Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma Talk in a play frame: More on laughter and intimacy Jennifer Coates School of Arts, Roehampton University, Roehampton Lane, London SW15 5PH, United Kingdom Received 16 March 2005; received in revised form 4 January 2006; accepted 5 May 2006 Abstract Conversation is one of the key locuses of humour and it is now widely agreed that shared laughter nurtures group solidarity. This paper will explore the links between laughter and intimacy in everyday conversation. The paper will attempt to clarify the term ‘conversational humour’, focussing on informal conversation among friends and on the conversational practices involved in humorous talk. I argue, following Bateson, that conversational humour involves the establishment of a ‘play frame’. When a play frame is established, speakers collaborate in the construction of talk in a way that resembles group musical activity, particularly jazz. This way of talking is characterised by, among other things, overlapping speech, the co-construction of utterances, repetition, and a heightened use of metaphorical language. I will argue that play and creativity are linked in significant ways, and that playful talk is essentially collaborative. # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Humour; Laughter; Intimacy; Solidarity; Conversation; Collaborative talk; Play 1. Introduction In this paper I shall examine humorous talk occurring in the informal conversation of friends. I shall argue that humorous talk is a form of play, and that talk as play can only be achieved by close collaboration between speakers. Collaboration between speakers constructs solidarity, and thus a key function of playful talk is the creation and maintenance of group solidarity, of intimacy between speakers. In this respect, I shall pursue the line begun by Jefferson et al. (1978) in their paper ‘Notes on laughter in the pursuit of intimacy’. I shall examine some of the characteristics of talk as play, drawing on a corpus of informal conversational data involving pairs or groups of E-mail address:
[email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2006.05.003 30 J. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 friends, and will argue that talk as play shares features with music, particularly with jazz. The complex, often polyphonic, textual patterns of playful talk index the complex, intricate and intimate links between speakers. 2. Language and humour After many years of relative neglect, humour is now the focus of attention in a range of work being carried out by social psychologists, sociolinguists and conversation analysts, and in a variety of contexts. These include the workplace (Holmes, 2000; Holmes et al., 2001; Holmes and Marra, 2002; Mullaney, 2003); the classroom (Kehily and Nayak, 1997; Davies, 2003); medical settings (DuPre, 1998; Astedt-Kurki et al., 2001; Sullivan et al., 2003); TV discussion groups (Kotthoff, 2003); as well as informal settings such as the home (Norrick, 1993a, 1993b, 2004; Gibbs, 2000; Hay, 2000; Everts, 2003; Coates, in press). In this paper, I shall focus on humour involving conversation among friends in informal settings. Despite growing interest in talk and humour, there does not seem to be general agreement on the meaning of the term ‘conversational humour’. Many researchers have used what seems to me a rather narrow interpretation of this term, focusing on specific speech acts such as telling a joke, making a pun, being sarcastic or ironic (see, for example, Chiaro, 1992; Attardo, 1993; Norrick, 1993b; Gibbs, 2000). It could be that this bias in emphasis is gender-related. Recent research exploring gender variation in humour has established a clear pattern of difference among speakers, with men preferring more formulaic joking and women sharing funny stories to create solidarity ` s-Conde, 1997; Hay, 2000; Crawford, (see Crawford and Gressley, 1991; Boxer and Corte 2003). As Crawford (1995:149) remarks, ‘‘Women’s reputation for telling jokes badly (forgetting punch lines, violating story sequencing rules, etc.) may reflect a male norm that does not recognise the value of cooperative story-telling’’. So perhaps the foundational work done by men (e.g. Mulkay, 1988; Attardo, 1993; Norrick, 1993a) grew out of their own orientation to humour. On the other hand, significant contributions to the literature on humour by female linguists, such as Tannen’s (1984) chapter (entitled ‘Irony and joking’) and Chiaro’s (1991) book (entitled ‘The Language of Jokes’) suggest that a focus on joking rather than humour in conversation is widely accepted as appropriate. Indeed, the first book-length examination of conversational humour (Norrick, 1993a) is called ‘Conversational Joking’, not ‘Conversational Humour’. While joking is clearly part of humour, it is surely the case that humour is a much broader, more fuzzy-edged category than the term ‘joking’ implies. In British English, telling a joke is a very specific speech act, that is, a short formulaic utterance, ending with a punch line, which produces (or is meant to produce) laughter. Telling a joke, moreover, is an activity only rarely associated with friendly conversation. This is not surprising, given that, ‘‘a joke . . . is likely to disrupt a ‘normal’ or ‘serious’ conversation’’ (Chiaro, 1992:114). Moreover, ‘‘joke-capping sessions’’ (where one speaker tells a joke and then a second speaker tells a joke and so on) ‘‘are not an everyday occurrence’’ (ibid:113). Chiaro’s claims are supported by the evidence of my corpus of informal conversation involving friends or family. In this corpus I have found no joke-capping sessions and only one short passage that could be described as a joke-telling. There are some instances in the corpus of the combative style which can be labelled ‘‘joking around’’. This is confined to the talk of the youngest speakers (12–17 years) and is more frequently used by male speakers. This or of bantering or teasing among participants. Frosh et al. which can make it opaque to outsiders. with the voice of the group taking precedence over the voice of the individual speaker. Their shared laughter arises from this play and is a manifestation of intimacy. It emerges as the result of humorous stories. 