DOI: 10.1111/weng.

12443

PA P E R

Humorous interaction, language learning, and

social media

Alice Chik

Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie

University, Australia
Correspondence
Alice Chik, Department of Educational Studies,
Macquarie University, Australia.
Email: alice.chik@mq.edu.au
Abstract
The rising popularity of language learning social network websites
(LLSNSs) like Duolingo and Hellolingo reconfigures traditional lan-
guage learning by providing structured learning materials and spaces
for social interaction among language learners. The social interac-
tive aspects have been celebrated to be the facilitating reason to
advance learning. Many of these LLSNSs also claim to have millions
of active users. This is then the first time in the history of language
teaching and learning that we witness a massive number of language
learners gathering on the same platform for learning and interaction.
On many of these LLSNSs, English learning frequently dominates.
This study adopts an observational ethnographic approach to col-
lect natural interaction between English learners of different linguis-
tic backgrounds. Based on interaction collected from about 2,000
threads, this paper examines the ways in which learners use multilin-
gual resources to make sense of humorous English sentences. Find-
ings suggest that in addition to translation, learners frequently draw
on word play and popular culture on these LLSNSs to illustrate and
enhance learning.

1 INTRODUCTION

This paper explores the ways language learners exploit learning materials for humorous interaction, specifically those
found on the language learning platform, Duolingo. For many English language learners, language play and humor are
possibly one of the most challenging aspects of language learning. Jokes and language play may be highly dependent on
situational and co-textual relevance, for instance, for a drinking joke in a bar or a word with double meaning (G. Cook,
1989). Comprehending and appreciating jokes (play with language) and using language creatively (play in language) are
frequently used as a pseudo measure of proficiency in informal everyday interaction, especially in spoken interaction
(Bell, 2012; Bushnell, 2008). One’s competence and proficiency in understanding and making jokes, even in one’s first or
dominant language, depend on a wide range of factors such as personality, age, ethnic group, context, and the moment
(G. Cook, 2000). The appreciation of humor also requires shared expectation and experiences between interlocutors

22 
c 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/weng World Englishes 2020;39:22–35.
CHIK 23

(Vasconcellos, 1986). In online communication, language play has shifted from a primarily spoken form to the written
form. As researchers examine the online spaces for language play, multilingual and multimodal affordances have been
found to support different types of play (Zhang, 2015). Current research has oriented towards user-initiated language
play on discussion forums or social network websites (Lee, 2016), but there is limited work focusing on the emerging
phenomenon of language learning social network sites (LLSNSs; Lamy & Zourou, 2013).
LLSNSs evolved from the earlier printed and media forms of self-learning language courses and materials (for exam-
ple, the early gramophone for language learning in 1897, cited in Symes, 2004). The audio-translation method of early
days of language teaching and learning can still be found on many of the LLSNSs, and may include learning materials
that are made up entirely of single sentences. Consider for example the following sentences:

(1) ‘Where can we hide the bodies?’ Waar kunnen we de lichamen verbergen? (English-Dutch)

(2) ‘What does the fox say?’ Que dit le renard? (English-French)
(3) ‘Yes, men are people.’ d, ddd ddddd. (English-Korean)
(4) ‘I do not want to live without my cheese slicer.’ Jag vill inte leva utan min osthyvel. (English-Swedish)
(5) ‘My cat never wants to shower.’ ¡Mi gato nunca quiere ducharse. (English-Spanish)

Many second language learners simply find the above five sentences as weird or nonsensical. Without situational rel-
evance, how are these sentences useful for English learning? Is sentence 1 meant for someone with the criminal incli-
nation (or hopefully just someone who likes crime novels or TV series)? Is sentence 2 taken from Aesop’s Fables? Is
sentence 3 gender discriminatory? Are we cheese-lovers enough to justify learning sentence 4? Finally, sentence 5
is probably most useful for having a conversation with cat lovers around the world. The above five sentences are all
ambiguous without contextualization cues; and all are found on Duolingo, a LLSNS. There are also sentences with pos-
sible political references, including Der Präsident hat kleine Hände ‘The president has small hands’ (English/German).
The discussion forums for this sentence are all currently locked on Duolingo, so there is no discussion on which pres-
ident the sentence references. However, this lockdown has not stopped Duolingo users from sharing on other social
media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. If there are more than 25 million active language learners using Duolingo
(Techcrunch, 2018/08/01), how do they react to sentences like these? What multilingual and multimodal resources do
they employ for language play?

