The article explores children’s creative use of language in the classroom and the teacher’s subsequent response. The study draws from video-ethnographic research in two primary schools in Italy and adopts an ethnographic approach combined with the analytical instruments of Conversation Analysis. As the analysis illustrates, children publicly perform wordplay to co-construct a shared humorous sequence with their peers. This practice emerges both in the peer group and in whole-class interactions that involve the teacher. In the latter case, the teacher aptly exploits children’s wordplay to pursue specific social and didactic aims. It is argued that children’s creative use of language is germane to children’s negotiation of their peer relationships and potentially relevant to their gradual process of socialization into the classroom community.
BakhtinM (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. University of Texas Press.
2.
BakhtinMikhail. 1984 [1929]. Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics, In: ed. by EmersonCaryl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
3.
BaumanRBriggsC (1990) Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology19: 59–88.
4.
BaxterJ (2002) Jokers in the pack: Why boys are more adept than girls at speaking in public settings. Language and Education16(2): 81–96.
5.
Blum-KulkaSHuck-TaglichtDAvniH (2004) The social and discursive spectrum of peer talk. Discourse Studies6(3): 307–328.
6.
BronerMTaroneE (2001) Is it fun? Language play in a fifth-grade Spanish immersion classroom. The Modern Language Journal85(3): 363–379.
7.
CarterR (2016) Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk. Routledge.
8.
CazdenC (1976) Play with language and meta-linguistic awareness. In: BrunerJSylvaK (eds) Play: Its Role in Development and Evolution. Basic Books, pp.975–985.
9.
CekaiteA (2018) Microgenesis of language creativity: Innovation, conformity and incongruence in children’s language play. Language Sciences65: 26–36.
10.
CekaiteAAndrénM (2019) Children’s laughter and emotion sharing with peers and adults in preschool. Frontiers in Psychology10: 852.
11.
CekaiteAAronssonK (2004) Repetition and joking in children’s second language conversations: Playful recyclings in an immersion classroom. Discourse Studies6: 373–392.
12.
CekaiteAAronssonK (2005) Language play, a collaborative resource in children’s L2 learning. Applied Linguistics26(2): 169–191.
13.
CekaiteAAronssonK (2014) Language play, peer group improvisations and L2 learning. In: CekaiteABlum-KulkaSGrøverV, et al. (eds) Children’s Peer Talk: Learning from Each Other. Cambridge University Press, pp.129–147.
14.
CekaiteAEvaldssonA-C (2008) Staging linguistic identities and negotiating monolingual norms in multiethnic school settings. International Journal of Multilingualism5(3): 177–196.
15.
CekaiteAEvaldssonA-C (2019) Stance and footing in children’s multilingual play: Rescaling practices in a Swedish preschool. Journal of Pragmatics144: 127–140.
16.
CookG (2000) Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford University Press.
17.
Cook-GumperzJCorsaroWStreeckJ (eds) (1986) Children’s Worlds and Children’s Language. Mouton de Gruyter.
18.
CorsaroW (2005) The Sociology of Childhood, 2nd edn.Indiana University Press.
19.
CrystalD (1998) Language Play. University of Chicago Press.
20.
DurantiABlackS (2012) Socialization and improvisation. In: DurantiAOchsESchieffelinB (eds) Handbook of Language Socialization. Wiley-Blackwell, pp.443–463.
21.
Ervin-TrippS (1991) Play in language development. In: ScalesBAlmyMNicolopoulouA, et al. (eds) Play and the Social Context of Development in Early Care and Education. Teachers College Press, pp.84–97.
22.
EvaldssonA-C (2005) Staging insults and mobilizing categorizations in a multiethnic peer group. Discourse and Society16(6): 763–786.
23.
EvaldssonA-CCekaiteA (2010) ‘Schwedis’ he can’t even say Swedish – subverting and reproducing institutionalized norms for language use in multilingual peer groups. Pragmatics20: 587–604.
24.
GlennP (2003) Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge University Press.
25.
GlennPHoltE (eds) (2013) Studies of Laughter in Interaction. Bloomsbury.
26.
GoodwinC (2018) Co-Operative Action. Cambridge University Press.
27.
GoodwinM (1990). He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Indiana University Press.
28.
GoodwinMCekaiteA (2018) Embodied Family Choreography. Practices of Control, Care and Mundane Creativity. Routledge.
29.
GoodwinMGoodwinC (1986) Gesture and co-participation in the activity of searching for a word. Semiotica62: 51–75.