1998. Pilkington. for example. 1997. 2002). The kind of humorous talk I shall focus on in this paper. excluding women’’ (op. Kehily and Nayak.J. For a play frame to be established in talk. Conversational participants can frame their talk as humorous by signalling ‘This is play’. so common in friendly informal adult conversation. which can be understood away from the context in which it was performed. 2004:172). then. Everts (2003).1 ‘Joking around’ and ‘having a laugh’ are common on the street and in school playgrounds. Back. 1994. . It is this ‘‘broader interpretation’’ of humour that will be adopted in this paper. they can be seen as playing together. for example. are not characterised by joke-telling or by jokey repartee. Where conversational co-participants collaborate in humorous talk.cit. On the contrary. 2003:379). Jokes do not emerge spontaneously in conversation but stand apart from the flow of talk and interrupt its progress. Everts comments that when she was coding utterances in her conversational data as serious or humorous. 3. 1990:45) such as this may acquire ‘‘a degree of fixity or formulaically [sic] as it is repeated throughout the conversation. Crucially. it requires conversational participants to adopt ‘‘an interactive pact’’ (McCarthy and Carter. The conversations I’ve collected. it seems. spontaneous conversational humour relies on shared knowledge and in-group norms. emerges organically from the ongoing talk and involves the participation of all present. (2002) claim that combative humour is ‘‘central to the construction of masculine identities and hierarchies’’ (op. conversational participants must collaborate with each other.:103) and that ‘‘joking seems to be a way of establishing intimacy between men and . she kept in mind ‘‘the broader interpretation of humour as ‘play’ ’’ (Everts.cit. but does not outlive the conversation out of which it emerges’’ (Everts. . Frosh et al. but not. 2003:388). Unlike a joke. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 31 conforms to the patterns observed by other commentators (see. Everyday conversation exhibits spontaneous outbursts of verbal play. The notion of a ‘play frame’ captures an essential feature of humour – that it is not serious – and at the same time avoids being specific about the kinds of talk that can occur in a play frame: potentially anything can be funny. The notion of play is at the heart of what I mean by ‘humour’. laughter occurs in nearly all the conversations in the corpus. These differ from jokes in that a joke is a ready-made unit. but this does not mean there is no humour. A ‘‘locally emergent expression’’ (Tannen. Bateson argues that we frame our actions as ‘serious’ or as ‘play’. 2002:103). discusses a family conversation where the utterance ‘‘He’s from Virginia’’ is repeated in varying forms throughout the conversation and is unambiguously humorous. 1 . learned and repeated by a speaker to amuse an audience.. by contrast.:232). As Holmes and Hay (1997:131) observe: ‘‘Successful humour is a joint construction Boys interviewed by Stephen Frosh and his associates saw humour as something exclusively masculine: they implied that ‘girls were not sufficiently robust to engage in jokey banter’ (Frosh et al. Talk as play The idea of talk as play draws on Bateson’s (1953) idea of a play frame. or when speakers pick up a point and play with it creatively. 1996:117–118).32 J. Wellington. the preferred strategy is to continue in the humorous key and respond to the said’’ (Kotthoff. NZ) have paid attention to laughter because of its frequency and salience in their conversational data. In other words. 2003:1408). However. 1995. 1990). in relaxed friendly talk. Sawyer (2001:19) also draws on jazz as a metaphor. Jefferson (1979. thus maintaining a play frame. what we know. in a discussion of hyperbole. what seems to be most salient is the collaborative. 1997. and even. Crawford. all-in-together nature of the talk. 2003:1362). These metaphors make parallels between talk and music. 1995. in the TV discussions she analysed. Humour often lies in the gap between what is said and what is meant. More recently. When a play frame is invoked. and that ‘‘the verbal art of this specialised joint activity most closely resembles jazz in the world of music’’ (Davies. 1993b. working with second language learners. As McCarthy and Carter (2004:161) say. the speakers preferred to return to the serious mode. since interactants who collaborate in humorous talk. we have the choice of joining in the play and responding to what is said. in new ways. and paralinguistic clues such as the use of a laughing or smiling voice (Holmes and Hay. 2003:1368). Hay. since conversational participants have to recognise that a play frame has been invoked and then have to choose to maintain it. Collaboration is an essential part of playful talk. Other contextual clues they consider are the preceding discourse. Because conversational humour is a joint activity. Norrick. Kotthoff (2003) compared ironic humour in TV discussions with ironic humour in dinner-time conversations and found that. Holmes and colleagues working on the Language in the Workplace Project (Victoria University. speaker’s tone of voice. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 involving a complex interaction between the person intending a humorous remark and those with the potential of responding’’. ‘‘necessarily display how finely tuned they are to each other’’ (Davies. or parody. Similarly. including verbal responses such as agreement. just as jazz musicians co-construct music as they improvise on a theme. . they do not restrict themselves to laughter. or of reverting to the serious mode. Humorous talk often involves speakers constructing text as a joint endeavour. In particular. mirroring. using a Conversational Analytic approach. sudden changes in pitch or rhythm. Such evidence can be gleaned from the metaphors researchers draw on to represent talk in a play frame. for example. 1997). 