2 LANGUAGE PLAY AND LANGUAGE LEARNING

Many of the Duolingo sentences seem to fit the definition of ‘invented sentence’ (IS), a sentence for ‘the presentation
of new words and points of grammar, for practice through manipulation and translation, and for testing’ (G. Cook,
2001, p. 366). By definition, an invented sentence is grammatically and syntactically correct, but may not necessarily
be semantically meaningful – as demonstrated by Chomsky’s (1957) most famous invented sentence, ‘Colorless green
ideas sleep furiously.’ Bell (2012) considers this a bizarre but not a humorous sentence. However, G. Cook (2001)
suggests that people are fascinated by it and have used it for various discussions that could benefit English learning
and teaching. Incidentally, this sentence is part of the learning material for the Duolingo Norwegian-English course
(Fargeløse grønne ideer sover rasende). Subsequently, G. Cook (2001, pp. 379–380) defends the use of ISs for four
reasons: ‘as a means of making the lesson more personal and spontaneous; as illustration; as a means of promoting
noticing; and as a mnemonic device.’ However, V. Cook (2002) disagrees and argues that there is no evidence of
successful learning to support the use of invented sentences. The effect and efficiency of successful language learn-
ing aside, nonsensical invented sentences provide spaces for language play. Play involves ‘behaviour not primarily
motivated by human need to manipulate the environment (and to share information for this purpose) and to form and
maintain social relationships’ (G. Cook, 1997, p. 227). Language play (LP) can also be broadly categorized by its focus
24 CHIK

on linguistic form, semantics, or pragmatics (G. Cook, 2000). While G. Cook conceptualizes LP as a social activity that is
not oriented towards practice, Lantolf (1997) adopts the Vygotskian view and sees LP as individual private speech used
as practice. LP provides various functions that could be conducive to language learning. Bushnell (2008) summarizes
earlier studies and concludes that LP lowers affective barriers, enables learners to memorize discourse patterns,
provides learners with opportunities to develop dialogic voices and interlanguage, and calls attention to form through
navigating face-threatening acts and extending multiparty interaction. These observations are reported to be valid in
Forman’s (2011) study of English learners in Thai university classrooms; and Forman notes the importance of having
the teachers take the roles to initiate and incorporate LP to facilitate learning. Bell (2011) proposes that the teaching of
humor and of pragmatics is linked, and that this link is especially crucial in spoken interaction. Firstly, the interlocutors
have to recognize from contextualization cues that there is a play frame for all parties to be able to appreciate and par-
ticipate in the play. Bell further suggests failing to recognize such cues in the first place is when language learners miss
the opportunity (Bell & Attardo, 2010). Much of the scholarship on language play focuses on spoken interaction, and
the comprehension and appreciation of spoken humor could be stressful for language learners. However, Pomerantz
and Bell (2011) argue that humor can be utilized to create ‘safe houses’, or productive off-task spaces, to experiment
and engage with the utterance and linguistic forms. This use of humor as safe spaces may also encourage reluctant
students, for example male students, to actively participate (Pomerantz & Bell, 2011; Shively, 2013).
Many of the classroom-based studies have adopted a conversation analytical approach to explore language play in
learner-interactions. Broner and Tarone (2001) show that young learners of Spanish naturally engage in two types of
LP, ludic LP, and rehearsal in private speech. This distinction could be used by teachers and researchers to better under-
stand the process of second language acquisition. Bushnell (2008) uses both class and individual interactions to show
that university Japanese language learners use LP as a resource to engage with the pedagogical tasks. Frequently, these
studies turn to teacher-student and student-student spoken interactions in supervised classrooms with a stable class-
based learning group. In examining LP in English-immersion classes for Korean learners, Ahn (2015) shows that both
ludic LP and LP focusing on semantic meaning enhance language awareness. The exploration of LP has also focused
on interactions between young learners to demonstrate that the level of proficiency is not necessarily a limiting factor
in initiating LP (Kang, 2017). In addition to learners’ varied levels of proficiency, the context for LP on LLSNSs would
undoubtedly be very different, as Deumert (2014) calls social network sites ‘digital taverns’ for users to perform their
ludic selves, and LLSNSs should thus be the perfect ‘digital taverns’ for performing and observing ludic selves.

3 ENGLISH LEARNING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

The British Council predicts that two billion people will be learning to use English by 2020 (British Council, 2013).
While many of these English learners would be taking English as a second or foreign language in formal classrooms
in more than 100 countries, many would also use additional resources to complement their formal learning. Richards
(2015) points out that there are now more learners learning English informally than there are in classrooms globally.
At present, LLSNSs may well be one of the most popular means to access informal English learning (Álvarez Valencia,
2016; Chik, 2018). LLSNSs are relatively new platforms that allow a massive convergence of learners. Some examples of
LLSNSs include Busuu, Duolingo, Memrise, and Quizlet. LLSNSs operate with various models, but many of these websites
share some standard features. Duolingo is an example of LLSNS that combines language learning and features of social
networking (that is, the creation of a public personal profile, and the option to find and meet other learners) (Lamy &
Zourou, 2013; Liu et al., 2015; Zourou, 2012). When examining the landscape of online language learning platforms,
there are several operating models. Some operate on a freemium model, with the basic content (or the first lesson)
free but with premium content available at a set price (such as Memrise). Other models include monthly subscription
(Babbel) or language exchange (italki). Duolingo is the only language learning platform or app to provide free access to all
learning content. Although LLSNSs are increasingly popular, there are relatively few studies addressing some aspects
CHIK 25

