational joking and identity display”. Journal
of Pragmatics, 27, 275–94.
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1987), Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005), “Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic
approach”. Discourse Studies, 7, 4–5, 585–614.
Button, G. (1992), “Answers as interactional products: Two sequential practices used
in job interviews”. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds), Talk at work. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 101–34.
Byrne, P. S., and Long, B. E. L. (1976), Doctors Talking to Patients. London: H.M.S.O.
Caffi, C. (1999). “On mitigation”. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, (7), 881–909.
Chiang, H. S. (2008), “Communicative spontaneity of children with autism: A
preliminary analysis”. Autism, 12, 9–21.
Clarke, M. and Wilkinson, R. (2009), “The collaborative construction of non-serious
episodes of interaction by non-speaking children with cerebral palsy and their
peers”. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 23, 583–97.
Clayman, S. E. (1988), “Displaying neutrality in television-news interviews”. Social
Problems, 35, (4), 474–92.
—(1990), “From talk to text: Newspaper accounts of reporter source interactions”.
Media Culture & Society, 12, (1), 79–103.
—(1992a), “Caveat orator: Audience disaffiliation in the 1988 presidential debates”.
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 78, 33–60.
—(1992b), “Footing in the achievement of neutrality: The case of news interview
discourse”. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds), Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional
Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 163–98.
—(2001), “Answers and evasions”. Language in Society, 30, (3), 403–42.
—(2002), “Tribune of the people: Maintaining the legitimacy of aggressive journalism”.
—(2007), “Speaking on behalf of the public in broadcast news interviews”. In E. Holt
and R. Clift (eds), Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction. Cambridge:
—(2010a), “Address terms in the service of other actions: The case of news interview
talk”. Discourse and Communication, 4, (2), 161–83.
—(2010b), “Questioning in broadcast journalism”. In A. F. Freed and S. Ehrlich (eds),
‘Why do you Ask?’: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse. New York:
Oxford University Press, pp. 256–78.
References 279
—(2012), “Conversation analysis in the news interview context”. In J. Sidnell and T.

Stivers (eds), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell,
pp. 630–59.
Clayman, S. E., and Heritage, J. (2002), The News Interview: Journalists and Public
Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clayman, S. E., Heritage, J., Elliott, M. N., and McDonald, L. L. (2007), “When does
the watchdog bark? Conditions of aggressive questioning in presidential news
conferences”. American Sociological Review, 72, (1), 23–41.
Clift, R. (2006), “Indexing stance: Reported speech as an interactional evidential”.
Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10, 569–95.
—(2007), “Getting there first: non-narrative reported speech in interaction”. In E. Holt
and R. Clift (eds), Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction. Cambridge:
Clinton, B. (2004), My Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Clinton, H. Rodham (2003), Living History. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Contento, S. (1994), “I marcatori discorsivi del colloquio psicológico”. In F. Orletti
(ed.), Fra Conversazione e Discorso. L’Analisi dell’Interazione Verbale. Roma: Carocci,
pp. 217–232.
Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2009a), “A sequential approach to affect: The case of
‘disappointment’ ”. In M. Haakana, M. Laakso and J. Lindstrom (eds), Talk
in Interaction: Comparative Dimensions. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society,
pp. 94–123.
Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2009b), “Relatedness and timing in talk-in-interaction”. In
D. Barth-Weingarten, N. Dehé and A. Wichmann (eds), Where Prosody Meets
Pragmatics. Bingley: Emerald, pp. 257–76.
Coupland, J. (2000), Small Talk. Harlow: Longman.
Craven, A. and Potter, J. (2010), “Directives: Entitlement and contingency in action”.
Discourse Studies, 12, 419–42.
Dailey-O’Cain, J. and Liebscher, G. (2009), “Dialect use and discursive identities of
migrants from the west in eastern Germany”. In J. Carl and P. Stevenson (eds),
Language, Discourse, and Identity in Central Europe; The German Language in a
Multilingual Space. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 185–202.
Dickerson, P., Rae, J., Stribling, P., Dautenhahn, K., and Werry, I. (2004), “Autistic
children’s co-ordination of gaze and talk: Re-examining the ‘asocial’ autist”. In
K. Richards and P. Seedhouse (eds), Applying Conversation Analysis. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 19–37.
Dickerson, P., Stribling, P. and Rae, J. (2007). “Tapping into interaction: How children
with Autistic Spectrum Disorders design and place tapping in relation to activities
in progress”. Gesture, 7, 271–303.
Drew, P. (1987), “Po-faced receipts of teases”. Linguistics, 25, 219–53.
—(1998), “Complaints about transgressions and misconduct”. Research on Language
and Social Interaction, 31, (4), 295–325.
280 References
—(unpublished), “On the micro-politics of social interaction”. Unpublished paper

delivered at the International Conference on Conversation Analysis, Mannheim,
July 2010.
Drew, P., and Heritage, J. (1992), “Analyzing talk at work: an introduction”. In P. Drew
and J. Heritage (eds.), Talk at work; Interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge:
Drew, P. and Holt, E. (1988), “Complainable matters: The use of idiomatic expressions
in making complaints”. Social Problems, 35, (4), 398–417.
Drew, P. and Walker, T. (2008), “Going too far: Complaining, escalating and
Disaffiliation”. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, (12), 2400–14.
Duncan, S., Jr. (1973), “Toward a Grammar for Dyadic Conversation”. Semiotica, 9, (1),
29–46.
Dzuik, M. A., Gidley Larson, J. C., Apostu, A., Mahone, E. M., Denckla, M. B. and
Mostofsky, S. H. (2007), “Dyspraxia in autism: association with motor, social and
communicative deficits”. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 49, 734–39.
Edwards, D. (2005), “Moaning, whinging and laughing: the subjective side of
complaints”. Discourse Studies, 7, 1, 5–29.
Egbert, M. (1997), “Schisming: the collaborative transformation from a single
conversation to multiple conversations”. Research on Language and Social
Interaction, 30, 1–51.
Einhorn, L. J. (1981), “An inner view of the job interview: An investigation of
successful communicative behaviors”. Communication Education, 30, (3), 217–28.
Ekström, M. (2009a), “Announced refusal to answer: A study of norms and
accountability in broadcast political interviews”. Discourse Studies, 11, (6), 681–702.
—(2009b). “Power and affiliation in presidential press conferences: A study of
interruptions, jokes and laughter”. Journal of Language and Politics, 8, (3),
386–415.
—(2012), “Gaze work in political media interviews”. Discourse & Communication, 6(3),
249–71.
Emerson, J. P. (1970), “Behavior in Private Places: Sustaining Definitions of Reality in
Gynecological Examinations”. Recent Sociology, 2, 74–97.
Eriksson, G. (2009). “The management of applause and laughter in political interviews”.
—(2010), “Politicians in celebrity talk show interviews”. Text & Talk, 30, (5), 529–51.
Ford, C. E., and Fox, B. A. (2010), “Multiple practices for constructing laughables”.
In D. Barth-Weingarten, E. Reber and M. Selting (eds), Prosody in interaction.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 339–68.
Francis, L., Monahan, K. and Berger, C. (1999), “A laughing matter? The uses of humor
in medical interactions”. Motivation and Emotion, 23, (2), 155–74.
Freud, S. (1938), “Wit and its relation to the unconscious”. In A. A. Bill (ed. and trans.),
The basic writings of Sigmund Freud. New York: Modern Library, pp. 631–805.
Gardner, R. (2001), When Listeners Talk. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
References 281
Gavioli, L. (1995), “Turn-initial versus turn-final laughter: Two techniques for