1993a. ‘‘it fundamentally depends on a joint acceptance of a distortion of reality’’. Sully (1902 quoted in Norrick. whereas ‘‘[i]n informal situations among friends. by using other words. The creation of solidarity is an inevitable Corte consequence of the joint construction of a play frame. parallels between spoken language use and poetry have not escaped the scrutiny of linguists (see in particular Tannen. to explore things which are difficult or taboo. speakers collaborate in talking about one thing while meaning something else. Holmes and Hay. One of the strengths of humour is that it allows us to explore. 1985) carried out meticulous analysis of where laughter occurs in talk. Since textual analysis cannot access speaker intention. and I have described the collaborative talk of women friends in terms of a ‘‘jam session’’ (Coates. Davies (2003). Boxer and ` s-Conde. involving all participants at talk. analysts have tended to focus on audience response. 1993a:141) talks about the ‘choral’ nature of playful talk. 1984. claims that conversational humour is a collaborative activity. 1997:132). But in the case of talk-as-play. analysts have focussed on laughter as a key response. Research to pinpoint the contextual cues which signal a play frame has discussed both speaker intention and audience response. many commentators see its chief function as being the creation and maintenance of solidarity (see. There is growing evidence that talk-as-play is qualititatively different from serious talk. is to be read as occurring at the same time as that word. I shall focus on informal talk among friends. In this section I shall only comment briefly on the extracts: detailed analysis of the language features which characterise this humorous talk will be carried out in section 5. for example. as competent speakers. in their early 20s. Sue tells her two friends that she has brought the school rabbit home for the weekend. Mullaney. Sue re-introduces the rabbit theme. a younger group of three young men friends. 4. In this paper. for example. aged about 19.2 These extracts have been chosen in part to demonstrate that humorous talk is not the preserve of one particular group but is a normal aspect of friendly everyday talk.J.. All of us. 1997). The unpredictability of this kind of talk is part of what makes it fun for participants—anyone can trigger a switch at any time. It is always possible for a speaker to introduce a play frame. 2003). and research looking at workplace contexts. (The extract has been transcribed using stave notation. and conversational participants will collaborate with each other to bring about the switches. a conversation involving three young women friends. who proceed to co-construct talk in the play frame. 2000. This raises issues about obedience and appropriate behaviour in relationships. Holmes et al. Holmes. third. all students in Melbourne. for example. I would also like to thank Mary-Ellen Jordan who collected the Melbourne data and who has collaborated with me in analysing it (see Coates and Jordan. The first example shows how conversational participants can draw on what has been talked about in a serious frame earlier in conversation. Some examples of talk in a play frame In this section. They talk briefly about the rabbit before the conversation moves on through other topics to a discussion of marriage and relationships. a conversation involving three women friends in their 30s. and after some more serious talk about the husband’s wild youth and nearalcoholism. like instruments in a musical stave. The three examples are taken from three very different conversations: first. interactants may switch to a play frame from time to time to defuse tension or to provide light relief from a boring agenda. appearing vertically above or below any other word. 3 This means that all participants’ contributions are to be read simultaneously. a switch which is recognised by the speaker’s co-participants. England. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 33 It is not only in informal contexts involving intimates or close friends that talk-as-play is found. . In each example. But in informal contexts where interactants know each other well. can switch talk from serious to playful modes.)3 2 I am extremely grateful to all those who have allowed their conversations to be recorded and analysed as part of my research. one of the speakers switches from a serious to a play frame. or even to have a guitar in the house. over supper at a house in Surrey. The example below represents a very small part of the discussion of the obedient husband. Sue tells a story about a couple she knows where the wife has forbidden the husband to play his guitar. I shall examine three examples of humorous talk. Where talk occurs in a formal context. Any word. or portion of a word. talk may switch repeatedly between serious and non-serious frames. has uncovered a surprising amount of playful talk (see. Names have been changed to provide anonymity. because this talk has the potential for frequent and often extended talk in a play frame. in South London. Australia. 2001. second. This system allows the reader to see how the utterances of the different participants relate to each other. The switch to a play frame is achieved by the mocking.34 J. quasi-maternal tone which . the three friends ponder on the obedient husband’s life. Liz’s utterance oh bless him he doesn’t have much of a life triggers Sue’s laughter as she responds he doesn’t really. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 At the beginning of this extract. . of making runs in the garden). while Anna suggests the two ‘rabbits’ could meet. The repetition of the rabbit theme makes the talk of these friends textually cohesive. Liz joins in with the suggestion that the bossy wife should get the husband/rabbit a run in the garden.J. Amanda tells her two friends (Jody and Clare) that the mother of a friend of theirs is proposing to marry the man she has been having an affair with for a month. