This article analyzes the discourses of a stand-up comedy routine entitled ‘What’s Next?’ in Hong Kong. The comedy routine is performed chiefly in Cantonese with the occasional insertion of English expressions. Our analysis is concerned with language as a tool of identity construction. To this end, four selected jokes are interpreted, focusing on three questions: (i) How does the performer use humor to involve the audience? (ii) How are personal pronouns deployed to index the relationships among various components: the performer, the audience, and constructs of ‘China’ and ‘Hong Kong’? (iii) How are codeswitching and other language techniques used, in conjunction with audience involvement in humor and the deployment of pronouns, to create a shared ‘Hong Kong identity’?
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