of these websites such as identity constructions through a profile (Stevenson & Liu, 2013), learner perception on func-
tionality (Liu et al., 2015), and language views on LLSNSs (Álvarez Valencia, 2016). However, there is no strong empir-
ical evidence to suggest that learning through these LLSNSs effectively promotes proficiency, especially in authentic
communicative events (Lord, 2015). There is also no scholarship evident as yet on unregulated online interaction for
language learning, especially when learners are moving beyond the prescribed learning materials. The limited research
on these massively popular learning platforms means that scholarship has yet to catch up with the vibrant dynamics of
participation by language learners in these online learning communities.

4 METHODOLOGY

This present study of humorous interactions on Duolingo is a longitudinal, auto-ethnographical study (Holman Jones,
2007). I have been an active Duolingo member since 2013 – taking beginner language courses, participating in online
discussion forums and threads, and commenting on the official Facebook page and non-official fan pages and Twit-
ter feeds. Following a ‘non-digital-centric’ ethnographic approach (Pink et al., 2016), I acknowledge that the digital
experience on Duolingo is only part of the learners’ social world, online and offline; and there are many personal
stories on general Duolingo discussion forums validating this point. As a dedicated user and community member, I
respond to and follow the occasional request postings on research surveys and interviews, posted by users doing
their assignments or research projects. As a researcher, however, I only observe. This approach in the present study
to use Duolingo reflects an autobiographical naturalistic observation (Jorgensen, 2015) and a netnography research
design (Kozinets, 2015). The public-access nature of all discussion threads on Duolingo allows researchers to observe
(‘lurk’) and collect natural interactions as passive observers (Kozinets, 2015) without active engagement and potential
interference.
The dataset for this study comes from selected public postings on Duolingo discussion forums between 2013 and
2018. When using the web-based platform, each question comes with a localized discussion forum so that users can
discuss or comment on a particular sentence or phrase. However, a user must click the ‘Follow Discussion’ icon to be
notified of further comments and discussion points. The process is not intuitive, so Duolingo posts a tweet to encour-
age the use of discussion forums to make new friends and receive language support (Duolingo, 2018). Over the years,
I have collected more than 14,000 notifications from between 3,000 and 4,000 threads. It is difficult to estimate the
exact number of threads, as more popular threads naturally send out multiple notifications. However, it is observed that
threads from earlier lessons and threads from nonsensical (or weird) sentences (as in El gato duerme cerca del pingüino
‘The cat sleeps near the penguin’) attract more attention and discussion (Chik, 2018; Chik & Ho, 2017). This netno-
graphic method is not without limitations, because it depends on the courses taken and nonsensical sentences noted
in Twitter posts. At the time of writing this paper, I have only taken or am taking a small number of courses (Italian,
German, Hebrew, Hindi, Welsh, Korean, and Chinese) from 33 language courses available to English speakers. My par-
ticipation and observation began from the position of learning an additional language as an English-speaking learner.
Being bilingual is an important aspect of Duolingo learning, as there are more language courses available to English-
speaking learners (33 courses) than, for instance, to Chinese-speaking learners (only two courses, English and Spanish).
This means that many learners, such as myself, choose to be ‘English-speaking’ in order to have greater access to more
language courses. In practice, then, discussion forum comments are most likely posted by English-speaking users from
various cultural and linguistic backgrounds and of various levels of proficiency.
This study draws on examples from and around the Duolingo learning platform to understand humorous interactions
among users. For many English language learners, what they are doing outside the classroom is an integral part of their
learning (Richards, 2015); and, for an array of reasons (such as tuition and legal status), not all learners have access to
formal English learning. Consequently, learners are gravitating towards online language learning platforms to access
language learning resources and opportunities (Cole & Vanderplank, 2016; Lai, 2017; Lai & Zheng, 2018). Duolingo
26 CHIK

claims to have 25 million active users among a total of 300 million users worldwide (Techcrunch, 2018/08/01). English
courses are by far the most popular courses globally (Duolingo Blog, 2016/05/02). Duolingo is possibly the world’s
largest English classroom. It is also a ‘translocal’ classroom because the congregation of global learners on one learn-
ing website makes Duolingo both transnational and local (Rokka, 2010). Duolingo is the only LLSNS that allows free and
public access to all learning materials, thus making it the best place for natural observation of language learning (Chik,
2018; Chik & Ho, 2017). Duolingo primarily adopts a translation model to teach a target language; and bilingual under-
standing and use is the assumed norm. Duolingo learning materials are structured into mini-lessons according to the
content or grammatical topics (such as transport, adverb). In each lesson, learners are required to translate questions
in written sentences from one language into English, if English is the target language, and to orally repeat phrases or
sentences. Translation hints are provided in all target language writing. Users progress from beginner lessons (that is,
basic greeting, numbers) to topical learning (philosophy, current affairs), but all lessons are structured similarly. Learn-
ers have to follow the suggested study path, but they can ‘test out’ to progress faster. Learners are only required to
interact with the computer-based learning content, and there is no group-learning activity.
Although there is no learner-to-learner interaction within the learning material, there are spaces available for inter-
action with other learners. Discussion forums are provided to facilitate learner interaction (only available via the
web-platform, not available to the app version). After giving the answer to ‘What does a fox say? Que dit le renard?’, a
learner can access the dedicated discussion forum to see what other learners say about this particular sentence. Learn-
ers frequently provide additional grammatical advice or language learning comments on these forums. In addition to
the structured lessons, learners can use the general discussion forum for interaction. As is the nature of the discus-
sion forum, the interaction is asynchronous and accumulative. With the high number of threads and comments, only
selected comments were analyzed in the present study for the discussion on humorous interaction.