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 35 Liz adopts in relation to the obedient husband. sex and the computer. Sue then introduces a new dimension with her simile: he’s like the rabbit. This is a very good example of Kotthoff’s (2003) claim that the co-construction of humour relies on participants responding to what is said (playing with the theme of rabbits. At this point in the conversation. but they use humour to good effect to express their critical view of heterosexual marriage. The next example comes from a conversation between three friends. Liz fantasises that the husband/rabbit would be happy with a few lettuce leaves and adopts an ingratiating voice to mimic the husband thanking his wife for the lettuce. continuing I think I should bring him home for weekends. and to have a laugh about an earlier joke about Clare. of the particular man talked about and by implication men in general. By reverting to the rabbit theme and using ‘rabbit’ as a metaphor for obedient husband. and warms to her theme. All three friends are horrified at the news. rather than to what is meant (wives and husbands should have a more equal relationship and should not order each other round). all students at Melbourne University. these friends are able to play with the parallels that this throws up and to say some pretty devastating things about the couple and their relationship. of bringing pets home for the weekend. 36 J. Clare’s recognition that a play frame has been introduced is marked by her laughing protest. This reframes the phrase: whatever they do together is now marked as both humorous and sexual. while Amanda maintains the frame with the joke it’s probably . Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 Jody’s words whatever they do together in stave 2 are initially received with only a minimal response from Amanda. But Jody chooses to re-focus attention on the idea of ‘whatever they do together’ by adding I hate to think. 5 The story is presented in numbered lines. a joke which inverts the normal pattern of heterosexual unmarked/homosexual marked.4 The last extract comes from a conversation in which three young men are discussing whether miracles are possible (all three are involved in their local church). each line corresponding to one of the narrator’s breath-groups or intonation units. with the young women constantly sending up the normative discourse of Romantic Love. and the play frame is maintained throughout the succeeding conversation. (This example is a narrative. that what we imagine them doing involves a mobile phone in some unspeakable way. .he said something ((to her)) ‘‘Get up. Des reinterprets a Bible story with help from Jack and Hav—Jack and Hav’s contributions are in italics.] It was a little girl [yeah] and she was dead he got to the house too late when she was dead. But.J. she cohesively ties in Jody’s reference to mobile phones by saying. At the same time. in which the reference to techno-sex can be understood only if Clare’s utterance has something to do with techno-sex. . she was alive. In this example. . Clare responds to Amanda’s comment in kind. it involves less overlap than the preceding examples. Amanda’s joke is picked up with relish by the other two speakers: Jody launches into a series of utterances which talk about the man’s mobile phone. with heavy sexual innuendo. I can’t remember all theAnd. The mobile phone joke recurs throughout their talk. This reading is confirmed by Amanda’ subsequent teasing remark to Clare: you’re the techno sex guru. with one speaker taking the role of narrator. ((xx)) stupid cow’’ and she got up. Clare. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 37 heterosexual. It has been transcribed according to narrative conventions. with the utterance well we KNOW what they do then DON’T we in a mock-patronizing reference to the act of sexual penetration—the implication here is ‘boring!’ and/or ‘predictable’. when you think about how shit medicine was in those days [mhm] I mean who says she was dead? [yeah I know] she could have been in a coma [yeah] and he could have like triggered something off she could have been lying she could have been lying she could have been really pretending **very very well** **she could have been like-** ‘‘Right ((I’m gonna sort that out))’’ <CLAPS HANDS> <LAUGHTER> The entire transcript of this humorous chunk of conversation can be found in the Appendix to Coates and Jordan (1997). in effect. he.)5 (3) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 4 MIRACLES But supposing that he raised someone from the dead? [.he said. 1980). you can hardly talk. typically a grammatical phrase or clause (Chafe. particularly those of younger men.’’ <LAUGHTER> 25 for fuck’s sake. The linguistic and para-linguistic features of talk in a play frame I have argued that playful talk is qualititatively different from other kinds of talk and that it can often be described in terms of music. This time. Overlapping speech A play frame can only be established if all conversational participants collaborate in sustaining it. It is only at line 20. But note that his switch back to a serious frame in the next line (But I mean let’s face it. This example is in two parts: the first (serious) part is a re-telling of a Bible story about a miracle. overlapping speech often involves repetition. This is an interesting stretch of talk in which the speakers play with ideas which become increasingly fantastic. the co-construction of utterances. laughter. <SIMULATES GIRL’S HIGH VOICE> <LAUGHTER> 23 fucking stupid bearded cunt. 31 medicine was crap. 5. the second (nonserious) part involves a dramatised re-interpretation of the story. Hav lets him have the floor. Once Des begins his comic re-telling of the story in dialogue.1. when Hav again uses simulated dialogue: ‘‘Right ((I’m gonna sort that out))’’ that the humorous version of the story finally takes off. and the men involved collaborate with each other to bring about the switches. