Politeness, Power and Provocation: How Humour Functions in the Workplace

Discourse Studies

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 159-185

  Holmes, Janet ^a  

^a VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

contestation; critical discourse analysis; humour; politeness theory; power; resistance; workplace

Indexed keywords

EID: 84993705010     PISSN: 14614456     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1461445600002002002     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Attardo, Salvatore (1990) ‘The Violation of Grice's Maxims in Jokes’, in K. Hall, J. Koenig, M. Meachem and S. Reinman (eds) Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 355-362. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
2. Attardo, Salvatore (1993) ‘Violation of Conversational Maxims and Cooperation: The Case of Jokes’, Journal of Pragmatics 19(6): 537-558.
3. Austin, Paddy (1990) ‘Politeness Revisited - The Dark Side’, in Allan Bell and Janet Holmes (eds) New Zealand Ways of Speaking English, pp. 277-293. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.
4. Berger, A. (1976) ‘Anatomy of the Joke’, Journal of Communication 26: 113-115.
5. Blau, P. (1955) The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
6. Bricker, V.R. (1980) ‘The Function of Humor in Zinacantan’, Journal of Anthropological Research 36(4): 411-418.
7. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Cade, Brian W. (1982) ‘Humour and Creativity’, Journal of Family Therapy 4: 35-42.
9. Caudron, Shari (1992) ‘Humor is Healthy in the Workplace’, Personnel Journal 71: 63-68.
10. Civikly, J.M. (1983) ‘A Comparison of Male and Female Uses of Humor Types and Humor Functions’. Paper presented at the International Communication Association, Dallas, TX.
11. Consalvo, Carmine M. (1989) ‘Humor in Management: No Laughing Matter’, Humor 2-3: 285-297.
12. Coser, Rose Laub (1960) ‘Laughter among Colleagues: A Study of the Functions of Humor among the Staff of a Mental Hospital’, Psychiatry 23: 81-95.
13. Coser, Rose Laub (1962) Life in the Ward. Michigan: Michigan State University Press.
14. Cox, J.A., Read, J.L. and Van Auken, P.M. (1990) ‘Male-Female Differences in Communicating Job-related Humor: An Exploratory Study’, Humor 3(3): 287-295.
15. Crystal, D. and Davy, D. (1969) Investigating English Style. London: Longman.
16. Davis, A. and Kleiner, B. (1989) ‘The Value of Humour in Effective Leadership’, Leadership and Organization Development 10(1): i-iii.
17. Decker, W.H. (1987) ‘Managerial Humor and Subordinate Satisfaction’, Social Behaviour and Personality 15(2): 225-232.
18. Duncan, W.J. (1982) ‘Humor in Management: Prospects for Administrative Practice and Research’, Academy of Management Review 7(1): 136-142.
19. Duncan, W.J. (1984) ‘Perceived Humor and Social Network Patterns in a Sample of Task-oriented Groups: A Re-examination of Prior Research’, Human Relations 37(11): 895-907.
20. Duncan, W.J. (1985) ‘The Superiority Theory of Humour at Work: Joking Relationships as Indicators of Formal and Informal Status Patterns in Small Tast-Oriented Groups’, Small Group Behaviour 16(4): 556-564.
21. Duncan, W.J. and Feisal, J.P. (1989) ‘No Laughing Matter: Patterns of Humor in the Workplace’, Organizational Dynamics 17(4): 18-30.
22. Duncan, W.J., Smeltzer, Larry R. and Leap, Terry L. (1990) ‘Humor and Work: Applications of Joking Behavior to Management’, Journal of Management 16(2): 255-278.
23. Ervin-Tripp, S. and Lampert, M.D. (1992) ‘Gender Differences in the Construction of Humorous Talk’, in Kira Hall, Mary Bucholtz and Birch Moonwomon (eds) Locating Power. Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Women and Language Conference 4-5 April, Vol 1: pp. 108-117. California: Berkeley Women and Language Group.
24. Fairclough, Norman (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.
25. Fairclough, Norman, ed. (1992) Critical Language Awareness. London: Longman.