initiating remedy in English/Italian bookshop service encounters”. Discourse
Processes, 19, 369–84.
Gergen, K. J. (1991), The Saturated Self; Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life.
New York: Basic Books.
Gieryn, T. F. (2000), “A space for place in sociology”. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 463–96.
Gill, V. T. (1998), “Doing Attributions in Medical Interaction: Patients’ Explanations for
Illness and Doctors’ Responses”. Social Psychology Quarterly, 61, (4), 342.
Gill, V. T. and Maynard, D. W. (2006), “Explaining illness: patients’ proposals and
physicians’ responses”. In J. Heritage and D. W. Maynard (eds), Communication
in Medical Care: Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 115–50.
Glenn, P. (1991/1992), “Current Speaker Initiation of Two-Party Shared Laughter”.
Research on Language and Social Interaction, 25, 139–62.
—(1995), “Laughing at and laughing with: Negotiating participant alignments through
conversational laughter”. In P. ten Have and G. Psathas (eds), Situated Order: Studies
in the Organization of Talk and Embodied Activities. Washington, DC: University
Press of America, pp. 43–56.
—(2003), Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—(2008), “Voice, prosody, and laughter”. In W. Donsbach (ed), The International
Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 5329–31.
—(2010). “Interviewer Laughs: Shared Laughter and Asymmetries in Employment
Interviews”. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1485–98.
Glenn, P., and LeBaron, C. (2011), “Epistemic authority in employment interviews:
Glancing, pointing, touching”. Discourse and Communication, 5, (1), 3–22.
Goffman, E. (1981), Forms of Talk. Oxford: Blackwell.
—(1981), Conversational Organization: Interaction Between Speakers and Hearers. New
York: Academic Press.
Goodwin, C. (1995), “Co-constructing meaning in conversations with an aphasic man”.
—(2000), “Action and embodiment within situated human interaction”. Journal of
Pragmatics, 32, (10),1489–522.
—(2003), “Conversational Frameworks for the Accomplishment of Meaning in
Aphasia”. In C. Goodwin (ed.), Conversation and Brain Damage. Oxford: Oxford
—(2007), “Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities”. Discourse &
Society, 18, 53–73.
—(2011), “Building action in public environments with diverse semiotic Resources”.
In R. Fusaroli, C. Paolucci, M. Cappuccio, M. Wheeler, S. Gallagher, S. T. Granelli,
and M. Cole (eds), The External Mind: Perspectives on Semiosis, Distribution and
Situation in Cognition. Quademi di studi semiotici. Gennaio-dicembrie 2011.
Versus, 169–182.
282 References
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M. H. (1987), “Concurrent operations on talk: Notes on