5 FINDINGS

In the following sections, interaction around five sentences will be used to illuminate the ways that Duolingo users react
to, extend, and create a humorous situation. Each sentence is an authentic sentence used in a bilingual language course,
and it is not made up by a Duolingo user. Excerpts of interaction are reposted here for analysis, and an additional reader
reaction [∧ upvote] is included as a reference. User names are replaced by a number indicating turn-taking; with one
observation being that infrequently comment more than once. This might be understandable as the discussion forum
is attached to each sentence, and opens in a separate tab on a browser (not available on the phone app). A user has
to click ‘Follow discussion’ to receive notification for further interaction, or to return to leave a new comment on the
sentence-specific discussion forum. There were a number of times when I commented and read other comments with-
out remembering to click ‘Follow Discussion’ and lost the opportunity to continue monitoring the interaction. It is likely
that, because of this required additional step, very few users return to respond to new comments. The five excerpts
were taken from five different types of sentences that could spark humorous interaction. The comments were captured
as they appeared on discussion threads or forums; spelling, punctuation (especially capitalization), and grammatical
irregularities have been kept. The order of languages indicates each language course and its bilingual pair, for instance,
‘Die Fliege trinkt das Bier (The fly is drinking the beer)’ (excerpt 1) is taken from the German course for English-speaking
users, while ‘My dog sells hats (         
 )’ is taken from the English course for Japanese-
speaking users. The translation is the original translation provided on the dedicated Duolingo forum.

5.1 Cultural stereotyping and language play with L2

Excerpt 1 is taken from the dedicated discussion forum for ‘Die Fliege trinkt das Bier / The fly is drinking the beer’
(German-English, 43 comments), but more users read and reacted to comments as shown from the number of
upvotes [∧].
CHIK 27

Excerpt 1
Die Fliege trinkt das Bier
‘The fly is drinking the beer’

(1) A true German fly. [∧155]

(2) Does German have the concept of a ‘barfly’ as English does? [∧45]
(3) No. These people are called ‘Kneipenhocker’ in German. [∧22]
(4) What is a ‘barfly’ and what is a ‘Kneipenhocker’? [∧9]

(5) [same user as Turn 3]: Pleople who spend days in bars. [∧55] + [plus a screen shot of Barney Gumble holding a
beer. Gumble is a character from The Simpsons who spends all day in the cartoon’s waterhole, Moe’s Tavern].
…
(6) i like this fliege! [∧6]
(7) Ich mag this fly. [∧6]
(8) Die
P.S. I mean, die Fliege XD [∧2]
…

(9) Oh, so THAT’S who’s been drinking all of my beer! [∧5]

Excerpt 1 presents an interesting scenario and one that can probably happen (especially during Australian summers).
The sentence is, however, grammatically correct but semantically ambiguous. A comment posted on the cultural stereo-
typing of German beer-drinking is the top post on the forum, which received 155 upvotes (similar to a ‘like’ or ‘thumbs-
up’ icon on other social media) by other users. Turns 2 and 3 see the introduction of the terms ‘barfly’ and ‘Kneipen-
hocker.’ The textual explanation in Turn 5 is accompanied by a visual reference from The Simpsons cartoon. The visual
reference is self-explanatory, as the cartoon figure (Barney Gumble) holds a mug of beer in his hand and looks like he is
sitting in a bar. But the reference to Barney Gumble would have provided additional laughter as he is a Simpsons char-
acter who frequently appears in a bar scene. Turns 6 to 8 see users initiating LP with L2, when turn 7 imitated turn 6
in the use of sentence structure in German and English. Turn 8 is unexpected, as the user seems to have corrected the
grammatical use of German (the proper article and the capitalization of nouns) in turn 6 according to turn 7 ‘Ich mag
this fly’ with ‘this fly’ in English, so that ‘this fleige’ (Turn 6) should have been ‘die Fliege’ in German to make turns 6 and 7
mirrored sentences. To a certain extent, turn 8 completes the language play with L2, by making these mirror sentences
(I like die Fleighe – Ich mag this fly). This attention to the linguistic form in bilingual translation is made possible by LP
with L2. The use of just ‘Die’ in turn 8 could also be interpreted as a humorous reaction to cursing the beer-drinking fly.
Besides this, we have turn 9 as a prototype of humorous responses to the original sentence ‘Die Fliege trinkt das Bier.’
The absurdity of the sentence is taken as an ordinary, everyday experience, as the turn 9 commentator is not surprised
by the fact that flies drink beer. Frequently, such comments would receive upvotes without any further responses.
Blake (2007) proposes that culture is among the most popular topics for humor. In this excerpt, humor in the original
Duolingo sentence was extended by drawing on a cultural stereotype (Germans, including German flies, drink beer),
which led to an explanation of a ‘barfly’ through both textual and visual references. In this instance, the textual and
visual references are complementary. A new user does not necessarily need to know and appreciate Barney Gumble
as a Simpsons cartoon character to understand the reference to barfly, as the picture shows Barney holding a beer in
a bar. However, it should be noted that the Duolingo discussion forum does not naturally support the attachment of
media texts. Users have to upload a media text to an external website to get an URL, and then copy and paste the URL
to the Duolingo comment. This extra step discourages users from sharing multimedia texts. The mixed use of English
and German provides additional spaces for language play in both languages.
28 CHIK