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 ‘‘I can’t -I can’t keep this up much longer. features which seem to be intrinsically involved in what it means to ‘play’ conversationally. Des and Jack. fuck off. These five features are often co-present in a given stretch of talk: for example. . <NORMAL VOICE> <LAUGHTER> 30 But I mean let’s face it. Hav attempts to switch to a nonserious frame early on with his contribution Get up. where’s my fiver. Des’s joking demand for payment (right where’s my fiver?) recognises that he has succeeded in amusing his friends. the bastard. Hav’s earlier words allow Des the economy of simply saying Get up in a more serious voice (line 26) to bring off the animation of Jesus in the story. This requires that talk is jointly constructed in a much stronger sense than . [yeah] [words between double asterisks were spoken at the same time] 22 This story is typical of many in the all-male conversations I’ve collected. Jesus Christ <LAUGHTER> that was hard. and he and Jack become speechless with laughter. <QUIETER> 26 ‘‘Get up’’ <SERIOUS VOICE> <LAUGHTER> 27 ‘‘Thank God for that. Des accepts the play frame and tells the story again entirely in reported speech. and laughter often overlaps with ongoing talk. repetition. Talk in such conversations switches constantly between serious and non-serious frames. .38 J. and metaphor. In this section I shall examine five features of talk in a play frame. medicine was crap .) is achieved through the co-operation of Jack and Hav: they stop laughing and the minimal response yeah at this point signals their acceptance of the switch back to a serious frame. but Des ignores Hav and completes his initial re-telling of the story. The features are: overlapping speech. <REVERTS TO GIRL’S VOICE> <LAUGHTER> 28 oh. ((xx)) stupid cow (line 9). particularly jazz. <LOUD LAUGHTER> 24 go on. co-constructed utterances often involve two people speaking at the same time and repeating elements from the preceding discourse. There is then a transitional section (lines 12–20) constructed by two speakers. 5. before the switch to a play frame is fully accomplished.’’ <LAUGHTER> 29 Right. Norrick (2004. 1997a. where speakers demonstrate their shared perspective on whatever is being talked about and display ‘‘how finely tuned they are to each other’’ (Davies. and when Sue triggers a new play frame. Liz says he doesn’t have much of a life and then Anna and Sue speak simultaneously: [Anna: [Sue: he doesn’t by the sounds of it he doesn’t really <LAUGHS> By saying the same thing at the same time. not chaotic. following Goffman) talks about collaboratively constructed talk of this kind as ‘a team performance’. 1993. 2001:19). Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 39 that intended by Grice’s notion of cooperation (Grice. Their contributions to talk are made simultaneously: each of them develops the rabbit theme in their own way. 4 and 5 all consist of more than one speaker speaking at the same time as another speaker. Sawyer. Coates. Overlapping speech is the inevitable outcome of joint ownership of the conversational floor. Sue and Liz overlap: and then Liz and Anna overlap: The effect of this complex pattern of overlapping is to give the impression of everyone speaking at once. Collaboratively constructed talk. because speakers’ voices interweave like instruments improvising on a theme. 1975). for example. which follows straight on. Staves 3. These three friends have been playing for some time with the story of the obedient husband. . in this strong sense (see Edelsky. Coates and Sutton Spence. where (as its name suggests) the floor is inhabited by only one speaker at any one time.J. but in a coherent. way. But far from leading to conversational breakdown. interactants bind their utterances together and in this case prepare the ground for Sue’s he’s like the rabbit. 2001). This is very different from a one-at-a-time floor. starts from the premise that the conversational floor is potentially open to all participants simultaneously. In staves 3–4. 1996:117–118) or more generally to jazz (Davies. It is this kind of playful talk that has been likened to a jam session (Coates. as the repetition of words and meaning demonstrates. overlapping speech in a collaborative floor entails a richer multi-layered texture to talk. 2003:1368. or by echoing what has just been said. they all collaborate in sustaining it. The first extract is a very good illustration of the kind of overlapping speech that is common in humorous talk among friends. yet they are clearly attending to each other at the same time. 1996. and repeating each other’s words. 2003:1362). The example begins with all three speakers overlapping. Here is the chunk of talk where two speakers talk simultaneously. This means that interactants are not having to pay attention to two or three disparate utterances simultaneously. this time re-organised in stave format: In stave 2. we see that where overlap occurs. but to two or occasionally three highly cohesive utterances. participants rely on given information (Jody has established that she is focusing on mobile phones) to attend simultaneously to Jody’s continued joking and Clare’s elaboration of Jody’s joke. simultaneously Clare laughs and comments well we KNOW what they do then DON’T we? In overlapping talk like this. we can see how Des starts a fourth contribution to the list of she could have been utterances at the same time as Jack extends his utterance with an adverbial. A very simple example occurs in stave 8 where Amanda’s cyber sex overlaps with Jody’s virtual sex. In extract 3. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 The transcript of Example 2 shows that there is a great deal of overlapping talk in this extract. Again. which enriches the syntactic pattern they have established between them. There is no evidence from any of the humorous talk I have collected that participants cannot follow what is going on: on the contrary. A more extended example of overlap comes in stave 3: Jody says he’s got a bloody mobile phone and then adds he wears it round his waist. the evidence of subsequent talk is that speakers relish ‘choral’ talk of this kind and are stimulated to make further humorous contributions. Hav seizes the opportunity of Des’s ambiguous like to switch into a pretend voice and to use direct speech .40 J. we again find overlapping talk. At this moment. involving whole clauses. of words and ideas). again coinciding with repetition. we also find repeating patterns (here. see Coates. But the pressures of hegemonic masculinity mean that male speakers must at all times avoid being perceived as gay. but in all cases of co-constructed utterances. unless the conversational partner is an actual (heterosexual female) partner (Coates. 5. they are given here to illustrate the concept of co-construction (both examples involve Anna. In most groupings. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 41 (be like is now a very common quotative for young speakers—but Des might have been using like as a hedge while he searched for a new verb).J. Overlapping talk is more common in all-female talk than in all-male talk. Sue and Liz. 2006). 