the interactive organization of assessments”. IPrA Papers in Pragmatics 1, (1), 1–54.
—(1992), “Assessments and the construction of context’, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin
(eds), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge:
Goodwin, M. H. (1980), “Processes of mutual monitoring implicated in the production
of description sequences”. Sociological Inquiry, 50, (3–4), 303–17.
—(1999). “Participation”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9, 1–2, 173–6. In
A. Duranti (ed.) (2001), Key terms in language and culture. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 172–5.
Gordon, D. (2003), In Charge 2: Workbook (2nd edn). White Plains, NY: Pearson
Education, Inc.
Grainger, K. (2004), “Verbal play on the hospital ward: Solidarity or power?”.
Multilingua – Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 23,
(1–2), 39–59.
Grammer, K., and Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1990), “The ritualization of laughter”. In
W. Koch (ed.), Naturlichkeit der Sprache und der Kultur: Acta Colloquii. Bochum:
Brockmeyer, pp. 192–214.
Greatbatch, D. and Clark, T. (2003), “Displaying group cohesiveness: Humour and
laughter in the public lectures of management gurus”. Human Relations, 56, (12),
1515–44.
Grice, P. (1975), “Logic and conversation”. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds) Syntax and
Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, pp. 41–58.
Grønnerød, J. S. (2004), “On the meanings and uses of laughter in research interviews:
relationships between interviewed men and a woman interviewer”. Young, 12, (1), 31–49.
Haakana, M. (1999), “Laughing Matters: A Conversation Analytical Study of Laughter
in Doctor-Patient. Interaction”. PhD dissertation, Department of Finnish Language,
University of Helsinki, Helsinki.
—(2001), “Laughter as a patient’s resource: Dealing with delicate aspects of medical
interaction”. Text, 21, (1/2), 187–219.
—(2002), “Laughter in medical interaction: From quantification to analysis, and back”.
Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6, (2), 207–35.
—(2010), “‘Laughter and Smiling: Notes on Co-Occurrences”. Journal of Pragmatics, 42,
1499–512.
Haakana, M. and Sorjonen M.-L. (2011), “Invoking another context: Playfulness in
buying lottery tickets at convenience stores”. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 1288–302.
Hall, G. (2011), Exploring English Language Teaching. New York, NY: Routledge.
Harré, R. and van Langenhove, L. (1991), “Varieties of positioning”. Journal for the
Theory of Social Behaviour, 21, 393–407.
Harris, S. (1991), “Evasive action: How politicians respond to questions in political
Interviews”. In P. Scannell (ed.), Broadcast Talk. London: Sage.
Heath, Christian (1988), “Embarrassment and interactional organization”. In P. Drew
References 283
and A. Wootton (eds), Erving Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order. Cambridge:
Polity Press, pp. 136–60.
Heinemann, T. and Traverso, V. (2009), “Complaining in interaction: Introduction”.
Journal of Pragmatics, 41, (12), 2381–4.
Hepburn, A. (2004), “Crying: Notes on description, transcription and interaction”.
Hepburn, A. and Bolden, G. (2012), “The conversation analytic approach to
Transcription”. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers, (eds), Blackwell Handbook of Conversation
Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 57–76.
—(in prep.), Transcribing for Social Research. London: Sage.
Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2011), “Recipients designed: Tag questions and gender”.
In S. Speer and E. H. Stokoe (eds), Conversation Analysis and Gender. Cambridge:
Heritage, J. (1984a), Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
—(1984b), “A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement”. In
J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action; Studies in
Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 299–345.
—(1985), “Analyzing news interviews: Aspects of the production of talk for an
overhearing audience”. In T. van Dijk (ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis.
London: Academic Press, pp. 95–117.
—(2010), “Questioning in medicine”. In A. F. Freed and S. Ehrich (eds), “Why do
you Ask?”: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse. New York: Oxford
Heritage, J. and Maynard, D. W. (2006), “Introduction: Analyzing interaction between
doctors and patients in primary care encounters”. In J. Heritage and D. W. Maynard
(eds), Communication in Medical Care: Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–21.
Heritage, J. and Raymond, G. (2005), “The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic
authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction”. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68,
(1), 15–38.
—(2012), “Navigating Epistemic Landscapes: Acquiescence, Agency and Resistance
in Responses to Polar Questions”. In J. P. de Ruiter (ed.), Questions. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 179–92.
Heritage, J., Robinson, J. D., Elliott, M. N., Beckett, M. and Wilkes, M. (2007),
“Reducing patients’ unmet concerns in primary care: The difference one word can
make”. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22, (10), 1429–33.
Heritage, J. and Sorjonen, M. (1994). “Constituting and maintaining activities across
sequences: And-prefacing as a feature of question design”. Language and Society, 23,
1–29.
Heritage, J., and Watson, R. (1979), “Formulations as conversational objects”. In G.
Psathas (ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington,
pp. 123–62.
284 References
Holmes, J. (2006), “Sharing a laugh: Pragmatic aspects of humor and gender in the
Workplace”. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 26–50.
Holt, E. (2000). “Reporting and reacting: Concurrent responses to reported speech”.
Research on Language and Social Interaction, 33, (4), 425–54.
—(2007), “ ‘I’m eyeing your chop up mind’: reporting and enacting”. In E. Holt and R.
Clift (eds), Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge
—(2010), “The Last Laugh: Shared Laughter and Topic Termination”. Journal of
Pragmatics, 42, 1513–25.
—(2011), “On the nature of ‘laughables’: Laughter as a response to overdone figurative
phrases”. Pragmatics, 21, (3), 393–410.
—(2012), “Using laugh responses to defuse complaints”. Research on Language and
Social Interaction, 45, (3), 430–48.
Holt, E. and Clift, R. (eds) (2007), Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction.
Holt, E., and Drew, P. (2005), “Figurative pivots: The use of figurative expressions in
pivotal topic transitions”. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38, (1), 35–61.
Hopper, R. (1995), “Episode trajectory in conversational play”. In P. ten Have and
G. Psathas (eds), Situated order: Studies in the Social Organization of Talk and
Embodied Activities. Washington, DC: University Press of America, pp. 57–72.
Hualpa, L. (2011), “American Presidential Press Conferences: An analysis of presidents’
embodied responses at turn beginning”, Paper presented at the International
Pragmatics Association Conference (IPrA), Manchester.
—(2012), “The Presidential Press Conference: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis
of President-Press Relations”. PhD disseration, Department of Applied Linguistics,
University of California, Los Angeles.
Huang, S. Y., and Lu, F. H. (2009) “The Interactional Contexts of Laughter in Doctor
Elderly Patient Communication”. Paper presented at the International Conference
MDALL, Tainan City, Taiwan. May 2009.
Hudenko, W. J., Stone, W. and Bachorowski, J. A. (2009), “Laughter differs in children
with autism: An acoustic analysis of laughs produced by children with and without
the disorder”. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 1392–400.
Jacknick, C. M. (2011), “Breaking in is Hard to Do: How Students Negotiate Classroom
Activity Shifts”. Classroom Discourse, 2, (1), 20–38.
Jefferson, G. (1972). “Side sequences”, In D. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in social interaction.
New York: Free Press, pp. 294–338.
—(1974). “Notes on the sequential organization of laughter in conversation: onset
sensitivity in invitations to laugh”. Paper presented at the American Anthropological
Association Convention, Mexico City.
—(1979), “A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance/declination”.
In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York:
Irvington, pp, 79–96.
References 285
—(1981), “The abominable ‘ne?’ A working paper exploring the post-response

