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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 879

Part of Session 114: Linguistic Identity Constructions in the Japanese Workplace (Other abstracts in this session)

Constructing identity and enacting power and politeness through humour in Japanese business meetings

Authors: Murata, Kazuyo
Submitted by: Murata, Kazuyo (Ryukoku University, Japan)

This paper examines how humour is deployed to index a range of social identities and balance power and politeness in business meetings in Japan.

At one level, humour clearly serves to amuse and entertain. In business discourse, humour also plays an important role in contributing to good workplace relations. It helps to create team spirit by expressing a sense of belonging to a group (Fletcher 1999) and to manage power relationships by de-emphasising hierarchical differences (Brown & Keegan 1999). In addition, it often contributes to characterising a distinctive workplace culture (Holmes & Marra 2002). In terms of identity work, humour contributes to the construction of various social identities including leader, manager, and gender identities (Schnurr 2009). Most previous research in this area, however, has been conducted in English-speaking societies. This presentation, by contrast explores the manifestations of humour in authentic Japanese business meetings.

The Japanese meeting data is taken from a larger contrastive study, which compares authentic business meetings recorded in two business organisations - one in New Zealand and the other in Japan. The results of the analysis of the Japanese data can be summarised as follows: (1) it is generally those who are in authority and/or in charge of the interaction who are the main instigators of any humour within the context of the particular meeting group; (2) other members support and add to the humorous remarks in various ways; and (3) single contributions (quips and one-liners) and one-way teasing (from superiors to subordinates) are also salient features.

As its key analytical concept, the analysis employs the concept of a community of practice (CofP), which has been developed within a social constructionist framework. The crucial criteria defining a CofP are “mutual engagement”, “joint enterprise”, and “shared repertoire”, criteria met by the Japanese business meeting groups in the data set.

Corresponding to the existing research based on English language data, creating team spirit is the major function of humour in this CofP, and ways of embodying this function differ according to the norms of the community. In this Japanese CofP, those who are in authority function as atmosphere makers or initiators of the sense of group belonging. By supporting their humour, other members, especially those who are not in positions of power, also contribute to team building. The results indicate that by employing humour or various responses to humour, a range of aspects of identity and related power issues are constructed discursively and dynamically. In other words, the meeting members are enacting politeness and power through humour in ways that meet underlying expectations of the CofP.

Brown, R. B., & Keegan, D. 1999. Humor in the hotel kitchen. Humor 12 (1), 47-70.

Fletcher, J. K. 1999. Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational Practice at Work. MIT Press.

Holmes, J. & Marra, M. 2002. Having a laugh at work: how humour contributes to workplace culture. Journal of Pragmatics 34, 1683-1710.

Schnurr, S. 2009. Leadership Discourse at Work: Interactions of Humour, Gender and Workplace Culture. Palgrave Macmillan.