2022 - Shared Laughter As Relational Strategy at Intercultural Conflictual Workplace Interactions

Journal of Pragmatics 188 (2022) 39e55
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Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
Shared laughter as relational strategy at intercultural

conflictual workplace interactions
Ping Du
School of Education and English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Room 380-2, The
Innovation and Enterprise Building, 199 Taikang East Road, Yinzhou District, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This study investigates the relational functions of shared laughter in workplace conflict
Available online 13 December 2021 interactions. It is argued that two intertwined but distinct relational concerns are
addressed in conflict interactions, namely ‘face’ at the individual level and ‘relational dy-
Keywords: namics’ at the interactional level. Based on a case analysis of an intercultural conflictual
Laughter meeting, it is found that laughing together can be strategically deployed to achieve
Conflict
different relational goals at different stages of the conflict process, including launching
Chinese workplace
aligned face attack, mitigating relational tension, and facilitating reconciliation. It is also
im/politeness
Relationship
found that the audience plays a proactive role in mobilizing shared laughter to mitigate
Intercultural communication relational tension. Under the verbal constraints of their participation role, they achieve this
by transforming the speaker's mitigation laughter into a laughter invitation and thereby
constructing metacommunicative laughables. The metacommunicative laughable makes it
possible to achieve ‘laughing with’ without ‘laughing at’ and affiliation without disaffili-
ation in sensitive conflict situations. The process of co-constructing the meta-
communicative laughables shows how the intercultural interactants can locally and
collaboratively develop shared practices at the interactional level despite possible cultural
differences in values, expectations, and practices.
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
This study explores the role of shared laughter in relationship negotiation, contestation, and maintenance in workplace
conflict interactions. Laughter is primarily and fundamentally social (Hayworth, 1928; Provine, 2000). Whether one laughs,
with whom, at what, when, and how, are all important aspects of laughter as a social action influenced by socio-cultural
factors (Glenn, 2003, p. 163). The analysis focuses on an audio-recorded conflictual meeting from the dataset of an ethno-
graphic case study on intercultural conflict communication in an organization in Beijing, China. The association between
shared laughter and conflict may seem counterintuitive. However, in this multiparty meeting, people laugh together
frequently throughout the conflict process. This phenomenon leads to an intriguing question: when people laugh, especially
frequently laugh together at a highly conflictual meeting, what are they doing, or trying to do?
Interpersonal relationship is central in conducting conflict (O'Driscoll, 2019, p. 167). It is considered as a key aspect that
differentiates conflict talk (Grimshaw, 1990) from disagreement. As generally agreed in the pragmatics literature, deliberate
rapport-negative behavior such as face attack is a clear sign of disagreement turning into conflict (Angouri, 2012; Koester,
E-mail address: Ping.Du@nottingham.edu.cn.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.11.016
0378-2166/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
P. Du Journal of Pragmatics 188 (2022) 39e55
2018, p. 310; Sifianou, 2012). Face attack that causes “social conflict and disharmony” is central to the conceptualizations of
impoliteness (Culpeper et al., 2003, p. 1546). Conflict talk therefore has been mostly associated with impoliteness in prag-
matic research (Koester, 2018). However, conflict talk involves not only rapport-negative language use. At different stages of
the conflict talk, both politeness and impoliteness strategies may be employed to disarm potential aggression through face
threat mitigation (Brown and Levinson, 1987, p. 1) or to escalate tension through face threat exacerbation (Bousfield, 2007, p.
2187).
Furthermore, face is not the only relational concern in conflict talk. Relationship has drawn increasing attention as a
distinct concern from the person-centered concept of face in interpersonal pragmatics (Haugh et al., 2013; Spencer-Oatey,
2011). There has been substantial disagreement and confusion in the literature regarding the conceptualization of rela-
tionship and how it is related to face in the analysis of relational language use. Similar terminology is used but each defined
from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, for example, ‘relational work’ (Locher and Watts, 2005) from the
post-modern approach that seems to advocate “the displacement of (im)politeness in politeness research” (Haugh, 2007, p.
309), and ‘relating’ (Arundale, 2010a, 2010b) from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis that attempts to conflate the
concepts of face and relating (Spencer-Oatey, 2013b). Spencer-Oatey (2013a) calls for more research in exploring the dif-
ferences and interconnections between relating and face. Grainger (2013, p. 27) suggests that the limitations in the face-based
approach to im/politeness can be compensated for by taking an ethnographic and ethnomethodological approach to the
analysis of naturally-occurring discourse data. This study aims to contribute to these efforts by applying a synthesis of ap-
proaches to the investigation of relational strategies that attend to these two relational concerns, namely face and relational
dynamics, in conflict interactions.
This study also aims to contribute to the investigation of the functions of laughter in the contexts of conflict talk and co-
worker interactions. Research on laughter in conflict talk is extremely scarce, except for a few that examine the functions of a
related activity, humor, in conflict interactions (e.g. Norrick and Spitz, 2008). In fact, real-life conflict interactions in general is
an under-investigated area, probably due to “the difficulty in obtaining conflictual data from ordinary conversation or non-
mediated workplace settings” (Koester, 2018, p. 308). In the area of workplace discourse, there is an uneven distribution of
attention to laughter between institutional and co-worker interaction contexts. In the institutional context, the studies of
laughter as an independent activity are abundant, for example, layeprofessional interactions in mental health encounters
(Arminen and Halonen, 2007; Dionigi and Canestrari, 2018; Haakana, 2001; Zayts and Schnurr, 2011), job interviews (Glenn,
2010, 2013) and political debates (Clayman, 1992). However, in the studies of co-worker interactions, with the exception of a
€ ge, 2010), laughter is often treated as the same activity as humor, or as a response to
few (Markaki et al., 2010; Stadler, 2019; Vo
humor, in the investigations of discursive constructions of relationship, leadership, or gender (e.g. Holmes and Marra, 2002;
Kangasharju and Nikko, 2009; Rogerson-Revell, 2011; Schnurr and Chan, 2011; Watson and Drew, 2017). By treating laughter
as an independent activity and as an interactive resource for relationship management, this paper will focus on the functions
of shared laughter in naturally occurring conflict interactions in the intercultural workplace context.
One recent trend in intercultural communication, especially in workplace discourse research, is a paradigm shift from
positivism to constructionism (Angouri, 2016; Ladegaard and Jenks, 2015; Schnurr and Zayts, 2017). Following this trend, this
study takes a particular interest in how participants locally and collaboratively develop shared practices for relationship
management at the interactional level, in the processes of resolving workplace conflicts and negotiating values, expectations
and practices that may not be shared cross-culturally.
In the following five sections, I will first present an analytical framework for exploring the relational functions of shared
laughter in conflict interactions based on a synthesis of concepts from three discourse analysis approaches. I will then
introduce the methods for data collection and transcription in Section 3 and describe in Section 4 the complex contextual
factors within which the conflict interactions are situated. Section 5 focuses on the relational roles that shared laughter plays
in the conflict process through detailed analysis of seven extracts from the meeting transcription. The conclusion section will
discuss the major findings of this study and the implications for further research.
2. Theoretical orientations
This study proposes an analytical framework based on a synthesis of concepts from three discourse analysis approaches,
namely, Conversation Analysis (CA), im/politeness studies and Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS). This section will discuss the
key concepts in this framework and how they will be applied to the investigation of laughter as relational strategies in conflict
interactions.
2.1. Face and relational dynamics: two relational concerns in conflict interactions
Relationship management in social interactions is a dynamic multifaceted enterprise, where the participants frequently
deal with miscellaneous relational tasks either attending to individuals' face needs or the ongoing co-constituted relation-
ship. Levinson (2006, p. 91) suggests that effective investigation of social interactions needs to consider three interrelated but
distinct ontological levels, namely, the individual level, the interactional level, and the sociocultural level. The sociocultural
level is manifest at the other two levels and cannot be disentangled from them (Haugh et al., 2013, p. 7). Following this three-
level structure, this study argues that investigation of relationship management in conflict interactions needs to examine
strategies devised to address two intertwined but distinct relational concerns, namely, ‘face’ at the individual level and
40
‘relational dynamics’ at the interactional level. I use the term ‘relational strategies’ to refer to linguistic strategies that address
these two interpersonal concerns in interactions.
The concept of face has been pivotal to im/politeness research ever since the publication of Brown and Levinson's (1978,
1987) face-based politeness theory. Their conception of face (1987) consists of two related aspects, namely, the positive face
(i.e., the desire to have one's own attributes and goals to be approved or admired (p. 62)) and the negative face (i.e., the want
to maintain the claim for territory and self-determination (p. 70)). Politeness strategies are devised to attend to these two
types of wants by mitigating the force of Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) (Brown and Levinson, 1987, p. 65). Brown and Lev-
inson's face concept has been the focus of heated debates in the past four decades, which I will not elaborate here for space
reasons (for detailed reviews, see Bargiela-Chiappini, 2003; Bargiela-Chiappini and Haugh, 2009). One key disputed area is to
do with their claim of the universality of face, especially the negative face, which was argued to be not valid for non-
individualistic societies such as Japan and China (Gu, 1990; Mao, 1994; Matsumoto, 1988). It is argued in this study that
Brown and Levinson's cognitive model of ‘face’ (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2003, p. 1454) is still very effective as a second-order
conceptualization for systematic analysis of relational strategies in naturally occurring interactions. As pointed out by
Grainger (2011, p. 169) and O'Driscoll (2019, p. 169), Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) remains the only politeness model for
systematic explanation of linguistic choices in a given situation. It is suggested that the two face wants at the individual level
are likely to be universal from a socio-psychological perspective, even though they may not be associated with the first-order
understandings of face in different societies. In societies where social interactants are not seen primarily as autonomous
individuals, to prioritize an individual's psychological wants in social interactions may not be perceived as possible or
desirable due to the complex socio-cultural constraints. However, this does not invalidate the postulation that these two
socio-psychological wants are key relational concerns at the individual level, which may be oriented to in social interactions.
Whether the threat to these wants in social interactions are carefully mitigated or deliberately aggravated and whether
relational concerns other than these face wants are addressed at a particular moment can be investigated by systematic
examination of the ethnographically-grounded interactional data.
Relational dynamics is conceptualized as the ongoing intersubjective understanding of relationship construction in in-
teractions, which comprises two aspects, namely alignment/affiliation and relational atmosphere. Alignment and affiliation
are two closely linked forms of cooperation with the former at the structural level and the latter at the affective level (Stivers,
2008). While alignment displays cooperation by facilitating the proposed activity or sequential design by the prior speaker,
affiliative action demonstrates endorsement of the prior speaker's evaluative stance (Stivers et al., 2011, p. 21). Relational
atmosphere refers to the tone or spirit as manifest in the interaction, such as the degree of interpersonal tension in conflict
talk. It is proposed drawing on the concept of ‘key’ in Hymes' (1972) SPEAKING model. while ‘key’ pertains to the performance
of a speech act in a “encoding/decoding model” (Arundale, 2013, p. 18), relational atmosphere is more concerned with the co-
constituted aspect of the interaction. Relational dynamics is not the same as relationship. Relationship is seen in the literature
as mutual social connections mediated by interaction that encompass factors such as power, distance, roles, and attitudes/
emotions towards each other (Haugh et al., 2013, p. 4). This study, however, sees relationship as the participants' subjective
assessment of such mutual connections. Two people in a relationship may perceive it differently or assess each of the factors
on different scales. As part of the understanding of the context for social interactions, a participant's perception of the
relationship may impact on the design of the relational strategies. This may in turn lead to a revised understanding of the
relationship, which constitutes at least part of the outcome of the interactions. While relationship can be seen as a partici-
pant's assessment at any point before, during or after a social encounter, relational dynamics is an ongoing conjoint construct
evinced in sequential interactions.
2.2. Shared laughter as relational strategy in delicate situations
The linguistic investigation of laughter is situated mainly within the tradition of conversation analysis (CA) (Glenn, 2003;
Jefferson, 1984; Jefferson et al., 1977). From the ethnomethodological perspective, laughter is seen as a “controllable, sys-
tematic, and precisely placed” action in its sequential context which can be employed as a resource for constituting and
negotiating social relationships in interactions (Glenn, 2003, p. 32). A concept key to laughter study is laughable, that is, the
referent that laughter indexes (Glenn, 2003, p. 49). Previous studies have found that an action or utterance that is not
intended as humorous may be converted to a laughable retrospectively (Glenn, 2003; Markaki et al., 2010; Warner-Garcia,
2014). A laughable can thus be locally and collaboratively established and then re-invoked by the participants for various
relational purposes. The relational assessment of a laughable plays a crucial role in the participants’ decision of joining in, or
not, an instance of shared laughter in multiparty conflict interactions. It is also suggested that laughable is not necessarily
located within the content of the speech. As shown in the analysis below, the interactants sometimes laugh together with an
orientation towards a certain aspect of the ongoing interactional activity. This is referred to as the metacommunicative
laughable in this study.
Shared laughter, or laughing together, is an activity in its own right (Jefferson et al., 1987, p. 158). It is not necessarily
achieved by laughing in unison, but via various methodical and coordinated sequential processes (Glenn, 2003; Jefferson et
al., 1977, 1987). It is usually initiated by one participant beginning to laugh and other(s) joining in. The first laugh serves as the
41
invitation for laughing together as a coordinated sequential event. Shared laughter recurrently occurs in touchy situations
(Jefferson et al., 1977). Glenn and Holt (2013, p. 16) identified three reasons for laughter to be such a powerful device in
problematic situations: the ambiguity and implicitness of laughter, its ability to modify or mitigate face threat and interactive
tension, and its association with alignment/affiliation. I will briefly discuss how these three aspects, with reciprocal causa-