pursuit of response”, Manchester University Department of Sociology Occasional
Paper 6.
—(1984), “On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles”. In J. M. Atkinson
and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action; Studies in Conversation Analysis.
—(1985), “An exercise in the transcription and analysis of laughter”. In T.A. van Dijk
(ed.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis; Volume 3: Discourse and Dialogue. London:
Academic Press, pp. 25–34.
—(1990), “List-construction as a task and a resource”. In: G. Psathas (ed.), Interaction
Competence. Washington, DC: University Press of America, pp. 63–92.
—(2004a), “A note on laughter in ‘male-female’ interaction”. Discourse Studies, 6, 117–33.
—(2004b), “ ‘At first I thought’; A normalizing device for extraordinary Events”.
In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation Analysis; Studies from the First Generation.
Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 131–70.
—(2004c), “Glossary of transcript symbols with an Introduction”. In G. H. Lerner
(ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, pp. 13–23.
—(2010), “Sometimes a frog in your throat is just a frog in your throat: gutturals as
(sometimes) laughter implicative”. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1476–84.
Jefferson, G., Sacks, H., and Schegloff, E. (1977), “Preliminary notes on the sequential
organization of laughter”, (Pragmatics Microfiche). Cambridge: Cambridge
University, Department of Linguistics.
—(1987), “Notes on laughter in pursuit of intimacy”. In G. Button and J. R. E. Lee
(eds), Talk and Social Organization. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 152–205.
Jung, E. H. (1999), “The organization of second language classroom repair”. Issues in
Applied Linguistics, 10, (2), 153–71.
Kangasharju, H. and Nikko, T. (2009), “Emotions in organizations; Joint laughter in
workplace meetings”. Journal of Business Communication, 46, (1), 100–19.
Kendon, A. (1990), Conducting Interactions: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters.
Kendon, A. and Cook, M. (1969), “The consistency of gaze patterns in social
interaction”. British Journal of Psychology, 60, (4), 481–94.
Kennell, H. (4 September 2011), “How to Not Be Tense During a Job Interview”. http://
www.ehow.com/how_12033285_not-tense-during-job-interview.html
Kipper, S. and Todt, D. (2003), “The role of rhythm and pitch in the evaluation of
human laughter”. Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour, 27, (4), 255–72.
Knapp, M. and Hall, J. (2011). Nonverbal communication in human interaction. Boston:
Wadsworth.
Kovarsky, D., Schiemer, C. and Murray, A. (2011), “Humor, rapport, and
uncomfortable moments in interactions with adults with traumatic brain injury”.
Topics in Language Disorders, 31, (4), 325–35.
286 References
Kraut, R. E. and Johnston, R. E. (1979), “Social and emotional messages of smiling:

An ethological approach”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, (9),
1539–53.
Lampert, M. D. and Ervin-Tripp, S. (2006), “Risky laughter: Teasing and self-directed
joking among male and female friends”. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 51–72.
Lavin, D. and Maynard, D. W. (2001), “Standardization vs. rapport: Respondent
laughter and interviewer reaction during telephone surveys”. American Sociological
Review, 66, 453–79.
—(2002), “Standardization vs. rapport: How interviewers handle the laughter of
respondents during telephone surveys”. In D. W. Maynard, H. Houtkoop-Steenstra,
N. C. Schaeffer and J. van der Zouwen (eds), Standardization and Tacit Knowledge:
Interaction and Practice in the Survey Interview. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 335–65.
Lerner, G. H. (1993), “Collectivities in action: Establishing the relevance of conjoined
participation in conversation”. Text, 13, (2), 213–45.
—(2003), “Selecting next speaker: The context-sensitive operation of a context-free
organization”. Language in Society, 32, (2), 177–201.
—(2004), “Collaborative turn sequences”. In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation Analysis:
Studies from the First Generation. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 225–56.
Levinson, S. C. (1988), “Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in
Goffman’s participation framework”. In P. Drew and A. Wootton (eds), Goffman:
Exploring the interaction order. Oxford: Polity Press, pp. 161–227.
Liebscher, G. and Dailey-O’Cain, J. (forthcoming), Language, Space, and Identity in
Migration. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lindström, A. and Sorjonen, M.-L. (2012), “Affiliation in Conversation”. In J. Sidnell
and T. Stivers (eds). The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Chichester: Wiley-
Blackwell, pp. 250–369.
Local, J. (1996), “Conversational phonetics: Some aspects of news receipts in everyday
Talk”. In E. Couper-Kuhlen and M. Selting (eds), Prosody in Conversation:
Interactional Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177–230.
Maestro, S. and Muratori, F. (2008), “How young children with autism treat objects
and people: Some insight into autism in infancy from research in home movies
in autism”. In E. McGregor, M. Nunez, K. Cebula and J. C. Gomez (eds), Autism:
An Integrated View from Neuroscience, Clinical and Intervention Research. Oxford:
Blackwell, pp. 170–92.
Markaki, V., Merlino, S., Mondada, L. and Oloff, F. (2010), “Laughter in professional
meetings: The organization of an emergent ethnic joke”. Journal of Pragmatics, 42,
(6), 1526–42.
Markee, N. (1995), “Teachers’ Answers to Students’ Questions: Problematizing the
Issue of Making Meaning”. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 6, 63–92.
Matthews, D. (2011), “Laughter in problematic environments: An analysis of telephone
calls to a gas supply company”. Paper presented at the International Pragmatics
Association Conference (IPrA) Manchester.
References 287
Maynard, D. W. (2005), “Social actions, gestalt coherence and designations of disability:

Lessons from and about autism”. Social Problems, 52, 499–524.
Maynard, D. W. and Hudak, P. L. (2008). “Small talk, high stakes: Interactional
disattentiveness in the context of prosocial doctor-patient interaction”. Language in
Society, 37, (5), 661–88.
Mazeland, H. and Huiskes, M. (2001), “Dutch ‘but’ as a sequential conjunction: Its
use as a resumption marker”. In M. Selting and E. Couper-Kuhlen (eds), Studies in
Interactional Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 141–69.
McHoul, A. W. (1990), “The organization of repair in classroom talk”. Language in
Society, 19, 349–77.
McHoul, A. W., Rapley, M. and Antaki, C. (2008), “You gotta light?: On the luxury
of context for understanding talk in interaction”. Journal of Pragmatics, 40,
827–39
Mehu, M. and Dunbar, R. I. M. (2008), “Naturalistic observations of smiling and
laughter in human group interactions”. Behaviour, 145, 1747–80.
Milford, P. A. (1980), Perception of Laughter and its Acoustical Properties. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Pennsylvania State University. Abstract in 1981 Dissertation
abstracts international, 41A, 3779A.
Milgram, S. (1963), “Behavioral study of obedience”. The Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 67, (4), 371–378. doi:10.1037/h0040525.
Moerman, M. (1988), Talking culture; Ethnography and conversation analysis.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Montgomery, M. (2000), “Televised talk: Face work, politeness and laughter in the Mrs.
Merton Show”. In M. Coulthard, J. Cotteril and F. Rock (eds), Dialogue Analysis VII:
Working with Dialogue. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, pp. 121–35.
—(2008), “The discourse of the broadcast news interview: A typology”. Journalism
Studies, 9, (2), 1–19.
Mora-Ripoli, R. (2010), “The therapeutic value of laughter in medicine”. Alternative
Therapies in Health and Medicine, 26, (6), 56–64.
O’Connell, D. C. and Kowal, S. (2004), “Hillary Clinton’s laughter in media interviews”.
Pragmatics, 14, (4), 463–78.
—(2005), “Laughter in Bill Clinton’s My Life (2004) Interviews”. Pragmatics, 15, (2–3),
275–99.
O’Donnell-Trujillo, N. and Adams, K. (1983), “Heheh in conversation: Some
coordinating accomplishments of laughter”. The Western Journal of Speech
Communication, 47, 175–91.
Osvaldsson, K. (2004), “On laughter and disagreement in multiparty assessment talk”.
Text, 24, (4), 517–45.
Partington, A. (2006), The Linguistics of laughter; A corpus-assisted study of laughter
talk. London: Routledge.
—(2007), “Irony and reversal of evaluation”. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, (9),
1547–69.
288 References
—(2011). “Double-speak at the White House: A corpus-assisted study of bisociation in

