Nancy Bell: Playing With Language
Nancy Bell is an Assistant Professor in the WSU English Department where she specializes in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) and linguistics.
Congratulations on your New Faculty Seed Grant! Can you tell us a little bit about the grant and how you used it?
The question I wanted to answer was whether playing with language helps us learn. There’s been an increasing interest in the role that language play might have in facilitating second language development, but most of the studies have been qualitative analyses of a pre-existing set of data. So, to look at this issue, I used tape recordings of learner/native-speaker interaction that I had, along with some interviews of the learners. From this data, it seemed that when word meanings were talked about in a playful/funny atmosphere, those words got remembered. But in order to actually figure that out, I needed to be able to compare learner recall of bits of language that were focused on and talked about seriously or playfully. The grant allowed me to buy digital tape recorders and transcription software, and to hire a graduate student, Becky Robinson, to help with data collection and coding. Over the summer we observed and audio-recorded the interaction of ESL students in a class at the IALC. Every day after class, we listened to the recordings, identified instances where the students focused on language, and coded it as playful or serious. After that, I created individualized quizzes to test each student’s recall of the things they’d focused on in order to compare their recall of seriously versus playfully focused-on items. The stats from the initial analysis show that things that were the subject of playful attention did get recalled correctly more often, but the difference wasn’t statistically significant.
Can you tell us about your recent work on the analysis of humor as it applies to gaining proficiency in a second language?
I’m actually interested in two areas. The work I do that falls under the umbrella of “language play” has to do with trying to figure out whether/how playing with/in a second language can facilitate learning of that language. In the past, I’ve looked at learner interaction in natural settings to see how playful talk differs from serious talk and what different types of learning opportunities that playful talk affords learners. In looking at that data, several areas appear promising. In particular, language play seems to provide learners with the chance to experiment with different voices in their new language – especially those languages that aren’t often taught or don’t come up in a classroom (e.g., talking like a famous movie star or an adoring fan, or having a passionate, melodramatic argument), where we spend so much time teaching learners to be nice or polite and expand their repertoires in this way, learning how to be appropriate in a variety of contexts. This may also help them learn new language as the play may push them to use more complex language. The study I did this summer is an example of that work, albeit in a controlled setting.
The other area I’m interested in is more sociolinguistic in nature and not so directly related to learning as it is to exploring second language users’ experiences in using the language. In this line of research, I’ve been looking at how humor is negotiated between native and non-native English speakers. I’m interested in such questions as what kinds of humor are used, how they’re contextualized in interaction, what social functions they fulfill, how humor is responded to by both parties, and whether the use or avoidance of humor contributes to marginalization of the non-native speakers. Generally, to paraphrase the late Dell Hymes, I’m asking a basic sociolinguistic question: Who jokes with whom and under what conditions? This work also contributes more broadly to the development of humor theory by demonstrating more about how humor works (or doesn’t) in interaction.
What originally sparked your interest in second languages, intercultural interaction, and the development of second language sociolinguistic competence specifically through the analysis of humor and language play?
Curiosity, mostly. I guess I’d always been interested in each of these things separately and had been exploring them academically and personally since I was an undergrad. Grad school both forced me and gave me the opportunity to bring them together, and I was lucky enough to be able to put together a committee that supported work that was a bit unconventional. My chair also pointed out to me that people often research things that are personally challenging for them, which was when I realized that a lot of my discomfort in speaking French had to do with not feeling able to be funny in the way that I’m accustomed to doing in English. My work on failed humor, which for now has involved only native English speakers, also falls into this category.
Why do you suppose the field of failed humor and bad jokes is so little noticed in the world of academia? How does your work fill this gap?
I think part of the reason for the neglect is because humor in general has been neglected by academics. The old-timers at the International Society for Humor Studies tell stories about humor scholars being denied tenure because they weren’t seen as doing any kind of serious scholarship. The other reason, though, is that usually when you study something you study it – not its absence – so I think it just wasn’t on people’s radar so much; plus, there’s just so much to be studied about humor it’s not like anyone is needing to search under rocks for topics.
Your graduate courses are really popular. Can you tell us about some of your past or your current (Spring 2010) graduate seminar?
I’m still learning about the needs of our graduate students, so I keep honing my seminars. The first year I was here I offered a very general introduction to second language theories and pedagogies. Then I realized that focusing on L2 academic literacies is more relevant to most of our students (and also allows me to have a broader pool of people available to teach the ESL courses in the department!), so that’s what I did the second year. This spring I’m adding in the idea of researching L2 academic literacies in addition to covering their teaching and learning. Bob Eddy actually gave me the idea to incorporate this into a class when I was complaining about having a bunch of data from a survey of WSU professors, asking about their experiences teaching and working with graduate students who are not native speakers of English, that I didn’t have time to analyze. The goal of the research part of the course is for students to be able to gain experience collecting, coding, and analyzing real data – and getting a conference presentation and maybe even a publication out of it.
What advice would you give to graduate students who are in the process of developing their research topics and their scholarly voices/personas?
I think my experience shows that you really need to pick a topic that interests you – too many people get halfway through their dissertations and find themselves bored and exhausted. Marketability and currency is important, but if you don’t love your topic, you’re in real trouble since your first major publications are likely to come from that dissertation and will build your professional identity. As for scholarly voice, I’m still working on that one. I’ll take anyone else’s advice!