26. Fairclough, Norman L. (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: Papers in the Critical Study of Language. London: Longman.
27. Freud, Sigmund (1905) ‘Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten’. Frankfurt: Fischer.
28. Fry, William F. (1992) ‘Humor and Chaos’, Humor 5(3): 219-232.
29. Gibson, D.E. (1994) ‘Humour Consulting: Laughs for Power and Profit in Organizations’, Humor 7(4): 403-428.
30. Graham, E., Papa, M. and Brooks, G. (1992) ‘Functions of Humour in Conversation: Conceptualization and Measurement’, Western Journal of Communication 56(2): 161-183.
31. Hatch, M.J. and Ehrlich, S.B. (1993) ‘Spontaneous Humor as an Indicator of Paradox and Ambiguity in Organizations’, Organizational Studies 14(4): 505-527.
32. Hay, Jennifer (1994) ‘Jocular Abuse in Mixed Gender Interaction’, Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 26-55.
33. Hay, Jennifer (1995) Gender and Humour: Beyond a Joke. Wellington, New Zealand: MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington.
34. Hay, Jennifer (1996) ‘No Laughing Matter: Gender and Humour Support Strategies’, Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics 8: 1-24.
35. Holdaway, Simon (1988) ‘Blue Jokes: Humour in Police Work’, in Chris Powell and George E.C. Paton (eds) Humour in Society: Resistance and Control, pp. 106-122. London: Macmillan.
36. Holmes, Janet (1982) ‘Expressing Doubt and Certainty in English’, R.E.L.C. Journal 13(2): 9-28.
37. Holmes, Janet (1984) ‘Modifying Illocutionary Force’, Journal of Pragmatics 8(3): 345-365.
38. No Joking Matter! The Functions of Humour in the Workplace
39. Holmes, Janet (in press) ‘Doing Collegiality and Keeping Control at Work: Small Talk in Government Departments’, in Justine Coupland (ed.) Small Talk. London: Longman.
40. Holmes, Janet, Stubbe, Maria and Vine, Bernadette (1999) ‘Constructing Professional Identity: “Doing Power” in Policy Units’, in Srikant Sarangi and Celia Roberts (eds) Talk, Work and Institutional Order. Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings, pp. 1-35. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
41. Jenkins, Mercilee (1985) ‘What's so Funny? Joking Among Women’, in S. Bremner, N. Caskey and Birch Moonwomon (eds). Proceedings of the First Berkeley Women and Language Conference, pp. 135-151. California: Berkeley Women and Language Group.
42. Kaplan, R.M. and Boyd, I.H. (1965) ‘The Social Functions of Humor on an Open Psychiatric Ward’, Psychiatric Quarterly 39: 502-515.
43. Kiesling, Scott (forthcoming) ‘ “Now I Gotta Watch What I Say”: Shifting Constructions of Gender and Dominance in Discourse’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.
44. Kotthoff, Helga (1995) ‘Oral Performance in Interactional Sociolinguistics: Humorous Stories among Friends’, Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen. December.
45. Kramarae, Cheris (1987) Women and Men Speaking. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
46. Kuiper, Koenraad (1991) ‘Sporting Formulae in New Zealand English: Two Models of Male Solidarity’, in Jenny Cheshire (ed) English Around the World, pp. 200-209. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
47. Labov, William (1972) ‘Rules for Ritual Insults’, in David Sudnow (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction. New York: The Free Press.
48. Lee, David (1992) Competing Discourses: Perspective and Ideology in Language. London: Longman.
49. Linstead, Steve (1985) ‘Jokers Wild: The Importance of Humour in the Maintenance of Organizational Culture’, The Sociological Review 33(4): 741-767.
50. Linstead, Steve (1988) ‘Jokers Wild: Humour in Organisational Culture’, in Chris Powell and George E.C. Paton (eds) Humour in Society: Resistance and Control, pp. 123-148. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
51. Long, D. and Graesser, A. (1988) ‘Wit and Humor in Discourse Processing’, Discourse Processes 11(2): 35-60.
52. Marra, Meredith (1998) ‘ “Okay We'll Start Now I Think”: The Boundaries of Meetings’. Unpublished Masters paper. New Zealand: Victoria University of Wellington.