5.2 Inserted and transposed popular cultural references

Excerpt 2 examines the ways in which users exploit a blank scenario, or a situational ambiguity, and the ways that users
imagine contexts in which this sentence could and would have been used.

Excerpt 2
Mein Gegner schläft
‘My opponent is sleeping’ (German-English, with 71 comments).

(1) …with the fishes! [∧422]

(2) Mein Gegner schläft mit den Fischen. (My opponent sleeps with the fishes) [∧118]
(3) This comment with that profile pic is totaly FTW.Like a sir….. Viel gut Herr (‘A lot of good, sir’)…. [The profile
pic shows Jasper Beardley, an old man from The Simpsons cartoon, holding a spanking paddle] [∧73]
(4) Das ist perfekt♡ (‘That is perfect’) [∧23]
(5) That’s a padlin [∧6]
…
(6) danka this helped me join the german mafia [∧25]
(7) *Danke [∧23]

This sentence Mein Gegner schläft provides an empty canvas for users to imagine the contexts in which it can be used
freely. The most popular comment of the discussion forum made an immediate reference to Mario Puzo’s Godfather
(both the book and the movie), in which one Mafia gangster discussed the fate of an enemy as ‘sleeping with the fishes’,
implying the killing of the enemy. Comment 3 also links the profile picture of the turn 1 user as an imaginary threat-
ening Mafia member. Turn 1 user’s profile picture is Jasper Beardley from The Simpsons cartoon, as an old man mali-
ciously holding a spanking paddle. In response to this reference to Jasper Beardley, turn 5 user quoted directly, ‘That’s
a pad[d]lin[g].’ The Simpsons character was featured in an episode that referred to corporal punishment in Lisa Simp-
son’s class. Thus, the humorous interaction was extended from a novel and movie reference (‘sleeping with the fishes’)
to a cartoon reference (Jasper Beardley). A later comment (turn 6) picked up the Godfather mafia reference but created
an imaginary ‘[G]erman mafia’, whereas the term mafia is usually only associated with Sicilian or Italian American orga-
nized crime. Although ‘German mafia’ is a new, made-up term, the only required correction is the misspelling of ‘danke’
(‘thank you’) as an asterisk (*) which usually signals a correction on Duolingo discussion forums. This excerpt provides
a different perspective on using popular cultural references, where there is no explanation of the meaning of ‘with
the fishes!’ yet there are more than enough users who understood the meaning by upvoting it (422). Two other users
further extended the humor by inserting a new popular cultural reference to the profile pic (turns 2 and 4) without
mentioning The Simpsons, treating it as assumed knowledge. This can be frustrating with the additional direct quote
of ‘That’s a padlin’ from the character. It can thus be argued that users assume certain shared knowledge among all
Duolingo users such that there is no need to explain the references to Godfather or The Simpsons.

5.3 One popular cultural universe (The meme before memes)

There are many quotes from TV and movies that are instantly recognizable, and some found their ways into Duolingo
learning materials. One such example is Keine Suppe für dich! (‘No soup for you!’) from the TV series Seinfeld
(1989–1998). Although this line only appeared in one episode in 1995, it became a catchphrase that has spawned many
memes in the contemporary social media era.
CHIK 29

Excerpt 3
Keine Suppe für dich!
‘No soup for you’ (German-English, 69 comments)
(1) I laughed more at this than anything else in the past couple weeks. Woke a couple people up who were sleep-
ing in the room over haha [∧395]
(2) Duolingo should only accept answers written in all CAPS for this one! [∧127]
(3) Der Suppe Nazi? [∧346]
(‘The Soup Nazi?’)
(4) Die Suppe Nazi. Ja, richtig. [∧25]