conversational laughter-talk”. Humor, 24, (4), 371–98.
Pavlenko, A. and Blackledge, A. (eds), (2004), Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual
Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Peräkylä, A. and Ruusuvuori,J. (2006), “Facial expression in an assessment”. In
H. J. Knoblauch, J. Raab, H.-G. Soeffner and B. Schnettler (eds), Video-Analysis:
Methodology and Methods: Qualitative Audiovisual Data Analysis in Sociology.
Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 127–42.
Politi, P. (2009), “One-sided laughter in academic presentations: A small-scale
Investigation”. Discourse Studies, 11, (5), 561–84.
Pomerantz, A. (1980), “Telling my side: ‘Limited access’ as a ‘fishing device’ ”.
Sociological Inquiry, 50, 186–98.
—(1984), “Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/
dispreferred turn shapes”. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of
Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 57–101.
Potter, J. and Hepburn, A. (2010), “Putting aspiration into words: ‘Laugh particles’, managing
descriptive trouble and modulating action”, Journal of Pragmatics, 42, (6), 1526–42.
—(in press), “Somewhere between evil and normal: Traces of morality in a child
protection helpline”. In J. Cromdal and M. Tholander (eds), Morality in Practice:
Exploring Childhood, Parenthood and Schooling in Everyday Life. London: Equinox.
Provine, R. (2000), Laughter; a Scientific Investigation. New York: Viking.
Psathas, G. (1995). Conversation analysis; The study of talk-in-interaction. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ragan, S. L. (1990), “Verbal Play and Multiple Goals in the Gynaecological Exam
Interaction”. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 9, (1–2), 67–84.
Ragan, S. L. and Hopper, R. (1981), “Alignment talk in the job interview”. Journal of
Applied Communication Research, 9, (2), 85–103.
Raymond, G. (2003), “Grammar and social organization: Yes/no interrogatives and the
structure of responding”. American Sociological Review, 68, (6), 939–67.
—(2004), “Prompting action: The stand-alone ‘So’ in sequences of talk-in-interaction”.
Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37, (2), 185–218.
Raymond, G, and Heritage, J. (2006), “The epistemics of social relationships: owning
grandchildren”. Language in Society, 35, (5), 677–705.
Reddy, V. (1991), “Playing with others’ expectations: Teasing and mucking about in the
first year”. In A. Whiten (ed.), Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and
Simulation of Everyday Mindreading. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 143–58.
Reddy, V., Williams, E. and Vaughan, A. (2002), “Sharing humour and laughter in
autism and Down’s syndrome”. British Journal of Psychology, 93, 219–42.
Redfield, R., and Villa Rojas, A. (1934), Chan Kom: A Maya Village. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Rees, C. E. and Monrouxe, L. V. (2010), “ ‘I should be lucky ha ha ha ha’: The
References 289
construction of power, identity and gender through laughter within medical