1997b). what is achieved is two speakers speaking as if with a single voice. . This syntactic pattern proves very productive: eventually all three friends use it to develop the fantasy about the husband/rabbit through adding a second part to the utterance (which is not repeated): . asks a question beginning with the words I wonder why she doesn’t . At the same time. signals intimacy in a way which risks such a perception. Sue.2. male speakers avoid overlapping with another speaker. Presumably. Where overlap as part of the collaborative construction of talk functions as a display of heterosexual coupledom. in particular overlapping talk. Co-construction can involve a second speaker adding just a single word or an entire clause to an utterance. and Anna completes this utterance with the words introduce them. Co-constructed utterances The previous example – where one speaker (Hav) continues an utterance begun by another speaker (Des) – illustrates how speakers co-construct utterances. except where the other speaker is a female partner. Liz and Anna co-construct talk drawing on a rhetorical question structure. 1994. in stave 4. Liz. The next two examples are very simple. Liz completes her own utterance with the words get him a run in the garden. men can produce talk as polyphonic as anything shown in the extracts above. The evidence of my database is that men in all-male groups prefer a one-at-a time pattern of turn-taking (for further discussion. . conversational duetting. from a different point in their conversation): In their playful talk about rabbits (and obedient husbands). syntactic. with Amanda repeating the verb drive and Clare repeating the pattern ( from) X to Y (where X and Y are place names). 1994). his willingness to drive miles to buy strudels. it seems that once a play frame is in place. semantic. They ridicule his liking for strudels. thematic. Jody. Repetition As discussion of overlapping talk and co-constructed utterance reveals.3. A further example of co-construction comes from the Melbourne data: in the conversation which follows example (2). we find ‘locally emergent expressions’ (Tannen. Amanda and Clare’s jointly achieved utterance in stave two here is a very simple example of coconstruction: Amanda begins the clause and Clare completes it. in particular. garden and lettuce. Again. Repetition may occur at many levels: lexical. But at the same time. 1990:45) which become charged with humorous meaning. only when duetting with a woman partner do men seem happy to deploy collaborative patterns like this which so strongly index mutual knowledge and awareness. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 LIZ: ANNA: ANNA: SUE: SUE: LIZ: I wonder why she doesn’t get him a run in the garden [stave 4] introduce them [stave 4] introduce them [stave 5] bring him home at weekends [stave 5] (and) let him go out in the garden [stave 6] give him a few lettuce leaves [stave 6] It is arguably the case that Sue is not adding a second part to Liz’s utterance. Entire phrases in the first extract (example 4) are also repeated. As discussed above. so rabbits in the first example becomes charged. or where production involves cohesive repetition. repetition is a striking feature of talk in a play frame (see also Norrick. In either case.42 J. Clare and Amanda continue their playful demolition of the man who is going to marry their friend’s mother. . Amanda and Clare are collaborating in reinforcing Jody’s initial claim you wouldn’t drive from Palm Cove to Bondi. 1993b. we see speakers constructing utterances where production is shared between speakers. as do the words associated with this lexical field such as run. 5. In the case of lexical repetition. there is evidence that co-constructed utterances are a more normal feature of all-female talk than of all-male talk. but is adding a new second part to her own earlier utterance I think I should [bring him home] [stave 3]. all using the same syntactic pattern: Subject + could have + V: she could have been in a coma and he could have like triggered something off she could have been lying she could have been lying she could have been really pretending very very well The syntactic repetition here signals an increasingly playful mode of talking. with hypotheses becoming more and more fanciful. at the same time. In playful talk. The power of the word resides precisely in the lack of clarity as to its meaning in this chunk of talk: innuendo works by forcing the listener to ‘fill the gaps’. In all three examples. the repetition of words and phrases creates lexical cohesion. Because of the semantic emptiness of do. in particular. cyber-sex.J. Repetition at the semantic level means that speakers say things with the same or similar meanings. Amanda’s question would you want to bloody use this man’s mobile phone? at the end of the extract is the climax of a series of rhetorical questions and is funny because the three friends are now tuned to interpreting mobile phone in a non-literal way. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 43 with identical. 10. the phrasal verb get up (lines 9. to the extent that it takes on a multiplicity of meanings. The accumulated force of these three questions is to underline the first—in other words. This is why humour is so effective as a means of creating solidarity. In the last of the three extracts. individual voices are less important than the jointly constructed talk. which is their feeling that the friend’s mother should not marry this man. or near-identical words: bring him home at/for weekends (staves 4 and 5). In the second extract (Example 2). Des’s question I mean who says she was dead? sparks a series of utterances. the use of particular words is crucial to the participants’ understanding of the second telling of the story. the establishment of a play frame means that a term like mobile phone can become highly charged. 