30.
GoodwinMKyratzisA (2011) Peer language socialization. In: DurantiAOchsESchieffelinB (eds) The Handbook of Language Socialization. Blackwell, pp.391–419.
31.
GoodwinMKyratzisA (2014) Language and gender in children’s peer interactions. In: MeyerhoffMEhrlichS (eds) The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality. Wiley-Blackwell, pp.509–528.
32.
HallamEIngoldT (2007) Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Routledge.
33.
HoeyEDeLiemaDChenR, et al. (2018) Imitation in children’s locomotor play. Research on Children and Social Interaction2: 1–24.
34.
HowardK (2009) Breaking in and spinning out: Repetition and de-calibration in Thai children’s play genres. Language in Society38(3): 339–363.
35.
IwamuraS (1980) The Verbal Games of Pre-School Children. Croom Helm.
36.
JeffersonG (1979) A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance/declination. In: PsathasG (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. Irvington, pp.79–96.
37.
JeffersonGSacksHSchegloffE (1987) Notes on laughter in the pursuit of intimacy. In: ButtonGLeeJ (eds) Talk and Social Organisation. Multilingual Matters, pp.152–205.
38.
KöymenSKyratzisA (2014) Dialogic syntax and complement constructions in toddlers’ peer interactions. Cognitive Linguistics25(3): 497–521.
39.
KyratzisA (2010) Latina girls’ peer play interactions in a bilingual Spanish-English U.S. preschool: Heteroglossia, frame-shifting, and language ideology. In: KyratzisAEvaldssonACReynoldsJ (eds) Heteroglossia and Language Ideologies in Children’s Peer Play Interactions [Special issue]. Pragmatics20(4): 557–586.
40.
KyratzisAReynoldsJEvaldssonA-C (2010) Introduction: Heteroglossia and language ideologies in children’s peer play interactions. In: KyratzisAReynoldsJEvaldssonA-C (eds) Heteroglossia and Language Ideologies in Children’s Peer Play Interactions [Special issue]. Pragmatics20(4): 457–466.
41.
LiX (2020) Interpersonal touch in conversational joking. Research on Language and Social Interaction53(3): 357–379.
42.
MaybinJSwannJ (2007) Everyday creativity in language: Textuality, contextuality, and critique. Applied Linguistics28: 497–517.
43.
MaynardD (2006) Ethnography and conversation analysis: What is the context of an utterance? In: Hesse-BiberSLeavyP (eds) Emergent Methods in Social Research. Sage, pp.55–94.
44.
MinksA (2006) Mediated intertextuality in pretend play among Nicaraguan Miskitu children. Texas Linguistic Forum49: 117–127.
45.
MinksA (2010) Socializing heteroglossia among Miskitu children on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Pragmatics20(4): 495–522.
46.
MinksA (2013) Voices of Play: Miskitu Children’s Speech and Song on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. University of Arizona Press.
47.
NasiN (2022) Practices of inclusion/exclusion in the classroom: Children’s peer socialization to institutional norms of literacy and language use. Language and Dialogue12(2): 306–331.
48.
NasiN (2024) Children’s Peer Cultures in Dialogue. Participation, Hierarchy, and Social Identity in Diverse Schools. John Benjamins.
49.
NorrickN (2003) Issues in conversational joking. Journal of Pragmatics35: 1333–1359.
50.
PallottiG (2001) External appropriations as a strategy for participating in multi-party intercultural conversations. In: Di LuzioAGuenthnerSOrlettiF (eds) Culture in Communication. Benjamins, pp.295–334.
51.
PetitjeanCGonzález-MartínezE (2015) Laughing and smiling to manage trouble in French-language classroom interaction. Classroom Discourse6(2): 89–106.
52.
RamptonB (2006) Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School. Cambridge University Press.
53.
SawyerK (1997) Pretend Play as Improvisation: Conversation in the Preschool Classroom. Lawrence Erlbaum.
54.
StridECekaiteA (2021) Embodiment in reciprocal laughter: Sharing laughter, gaze, and embodied stance in children’s peer group. In: RoblesJWeatherallA (eds) How Emotions Are Made in Talk. Benjamins, pp.163–186.
55.
TheobaldMReynoldsE (2015) In pursuit of some appreciation: Assessment and group membership in children’s second stories. Text and Talk35: 407–430.
56.
ThornborrowJ (2003) The organization of primary school children’s on-task and off-task talk in a small group setting. Research on Language and Social Interaction36: 7–32.