workplace learning encounters”. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 3384–99.
Robinson, J. D. (2003), “An Interactional Structure of Medical Activities During Acute
Visits and its Implications for Patients’ Participation”. Health Communication, 15,
27–59.
—(2009), “Laughter and forgetting: Using focus groups to discuss smoking and
motherhood in low-income areas in the UK”. International Journal of Qualitative
Studies in Education, 22, (3), 263–78.
Robinson, V. (1983), “Humor and health”. In P. E. McGhee and J. H. Goldstein (eds),
Handbook of Humour Research, vol. 2. New York: Springer-Verlag, 109–28.
Romaniuk, T. (2009), “The ‘Clinton Cackle’: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s laughter in news
interviews”. Crossroads of Language, Interaction, and Culture, 7, 17–49.
—(2010), “Doing damage control: Embodied interactional resistance in political
news interviews”. Poster presented at the International Conference on Conversation
Analysis (ICCA10), Mannheim.
—(2012), “An interactional and critical perspective on laughter in politics”. Paper read
at the 18th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture at UCLA,
10–12 May 2012.
—(in preparation), Cracks in the glass ceiling?: Laughter in politics and the gendered
nature of media representations. PhD dissertation, York University, Toronto, Canada.
Rosner, F. (2002), “Therapeutic efficacy of laughter in medicine”. Cancer Investigation,
20, (3), 434–6.
Roth, I. (2010), The Autism Spectrum in the 21st Century: Exploring Psychology, Biology
and Practice. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Ruch, W. and Ekman, P. (2001), “The expressive pattern of laughter”. In A. Kaszniak
(ed.), Emotion, qualia, and consciousness. Tokyo: World Scientific, pp. 426–43.
Ruusuvuori, J. and Peräkylä, P. (2009), “Facial and Verbal Expressions in Assessing
Stories and Topics”. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 42, (4), 377–94.
Sacks, H. (1974), “An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation”. In
R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking.
London: Cambridge University Press, pp. 337–53.
—(1978), “Some technical considerations of a dirty joke”. In J. N. Schenkein (ed.),
Studies in the organization of conversational interaction. New York: Academic Press,
pp. 249–70.
—(1987), “On the preferences for agreement and contiguity in sequences of
conversation”. In G. Button and J. R. E. Lee (eds), Talk and social organisation.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 54–69.
—(1992), Lectures on Conversation, Volumes I and II, edited by Gail Jefferson. Oxford:
Blackwell.
—(2004), “An initial characterization of the organization of speaker turn-taking in
conversation”. In G. Lerner (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First
Generation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 35–42.
290 References
Sacks. H., Schegloff, E. A. and Jefferson, G. (1974), “A simplest systematics for the
organization of turn-taking for conversation”. Language, 50, 696–735.
Saft, S. (2006), “The moderator in control: Use of names, the particle ne, and response
tokens on a Japanese discussion TV program”. Research on Language and Social
Interaction, 39, (2), 155–93.
Schegloff, E. A. (1968), “Sequencing in conversational openings”. American
Anthropologist, 70, 1075–95.
—(1972), “Notes on a conversational practice: formulating place”. In D. Sudnow (ed.),
Studies in social interaction. New York: Free Press, pp. 75–119.
—(1982), “Discourse as an interactional achievement: some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other
things that come between sentences”. In D. Tannen (ed.), Analyzing Discourse:
Text and Talk. (Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics).
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 71–93.
—(1988), “Goffman and the analysis of conversation”. In P. Drew and A. Wootton
(eds), Erving Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order. Cambridge: Polity Press,
pp. 89–135.
—(1993), “Reflections on quantification in the study of conversation”. Research on
Language and Social Interaction, 26, (1), 99–128.
—(1995), “Parties and talking together: Two ways in which numbers are significant for
talk-in-interaction”. In P. ten Have and G. Psathas (eds), Situated Order: Studies in
the Social Organization of Talk and Embodied Activities. Washington, DC: University
Press of America, pp. 31–42.
—(1996), “Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction”. In
E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff and S. A. Thompson (eds), Interaction and Grammar.
—(1998), “Body Torque”. Social Research, 65, (3), 535–96.
—(2000), “On Granularity”. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 715–20.
—(2001), “Getting serious: Joke –> serious ‘no’ ”. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 1947–55.
—(2005), “On complainability”. Social Problems, 52, (4), 449–76.
—(2007a), Sequence Organisation: Volume 1: A Primer in Conversation Analysis.
—(2007b), “Categories in action: person-reference and membership Categorization”.
Discourse Studies, 9, (4), 433–61.
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. (1977), “The preference for self-correction
in the organization of repair in conversation”. Language, 53, (2), 361–82.
Schegloff, E. A. and Lerner, G. H. (2009), “Beginning to respond: Well-prefaced
responses to Wh-questions”. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 42, (2),
91–115.
Schegloff E. A. and Sacks, H. (1973), “Opening Up Closings”. Semiotica, 8, (4),
289–327.
Schenkein, J. N. (1972), “Towards an analysis of natural conversation and the sense of
heheh”. Semiotica, 6, 344–77.
References 291
Schiffrin, D. (1987), Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schopler, E., Reichler, R. and Rochen-Renner, B. (1988), The Childhood Autism Rating
Scale. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.
Schnurr, S. and Chan, A. (2011), “When laughter is not enough. Responding to teasing
and self-denigrating humour at work”. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 20–35.
Sheinkopf, S., Mundy, P., Oller, D. K. and Steffens, M. (2000), “Vocal atypicalities of
preverbal autistic children”. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30,
345–54.
Sideridis, G. D. (2006), “Coping is not an ‘either’ ‘or’: the interaction of coping
strategies in regulating affect, arousal and performance”. Stress & Health: Journal of
the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 22, (5), 315–27. doi:10.1002/
smi.1114
Sidnell, J. (2010), Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Silverman, D. (1998), “Analysing conversation”. In C. Seale (ed.), Researching Society
and Culture. London: Sage, pp. 261–74.
Snow, M. E., Hertzig, M. E. and Shapiro, T. (1987), “Expression of emotion in young
autistic children”. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, 26, 836–8.
Stafco.com (2012), How to calm your nerves before a job interview. http://www.stafco.
com/calming-job-interview-jitters/
St James, P. J. and Tager-Flusberg, H. (1994), “An observational study of humor in
autism and Down Syndrome”. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24,
603–17.
Sterponi, L. (2009), “Accountability in family discourse socialization into norms
and standards and negotiation of responsibility in Italian dinner conversations”.
Childhood, 16, (4), 441–59.
Stivers, T. (2008), “Stance, alignment and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding
is a token of affiliation”. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41, (1), 31–57.
Stivers, T., Mondada, L. and Steensig, J. (eds) (2011), The Morality of Knowledge in
Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stivers, T. and Rossano, F. (2010), “Mobilizing response”. Research on Language and
Social Interaction, 43, (1), 3–31.
Streeck, J. (2002), “Gesture as communication I: Its coordination with gaze and speech”.
Communication Monographs, 32, 77–89.
—(2008), “Gesture in political communication: A case study of the democratic
presidential candidates during the 2004 primary campaign”. Research on Language
and Social Interaction, 41, (2), 154–86.
Streeck, J., Goodwin, C. and LeBaron, C. (eds) (2011). Embodied interaction: Language
and body in the material world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Szameitat, D. P., Alter, K., Szameitat, A. J., Darwin, C. J., Wildgruber, D., Dietrich,
S. and Sterr, A. (2009), “Differentiation of emotions in laughter at the behavioral
Level”. Emotion, 9, (3), 397–405.
292 References
ten Have, P. (1991), “Talk and institution: a reconsideration of the ‘asymmetry’ of