53. Martineau, W. (1972) ‘A Model of the Social Functions of Humor’, in J. Goldstein and P.E. McGhee (eds), The Psychology of Humor, pp. 101-125. London: Academic Press.
54. Mooney, Maureen (1980) ‘Directives as a Speech Function: An Examination of the Structure of Directives in a New Zealand Psychiatric Clinic’. Unpublished Honours terms paper. New Zealand: Victoria University Linguistics Department.
55. Morreall, J. (1991) ‘Humor and Work’, Humor 4(3-4): 359-374.
56. Mott, Helen and Petrie, Helen (1995) ‘Workplace Interactions: Women's Linguistic Behaviour’, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14(3): 324-336.
57. Mulkay, Michael (1988) On Humour: Its Nature and its Place in Modern Society. Oxford: Polity Press.
58. Murphy, M. (1986) ‘The Functions of Humor in the Workplace’. PhD thesis, The Fielding Institute.
59. Norrick, N. (1993) Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
60. O'Quin, K. and Arnoff, J. (1981) ‘Humor as a Technique of Social Influence’, Social Psychology Quarterly 44: 349-357.
61. Pateman, Trevor (1980) ‘Language, Truth and Politics: Towards a Radical Theory for Communication’. London: Jean Stroud.
62. Pizzini, F. (1991) ‘Communication Hierarchies in Humour: Gender Differences in the Obstetrical/Gynaecological Setting’, Discourse in Society 2(4): 477-488.
63. Radcliffe-Brown, A. (1952 [1940]) Structure and Function in Primitive Society. London: Cohen and West.
64. Raskin, Victor (1985) Semantic Mechanisms of Humour. Dordrecht: Reidel Sabath (1990).
65. Sabath, R. (1990) ‘The Serious Use of Humor’, Journal of Management Consulting 6(3): (40-43).
66. Sacks, Harvey (1978) ‘Some Technical Considerations of a Dirty Joke’, in Jim Schenkein (ed.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction. New York: Academic Press.
67. Sacks, Harvey (1989) ‘An Analysis of the Course of a Joke's Telling in Conversation’, in Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (eds) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, pp. 337-353. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
68. Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emmanuel A. and Jefferson, Gail (1974) ‘A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-taking for Conversation’, Language 50: 696-735.
69. Sinclair, J. McH. (1985) ‘On the Integration of Linguistic Description’, in Teun van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse Analysis Vol 2. London: Academic Press.
70. Sollitt-Morris, Lynnette (1996) ‘Language, Gender and Power Relationships’. PhD thesis. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University of Wellington.
71. Sollitt-Morris, Lynnette (1997) ‘Taking a Break: Humour as a Means of Enacting Power in Asymmetrical Discourse’, Language, Gender and Sexism 7(2): 81-103.
72. Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction. London: Longman.
73. Tracy, Karen and Coupland, Nikolas (1990) ‘Multiple Goals in Discourse: An Overview of Issues’, in Karen Tracy and Nikolas Coupland (eds) Multiple Goals in Discourse. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
74. Van Dijk, Teun A. (1993) ‘Discourse, Power and Access’, in C.R. Caldas (ed.) Studies in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.
75. Van Dijk, Teun A. (1998) ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis’, in Jenny Cheshire and Peter Trudgill (eds) The Sociolinguistics Reader. Vol 2. Gender and Discourse. London: Arnold. 367-393.
76. Vinton, K.L. (1989) ‘Humor in the Workplace: It is More than Telling Jokes’, Small Group Behaviour 20(2): 151-166.
77. Weber, Max (1947) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. Glencoe: Free Press.
78. Williams, Marion (1988) ‘Language Taught for Meetings and Language Used in Meetings: Is There Anything in Common? Applied Linguistics 9(1): 45-58.
79. Winick, C. (1976) ‘The Social Context of Humour’, Journal of Communication 26: 124-128.
80. Ziv, A. (1984) Personality and Sense of Humor. New York: Springer.