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Jocular Mockery in Computer-Mediated 4 Communication: a Contrastive Study of a 5 Spanish and English Facebook Community 6 DE GRUYTER MOUTON Journal of Politeness Research 2015; 11(2): 289–327 41 3 2 Carmen Maíz-Arévalo 3 Jocular mockery in computer-mediated 4 communication: A contrastive study of a 5 Spanish and English Facebook community 6 7 DOI 10.1515/pr-2015-0012 8 Abstract: Understood as an umbrella term covering different phenomena (e.g., 9 banter, teasing, jocular insults, etc.), mock impoliteness has long attracted the 10 attention of scholars. However, most of this research has concentrated on Eng- 11 lish while other languages have been neglected. In addition, previous research 12 has mostly analyzed face-to-face interaction, generally ignoring computer-me- 13 diated communication. This paper aims to redress this imbalance by analyzing 14 a particular case of mock impoliteness – i.e., jocular mockery – in two Face- 15 book communities (Spanish and English). More specifically, and following 16 Haugh’s (2010) and Haugh and Bousfield’s (2012) three inter-related dimen- 17 sions, this paper intends to answer three questions: (i) what triggers jocular 18 mockery in each corpus? (ii) How is it “framed”? And (iii) how do interlocutors 19 respond to it? To this end, two balanced datasets were gathered: one in (British) 20 English and one in (Peninsular) Spanish, consisting of 6,215 and 6,193 words 21 respectively. Results show that jocular mockery is pervasive in both datasets 22 and both British and Spanish users resort to it when confronted with bragging. 23 Likewise, both groups borrow framing strategies from face-to-face communica- 24 tion but also employ other means afforded by Facebook itself. They also opt 25 for accepting it good-naturedly as a way to boost group rapport. 26 Keywords: jocular mockery, computer-mediated communication, Facebook, 27 British English, Peninsular Spanish 28 1 Introduction 29 Defined as “superficially impolite” but “understood that it is not intended to 30 cause offence” (Culpeper 1996: 352), mock impoliteness has long attracted the 31 attention of scholars (Leech 1983; Drew 1987; Culpeper 1996, 2005; Hay 2000; 1 1 2 Carmen Maíz-Arévalo, ■ Please complete ■, E-mail: [email protected] 31 290 Carmen Maíz-Arévalo DE GRUYTER MOUTON 41 Fox 2004; Grainger 2004; Butler 2007; Ervin-Tripp and Lampert 2009; Haugh 323 2 2010, 2011; Terkourafi 2008, among many others). Mock impoliteness, however, 33 can be regarded as an umbrella term encompassing different – albeit closely 34 related – phenomena such as teasing, banter, jocular insults or jocular mock- 35 ery.1 36 For the most part, research on jocular mockery has focused on face-to-face 37 interaction (cf. Everts 2003; Haugh 2010; Haugh and Bousfield 2012, among 38 others) while leaving aside other forms of communication such as computer- 39 mediated discourse2 (despite exceptions like Arendholz 2011). The present study 40 aims to redress this imbalance by focusing on instances of jocular mockery in 41 two Facebook communities (one integrated by speakers of Peninsular Spanish 42 and another by British participants of approximately the same age, gender and 43 educational background as their Spanish counterparts). Following Haugh 44 (2010) and Haugh and Bousfield (2012),3 the current study aims to answer the 45 following research questions: (i) What triggers jocular mockery in the Spanish 46 and the British corpora?, (ii) How is jocular mockery framed? And (iii) How do 47 interlocutors respond to it? It is hypothesized that British participants will make 48 a further use of jocular mockery than their Spanish counterparts, given the 49 high association of this type of mock impoliteness with English culture. Follow- 50 ing this hypothesis, Spanish participants are also expected to respond to mock- 51 ery either by ignoring or rejecting it rather than going along with it (Haugh 52 2010). As for framing, the difference in the communication channel is likely to 53 play a role (Yus 2011). 54 The rest of the paper is divided into five parts. Section 2 presents an over- 55 view of the literature. It also narrows down the field by defining jocular mock- 56 ery in contrast with other phenomena under the same umbrella of mock impo- 57 liteness, i.e., teasing, banter, jocular abuse or phatic use of taboo words. 58 Section 3 describes the methodology, explaining the reasons why Facebook has 59 been chosen over other computer-mediated communication forms as well as 60 the procedure for gathering the data. Section 4 presents the analysis of the 61 data. Before doing so, however, a general comparison between Facebook and 62 its face-to-face counterpart is briefly displayed. Finally, Section 5 offers the 63 conclusions and points to future research. 641 1 1 See Section 2 for a definition of each of these phenomena. 