tions between one another, may be relevant to investigating the relational functions of shared laughter in conflict
interactions.
Ambiguity is intrinsic to laughter. Jefferson et al. (1987) suggest six formulations of response to improprieties as ordered
from least to most affiliative: namely, overt disaffiliating from the impropriety, declining to respond, disattending while
responding to some innocuous part, appreciating with laughter, affiliating by replication, and escalating with a new im-
propriety. Though laughter is associated with appreciation by Jefferson et al. the stance communicated by laughter is in-
definite. It may be either affiliative or disaffiliative depending on the context and the laughable (Clayman, 1992). With such
equivocal attitude towards the laughable, laughter enables interactants to remain somewhere between outright rejection and
outright co-implication in potentially problematic talk (Glenn, 2003, p. 122). This ambiguous nature of laughter opens room
for meaning interpretation and relationship negotiation in sensitive situations (Vo € ge, 2010; Warner-Garcia, 2014).
The mitigation/modification function of laughter is to a large extent relevant to its use for expressing nonseriousness. The
feeling of nonseriousness expressed by laughter can serve as a safety valve that keeps us “from taking seriously things it
would be counterproductive to take seriously” (Chafe, 2007, p. 11). Warner-Garcia (2014) finds that laughter can be used to
mitigate the face threat of a disagreement at its escalation point by enacting a serious-to-nonserious frame switch. An
interactive frame is the participants’ expectation or understanding of the activity type they are engaged in (Gumperz, 1982;
Tannen and Wallat, 1993). It can be enacted, reframed or rekeyed (Goffman, 1974; Tannen, 2006) by the deployment of a range
of contextualization cues (Gumperz, 1982, p. 131) or metacommunicative signals (Bateson, 1972/2000). Laughter can serve as
such a cue or signal for frame enactment or frame switch in delicate situations.
The association between laughter and alignment/affiliation is rather nuanced. In conflict situations, laughter can be
deployed to communicate solidarity and consensus, or disparagement and superiority, through two types of relational ac-
tions, ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at’ (Glenn, 2003, p. 112, p. 112). When orienting to laughing with, shared laughter can
remedy potential interactional offences, redress face threat, and ameliorate interactive tension. When orienting to laughing
at, it can reinforce the face attack and exacerbate the tension. In multiparty conflict situations where at least two parties are
involved in mutually offensive actions, a ‘laughing with’ may also become an aligned ‘laughing at’. In other words, expressing
solidarity and consensus by laughing together may be risky as it may also display disaffiliation to the party that is the target of
the laughter. Therefore, joining in a laugh in conflict interactions can be a relationally risky action. A rational decision involves
assessment of the laughable and the intended relational meaning of the first-place laughter, in relation to one's own attitude
towards at least three aspects of the ongoing activity: the matter in discussion, the relevant parties, and one's own
communication goals.
In summary, this section introduced the key concepts of the analytical framework for this study. The core of this
framework is the conceptualization of the two relational concerns at the individual and interactional levels, namely face and
relational dynamics, drawing on im/politeness studies and CA respectively. The framework also incorporates concepts such as
interactive frame from Interactional Sociolinguistics and analytical concepts such as shared laughter and laughable from CA
approach to laughter study. This section also discussed how laughter's abilities to achieve ambiguity, express nonseriousness
and negotiate alignment/affiliation may contribute to relationship management in delicate social interactions. The analysis in
Section 5 will demonstrate how the synthesis of these concepts is applied to an integrated comprehensive investigation of
laughter as relational strategies in naturally occurring conflict interactions.
3. Methodology, data collection and transcription
This study draws on the dataset of a larger ethnographic case study of intercultural conflict communication at SITE, a
commercial training organization in Beijing, China. As advocated by Grainger (2013, p. 36) and Haugh (2007, p. 312), an
ethnographically-grounded approach to the analysis of conversation can provide the necessary constructivist perspective on
the investigation of relational strategies. An ethnographic case study approach is also necessary for in-depth understanding of
conflict talk, as it enables comprehensive and thorough examination of a complex interactional event within its micro (local),
meso and macro (global) contexts (Sifianou, 2019).
The dataset of the ethnographic case study was collected over a period of three months. It comprises 16 audio-recorded
meetings (29 h), eight interviews, observation notes, documents, and emails. The meetings were recorded each time by one of
the participants with the knowledge of all present, who could decide whether to keep or delete the recording before returning
the voice recorder. This procedure ensures that the participants have maximum control over the data considering the degree
of sensitivity in workplace conflict situations. The names of all institutions and participants are anonymized.
This paper focuses on the analysis of one of the most conflictual meetings in the dataset. Seven extracts from the meeting
are selected for analysis. Some of the extracts have been analyzed in an earlier publication (Du, 2015), but the transcription
42
has been revised for this paper with a focus on laughter phenomena (for transcription conventions, see Appendix A). Laughter
as a general term includes different types of social actions such as ‘smile voice’ (Glenn, 2003, p. xii) (e.g. ‘£but::£‘), laughter
pulses (e.g. ‘ huhuhuhn’), and Interpolated Particles of Aspiration (IPA) (Potter and Hepbur, 2010) (e.g. ‘gir hhlfriend’). Some
instances of many people laughing together are reasonably “described rather than transcribed”, treated similarly as the
speech event of all talking at once (Jefferson et al., 1977, p. 1). Chinese characters rather than the romanization system (Pinyin)
are used for the transcription of Chinese speeches, as the latter contributes little to the understanding of the text on the part of
either Chinese or non-Chinese readers. Before a detailed analysis of laughter through these transcriptions in Section 5, I will
first describe the complex contextual factors in Section 4, which is based on the examination of the ethnographic data and
also informed by the analysis of the meeting interactions.
4. Conflict in context
This section discusses the complex contextual factors within which the conflict interactions are situated. An in-depth
understanding of workplace conflict interactions necessitates careful examination of the information on different levels of
the context, including, for example, the organizational, cultural, situational, and interactional levels.
4.1. Organizational and inter-event context
SITE is a start-up business that offers preparatory courses to students who plan to study abroad. The CEO and the ad-
ministrators are Chinese. The teaching staff, managed by Jack and Vincent from the U.S. and Canada, are mostly from English-
speaking countries. The CEO, Wang, speaks little English, but most of the administrators speak English fluently. There has
been a continual tension at SITE between the international and Chinese staff, particularly between Jack and the consultants.
The consultants' role includes teaching support and student pastoral care. The two sides expressed different perceptions in
the interviews regarding the causes of the conflict. The Chinese managers (including the CEO, two middle managers and two
consultants) attribute the tension to Jack's character (‘biased, uncooperative, irritable’) and problems in teaching quality
control. The international managers consider “indirect communication, hierarchical management and lack of western
qualifications” on the Chinese side as major sources of conflict. While Vincent tried to express these views in a neutral manner
in the interview, Jack condemned the Chinese staff as lacking integrity and called them ‘gold diggers’ because “they pursue
profit rather than quality” and ‘low people’ because they “still think in the Chinese way”.
4.2. An intricate relational strategy scheme
The meeting for analysis in this study is the first session of a series organized by Wang to resolve the conflict between Jack
and the consultants. The purpose of this meeting is to persuade Jack to change his problematic attitudes and practices, or in
Wang's words, “to enhance mutual understanding and trust through heart-to-heart communication” (post-meeting inter-
view). Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, the confrontation is exacerbated to an unprecedented degree at the meeting. The
tension originally between Jack and the consultants is upgraded to open confrontation between both international managers
and the CEO. Being increasingly offended and infuriated, Vincent who has been consistently collaborative and tactful starts to
launch forceful attacks at the consultants, the other departments and eventually at Wang, the CEO.
It is suggested that the major reason for the conflict is the clash in cultural expectations about relational strategies for
problem talk (for detailed discussion of the clash in cultural expectations, see Du, 2015). To avoid direct confrontation with
Jack, Wang and the Chinese middle managers carefully designed and repeatedly rehearsed a relational strategy scheme. Based
on the reports of the Chinese participants in the interviews and analysis of the meeting structure (see Fig. 2 below), this
extremely indirect scheme includes the following major steps:
1) Schedule the meeting as an annual review meeting rather than problem talk in order not to spotlight the disagreements
and conflicts.
2) Address Jack's problems without a clear addressee immediately after Vincent's annual report in order not to provoke Jack.
3) Appoint Peng and Lan (two consultant managers well-regarded by the international managers) to address the problems in
the form of the less face-threatening act of ‘offering suggestions’ (Turn 5 & 8 in Fig. 2).
4) Consolidate Peng and Lan's ‘suggestions’ with Wang's preparatory and conclusive comments (Turn 3 & 10).
The intricacy of this plan indicates the degree of effort that the CEO and his Chinese team have invested in avoiding direct
conflict at the meeting. However, what they are not aware is that the plan is based on culture-specific frames that may not be
shared by the international managers. As observed by Pan et al. (2002, p. 146), a meeting is seen in the western workplace as
an event for decision making or information exchange, while in the Chinese context, it is primarily a process of power hi-
erarchy ratification. Such differences in expectations can easily lead to miscommunication and misinterpretation. For
example, step 4 above is employed to prevent potential conflict based on the assumption that the person highest in rank
expressing their stance can prevent dissenting views (Gu and Zhu, 2002). However, such coordinated problem talks are
43
perceived by the international managers as relentless aligned attacks. It is then unsurprising that every step in this relational
scheme becomes a trigger or accelerator to the interactional confrontation at the meeting.
4.3. Participation roles
The meeting format is very formal, featured by explicit agenda, specified speakers, and directed and restricted turn-taking
(Boden, 1994, p. 85; Holmes and Stubbe, 2015, p. 60). There are fourteen participants, and they are assigned clear participation
roles by Wang (for demographic information of the participants, see Appendix B; for seating disposition, see Fig. 1 below). The
specified speakers include Wang (the Chair), Ting (the interpreter), Vincent, Peng and Lan, whose turns are referred to below
as official turns. The others are audience members who are usually not expected to speak according to the norms of formal
meetings in the Chinese workplace (Gu and Zhu, 2002).
Fig. 1. Setting and seating (official speakers in bold).
All participants demonstrate awareness of their participation role during the meeting interactions, though to different
degrees on the parts of the international and Chinese participants. For example, though having refrained from taking official
turns, Jack participates actively by interrupting to provide support in the middle of Vincent's official turns. In contrast, the
Chinese audience members refrain from verbal participation throughout the meeting. Even as specified speakers, Peng and
Lan immediately switch to the audience role after their pre-assigned turn. Such participation differences may be explainable
in reference to the cultural differences in the esteem for hierarchy. However, refraining from verbal participation does not
mean that the Chinese audience remains inactive or disengaged at the meeting. As the analysis shows in Section 5, they
actively exploit other interactional resources such as laughter to contribute to the communication goal within the verbal
constraints in the specific sociocultural context.
4.4. Meeting structure and conflict process
Fig. 2 shows the meeting phases, official turns, key actions, and locations of the extracts selected for analysis. Official turns
are taken by the specified speakers addressing the issues on the agenda, and unofficial turns by the audience in the form of
interruptions or back-channelings in the progress of the official turns. 18 official turns are identified and divided into five
phases according to the topical issues and relational dynamics.
The relational atmosphere of the first two phases of the meeting, namely, Wang's opening and Vincent's annual report, is
relatively harmonious and positive. Phases III and IV center on two disputable issues (teaching-consultant cooperation and
quality control). It is through these two phases we can observe the emergence, aggravation, and culmination of the conflictual
tension. The onset of the conflict is signaled by Vincent's criticisms of the consultants when he feels offended by the perceived
criticisms of his cooperation with the consultants (Extract 1). The tension escalates when, further frustrated and infuriated by
the ‘groundless criticisms’ of his teaching management, Vincent employs even more forceful defensive and offensive stra-
tegies (Bousfield, 2007) with fervent interactive support from Jack (Extract 6). The confrontation culminates in their aligned
face attacks at the CEO (Extract 2). The final phase sees a collaborative effort from Wang, Vincent as well as the audience to
achieve a seeming reconciliation. I call it a seeming reconciliation because none of the disputable issues is resolved at the
meeting and both sides remain very frustrated and confused by the communicative results.
44
Fig. 2. Meeting phases and conflict dynamics.
5. Shared laughter as relational strategy
This section will explore how shared laughter as joint social action is used to threaten, protect, and repair relationship in
the dynamic process of conflict interactions. Three relational functions of shared laughter in the conflict process are exam-
ined: namely, shared laughter as aligned attack (Extract 1e2), tension mitigation (Extract 3e6), and reconciliation (Extract 7).
45
5.1. Shared laughter as aligned attack
The first two extracts show how shared laughter is deployed as a device for aligned attack as the tension escalates. Extract 1
is an abbreviated transcript of Vincent's criticisms of the consultants, which signals the transition from incipient tension to
open confrontation at the meeting (Turn 6 in Fig. 2). Since the intended addressee (i.e., Jack) is deliberately obscured, Peng's
suggestions are received by Vincent not only as criticisms of his own cooperation practices, but also as a disagreement to his
repeated assertions of tremendous success in teaching-consultant collaboration (Turn 2 & 4). The perceived criticisms and
disagreement pose serious face threats in relation to his management competence and personal integrity (i.e., honesty in his
repeated assertions of success). In his 10-min response, Vincent launches a series of criticisms at the consultants' practices such
as ‘speaking in Chinese to the students’ (line 3e9). Though hedged by thanking and agreement to the suggestions (line 1e3,
25e26) and affirmation of the consultants (line 24), these criticisms clearly signal the deterioration of the relational dynamics
at the meeting. They are not only preformed very directly by naming the target ‘but we have consultants’ (line 3), but also
intensified by commenting on the consultants' uncooperative attitude, ‘just refuse to do it’ (line 5) and repeating his negative
attitudes towards the criticized practice, ‘unacceptable’ (line 4 & 6), ‘not acceptable’ (line 9). The force of the criticism is further
intensified by Jack's alignment actions including supportive interruptions, latching, overlapping, and shared laughter.
Extract 1. Aligned attack on the consultants (Turn 6)