26) provides important lexical cohesion between the two parts. In the third example. it is possible for every following verb to be infected by the sexual meanings suggested by . It is important to remember that these words and phrases repeat words and phrases used earlier in the conversation during the Rabbit topic. A good example is the phrase whatever they do together which is played with in various ways in the second example. At the end of the second example. The word sex is also repeated in various combinations: heterosexual. Repetition allows the talk to move from a serious to a play frame in a very coherent and smooth way. Syntactic cohesion is also a feature of talk in a play frame. whereas each one actually refers to a more trivial situation (on a ‘normal’ reading of mobile phone). techno-sex. to revert to the main theme of the conversation. virtual sex. mostly sexual. yet these are never pinned down. get him a run in the garden/let him go out in a run (staves 4 and 6). the utterance would you want to bloody use this man’s mobile phone? only has such an impact because of its positioning in a series of rhetorical questions: would you want to marry this man? would you want to be in the same room as this man? would you want to bloody use this man’s mobile phone? Part of the humour here lies in the fact that the speakers produce these questions as if each one presents a worse scenario than the last. but using different words. the repetition by different speakers of the same syntactic patterns binds the three speakers’ contributions together. In playful talk. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 this phrase. which moves us away from the idea that laughter is just an accompaniment to talk: it is talk. At the same time. This claim is then balanced at the end of the extract by a semantically similar utterance: But I mean let’s face it. respectively): (i) (ii) SUE: I wonder why she doesn’t get him a RUN in the garden <GIGGLING> AMANDA: I mean the man has a mobile phone <LAUGHING> Laughter very often occurs when co-participants respond to something funny uttered by the current speaker. The core of these two utterances is: medicine was shit (line 12) medicine was crap (line 31) These parallelisms make the talk coherent and bind speaker’s turns together. as in the following example: Frustratingly. This comes at the end of Des’s performance and marks the return to a serious frame. laughter is the chief culturally recognised way that we acknowledge humour in talk.44 J. So a superficially innocuous comment like he’s got a bloody mobile phone (stave 4) takes on particular semantic overtones. They also observe that. This is reinforced by Clare’s subsequent comment well we KNOW what they do then. when conversational participants collaborate in humorous talk. In line 12. laughter may involve the current speaker laughing at their own humour. While analysts cannot rely on laughter as a sign of (successful) humour (laughter may signal surprise or embarrassment. It allows people to signal their presence frequently. Not surprisingly. but laughing in the same way’ (174). medicine was crap (line 31). This comes just before his question I mean who says she was dead? which triggers the series of statements which switch the talk into a play frame. Laughter In their seminal (1978) paper. specifically sexual ones. Jefferson et al. and their continued presence in the collaborative floor. these observations are applied in the paper only to the laughter associated with ‘improper’ talk (for example. argue that for conversational participants. This is an important claim. 6 .6 Laughter allows participants in playful talk to signal their continued involvement in what is being said. while not committing them to speak all the time. 5. Another example of semantic repetition comes in the framing set up in Extract (3). laughter ‘has the status of an official conversational activity’ (op. for example). Des makes the claim But when you think about how shit medicine was in those days.cit. then clearly speakers need strategies to signal that they are participating. they achieve a display of ‘not merely laughing at the same time. which refers back directly to whatever they do together. all three extracts show frequent laughter from all participants. Laughter fits this requirement perfectly. talk about swimming naked). even when they do not actually produce an utterance. as in the following examples (from extracts 1 and 2. These insightful observations (together with the paper’s title) suggest that laughter and intimacy are significantly linked.4. it is certainly an important contextual cue. If we assume that a collaborative floor is at all times open to all speakers.:156). Metaphor can be defined as a linguistic device whereby one thing is described as if it were another. Sometimes all participants in talk laugh simultaneously. 1999:44). I shall look at the role of metaphor. One of the strategies drawn on by participants in playful talk to create solidarity and to subvert dominant discourses is the use of metaphor (see Gibbs.J. then. . But she chooses to embellish her point by acting out the rabbit/husband’s thanks to his owner/wife. Sue laughs as she introduces the notion of the obedient husband being like a rabbit. It signals the presence in a collaborative floor of co-participants who are not the main speaker but who by laughing can show their involvement in the ongoing talk. Laughter. It signals amusement and appreciation when something humorous is said. as we see at the end of ‘Miracles’ (extract 3).5. It also marks the ongoing talk as solidary in that collaboratively constructed humour relies on in-group knowledge and familiarity. is an important contextual cue in establishing a play frame. to the extent that he feels justified in (humorously) demanding payment for his bravura performance (Right. where’s my fiver). 2001:353). In each case. 2004). this group laughter coincides with the end of a strand of the extended talk about the man with the mobile phone. 9 and 13). especially everyday talk among friends. Metaphor Finally. 2000. it plays an important role in structuring playful talk. what is talked about . These examples suggest that laughter has several roles in playful talk. Laughter often occurs at the moment when a play frame is invoked: for example. 2003). Anna responds to Liz’s riff about lettuce leaves at a point when Liz might have stopped. it frequently involves exploitation of the gap between what is said and what is meant (Kotthoff. group laughter can signal the end of a sub-section of humorous talk: in extract (2). It has been suggested that metaphor ‘‘is the principal device available to us . 