(‘The Soup Nazi. Yes, right’)

…
(5) …Seinfeld references now? [∧89]
(6) Seinfeld references now! [∧16]
(7) Serenity now! [∧11]
…
(8) LOL I HAVE WATCHED THE ‘SOUP NAZI’ EPISODE AGAIN AND AGAIN THE LAST THE FEW WEEKS,
I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING!!! KEINE SUPPE FUER DICH!! KOMM WIEDER IN EINEM JAHR!! SIE
MOECHTEN BROT? DREI DOLLAR!!! [∧26]
(9) NO SOUP FOR YOU!! COME BACK IN A YEAR!! YOU WANT BREAD?! THREE DOLLARS!!!!!! [∧13]
…
(10) NO SOUP TIL YOU MASTER GERMAN [∧7]
(11) COME BACK IN ONE YEAR! [∧3]

First of all, this sentence is a straightforward sentence that could have an everyday reference (for instance, spoken by a
parent to a child). However, it has a special place in many Seinfeld fans’ hearts and has its own Wikipedia entry. This also
means that only users who are familiar with the origin of the phrase would have clicked to access the discussion forum
(the forum does not automatically appear after responding to the question) unless the user habitually clicks to access all
discussion forums (but this could be very time-consuming). Turns 1 and 2 do not give any clue to the origin of this quote,
and turn 2 only suggests that this sentence should be shouted out aloud (‘in all CAPS’), yet more than 395 other users
agreed to the comments (turns 1 and 2) and upvoted them. It is only in turn 3 that there is a reference to the Soup Nazi
from the Seinfield episode, but there was still no reference to the origin of ‘Soup Nazi.’ It could be frustrating to follow
the conversation if a user does not know the Seinfeld episode. In a much later section (turn 5), a user mentioned ‘Seinfeld
references now?’ and this comment was met with another user repeating the usual interaction pattern in Seinfeld when
one character repeats the previous line in a different tone (‘Seinfeld references now!’, turn 6). The humorous interaction
was extended by a third user quoting ‘Serenity now!’ (turn 7), a phrase shouted by the character Frank Costanza as
an anger-management mechanism. As if cued by the user from turn 2, another user memorized and reproduced (and
shouted in all capitalization) the original lines from the TV episode in turn 8 in German. The lines were translated back
to English in turn 9 by another user. In turn 10, the user plays on the idea of ‘no soup for you’ to include the German
learning experience, and received the response of ‘come back in one year!’ (as in the original line in the episode). To
a certain extent, this forum is reserved for Seinfeld fans who know the TV series; the specific episode and the lines
to interact allow bonding on an impersonal learning website (Hasegawa, 2018; Knight, 2013). Excerpt 3 shows that
Duolingo users do share the same popular cultural universes, or at least that there is some overlapping. The last episode
of the Seinfeld series was aired 20 years ago, yet its regular reruns on TV and availability of clips from media-sharing
30 CHIK

platforms such as YouTube mean that more memorable jokes and scenes are in constant circulation. The circulation is
not only in its original English version but in the dubbed German version as well. Thus, every Duolingo user can join in
and shout out the lines.

5.4 Nonsense sentences

In excerpt 4, we will examine the type of nonsense sentences that are present in all Duolingo language courses. These
sentences are all grammatically correct, but semantically improbable. They are also reminiscent of the poetic humor of
Edward Lear’s nonsense limericks. Many of the Duolingo nonsense sentences revolve around anthropomorphic animals
and insects, for instance, Mi caballo aprendió francés hace un año (‘My horse learned French a year ago’) and El gato salió
a almorzar con el cerdo ayer (‘My cat went out to lunch with the pig yesterday’). The following phrase ‘My dog sells hats’
gathered more than 217 comments.

Excerpt 4
My dog sells hats

‘ 
’ (English-Japanese, 217 comments).

(1) Now this is the Duolingo I know! [∧148]

(2) I was waiting for something like this all along [∧27]
(3) IIIIIT BEGIIIIINS [∧7]
(4) Mine just eats them [∧153]
(5) My cat sells a delux brand of shampoo, eu de chat. [∧76]
(6) eau de chat* [∧7]
(7) This sentences is hilarious [∧79]
(8)   [∧50]
(‘my dog is a salaryman’)

9: [∧1]
(‘My cat is a drug trafficker’)
(10) In Japan anything can happen. [∧28]
(11) The humor is like an oasis. So refreshing!  ! (‘It’s funny’) [∧26]
…
(12) Who is a good boy? [∧13]
…

(13) I lived in Japan for 3 months and used this sentence every day! Great teaching, Duolingo! Keep it up!
!(‘Ironic danger’) [∧2]
(14) Finally, someone willing to earn their damn keep. [∧1]
(15) Can I hire your dog? [∧1]
(16) This dog makes my dog look like a lazy free-loader. [∧1]
(17) When a dog is more self actualised than me [∧1]
(18) In Japan there’s a dog that sells a cigarette