V: ¼thank you Peng, those are all excellent:: (.) suggestions, and comments, and yes 1
I I agree with you completely that there are communication problems, and:: cultural 2
issues too…(520 words omitted)… but we have consultants no matter how many 3
times we tell them, and this (.) to me I find unacceptable… and:: we ask can you 4
please speak in English with the students all the time, and just refuse to do it, and 5
to me that’s unacceptable, we’re an English school running an English program, 6
noth you know, nothing else, and if we speak in English, if our students learn the 7
problem solve and discuss things in English, that is only beneficial to the students… 8
if we’re speaking in Chinese to the students, that’s not acceptable 9
J: there was an argument made that:: teaching in Chinese was going to help the C 10
student C C group students 11
V: yeah 12
J: you can see they fail 13
V: yeah we were tol¼ 14
J: ¼36 failed, 6 passed 15
V: we were told that if we taught¼ 16
J: ¼teaching in Chinese didn’t help them 17
V: yeah [( )] 18
J: [case] proven 19
V: hehh 20
J: [huhuhuhn] 21
V: [hehehehh] £but::£ the other issue is…(205 words omitted)… err so those are the 22
things that would upset the teaching department but, these occurrences were rare, 23
and on the whole, most consultants err in my mind as I said did an excellent 24
job…(472 words omitted)… but yeah Peng, thank you err very much, and I agree 25
with much of what you said 26
This instance of shared laughter (line 20e22) starts with Vincent's recipient voluntary laugh (Glenn, 2003: 56) ‘ hehh’,
orienting to Jack's conclusive remark, ‘case proven’ following their intensive joint criticisms. This laughable highlights the
perceived irony in the contrast between the disastrous result (‘36 failed, 6 passed’) and the argument for teaching in Chinese.
By laughing together here, Vincent and Jack are doing two things, celebrating the victory, and consolidating alliance. ‘Case
proven’ is often used in institutional, especially legal, contexts. By enacting an institutional frame, Jack's announcement grants
the international managers institutional power to conclude the debate with a final verdict. Laughing together therefore
becomes a joint celebration of the argumentative triumph over the defeated opponent. With this joint action, Jack and
Vincent openly demonstrate speaker alliance through ‘laughing with’, and at the same time, display disaffiliation and su-
periority towards the consultants through ‘laughing at’.
Extract 2 is from Turn 13, Vincent's refutation of Wang and Lan's suggestions on teaching quality control. Shocked and
infuriated by the perceived groundless criticisms, Vincent starts to attack Wang on his qualifications (line 2e4) and challenge
his ‘ability to judge academic context properly’ (line 9). The tension in this extract is even more aggravated than in Extract 1.
While in Extract 1 the criticized are the consultants whose organizational rank is lower than the international managers, the
target in Extract 2 is their superior, the CEO. Such an attack would probably be marked in any culture, and particularly in the
Chinese workplace which is featured by high esteem for hierarchy. Furthermore, the criticized in Extract 1 are the consultants'
practices, while the criticism in Extract 2 is more personal, targeting at Wang's qualification and management competence,
which is crucial to the professional identity of an individual in the workplace. How the criticism is performed also contributes
to the aggravation of the tension.
Similar to Extract 1, but in a more intensive manner, the force of the criticism is upgraded by the paralinguistic features in
Vincent's speech such as stresses, fast speech speed, repetition, parallelism, intonation and voice volume, and by the speaker
alignment signified by Jack's minimal response tokens (line 3, 8), supportive interruption (line 11), and shared laughter (line
12e13, 16e17). At this point, though unable to understand most of the speech, Wang starts to realize the degree of tension
46
‘based on Vincent's facial expressions and tones' (Wang's interview). He interrupts to request translation (line 14) and takes a
self-repair turn (line 19) in which he repeatedly commends Vincent's performance while hinting that Jack is actually the
intended addressee of the Chinese participants' ‘suggestions’.
Extract 2. Aligned attack on the CEO (Turn 13)