5. It is evidence of the coherence of playful talk that Anna’s laughter works both as a response to the first part of Liz’s utterance and as an accompaniment to the final part. for arriving at a fresh conception of a familiar phenomenon’’ (Hanne. In the third extract. Talk in a play frame frequently involves metaphor. as when all three young women laugh after Jody’s quip this side of Clare hasn’t come out yet in the second extract. In everyday talk. ‘‘Its function is to create novel meanings that inspire and disturb by changing our perspective on reality’’ (Eynon. McCarthy and Carter. Finally. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 45 Note that Anna’s laughter overlaps with the final chunk of Liz’s turn. . where group laughter at the end of the dramatized story and again after Des has demanded payment for his performance (lines 28–29) signals a recognition that the play frame has potentially come to a close. both in marking speakers’ recognition of the establishment of a play frame and in marking its close. Hav and Jack laugh in response to every narrative line produced by Des (lines 21–27 inclusive). there are three occasions when all three speakers laugh at the same time (in staves 7. Alternatively. This pattern (of all participants laughing at once) seems to correlate in many cases with the end of a play frame. and Jack and Hav laugh when Des begins his dramatised version of the miracle story. with each use of metaphor increasing the humorous impact of the talk. It is this cluster of linguistic features which has led commentators to describe playful talk in terms of music and particularly jazz. A play frame can only be sustained if all conversational participants collaborate in sustaining it. talk in a play frame involves a move away from the literal. and a heightened use of metaphorical language. a rabbit is perceived as a small. this is a form of play they ` s-Conde (1997:293) have pointed out. fluffy creature while a husband is normatively supposed to be a strong. consciously or not. The fact that women in same-sex friendship groups seem more likely to exploit these possibilities than men is a separate issue. Successful collaboration arises from shared understandings and shared perspectives. as Gibbs (2000:25) says of irony. 2003:1368). playful talk can be regarded as ‘‘a special kind of figurative language’’. which I have addressed in another paper (Coates. Their frequent laughter displays their amusement. all participants are involved. the use of metaphorical language leads to an intensification of the humour. Sue and her two friends cooperate in sustaining the rabbit metaphor. speakers can take a fresh look at the everyday and the familiar. so that words used subsequently hint at metaphorical rather than literal meanings. but talk only of the rabbit and of things to do with rabbits such as runs in gardens and lettuce leaves. the rabbit metaphor is introduced by Sue with her simile: he’s like the rabbit (stave 2). protective human male. As I’ve shown. not erudite. as does Jody’s subsequent claim (omitted from transcript above) he’s got a spa [jacuzzi] in his office (playing on the fact that the main feature of a jacuzzi is that water spurts out in an ejaculatory way). The topic whatever they do together (stave 1) hints at sexual meanings. 6. From this point until stave 8. (Succinctly. Examples (1) and (2) demonstrate how metaphorical language functions in extended talk in a play frame.46 J. the coconstruction of utterances. During these seven staves. and is a strong demonstration of in-tune-ness. this way of talking may involve overlapping speech. I have looked here at specific uses of metaphor. The clash between these two sets of meanings makes these three women laugh. Conclusions: humour and intimacy In this paper. Playful talk is fun: friends meet and talk because. but in a more general sense. but it also allows them to express their uneasiness with the story of this deviant husband. repetition. the co-participants never use the word ‘husband’. ‘‘we all enjoy a good prize highly. my aim has been to demonstrate what speakers can do with playful talk. deviant because he kowtows to his controlling wife. and all share in the maintenance of the play frame and demonstrate how well tuned they are to each other. the use of metaphor is more allusive. here my focus is on sustained playful talk. While a single pun or a comic aside may amuse briefly. In example (1). As Boxer and Corte . Even the statement he’s an architect (stave 10) acquires sexual overtones. in press). vulnerable. By entering a play frame. This inevitably makes such talk solidary. In both examples.) In example (2). what the possibilities of a play frame are. Coates / Journal of Pragmatics 39 (2007) 29–49 is familiar. Not only does this deepen our understanding of life and of the world around us. All three examples discussed illustrate this: in every case. since co-participants collaborate not only in sustaining a particular topic but also in sustaining a particular way of talking. it also gives us amusement. The phrase mobile phone is used with phallic overtones throughout the extract. The three examples discussed in this paper demonstrate that talk in a play frame can justifiably be called ‘‘a specialised joint activity’’ (Davies. amusement which arises from their awareness of the gap between their talk about rabbits and the underlying meaning expressed by this metaphor. Importance of humour to client–nurse relationships and clients’ well-being. 119–129. Ulrike (Eds. Coates.). Jennifer. References Astedt-Kurki. Wallace. 1997b. 1991. London. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (4). Kira (Eds. Philadelphia. Dislocating Masculinity. T. 177–192. 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She has given lectures at universities all over the world and has held Visiting Professorships in Australia. Men and Language (originally published in 1986. third ed.. Language and Gender: A Reader (1998). Germany. 2004). Her published work includes Women. Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities (2003) and The Sociolinguistics of Narrative (edited with Joanna Thornborrow. the USA. .