2 2 Crystal (2011) argues that the terms “computer-mediated communication” or “computer- 3 mediated discourse” are misleading since they do not encompass other means such as Smart- 4 phones. However, it still seems the most commonly employed term up to date, which justifies 5 its use in the present paper. 6 3 These authors establish three inter-related dimensions to analyze jocular mockery: what 7 triggers or initiates it, how it is framed and finally, how recipients respond to it. 8 91 DE GRUYTER MOUTON Jocular mockery in computer-mediated ■ too long 291 41 3 265 2 Prior research in mock impoliteness: Setting 66 the scope of the analysis 67 As already mentioned, mock impoliteness is a wide term encompassing differ- 68 ent, although closely related, phenomena. This section intends to define the 69 most frequently studied in an attempt to differentiate them from the focus of 70 this paper, i.e., jocular mockery. 71 One of the most analyzed cases of mock impoliteness is ‘teasing’. Teasing 72 has been defined as a way to make fun of someone playfully (Eisenberg 1986; 73 Drew 1987; Norrick 1993; Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997; Partington 2006; Dynel 74 2008; Martin 2010). Initially, it was argued that teasing was inherently playful 75 but aggressive (e.g., Drew 1987; Boxer and Cortés-Conde 1997). More recently, 76 however, it has been counter argued that “the degree of aggression in teasing 77 is gradable” (Dynel 2009). Defined as “a specific form of teasing”, jocular mock- 78 ery differs from teasing insofar as “the speaker diminishes something of rele- 79 vance to someone present (either self or other) or a third party who is not co- 80 present within a non-serious or jocular frame” (Haugh 2010: 2108). In other 81 words, whilst teasing focuses on the addressee, jocular mockery can include 82 self-denigrating humour. Another main difference between teasing and jocular 83 mockery is that whilst teasing can include any way to make fun of someone 84 (even if playfully), jocular mockery tends to act as a response move; that is, it 85 is triggered by a previous comment or action by the target. Finally, it is impor- 86 tant to mention that Haugh’s definition of jocular mockery does not wholly 87 apply to Facebook, given that the participants are often co-present. For this 88 reason, the working definition used in this paper is more restricted and could 89 be rephrased as a specific form of teasing where the speaker diminishes some- 90 thing of relevance to either self or other present within a non-serious or jocular 91 frame. 92 Besides teasing, another commonly studied phenomenon is ‘banter’. As 93 opposed to teasing, banter takes place when a one-turn tease develops into a 94 longer exchange of repartees by more than one interlocutor (Dynel 2009). In 95 fact, banter has been compared to a verbal ping-pong match (Chiaro 1992) 96 “aimed primarily at mutual entertainment” (Norrick 1993: 29). This distinctive 97 character of banter differentiates it from jocular mockery, where targets respond 98 in one of these three ways: ignoring, rejecting the comment or accepting it by 99 laughing, repeating the mocking remark, etc. (Haugh 2010; Haugh and Bous- 100 field 2012). In sum, there is no verbal duelling as such. 101 Jocular insults (aka jocular abuse) consist of employing insults in a playful, 102 even endearing way to build up rapport among interlocutors (Labov 1972; Hay 1 292 Carmen Maíz-Arévalo DE GRUYTER MOUTON 41 1994; de Klerk 1997; Kienpointner 1997; Coates 2003; Zimmermann 2003; Bernal 1033 2 2005, 2008; Albelda Marco 2008; Fuentes and Alcaide 2008; Mugford 2008; 104 Schnurr and Holmes 2009; among many others). Jocular insults have often 105 been argued to be typically linked to masculinity (see Zimmermann 2003) but 106 can also be used by female interlocutors (e.g., Bernal 2005, 2008; Albelda Mar- 107 co 2008; or Schnurr and Holmes 2009). 108 Insults – even if jocular – are closely linked to taboo words (e.g., ‘bitch’). 109 It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed overview of the research 110 conducted on taboo words, since they have been studied from many different 111 approaches (psychological, sociological, linguistic, etc.). Taboo words can be 112 defined as words and phrases that are generally considered inappropriate in 113 certain contexts (Hughes 1998; McEnery et al. 2002). Leach (1964) identified 114 three major categories of such words and phrases: words that are concerned 115 with sex and excretion (e.g., “shit”); words having to do with religion (e.g., 116 “Jesus”) and words which are used in “animal abuse”; that is, calling a person 117 by the name of an animal (e.g., the aforementioned “bitch”). As jocular insults, 118 taboo words can also be used to boost group solidarity and rapport, especially 119 among teenagers (see Zimmermann 2005; Stenström 2006; Murphy 2009; Her- 120 nes 2011; among others).
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