Creative manipulations of language have long been recognized as important aspects of second language development. Research has largely examined playful language within adult foreign language classrooms; however, less attention has been given to the pragmatic use of humor among adolescent multilingual learners of English. Drawing on oral…

Using the framework of conversation analysis, this study investigated the interactional workings of laughter in task-based interactions. The analysis was drawn from 160 cases of pair work interactions, collected in 2nd-semester Japanese-as-a-foreign-language classrooms. The pair work activities examined in this study are mostly grammar-focused,…

Over the past decade, second language (L2) humor has attracted scholarly attention as both a means and a goal of L2 development. Much of this research, however, has focused on oral communication, whereas virtually no studies address humor as an aspect of reading comprehension. This exploratory study combines these two areas of inquiry, examining…

Working with Korean university-level learners of English, this study provides a detailed analytical comparison of 2 task work groups that were video-recorded, with 1 group scoring very high and the other relatively low based on the results of a Group Work Dynamic (GWD) measuring instrument. Adopting a complexity theory (CT) perspective and…