Teasing in informal contexts in English as an Asian lingua franca

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Author(s)
Walkinshaw, Ian
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
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This paper explores how speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) manage the interactional back-and-forth of teasing, a social action which, being fundamentally ambiguous, is open to interpretation by a target and/or other participants as aggressive in intent. The data reported here draw on the Asian Corpus of English (ACE), and describe some of the more typical teasing practices which occur among Asian ELF speakers in informal, non-task-focused contexts. More specifically, this research explores the interpersonal functions which teasing performs in ACE interactions; the teasing strategies commonly employed to serve these ...
View more >This paper explores how speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) manage the interactional back-and-forth of teasing, a social action which, being fundamentally ambiguous, is open to interpretation by a target and/or other participants as aggressive in intent. The data reported here draw on the Asian Corpus of English (ACE), and describe some of the more typical teasing practices which occur among Asian ELF speakers in informal, non-task-focused contexts. More specifically, this research explores the interpersonal functions which teasing performs in ACE interactions; the teasing strategies commonly employed to serve these functions; and the responses of recipients to teases targeting them. The data show that teasing is a common practice in interaction among Asian ELF speakers, and is accomplished through a variety of strategies such as jocular mockery, jocular agreement with a target’s negative self-assessment, jocular insult, and banter. Significantly, teasing in ACE appears to be essentially jocular rather than conveying veiled aggression; markers such as laughter, heightened vocal pitch and lexical exaggeration are commonly employed to signpost the non-serious nature of such utterances. Teases are also commonly received as jocular by recipients; there are no instances of offense being expressed by a tease recipient.
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View more >This paper explores how speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) manage the interactional back-and-forth of teasing, a social action which, being fundamentally ambiguous, is open to interpretation by a target and/or other participants as aggressive in intent. The data reported here draw on the Asian Corpus of English (ACE), and describe some of the more typical teasing practices which occur among Asian ELF speakers in informal, non-task-focused contexts. More specifically, this research explores the interpersonal functions which teasing performs in ACE interactions; the teasing strategies commonly employed to serve these functions; and the responses of recipients to teases targeting them. The data show that teasing is a common practice in interaction among Asian ELF speakers, and is accomplished through a variety of strategies such as jocular mockery, jocular agreement with a target’s negative self-assessment, jocular insult, and banter. Significantly, teasing in ACE appears to be essentially jocular rather than conveying veiled aggression; markers such as laughter, heightened vocal pitch and lexical exaggeration are commonly employed to signpost the non-serious nature of such utterances. Teases are also commonly received as jocular by recipients; there are no instances of offense being expressed by a tease recipient.
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Journal Title
Journal of English as a Lingua Franca
Volume
5
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter & Co. KG Publishers. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
Subject
Linguistics
Linguistics not elsewhere classified