V: ¼mm, mm, er yeah, well, err, (1.0) like I er:: I’m saying, you know we we monitor the 1
teachers…(480 words omitted)… £err quality assessment£, you know, err I need an 2
educator (J: mmm) to give me quality assessment, if someone who doesn’t know or 3
hasn’t had training in the field of education, in the west, giving me assessment, of 4
course I look at it, I look at everything, and I follow my teachers like a hawk, but:: I 5
need proper feedback too…(367 words omitted)… and you see, we work with UKU... 6
they are the most recognized programme in the UK, so if they tell me these teachers 7
are good, I believe them (J: mm), if I have someone say (.), the students don’t like 8
him they can’t give you a reason… I question that person’s ability to judge academic 9
context properly¼ 10
J: ¼you could say our quality control isn’t any quality controls 11
V: yeah, [ huhnh] exac hhhtly 12
J: [ huhnhuhn] 13
W: (to the translator) 先给我翻译一下，[太长了] 14
(translate a little for me, [too long]) 15
V: [ huhuhh] 16
J: [ huhnhuhn]huhnhuhn 17
T: (Chinese translation) 18
W: 呃::其实刚才我想说明呢, 可能这意思听得有点儿我觉得可能有点儿拧了, 呃刚才谈的 19
意思来讲, 并不是说我们在整个教学过程当中呢没有监管…(1769 words omitted)… 20
(err:: actually what I was trying to say just now, I think probably there was some 21
misunderstanding, err what I meant just now, was not that we don’t have supervision 22
in the teaching process…(1769 words omitted)…) 23
The shared laughter is again initiated by Vincent's recipient voluntary laugh (line 12), as a response to Jack's sarcastic
comment drawing on a pun, ‘¼you could say our quality control isn't any quality controls' (line 12). While the first ‘quality’
refers to the programme evaluation process at SITE, the second with a stress insinuates that Wang lacks the required qual-
ifications and competence for academic judgement. This remark affiliates with Vincent's criticism and reinforces the attack on
Wang's face by highlighting a perceived irony: the CEO without any ‘quality’ in education is evaluating the quality of teaching.
This aligned personal attack on the CEO climaxes with shared laughter and pushes the conflictual tension to its peak at the
meeting.
The instances of shared laughter in the two extracts above share two features. One is that they both signal the height as
well as the end of an aligned attack event. A pattern can be observed in the two sequences of aligned attack. They both start
with.
Vincent's criticism (of the consultants in Extract 1, and of the CEO in Extract 2), followed by
Jack's sarcastic comment (upgraded attack), followed by
shared laughter (joint celebration of victory).
Secondly, both instances demonstrate the two kinds of alignment simultaneously, namely ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at’,
with the latter achieved by orienting to sarcasm, a highly aggressive form of negative humor. Sarcasm, though it may be seen
merely as an outlet of anger for the speaker, can be received as a particularly drastic form of criticism, especially when
performed before an audience (Partington, 2006, p. 216). It is an even more aggressive face attack than direct criticism
because it targets at the person in a crude and contemptuous manner for destructive purposes (Partington, 2006, p. 183).
Furthermore, sarcasm, as a form of negative humor, is not only used to attack, but also to invite others to join the attack.
Laughing together at the perceived criticizers, especially at the CEO who is higher in rank, in effect unites Jack and Vincent “in
a mutual realization of safety” by jointly expressing “superiority over the defeated, if the individual previously considered
superior has been easily defeated” (Hayworth, 1928, pp. 375, 378).
In both shared laughter events, the silence of the Chinese audience is notable. Technically, the audience has three response
choices following Jack's invitation to laugh: accepting the invitation by joining in as Vincent did, remaining silent, or declining
the invitation by serious topical talk (Jefferson, 1979). In conflict interactions, the choice of response demonstrates the re-
cipient's stance towards the laughable and affective attitudes towards the two contending parties. While acceptance or
declination may demonstrate (mis)alignment to the stance of the laughter inviter, silence signifies a vague position in terms
of alignment and affiliation. By remaining silent, the audience avoids alignment with the stance of either of the opposing
sides. By refraining from laughing with, they also avoid indirect disaffiliation (Clayman, 1992) (i.e., laughing at) towards the
targets of the criticisms. Therefore, the audience's silence is not an indicator of disengagement or indifference, but a strategic
choice in accordance with the Chinese management team's communication goals, namely, ‘enhancing mutual understanding’
and ‘avoiding direct conflict’ (see Section 3). The analysis of Extracts 3e7 below will show how the audience actively deploys
the resource of shared laughter to address the relational dynamics in the process of conflict interactions, including mitigating
the tension and facilitating reconciliation.
47
5.2. Shared laughter as conflict mitigation strategy
Laughing together is an invaluable device for enhancing rapport and solidarity among the laughers. However, as shown in
Extract 1 and 2, it is hard to share a laugh without siding with one of the contending sides in a conflict situation. In other
words, it is a challenging task to achieve ‘laughing with’ without ‘laughing at’ in multiparty conflict interactions. This section
will investigate an interactional process in which the Chinese audience achieves this task through establishing and re-
invoking a type of ‘safe’ laughable, namely, metacommunicative laughable. Metacommunicative laughable is not related to
the content of speech; therefore, it can enable ‘laughing with’ without the risk of ‘laughing at’. Within the verbal constraints of
their participation role, the audience is shown to have played an active role in addressing the concerns on the dimension of
relational dynamics by creatively mobilizing the interactive resource of shared laughter. The analysis below will demonstrate
how a metacommunicative laughable is locally and collaboratively established at the emergence of tension (Extract 3), how it
is re-invoked later as the tension escalates (Extract 4 & 5), and how it is extended to include a different but relevant met-
acommunicative behavior at the height of conflictual tension (Extract 6).
Extract 3 is taken from Vincent's annual report (Turn 2) which lasts 28 min excluding translation time. This extract shows
how he tactfully addresses a problem of low admission standard by quoting a partner university's complaint. To mitigate the
face threat of this problem talk, he makes an explicit attempt to elicit laughter with humor, ‘err my beard nearly fell to the
ground’ (line 5), but it only receives one very light and brief response from an audience member (line 6). In contrast, several
minutes later, Jack's modification laughter (line 13) is joined in by all audience with rather exaggerated zealousness (line 14).
This contrast leads to an interesting question: why is Jack's laughter, which is evidently not intended as an invitation,
responded by such full-scale laughter, while Vincent's explicit laughter invitation not?
Extract 3. Constructing metacommunicative laughable (Turn 2)