(19) Finally, a weird sentence on this course! XD

CHIK 31

 !"! [∧512]

(‘There is only the best hat for the dogs’)
(20) I still prefer duo not washing his clothes for half a year [∧168]

(21) It’s easily the best one I’ve encountered so far, but it’s not the only one. ^^ [∧163]
(22) [∧91]
(‘Japanese dogs have evolved’)
(23) #$%&'()(@_@) [∧24]
(‘This is a serious sentence’)
24: dddddd ̥ [∧11]
(‘It is a great dog’)

The excitement shown by users in turns 1 to 3, turn 7, turn 11, and turns 19 to 24 indicates that Duolingo users are famil-
iar with nonsense sentences such as this. There were also references to other nonsense sentences in turns 20 and 21.
The interest for world Englishes researchers is perhaps in how users react to such sentences. Some users would extend
the nonsensical humor with responses such as turns 5, 8, and 9, or by bringing in their cats as well. The user made two
spelling mistakes in turn 5 (‘delux’ and ‘eu’), but another user only chose to correct ‘eu’ to ‘eau.’ Although more Duolingo
users are learning English than any other languages, it is not unusual for Duolingo users to use their preferred languages
instead of English. In addition, users introduce terms specific to Japanese culture, such as ‘salaryman’ ( *).
Users are also not bothered by interactions that continue in the target language (in this case, Japanese). However, there
are fewer multilingual interactions, especially in Asian language courses. The absence of popular cultural references on
this dedicated forum gives space for references to everyday experiences. Turns 4 and 12 could have been spoken by a
dog owner, or turn 10 by someone who is amazed by the extraordinariness of Japanese culture. Turns 14 and 16 show
self-deprecating humor of dog owners. The web-based Duolingo forums do not allow the insertion of emoji, so only
sideway-Latin styled emoticons (for example,:),;), and XD) are used. However, in this ‘My dog sells hats’ thread, elabo-
rated Japanese-style emoticons are used (such as turn 24, ). When there are fewer popular cultural references,
it seems that users are free to make a personal connection with these absurd, made-up sentences.

5.5 The popular cultural chaos

Comments in excerpt 4 above show that a nonsense sentence without reference to popular culture encourage users to
normalize the absurdity as everyday experiences. Users can compare their pets or their own experiences and under-
standing of Japanese culture against the Duolingo sentence. In excerpt 5, we will examine the humorous interaction
beyond the Duolingo website. The comments were extracted from the Twitter feeds of @ShitDuolingoSays. The account
is devoted to ‘Linguistic gold provided by Duolingo’, exclusively tweeting (and retweeting) screenshots of humorous
sentences from various language courses, and is followed by more than 46,500 Twitter users. Excerpt 5 features a
tweet of part of the song lyrics from the 2013 mega-hit, The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) by the Norwegian duo Ylvis
and a screenshot of an English-French Duolingo lesson ‘What does the fox say?/Que dit le renard?.’ A total of 716 users
hearted the tweet, and 168 users retweeted it. Although @ShitDuolingoSays linked ‘What does the fox say?’ to the
2013 pop song of the same title, the comments show that every user seems to have a different idea of the (popular)
cultural reference.

Excerpt 5

(1) The fox says ‘Why the hell did we cancel Firefly? That show was great!!!’

(2) Or at lesat we wish te FOX said that…

32 CHIK

(3) The real question is at what line did you (person reading the op) realize the point (and probably think-sing
along to the rest)?
For me, it was ‘and mouse goes squeak’

(4) I have been watching football since 2009, and this is the first time that I realize Herve Renard is nicknamed
‘the fox’ because his name literally means ‘fox’.
(5) The fox says, ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’

The sentence ‘What does the fox say?’ does not provide a definite clue to its original reference. The fox could have been
a character from many of the fox tales in Aesop’s Fables. Then, to a certain extent, @ShitDuolingoSays’s definite link to
the pop song is not necessarily transparent to every Duolingo user. Turn 1 ignores the song lyrics from the tweet and
refers the fox to the Fox TV channel, and complains about the cancelation of a sci-fi TV show, Firefly. The user in turn
2 agrees. Turn 3 is the only comment that refers to the tweet and the clue to the pop song. Turn 4 indicates a football
reference that may resonate with sports fans as Hervé Renard has a long career as a football player and manager.
Finally, turn 5 brings in one of the most popular literary animal characters, the Fox from The Little Prince (1943) by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, by quoting the line spoken by The Fox to the Little Prince. The five comments thus point to
four different directions and references to popular and literary culture.
Meanwhile, Duolingo users of different language courses responded to ‘What does the fox say?’ with some section
of the earworm hook of the pop song either in English or in phonetic spelling in other languages as shown in except 6
below:

Excerpt 6
(1) Gering-ding-ding-dingringerdingering [∧6] (English – Vietnamese)
(2) I’m surprised no one wrote ‘ting ting ting’ here yet, well perhaps because only a handful of learners reached
this point so far haha (and maybe also because it wouldn’t quite be original) [∧43]
(3) Ring ding ding ding ding gading gading….. [∧24] (Vietnamese – English)

Users even respond to the sentence ‘What does the researcher say?’ (‘Cosa dice il ricercatore?’) on the English-Italian
course with sections of the lyrics, especially lines taken from the hook as shown in excerpt 7.