doctor-patient interaction”. In D. Boden and D. Zimmerman (eds), Talk and Social
Structure. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 138–63.
Thonus, T. (2008), “Acquaintanceship, familiarity, and coordinated laughter in writing
Tutorials”. Linguistics and Education, 19, 333–50.
Ticca, A. C. (2008). “Linterprete ad hoc nel dialogo mediato medico-paziente: processi
interazaionali in una clinica dello Yucatan indigeno”. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of Pisa, Italy.
—(2011). “Acciones despreferidas en la interacción mediada médico-paciente en
Yucatán”. Rivista Italiana di Psicolinguistica Applicata (RIPLA), XI, (1–2), 87–107.
Van Hoof, J. A. R. A. M. (1972), “A comparative approach to the phylogeny of laughter
and smiling”. In R. A. Hinde (ed.), Non-verbal Communication, Cambridge:
Vettin, J. and Todt, D. (2004), “Laughter in conversation: Features of occurrence and
acoustic structure”. Journal of nonverbal behaviour, 28, (2), 93–115.
Vöge, M. (2008), All you Need is Laugh: Interactional Implications of Laughter in
Business Meetings. PhD dissertation, University of Southern Denmark.
—(2010), “Local identity processes in business meetings displayed through laughter in
complaint sequences”. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, (6), 1556–76.
West, C. (1984), Routine Complications: Troubles with Talk Between Doctors and
Patients. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
West, C. and Garcia, A. (1988), “Conversational Shift Work: A Study of Topical
Transitions between Women and Men”. Social Problems, 35, 551–75.
Westburg, N. G. (2003), “Hope, laughter, and humor in residents and staff at an
assisted living facility”. Journal of mental health counselling, 25, (1), 16–32.
Wilkinson, R. (2007), “Managing linguistic incompetence as a delicate issue in aphasic
talk-in-interaction: On the use of laughter in prolonged repair sequences”. Journal of
Pragmatics, 39, (3), 542–69.
Wilson, B. T., Mȕller, N. and Damico, J. S. (2007), “The use of conversational laughter
by an individual with dementia”. Clinical linguistics and phonetics, 21, (11–12),
1001–6.
Wing, L. (1996), The Autistic Spectrum: A Guide for Parents and Professionals. London:
Robinson.
Wootton, A. (1989), “Remarks on the methodology of conversation analysis”. In
D. Roger and P. Bull, (eds), Conversation: an Interdisciplinary Perspective. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters, pp. 238–58.
Zayts, O. and Schnurr, S. (2011), “Laughter as medical providers’ resource: Negotiating
informed choice in prenatal genetic counseling”. Research on Language and Social
Interaction, 44, (1), 1–20.
Zdrojkowski, M. R. (2007), Laughter in Interaction: the Discourse Function of Laughter
in Writing Tutorials. PhD dissertation, Michigan State University.
Zimmerman, D. H. (1998), “Discourse identities and social identities”. In C. Antaki
and S. Widdicombe (eds), Identities in Talk. London: Sage, pp. 87–106.
Index
Adelswärd, V. 7, 19, 92, 103, 104 Down’s syndrome 20, 136

adjacency pair 11–14, 138 Drew, P. 16, 17, 145, 208, 235
affiliation/disaffiliation 16–17, 19, 21, Dunbar, R. I. M. 20
21–2n. 3, 103, 122, 131–3, 151,
161–3, 168, 170–2, 176, 179–83, Edwards, D. 92, 103, 232
195, 199, 201–19, 249, 259 embodiment 41, 47–51, 175
alignment/non-alignment 16–17, 21–2n. 3, employment interviews 19, 222, 255–75
131, 161–3, 165, 175, 176, 182, 199 epistemics 185, 186–7, 189, 190–9, 226,
Alter, K. 6 262, 270
Arminen, I. 15–16
Asperger syndrome 137 face/face-threats 108, 133, 183, 185, 187,
aspiration 31–2, 40 189, 191, 193, 196, 198, 218
asymmetry 18–19, 108, 126, 259 Fatigante, M. 132
Auburn, T. 131–2 focus groups 19
autistism 19–20, 131–2, 135–59 Ford, C. E. 41
Fox, B. A. 41
Bachorowski, J. A. 19, 136 Freud, S. 255–6
Bateson, G. 70
Bysouth, D. 23 Gavioli, L. 7
gaze 44, 143, 150, 151, 157, 158, 159, 176,
Canada 21, 237–54 181–3
Clark, T. 16 gender 20, 218, 221, 223, 237
classroom interaction 132–3, 185–99 Gergen, K. J. 274
Clayman, S. E. 203, 205 Germany 21, 237–54
Clift, R. 221 Glenn, P. 8, 15, 16, 17, 19, 25, 70–1, 84,
complaints 11, 19, 103, 221, 224–36, 264 103, 135, 143, 162, 185, 203
context 17 Goffman, E. 40
conversation analysis (CA) 3–4, 17–18 Greatbatch, D. 16
and its focus on social action 3
Haakana, M. 13, 15, 16, 19, 92, 103, 104,
Dailey-O’Cain, J. 222 107
Damico, J. S. 20 Halonen, M. 15–16
Darwin, C. J. 6 Hepburn, A. 5, 16, 23, 26, 66, 92–3, 104,
delicate/problematic moments 15–16, 162, 205, 240, 241, 256
19, 20, 21, 26, 65–7, 70, 71, 84, 86, Heritage, J. 95, 97, 170, 226
89, 104, 107, 131–2, 161, 162, 165, Holt, E. 14, 17, 65, 66, 194, 204, 240
171–2, 175, 180, 185–7, 195, 199, Hudenko, W. J. 19, 136
221–2, 223, 253, 259, 262–74 humor 2, 3, 25, 69, 91, 201–2, 204–5, 224,
dementia 20 259
Dietrich, S. 6
doctor/patient interaction 18–19, 21, identity 5, 17–21, 221–2, 237–53
107–29, 132, 161–83, 259 ethnic 21, 223,
294 Index
cultural 21, 237 shared/reciprocal 15, 40, 82, 105, 186,

national 21, 237 198, 247–50
place 238 stepped-up 52–6
sequential/interactional 20–1, 223, 238 in terminal position 6–7
Ikeda, K. 23 third position 8
impropriety 17 troubles-resistant 15
institutional setting 17–21 turn-initial 41–4, 51–63
insufficiency 16, 37, 93, 244, 256, 267–70 voiced/unvoiced 136–7
interpolated particle of aspiration (IPA) 5, volunteered 8, 51, 78, 110, 205, 222,
16, 92–3, 205, 240, 241, 244 255–74
intimacy 5, 15, 17, 183 Lavin, D. 6, 19,
Italy, 163 Levinson, S. C. 40
Liebscher, G. 222
Jacknick, C. 132–4
Jefferson, G. 4, 11–13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 25, Markaki, V. 21
37, 52, 82, 91, 92, 103, 162, 223, Maynard, D. 6, 19
239, 271 meetings 19
jokes 19, 69, 92, 139–44, 162, 250 Mehu, M. 20
Merlino, S. 21
Kangasharju, H.19 Mexico 109
Kovarsky, D.19 Milgram, S. 256
mitigation 16, 131, 193, 230, 252
laughable 5, 7–14, 15, 21, 41, 56, 72, 73, Moerman, M. 108
76, 78, 79, 83, 107, 131, 143, 144, Mondada, L. 21
151, 158, 198, 203, 204, 209, 239, Müller, N. 20
253, 256, 260, 271, 273 multimodality 41, 51, 63, 127, 135–6, 138,
laughing at 16, 113, 162, 171–2, 203, 175
249–50, 253, 273 Murray, A. 19
laughing with 162, 171, 203, 250, 253, 273
laughter news interviews 133, 201–20
breathy 26 Nikko, T. 19
delayed 56–63 non-seriousness 7, 65, 66, 67, 69–74,
equivocal 6, 17, 80–9, 217
first position 8
“flooding out” 25, 26, 37 Oloff, F. 21
inviting 7, 8, 9, 11–14, 82, 138–44, 162, Orletti, F. 132
186, 205 Osvaldsson, K. 15, 19
modulating 7, 37, 66, 91, 93, 95–105,
132, 138, 150, 247 participation framework, 40
“nervous” 20, 222, 255–60, 272–4 pitch 30–1, 43, 54, 95, 97, 261, 273
other-initiated 244, 245–7, 253 “po-faced” 208, 217
particles of 5, 26, 34–6 Pollock, C. 131–2
physical, psychological benefits of 2 posture 41, 63, 165, 175, 176
post-completion 6–7, 36–7, 91, 93, Potter, J. 5, 16, 26, 66, 92–3, 104, 162, 205,
95–105, 132, 143, 204, 271 240, 256
recipient/response 41–51, 77–80 Provine, R. 257
and its referent 3, 8–9, 239
second position 8 rapport 17, 260
self-initiated 162, 240–2, 247, 253 Raymond, G. 95, 97, 226
Index 295
Reddy, V. 20, 136–7, 145 Szameitat, D. P. 6