V: …but there were still students that were very weak, Peter was upset that students like 1
that were accepted on the programme, he in fact wrote a letter to Peng, to me, to Mr. 2
Wang, he CCed hh it to Mike, that he said teaching students like this makes me want 3
to quit being a teacher, (J: hhhh hunhunh) err to have your partner say that to you is 4
is a for me, I felt what it feels like to have a loss of face, err my beard nearly fell to the 5
ground (B: huhuhh), err but:: something like that is embarrassing, cos Peter knows 6
these students are not going to pass, he knew that they were going to be refused, and 7
they did get refused, and we give them <false hope>, Peter calls it the human cost, we 8
take a human life, and we give it hope for something that student has no hope for, err 9
and when our partner universities complained about that that that’s I think in my mind 10
err a very serious thing, but (louder) getting back to the review, (J: ) (indistinguishable 11
but it is inferred that Jack reminded Vincent to pause for translation) ok, yeah yeah, 12
(J: huhuhuh) I didn’t give (R: huhh) (louder) £I didn’t give my examples yet, but 13
I£ (audience loud laughter) 14
T: that that’s ok (W: £sorry£) huhuh thank you… (Chinese translation) 15
To answer this question, we need to look at the referent and function of laughter in each instance. Vincent's joke is related
to the problem of low admission standard, which has been a long-standing disagreement between the international man-
agers and the admissions department with the latter supported by the CEO. To mitigate the face threat of this problem talk,
Vincent tries to elicit laughter from his Chinese colleagues by making a joke resorting to the Chinese cultural concept of ‘face’.
However, the attempt is not successful as the audience remained silent except a chuckle that quickly stops. This indicates their
awareness that accepting this laughter invitation would amount to alignment with Vincent's stance and disaffiliation to the
CEO and the Admissions Department.
In contrast to Vincent's laughter elicitation effort, Jack's laughter is in fact not intended as an invitation for laughing
together. It is a modification laughter that serves to mitigate the force of his act of reminding Vincent to pause for translation.
As observed by Adelswa €rd (1989), people often laugh alone without a clear inviting intention and not always at things
considered funny. In problematic interactions, such unilateral laughter can be used to cue the interlocutors regarding how to
interpret verbal expressions or attitudes, just as how certain adverbials and intonations do (Adelswa €
€rd and Oberg, 1998, p.
412). Jack's modification laughter may communicate two folds of meanings: mitigating the face threat of his interruptive act
of ‘reminding’ and expressing rapport by signaling nonseriousness (Chafe, 2007) regarding Vincent's unintended inconsid-
erateness in forgetting to pause for translation. It is the latter that the audience orients to when they quickly join in the
laughter to communicate the attitude of nonseriousness or even amusement: ‘don't worry; it is funny rather than offensive’.
Vincent also joins in with smile voice (line 13), partly indicating embarrassment for forgetting to pause and partly as a
response to the collaborative rapport effort. Laughing together here serves to mitigate the interactive tension to some extent
by rekeying a serious problem talk event as nonserious, or even entertaining.
The analysis above shows how the metacommunicative laughable, namely forgetting to pause for translation, is accidently
‘discovered’ and collaboratively constructed. Neither Vincent's forgetting nor Jack's reminding was intended as a humorous
act. However, the occurrence of laughter retrospectively marks its referent as laughable. As suggested by Glenn (2003, p. 33),
instead of being an inherent property of a message or behavior, funniness is rather “a jointly negotiated communicative
accomplishment”. By laughing together, the audience collaboratively converted Jack's modification laughter to an invitation
and transformed Vincent's potentially face threatening metacommunicative act of ‘forgetting to pause for translation’ into a
‘safe’ laughable.
48
The benefit of the metacommunicative laughable is that it provides an opportunity for the participants to share a laugh
and express rapport without having to take a stance towards the disputable issue. The fact that all participants quickly seize
the opportunity to join and extend the shared laughter indicates their awareness of the degree of tension and their desire to
ameliorate the tension which they orient to as uncomfortable. Having ‘discovered’ the power of the metacommunicative
laughable, the audience starts to re-invoke it whenever possible as the tension continues to escalate at the meeting.
Extract 4 is also from Vincent's annual report turn, 10 min later after Extract 1. This example shows the joint effort of the
audience to re-invoke the newly established metacommunicative laughable. Although spoken with a serious tone, the sig-
nificant loudness of the discourse marker ‘LAST thing I'll say’ is picked up by the audience as a cue for re-invoking the
metacommunicative laughable. The fact that the audience responds to it immediately and simultaneously indicates their
effort to seek opportunities to mitigate the tension with laughter. Vincent's uses of smile voice (line 1 & 5) and Vincent and
Jack's overlapped laughter (line 6 & 7) all orient to the metacommunicative laughable and indicate their appreciation of and
contribution to the audience's effort to mitigate the face threat and potential tension caused by Vincent's problem talk.
Extract 4. Re-invoking laughable (Turn 2)

