The relationship between creativity, play, and language learning has been of
increasing interest over the past decade, but the role of humour itself in SLL
remains significantly under-explored.
The present study examines humorous
language play initiated by a bilingual EFL teacher and taken up by his
post-beginner students in a Thai university setting.
A framework of verbal art
is adopted in order to locate this use of humour in relation to both language play
and to creativity more broadly.
Textual analysis draws upon the psychological
notion of incongruity, as well as upon Bakhtin’s ‘carnival’.
The verbal humour
observed in this class is identified as having two foci
linguistic, relating to
word-play, and discursive, relating to social positioning.
For students, benefits
to learning are recorded in affective, sociocultural and linguistic dimensions.
In
consideration of the teacher’s role, it is suggested that the capacity of humour to
‘unsettle’ requires careful handling.