Paper

L2 Classroom Humor: Subversive, Linguistically Productive, or Just Plain Fun?


Anne Pomerantz (University of Pennsylvania)
Nancy Bell (Washington State University)
 
Program Summary
This paper examines the conditions under which students’ use of humor in an advanced Spanish conversation course can be understood as disorderly, linguistically productive, politically subversive, and/or merely enjoyable. In so doing, it presents a case for a particular communicative mode – humor –to be seen as a pedagogical safe house.