V: …LAST thing I’ll say, (audience laughter) £so that you can translate£ (T: that’s 1
ok) is that when people tell me (an English-exam-skill-training school) is a good 2
school… <ON the whole, they do not do very well>… but:: I would really 3
appreciate the support er not to have any students going to (the school), because 4
generally the students who did, they did not do particularly well, (1.0) £ok, ok, 5
with that£ [heheheh] 6
J: [huhuhuh] 7
V: (continues the turn) yeah, so, er the academic side (.) is the most important 9
side… 10
Extract 5 is another example of how the metacommunicative laughable is re-invoked by the audience to mitigate the
tension. It follows the sequence in Extract 1. The English speech in brackets is my translation. Up to this point, the tension at
the meeting has become conspicuous as evinced in the example of the international managers' aligned attacks at the con-
sultants in Extract 1. Lan later reports in the interview that having sensed the degree of tension, she became very nervous and
hesitant about delivering this problem talk. Her struggle is indicated by the long pauses in line 3 and 6. It is only after Wang's
encouragement (line 4) that she starts to carry out her task, which has been assigned to her as part of the problem talk scheme
(see Section 4.2). The shared laughter is initiated by Hui and reciprocated by the other audience members and Vincent (line
16e18). The laughable is cued by Wang's reminding Lan to pause for translation in a flat tone without any humorous attempt
(line 14). This is another effort of the audience to draw on the established laughable to help mitigate the potential face threat
of Wang's interrupting request and to ameliorate the tension by rekeying the serious problem talk as amusing.
Extract 5. Re-invoking laughable (Turn 8)

V: …but yeah Peng, thank you err very much, and I agree with much of what you 1
said 2
(24.0) 3
W: 继续 hh, 看还有什么问题？别人呢? 4
(continue hh, any other issues? How about others?) 5
(4.0) 6
L: 呃::下面我想说一说一些就是…(325 words omitted)… 呃那么刚才听完 Vincent 7
说的说话以后呢，我发现，实际上，在很多问题上面我们已经想到一块去了， 8
那么下面想给教学部提出的这些建议呢，主要有四个方面¼ 9
(err:: now what I would like to talk about is…(325 words omitted)…err then 10
after hearing what Vincent said just now, I found that, in fact, we shared 11
consensus on a lot of issues, then now these suggestions we would like to offer 12
the Teaching Department, there are mainly four aspects¼) 13
W: ¼稍等一等, 让她翻译一下 14
(¼wait a bit, let her translate a little) 15
H: [heheheh] 16
V: [huhumm] 17
(light laughter in the audience) 18
T: (English Translation) 19
As the tension escalates, the audience also actively extend the established laughable or “create additional laughables that
cohere thematically or structurally” (Glenn, 2003, p. 78) with the established one. Extract 6 shows such a collaborative
relational effort. This extract is also taken from Vincent's rebuttal turn, right before his speech in Extract 2, where the
conflictual tension at the meeting reached the peak. In this extract, offended by the perceived groundless criticisms of his
teacher management from Lan and Wang, Vincent employed forceful defensive strategies and offensive strategies such as
criticisms targeting at the other departments. The defense and offence are intensified by the repetitions (e.g. ‘we fired them’
in line 3, 8, 17, 18; ‘we care about quality, we really care about quality’, line 18), stresses, falling and rising intonations, and
Jack's vigorous interactive support with overlaps, latching, and back-channeling.
49
Extract 6. Invoking similar laughable (Turn 13)

V: ¼mm, er yeah, well, (1.0) like I’m saying, you know we we monitor the teachers…(140 1
words omitted)… (.) er :: you know, with all the the teachers we’ve had with problems 2
we we fir hhhh fired them, in fact we’re the only [we’re the only department] 3
J: [we’re the only department] 4
V: that fire people, and it’s much harder for us, cos our teachers were halfway across 5
the world¼ 6
J: ¼set us an example¼ 7
V: ¼they’ve often done a sacrifice to come here, and they come we fired them, and they 8
lose their faces… but we are the only department 9
J: then what [the other departments have done] 10
V: [that fires people] if they don’t do a good job, so: the criticism is is a criticism 11
that first of all we do ensure quality control… when you tell me a teacher had an 12
observation, and you tell me the teacher taught well during the observation, and the 13
teacher after the observation didn’t teach well, you don’t know >who the teacher was 14
who did the observation< (J: mm) and blah blah blah to me that means nothing, ah, 15
if you get the fact give us the fact, if there are no facts there are no (J: mm), so if you 16
get important information like this, we want to knowY, we’ll check it out, and we [fire 17
them, if they need to be [fired, trust me, we’ll fire them, we care about quality, we 18
really care about quality, errm yeah, (.) er::m (.) (to J) what was the last point? (J: 19
quality asse) (loud laughter of Peng and others in the audience) £err quality 20
assessment£, you know, err I need an educator (J: mmm) to give me quality 21
assessment…(558 words omitted, see Extract 2)… 22
This instance of shared laughter is initiated by the Chinese audience (line 20). The cue for laughable lies in Vincent's
question to Jack, ‘what was the last point?’ (line 19), with no humor intended. Here, in the middle of highly aggressive attacks,
instead of forgetting to pause for translation, Vincent forgets the point he plans to address. ‘Forgetting’ is a common theme
between this laughable and the established one. The audience's instantaneous response to this extended laughable shows
again their proactive effort to ameliorate the tension. However, although it may have temporarily alleviated the tension as
indicated by Vincent's smile voice as a response to this collaborative effort, it does not stop further escalation of the tension as
evidenced in Vincent and Jack's aligned attack on the CEO in Extract 2.
The examination of Extract 3e6 reveals a process in which a metacommunicative laughable is locally and collaboratively
constructed, re-invoked and extended as the tension escalates at the meeting. It is first established by the audience's iden-
tifying ‘forgetting to pause for translation’ as a metacommunicative laughable and transforming Jack's modification laughter
into a laughter invitation (Extract 3). It is then re-invoked by the audience's proactive reaction to different types of cues to the
laughable (such as the paralinguistic cue in Extract 4 and the verbal cue in Extract 5), and extended based on the same cue of
‘forgetting’ in a different but relevant metacommunicative act of ‘forgetting the point that is to be addressed’ (Extract 6).
Orienting to metacommunicative laughable provides an opportunity for all participants to participate in the laughter activity
without the consequence of alignment with either of the disputing sides. In other words, the metacommunicative laughable
makes it possible to achieve ‘laughing with’ without ‘laughing at’ and affiliation without disaffiliation in conflict interactions.
Shared laughter can therefore be ‘safely’ deployed to ameliorate the relational tension or mitigate potential face threat of acts
such as criticisms and interrupting requests.
It is worth noting that the Chinese audience plays a key role in the process of constructing the metacommunicative
laughable in the conflict process. Under the constraints of their participation role, laughter becomes the most effective, if not
the only, resource they can deploy to help mitigate the relational tension, which is probably oriented to as uncomfortable. It is
also notable that some audience members are the offense-recipients of Vincent and Jack's criticisms, but they still actively
initiate or join in the shared laughter events. This shows the extent to which the Chinese participants prioritize relational
harmony (despite of their own face concern), which has also been stated as their major communication goal at this meeting
(see Section 3). As Lan later explained in the interview, “I did feel upset deep down, but I wouldn't want confrontations
because both sides would get hurt”.
The analysis also shows that the effectiveness of shared laughter in impeding the escalation of conflict is limited. As a
tension-mitigating device, laughing together seems to constitute a Time Out, with a function similar to side or insertion
sequences, that is, “to resolve the potential rupture and assure no offence has been intended and none taken” (Jefferson et al.,
1977, p. 18). It may also serve to shift the attention away from the content of the dispute and rekey the event as nonserious or
even amusing. However, the effect of shared laughter in restoring harmony is temporary. It cannot stop the escalation of
tension or change the position of the disputants. In fact, the effectiveness of shared laughter as mitigating strategy decreases
as the tension escalates. This is demonstrated by Vincent and Jack's aligned attack on the CEO in Extract 2, which pushes the
conflict to its peak immediately following the shared laughter in Extract 6.
It is also important to note that both Chinese and interactional interactants participated actively in the shared laughter
events in Extract 3e6. The process of constructing the metacommunicative laughable demonstrates how a relationship
management practice can be locally and collaboratively developed in the interactive process by all participants, despite of the
potential cultural differences in their values, practices and interactive frames (as discussed in Section 4 and demonstrated in
some of the essentialist speeches in Extract 1e2).
50
5.3. Shared laughter as reconciliation strategy
Shared laughter plays an indispensable role in the reconciliation process towards the end of the meeting. It is actively and
collaboratively deployed to repair the relationship and to reassure each other of the undamaged relationship. As a relational
strategy, shared laughter can achieve what speech cannot achieve in such a delicate situation. The ambiguity nature of
laughter is fully exploited to express meanings inexplicitly, which are otherwise inappropriate to be expressed verbally
considering the complexity of the conflict situation.
Having realized Vincent's infuriation about the perceived unfair criticisms (as exemplified in Extract 2 and 6), Wang takes a
self-repair turn (Turn 14 in Fig. 2) in which he hints at Jack as the intended addressee of the ‘suggestions’ and repeatedly
commends Vincent's management performances. Still infuriated, Vincent then forcibly expresses frustrations and complaints
about a series of management issues in the organization (Turn 15). To placate Vincent, Wang employs a scapegoat strategy by
openly criticizing the Chinese middle managers (Turn 16), for example, urging Hui to resolve the visa issues complained by
Vincent. Extract 7 starts from Turn 17 to the end of the meeting. In this Extract, Vincent, uncomfortable about Hui being
criticized unfairly by Wang as a result of his complaints, interrupts Wang's attempt to close the meeting and latches in to
clarify that his complaints are not targeted at Hui (line 4e10). This interruptive turn is both a self-repair and an other-repair.
As an other-repair, it in effect expresses disagreement to Wang's criticism of Hui. As further self-repair actions, he reframes his
acts of criticisms and complaints retrospectively as explanations (‘I was just trying to explain’, line 11), and expresses his
positive attitudes towards the job and his appreciation to Wang for this communication opportunity. Wang expresses
gratitude repeatedly in English and the meeting is then closed with loud applauses and a seeming reconciliation. It is
considered as a seeming reconciliation because none of the disputable issues is resolved at the meeting and both sides remain
very frustrated and confused by the communicative results.
Extract 7. Reconciliation (Turn 16e18)

