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Article published In:
Language and Dialogue
Vol. 12:3 (2022) ► pp.360–382

Laughing at English

The lingua franca at the interface between local-interactional resistance and cultural-societal pressure

| University of Paris Nanterre
| University of Bologna

This contribution explores the stances of speakers of Romance languages towards the use of English as a lingua franca in a business context. Grounding on an audio-visual corpus collected in a wine fair in France, the analysis focuses on three extracts where participants comment in a playful way (i.e. through laughing, joking and humorous enactments) upon the fact that they are not speaking English. Through a sequential and multimodal analysis, the study will highlight the participants’ ambivalent stance: on the one hand, through these playful practices they display a local resistance towards the mainstream language choice; on the other hand, these same practices reveal their vulnerability to the social pressure concerning the speaking of English.

Keywords: English lingua franca, conversation analysis, (affiliative)stance, laughter, business interactions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background on English as a Lingua Franca (ELF): Practices and stances
    • 2.1ELF
    • 2.2Stance, laughter, and playfulness
  • 3.Data and analysis
  • 4.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 September 2022
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