Interviewer laughs: Shared laughter and asymmetries in employment interviews

Register variation by Spanish users of English: The Nijmegen Corpus of Spanish English

“…M formal M informal Effect size (r) Laughter (Garcia 2013;Glenn 2010) and overlapping speech (Tannen 2005) were both expected to occur more frequently in the informal than in the formal speech situation, and both showed such an effect, reflecting a more affective and interactive nature of the speech during the informal, peer to peer conversations. Furthermore, in line with Dewaele (2001), the number of Spanish (L1) words was higher in the informal than in the formal speech situation.…”

Student smiles and the negotiation of epistemics in L2 classrooms

“…Laughter research has focused on medical contexts (Fatigante and Orletti, 2013;Haakana, 2002), writing center tutorials (Thonus, 2008), business meetings (Markaki et al, 2010;Vöge, 2010), and employment interviews (Glenn, 2010(Glenn, , 2013. This research has often focused on who laughs more, the institutional representative or the layperson, or when participants laugh (Glenn, 2013;Haakana, 2002;Jacknick, 2013).…”

5. Laughter as a “serious business”: Clients’ laughter in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome

“…Haakana (1999: 132) maintains that " [l]ay persons and professionals use laughter in different ways" that are related to their institutional identities. Glenn (2010Glenn ( : 1487 echoes this idea that "in institutional interactions the distribution and the sequential organization of laughter can reflect and constitute asymmetries of respective roles and tasks". He maintains that these asymmetries are manifest in the distribution of laughter and its responses; and also what activities laughter accompanies.…”

“…Laughter can also be a powerful resource of reinforcing the asymmetries of the participants' roles and responsibilities. For example, in the analysis of employment interviews Glenn (2010) shows that the interviewers are typically the ones who initiate laughter, and while it may be reciprocated by the interviewees, the interviewers are the ones who decide whether to extend laughter or to bring the interaction "back to business". Jacknick (2013) in the analysis of ESL classroom interactions shows that laughter may be used as an interactional resource to negotiate participant's epistemic authority.…”

“…And while there are general patterns that can be observed in specific contexts, participants may adapt them to local "contingencies and activities" (Glenn 2010(Glenn : 1496 of an on-going interaction. In the analysis presented below we examine what roles and responsibilities the participants negotiate and what "contingencies and activities" they orient to when they engage in shared laughter in PS consultations.…”