W: …(1976 words omitted)…呃感谢::Vincent £sorry hh£, (V: mm) 然后也谢谢大家 1
(…err thanks:: Vincent £sorry hh£, (V: mm) also thanks to everyone) 2
T: (English translation)¼ 3
V: ¼yeah I just like to say hh huh, Hui, I don’t think it it’s your fault the visa problem at 4
all, Hui, in all honesty is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met anywhere 5
in the world, one of the:: best colleagues I’ve ever had, and again Hui is always 6
doing things that are his job an and not his job and, it £was hh not your fault£ but 7
(Hui and others laugh) cos we both care so we end up doing something, an and but 8
y you are such a £wonderful man hh£, (audience loud laughter) and £I don’t want 9
you to think I was:: (Hui laughs) criticizing you and all there£, and (very eager and 10
sincere tone) I was just trying to explain why (0.5) I’m so busy cos I I do a lot (Rui 11
laughs) that’s not teaching or any part of my job, but I do love working here, I love 12
my job, but I wish I didn’t have hh to do these things, so I could (1.0) be better here 13
and also be better for:: (0.5) (name) my my gir hhlfriend cos I I’m often not home, 14
err but, yeah thank you Mr. Wang, for for giving me an opportunity to have a voice 15
and to listen to (.) everything you people have to say I I much appreciate it, mm 16
W: thank you, thank you very much … 18
(6 short turns omitted) 19
W: ok, thank you,谢谢各位 20
(ok, thank you, thanks everyone) 21
(applauses louder and louder) 22
As a relational strategy for reconciliation, this instance of shared laughter is again not triggered by humor. Similar to the
construction process of the metacommunicative laughable in Extract 3, it is the accomplishment of a collaborative effort to
ameliorate the tension by transforming Vincent's mitigation laughter into invitation. Vincent's laughter ‘say hh huh’ (line 4)
and his smile voice ‘it £was hh not your fault£’ (line 7) are used to mitigate the face threat of the interruptive repair move and
to deal with his discomfort in such an undesirable situation (Chafe, 2007, p. 74). His discomfort is probably also related to
losing control of his emotions earlier and to causing Hui to be criticized unfairly. The Chinese audience immediately seizes this
opportunity and responds with a number of extended laughs with exaggerated zealousness (line 8e12). Encouraged by the
extended laughter of the audience, Vincent joins in with more smile voices and outbreaths, which start to bear a hint of
humor in addition to embarrassment. For example, he makes a humorous attempt by making an exaggerated comment on
Hui with smile voice, ‘you are such a £wonderful man hh£’ (line 9), which enacts a personal frame instead of a professional
one. This humorous attempt with laughter expresses his apologetic embarrassment and indicates his eagerness to redress the
face damage of the unfair criticism to Hui. This is responded by the audience with even louder laughter. The shared laughter
also encourages Vincent's further reconciliation moves such as reframing his previous acts of complaint and criticism as
explanations. The move to transform Vincent's mitigation laughter into invitation and the scale and loudness of the shared
laughter all indicate the degree of effort the audience makes to facilitate the reconciliation by mobilizing the resource of
shared laughter.
The role shared laughter plays in this joint reconciliation process can be hardly fulfilled by verbal actions. The equivocality
and complexity of the meanings conveyed by shared laughter are almost impossible for verbal exchanges to achieve. In fact,
verbal responses would be undesirable for the reconciliation goal, given the delicate and complicated circumstances. There
51
are three aspects in the achievement of shared laughter that are impossible or inappropriate for speech in this specific
situation.
The first is that laughter allows the participants to remain vague about what is responded to (i.e., the laughable). Earlier in
Extract 3, the metacommunicative laughable quickly becomes clear in the process of co-construction. However, the laughable
in the reconciliation process is much more ambiguous throughout the extended event of laughing together. Vincent's laughs
may convey two layers of meaning: expressing his embarrassment and apology to Hui and displaying disaffiliation by
marking Wang's criticism of Hui as preposterous. It is the latter that the audience orients to as the laughable. By responding to
Vincent's repair moves with laughter, the audience not only transforms his mitigation laughter into invitation, but also turns
the event of ‘Hui being criticized by Wang for the visa issue complained by Vincent’ as a metacommunicative laughable.
The second achievement is that the participants are allowed to remain vague about their stance towards the laughable.
Following Vincent's assertion that the visa problem is not Hui's fault, a verbal response such as agreement would sound as a
disagreement or challenge to the CEO, and a verbal disagreement (if any) would constitute further face threat to both Vincent
and Hui. Therefore, any verbal response risks alignment with either of the conflicting parties, which would further complicate
the relational dynamics and disrupt the reconciliation process. Different from the instances in Extract 1e6 where shared
laughter usually happens at the topical boundary, the laughs of different parties here extend throughout Vincent's turn. It is
almost like a conversation between Vincent with speech on one side and the audience with laughter on the other. By ori-
enting to the metacommunicative laughable, the different parties can make full use of the ambiguity of laughter to express
rapport and facilitate reconciliation through ‘laughing with’, with an equivocal ‘laughing at’. To explain how this is achieved
and with confirmation from the participant interviews, I will make an attempt to ‘translate’ the meaning of the laughs of
Vincent, Hui and the other Chinese participants:
Incident: ‘Hui being criticized by Wang for the visa issue complained by Vincent’ – Laughable
Vincent: ‘I'm so sorry Hui! I didn't mean for you to be criticized by the CEO, and I feel so embarrassed – Discomfort
now’ laughter
Hui: ‘I knew you didn't mean it. I understand how you feel and let's just laugh it off’ – Nonserious
laughter
Other Chinese participants: ‘Nobody is taking that seriously, because we all knew it is Wang's scapegoat strategy’ – Nonserious
laughter
The third aspect of the achievement is the shared feeling of nonseriousness. In such a delicate situation, any verbal
response would indicate a more serious take of the possible offence. A verbal response would have to refer explicitly to the
incident, that is, ‘Hui being criticized by Wang for the visa issue complained by Vincent’, which would sound more serious
than it is desired to be and counteract the effort for reconciliation. By deploying laughter as response, the incident is
transformed into something that is less serious or even funny. Orienting to the reconciliation goal, it is evidently more
effective to rekey the problematic incident as a shared amusement.
The analysis of Extract 7 shows that shared laughter plays an essential role in the reconciliation process. The ambiguity
nature of laughter is fully exploited by the participants to express rapport without aggravating the existing discord. By
transforming Vincent's discomfort laughter into an invitation, the Chinese audience manages to respond to Vincent's explicit
and implicit meanings in a constructively ambiguous way. Furthermore, by orienting to the metacommunicative laughable, a
secret consensus is established between Vincent and the Chinese audience towards the identification of Wang's scapegoat
strategy. As a tension mitigation strategy, the laughable and the meaning expressed by shared laughter in Extract 7 are much
more equivocal than those in Extract 3e6. When harmony is the primary goal, ambiguity seems more effective than clarity in
extremely complicated situations such as at this intercultural conflictual meeting.
6. Conclusion
Focusing on the recurrent phenomena of shared laughter at an intercultural conflictual meeting, this paper has revealed
that shared laughter plays a crucial role in relationship negotiation, contestation and maintenance in the conflict process of
multiparty workplace meetings. Shared laughter can be deployed to launch aligned face attacks, or to mitigate face threat and
interactive tension, and facilitate the reconciliation process. Shared laughter as aligned attack usually orients to negative
humor such as sarcasm as laughable, and demonstrates two kinds of alignment simultaneously, namely ‘laughing with’ and
‘laughing at’. ‘Laughing with’ in an aligned attack expresses affiliation and solidarity towards co-laughers, while a ‘laughing at’
displays disaffiliation and superiority towards the target. Joining in laughter during conflict interactions is therefore a very
risky action as it can amount to reinforced disaffiliation and division that leads to further tension exacerbation. Microanalysis
of these moments showed that the audience members at the meeting, though under verbal constraints of their participation
role, have played a key role in creating chances for all participants to laugh together without having to worry about the
relational risk. They achieved this by locally and collaboratively establishing, re-invoking and extending metacommunicative
laughables. The analysis also shows that shared laughter, due to its ambiguity nature and its ability to express nonseriousness,
52
can achieve functions and meanings that are probably impossible or inappropriate for verbal actions, as demonstrated in the
role it plays in the reconciliation process of the conflict.
This paper aimed to make three contributions. The first was to address the research gap in naturally-occurring conflict
talks in the workplace. With a single case analysis of a highly conflictual meeting, this study provided an in-depth exami-
nation of relational language use at different stages of a complete conflict process, from incipient tension to exacerbation and
climax, and to reconciliation. This study also aimed to contribute to the study of laughter as an independent activity from
humor in co-worker interactions. The findings could add to our understanding of how shared laughter is deployed as co-
constructed relationship management activity in the complicated situations of intercultural co-worker conflict interactions
in the Chinese context. Finally, this study aimed to propose an analytical framework based on a synthesis of concepts from
three discourse analysis approaches, namely, Conversation Analysis (CA), im/politeness studies and Interactional Sociolin-
guistics (IS). The core of this framework is the conceptualization of the two relational concerns at the individual and inter-
actional levels, namely face and relational dynamics, drawing on im/politeness studies and CA respectively. This was an
attempt to contribute to the recent debate in interpersonal pragmatics on the conceptualization of ‘relationship’ and its
relations to the concept of ‘face’. The analysis of the relational functions of shared laughter has provided a clear set of evidence
to support the argument that face and relational dynamics are two intertwined but distinct relational concerns and they are
constantly addressed very often at the same time in social interactions.
The meeting data for analysis is bilingual, as the CEO speaks little English. This does not affect the validity of the analysis as
the focus has been on shared laughter and all the instances of shared laughter were initiated by the international speakers or
the Chinese audience members who speak fluent English. However, the mediated nature of the interaction did have sig-
nificant impact on Wang's judgment of the interactive tension (see Wang's comment in the analysis of Extract 2). More
research is yet to be conducted on im/politeness strategies in translation language and on the role of interpreters in rela-
tionship management in workplace conflict interactions.
Due to the nature of the case study, this study does not aim to and is not able to make any generalizations regarding
cultural differences. Cultural differences in values and communication practices may have an impact on the participants'
laughter behavior. For example, in the face of criticism, the international managers deploy shared laughter as aligned
attack, while the Chinese participants either remain silent or actively join in tension-mitigation laughter. However, this
contrast in the use of laughter as relational strategy may also be explained in terms of communication goals and inter-
actional power. As discussed in Section 4, the Chinese participants attend the meeting with clear understanding of the goals
as stated by Wang in the interview. They are also aware of or play a part in the intricate relational strategy scheme, whereas
the international managers are left in the dark most of the time about the Chinese managers’ intentions, which can un-
derstandably lead to increasing frustrations and anger. The phenomenon of audience laughter for mitigation of face threat
and interactive tension seems prevalent in the Chinese meetings that I have observed. It remains a question how prevalent
it is in different cultures and how it is related to different situational contexts. What is more interesting about this phe-
nomenon to this study is how the participants, both Chinese and international, co-construct a communicative practice at
the interactional level for relationship management, regardless of whether it is part of their cultural practice or not. In fact,
the interactive behaviors of the participants at this conflictual meeting have demonstrated a struggle that the intercultural
workplace interactants constantly experience between constructing shared understandings and practices in order to get
things done and holding on to the values and norms which may be perceived as essential aspects of their cultural identity.
Though they cannot be explored in-depth here due to the limited space, the issues of culture and identity are extremely
relevant to the investigation of intercultural conflict communication. This remains a very interesting direction for future
research.
Declaration of competing interest
None.
Acknowledgement
I am extremely grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. I also really
appreciate the tremendous effort of the editors to find reviewers during the difficult pandemic time. I would also like to thank
my colleague and friend Simon Harrison for his unfailing encouragement and feedback at different stages of this work.
53
Appendix
Appendix A. Transcription conventions, mainly based on Jefferson (2004) and Glenn (2003, p. xi)
Hah, heh, huh, Laughs with mouth widely open, half open, partially open and completely closed.
hnh
£but::£ Pound signs indicate ‘smile voice’ delivery of talk in between.
hhh A degree sign plus ‘hh’ indicate quiet giggles with an out-breath, or laughs while enunciating a word or phrase. The more h's the longer
the out-breath.
[Y Pointed arrows indicate a marked falling or rising intonational shift.
>< ‘More than’ and ‘less than’ signs indicate that the talk they encompass was produced noticeably quicker than the surrounding talk.
<> ‘Less than’ and ‘more than’ signs indicate that the talk they encompass was produced noticeably slower than the surrounding talk.
Degree signs are used to indicate that the talk they encompass is spoken noticeably quieter than the surrounding talk.
… Three dots indicate abbreviated talk in the turn when it is less than 50 words. When it is more than 50 words, the number of words
omitted will be indicated in brackets.
(0.5) The number in brackets indicates a time gap in tenths of a second.
(.) A dot enclosed in brackets indicates a pause in the talk of less than five-tenths of a second.
[] Square brackets between adjacent lines of concurrent speech indicate the onset and end of a spate of overlapping talk.
::: Colons indicate that the speaker has stretched the preceding sound or letter. The more colons the greater the extent of the stretching.
¼ The ‘equal’ sign indicates ‘latching’ between utterances.
(J: mm) Round brackets indicate brief talk such as minimal response tokens, number of omitted words within the turn, or description of
nonverbal features.
() Empty round brackets indicate the presence of an unclear fragment.
please Underlined fragments indicate speaker emphasis.
LAST Words in capitals mark a section of speech noticeably louder than that surrounding it.
Appendix B. Information of the participants
Names Participant roles Institutional roles Nationality Gender Age
Wang Chair The CEO Chinese Male 45

