Taking humor seriously in the language classroom

Abstract

Humor plays a central role in social interaction, not only as a means to have fun, but also to accomplish other social goals such as building rapport and easing tensions. While humor is thought to be universal, humor styles, topics, and cues, along with when and with whom humor is employed can vary across cultures. Further, in intercultural interactions, the background information necessary to understand and appreciate humor may not be shared by humorists and their interlocutors. For these and other reasons, humor can be challenging to successfully comprehend and produce for emerging bilingual speakers. At the same time, research on additional language (L2) humor reveals that speakers at all levels of L2 proficiency can and do creatively draw on their communicative repertoires to engage in humor in a variety of contexts such as everyday conversation, computer-mediated communication, and workplace and classroom interactions. This article will consider what challenges speakers face in engaging in L2 humor, discuss how learners develop humor skills, and suggest how teachers can productively incorporate humor into the language classroom.