Excerpt 7
(1) Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! [∧68]
(2) Came here to check. Was not disappointed. [∧31]

It is clear that many Duolingo users have a very clear idea that the pop song can be used for play with different sen-
tences. In addition, turn 2 suggests that some users access the dedicated forum anticipating humorous comments and
responses from other users.

6 CONCLUSION

This study explored the practice of multilingual language play on Duolingo, one of the most popular language learn-
ing websites. The study aimed to identify the strategies used by learners to comprehend, initiate, extend, or respond
to humor in their bilingual language learning materials. The focus on humorous interaction and language play is vital
because Duolingo is a learning platform freely available to all Internet users with interest in language learning. It is also
significant that the massive number of users means that it may be possible to understand the operation of humor and
language play for English learning in an unsupervised manner. For instance, the English course for German-speaking
users has 2.31 million registered users. The users are thus potentially interacting with a huge group of multicultural and
CHIK 33

multilingual learners. Given that users are interacting digitally, they have additional access to multimodal resources to
express humor and to activate shared schema, or shared knowledge of the world.
The study used five popular types of sentences from the Duolingo learning materials to demonstrate the opera-
tion of humor. It should be mentioned that the users do not necessarily initiate humorous conversation because they
access the dedicated forums in response to the learning materials; rather, a learner may take the initiative to access
the dedicated forum in anticipation of encountering humorous interaction. The five types of sentences provide var-
ied affordances for language play. Firstly, in the case of a strange but probable scenario (excerpt 1), this has the most
significant space for learners to play with in the target language. By invoking a cultural stereotype (‘A beer-drinking
German fly’), users are free to use both English and German for play in L2 (‘I like this fliege – Ich mag this fly – I like
die Fliege’). The visual reference to a barfly is also sufficiently self-explanatory to be universally inclusive. However,
the space and dynamics for language play are different when users transpose and create particular popular cultural
references (excerpt 2). Although the initiating sentence is transparent enough (‘My opponent is sleeping’), the solid
reference to Godfather gives no additional room for alternatives. There is also no explicit explanation of the popular
cultural sources; it is assumed that users share the same popular cultural schema. This becomes even more evident in
excerpt 3, where the media reference is specific (the Seinfeld TV series). Similarly, users assume shared schema as only
users in the know would access the particular forum; and the single media reference encourages users to play with the
discourse repetition (turns 5–7), which also appears frequently on the show. The solidarity shown through popular cul-
tural references shows that even non-referential sentences could be bonding opportunities for Duolingo users (Knight,
2013).
The use of everyday experience for language play is apparent in nonsense sentences (excerpt 4). Users anticipate
humor, and they are not disappointed when they access the forum about a dog selling hats. Making satirical comments,
users relate their everyday experience of their pets doing other ‘extraordinary’ acts (‘my dog is a salaryman’, or ‘my
cat is a drug trafficker’), make self-depreciating statements (‘When a dog is more self-actualized than me’), and show
a cultural ‘understanding’ (or assumption) about Japan (‘In Japan anything can happen’). Void of popular cultural and
media restriction, this space is then welcoming to all users. The space for relating to everyday experience becomes a
‘safe house’ (Pomerantz & Bell, 2011). The use of Duolingo learning materials for humor goes beyond their website, as
evident in excerpt 5. The tweet on ‘What does the fox say?’ is set to refer to a particular pop song by Ylvis. However,
on Twitter, the comments seem to suggest that everyone has a different idea about the reference, and only one user
responds to the call initiated at the beginning of the tweet. In exploring ludic engagement on Duolingo, learners tend to
use popular cultural and media references as the primary sources for play. However, the implication for world Englishes
researchers is that there is limited manipulation of linguistic forms. With a shift from spoken to written communication,
the co-construction of language play relies heavily on popular cultural references. However, teachers should be aware
that threads that give the space for learners to relate to everyday experiences are threads that are most inclusive. It
also appears that ludic language play (G. Cook, 2000) is more dominant than language play that serves as a rehearsal.
Teachers may not necessarily endorse the learning materials on websites, but the discussion forums are fertile grounds
for authentic interactions and language play among users, which enhance language awareness (Ahn, 2015). Given the
number of sentences on Duolingo, there are probably enough discussion forums for users to find their spaces for lan-
guage play.

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How to cite this article: Chik A. Humorous interaction, language learning, and social media. World Englishes.
2020;39: 22–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12443