Vincent Specified speaker Teaching manager Canadian Male 33
Peng Specified speaker Consultant manager Chinese Male 29
Lan Specified speaker Consultant manager Chinese Female 29
Ting Interpreter Consultant, Wang's Secretary Chinese Female 24
Jack Audience Teaching manager American Male 45
Fang Audience Teaching manager Chinese Female 26
Hui Audience General Affairs manager Chinese Male 46
Rui Audience Incoming general consultant manager Chinese Female 38
Jian Audience Marketing manager Chinese Male 28
Qian Audience Consultant manager Chinese Female 25
Xuan Audience Consultant Chinese Female 32
Jie Audience Consultant Chinese Female 34
Bing Audience Secretary of Vincent and Jack Chinese Female 24
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Dr. Ping Du is Assistant Professor at University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Her research focuses on conflict interactions in multicultural workplaces with
particular interest in the management of relationship and the construction of cultural / professional identity. Her major publication is Intercultural
Communication in the Chinese Workplace (Palgrave, 2015), which was an ethnographic case study drawing on pragmatics, conversation analysis and cross-
cultural psychology.
55

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Journal of Pragmatics 188 (2022) 39e55

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Shared laughter as relational strategy at intercultural

E-mail address: Ping.Du@nottingham.edu.cn.

2.2. Shared laughter as relational strategy in delicate situations

3. Methodology, data collection and transcription

4.1. Organizational and inter-event context

4.2. An intricate relational strategy scheme

4.3. Participation roles

Fig. 1. Setting and seating (ofﬁcial speakers in bold).

4.4. Meeting structure and conﬂict process

Fig. 2. Meeting phases and conﬂict dynamics.

5. Shared laughter as relational strategy

5.1. Shared laughter as aligned attack

Extract 1. Aligned attack on the consultants (Turn 6)

Extract 2. Aligned attack on the CEO (Turn 13)

5.2. Shared laughter as conﬂict mitigation strategy

Extract 3. Constructing metacommunicative laughable (Turn 2)

Extract 4. Re-invoking laughable (Turn 2)

Extract 5. Re-invoking laughable (Turn 8)

Extract 6. Invoking similar laughable (Turn 13)

5.3. Shared laughter as reconciliation strategy

Extract 7. Reconciliation (Turn 16e18)

Declaration of competing interest

Appendix B. Information of the participants

Names Participant roles Institutional roles Nationality Gender Age

Wang Chair The CEO Chinese Male 45

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