reported speech 193, 221, 223–6
resisting 16, 20, teasing 16, 17, 145–50, 159
Robinson, J. D. 19 telephone survey interviews 19
role 17–21 Ticca, A. C. 66
Romaniuk, T. 133 time-out 132, 172, 183, 189
Rossano, F. 14 Todt, D. 19
topic termination 194, 198
Sacks, H. 7, 17, 27, 52, 65, 70, 71, 239, 250 transcribing 4, 23, 92, 94–5
Schegloff, E. A. 7, 17, 52, 69, 85–8, 91, 93, troubles-telling 26, 91, 92, 103, 162, 223
143, 175, 229, 235, 238, 239
Schenkein, J. 7, 162 Varney, S. 23
Schiemer, C. 19 Vaughan, A. 20, 136–7
Schnurr, S. 92 Vettin, J. 19
self-deprecation 195, 259, 264, 271 Vöge, M. 19
self-praise 259, 264, 271 volume 30, 40, 46, 51, 52, 54, 91, 170, 171,
seriousness 65, 71, 74–5, 76–7, 80–9, 92, 197,
109–10, 205–9, 216–19, 271
Shaw, C, 66 Walker, T. 235
smiling 6, 19, 41, 143, 161–3, 168, 172–83, Watson, R. 170
180, 181, 182–3, 198 West, C. 18–19
smile voice 6, 168, 176, 197, 235, 260 Wildgruber, D. 6
stance 7, 21, 103–4, 143, 157 Wilkinson, R. 92, 104
Sterr, A. 6 Williams, E. 20, 136–7
Stivers, T. 14, 21–2n. 3, 161–2, 170 Wilson, B. T. 20
Stone, W. 19, 136
Szameitat, A. J. 6 Zayts, O. 92

Studies in Laughter in Interaction

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Studies in Laughter in Interaction

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Studies of Laughter in Interaction

Also Available from Bloomsbury

Translation, Humour and Literature, edited by Delia Chiaro

Edited by Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt

A companion website to accompany this book is available online at:

50 Bedford Square 175 Fifth Avenue

First published 2013

© Phillip Glenn, Elizabeth Holt, and Contributors, 2013

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

Transcription notations vii

1 Introduction, Phillip Glenn and Elizabeth Holt 1

Part 1 Varieties of Laughter 23

2 Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription, Alexa Hepburn

Part 2 Laughs in Turns 65

4 “There’s Many a True Word Said in Jest”: Seriousness and

Part 3 Laughs in Sequences 131

7 Laughter and Competence: Children with Severe Autism Using

Part 4 Laughter and Identity 221

11 No Laughing Matter: Laughter and Resistance in the Construction

[ ] brackets indicate overlapping utterances.

Tim Auburn, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Plymouth University,

Don Bysouth, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Human

Rebecca Clift, Senior Lecturer, Department of Language and Linguistics,

Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain, Associate Professor of German Applied Linguistics,

Marilena Fatigante, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, Department of

Phillip Glenn, Professor of Communication Studies and Interim Dean, School

Alexa Hepburn, Reader in Conversation Analysis, Department of Social

Elizabeth Holt, Senior Lecturer, School of Music, Humanities, and Media,

Keiko Ikeda, Associate Professor, Division of International Affairs, Kansai

Christine M. Jacknick, Assistant Professor, Department of Developmental

Grit Liebscher, Associate Professor of German, Department of Germanic

Marilena Fatigante, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, Department of

Franca Orletti, Full Professor of Linguistics, Department of Human Studies,

Jonathan Potter, Professor of Discourse Analysis and Dean of the School of

Tanya Romaniuk, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication,

Chloe Shaw, Postgraduate researcher, Department of Social Sciences,

Scott Varney, Postgraduate researcher/Ph.D. student, Loughborough

Contact details accessible 1 March 2003.

Since this is a collection of studies of laughter in interaction, we begin with the

other-referential. Studying laughter invites us to address some of the funda-

Assumptions and methods: Conversation analytic approach

CA research relies on recordings with transcripts of actual interactions.

(1) Hyla and Nancy 12.01: 18

In Line 1, Nancy produces several bursts of laughter within the word

of analysis—actual laugh particles. We then consider how laugh particles are

As a starting point, we attend to laughter in all its human forms, unified by

and we take this as a reasonable starting point. Nevertheless, we exercise caution

Laughter can occur before, after, or during talk. Turn-final or “post-completion”

(2) [Rahman B.2.IV; 1.10, P2] (From Chapter 5)

(3) [Heritage:I:3:1] (From Chapter 4)

(4) [I, 3, 22:34] (From Chapter 13)

In CA components of talk are considered in terms of their relationship to the

Likely not laughable ------------------------------ Likely laughable

(7) [From Jefferson, 1979:81]

2 big things he says but not the liddle things

(8) [From Jefferson, 1979:84]

It appears, then, that the order of alternative responses to a candidate laughable

Whether participants orient to a potential laughable as inviting a laugh response

When a first laugh is reciprocated, participants share laughter. Although

Laughter and delicate moments