Laugh so you don't cry: teachers combating isolation in schools through humour and social support

The structure of the teaching profession leaves teachers professionally and personally isolated from other adults. This article will discuss the results of an ethnography focused on the rare informal social interaction that occurs among teachers in a United States’ school, with a particular focus on the lunch hour. Specifically, this article explores the reciprocal nature of support provided within self-generated congregational spaces. This study demonstrates the positive use of humour in combating stress in the teaching profession, and how these relationships support Hochschild's (1983) theory of emotional labour.     

Humour as a resource and strategy for boys to gain status in the field of informal school

Through a feminist approach this paper illustrates how humour is used as a resource and strategy for status among Finnish school boys and in constructing culturally accepted masculinity in the field of informal school. Based on interview and observation material collected in three schools, the results suggest that although humour is often affiliative and positive in nature, exclusive, violent humour is also used as a resource and strategy, which might have serious consequences on targeted students’ lives. The effect of humour as a symbolic resource of status depends not only on context and power relations between the agents, but also on a credible, strategic usage of the resources available to a boy. Humour has an important influence on constructing masculinities and the social status of boys. Furthermore, the status of a boy defines the value of his humour among his peer group.     

解读语用学中合作原则的违反现象

本文从幽默、文学翻译与语篇连贯三个不同的角度论述了语用学中合作原则的违反现象,从而使读者能够更深层地理解表面意义之外的会话含义并感受其幽默性。     

比喻在英语中的妙用和魅力

文章将英语中的比喻分为七个类型，通过例句指出比喻富有隐晦的特点，能增强语言的形象性、生动性和幽默感。     

解读语用学中合作原则的违反现象

文章从幽默、文学翻译与语篇连贯三个不同的角度论述了语用学中合作原则的违反现象,从而使读者能够更深层地理解表面意义之外的会话含义并感受其幽默性。     

The relationship between teacher stress and burnout in Hong Kong: positive humour and gender as moderators

In this study, we report on the relationship between positive humour and burnout among 379 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong, and explore whether the relationship varies according to gender. The moderating effects of both affiliative and self-enhancing humour on each burnout component were then examined. High affiliative and self-enhancing humour were found to be associated with lower emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation but higher personal accomplishment. Further, the results indicated that low levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humour were related to more depersonalisation among females than among males. The results also partially supported the stress-moderating hypothesis, as affiliative humour was found to buffer the stress–depersonalisation relationship in this sample. These findings suggest that schools can design continuing education programmes based on the use of positive humour in helping teachers to cope with burnout.     

Don't forget,Thursday is test[icle] time! The use of humour in sexuality education

Sexuality and humour share a fraught relationship at school, so that how humour might be productively employed in sexuality education constitutes a ‘risky’ consideration. This paper explores the role of humour in sexuality education as observed in a Year 9 New Zealand health class. Adding to existing literature emphasising students' use of humour at school, it also considers how teachers might productively mobilise humour in the classroom. Findings reveal that while humour serves established purposes for students such as consolidating heterosexual masculinities, securing peer group hierarchies and disrupting learning agendas, it may hold other pedagogically productive possibilities. Potential uses include the relief of monotony, engaging with the needs of particular cultural groups of students, reinforcing taught information and reducing apprehension around potentially uncomfortable topics. Via this empirical exploration of the mobilisation of humour, the paper endeavours to open its potential as a conceptual site of possibility in sexuality education.     

实践美学视野中的“滑稽”与“幽默”

中国当代美学话语中,“喜剧性”,“滑稽”,“幽默”与西方差学方中的“comic”,“humour”并非是对等的,西方差学传统中多把“幽默”作为“comic”（喜剧或乾滑稽）之一种,而在实践美学的视野下,“滑稽”和“幽默”的内涵和界限得到比较清楚的厘定,并且被纳入实践美学的范畴序列之中。“幽默”所表现的是一种合规律性和合目的性,是人的实践活动的自由,而滑稽表现的则是一种不合规律性和夸大的目的性,是人的实践活动是不自由。     

The case for mixed methodologies in researching the teacher’s use of humour in adult education

Inconsistencies within the literature result in teachers not having sufficient guidance to develop their humour use in support of learning without risking their professionalism. This article argues for more comprehensive evidence to guide teachers’ use of humour, based on mixed methodological approaches. The case is also made for the Interpersonal Communication Competence Model (ICCM) to be used as a consistent theoretical framework when researching teachers’ use of humour. A methodological literature review design is deployed to explore the conceptualisation, methodologies and situational factors within the selected research. The selected research is analysed in accordance with the ICCM’s five key concepts of motivation, knowledge, skills, outcomes and context. Comparisons are made against a depiction of humour based on the ICCM. The analysis reveals a diversity of conceptualisations of humour and different situational factors influencing teachers’ use of humour, and shows that findings conflict with ‘competent communication’. No research studies linked the various influencing factors together to provide all-embracing guidance for teachers. Studies based on mono-methodologies using qualitative or quantitative research designs only appear to provide the teacher with pieces of the jigsaw pertaining to humour use in teaching. Although mixed methodologies have their own design concerns, the author argues that they offer an opportunity to merge multiple situational factors to produce a more accurate representation of humour use within a teaching context. In conclusion, he proposes that future research utilises a mixed methodological approach along with the ICCM to capture supportive and contradictory perspectives of humour use.     

Pupils’ humour directed at teachers: its types and functions

Based on an analysis of 137 texts written by pupils, this paper examines pupils’ humour directed at teachers, its types and social functions. The collected data are divided into three categories that describe different modes of teachers as targets of pupils’ humour. The first mode describes teachers as unintentionally comical, the second as duped by their pupils and the third as intentional users of humour. The analysis focuses on different functions that pupils’ humour directed at teachers fulfils in the social life of the classroom. The paper concludes by showing how key functions of social humour (such as creation of solidarity, negotiation of power and realisation of personal needs) are connected to the three modes of pupils’ humour directed at teachers.