Page 184 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

162 Meredith Marra and Janet Holmes

tributing to ‘creating team’ and constructing camaraderie within the group, as
example 3 illustrates (see Stubbe 1999).

(3) Context: factory team members chatting in the control room above the pro-
duction area
1. Ger: fucking Ginette got Peter a beauty yesterday …
2. Rob: did you get the message oh yeah what happened
3. Den: oh did she throw that plastic full of water
4. Ger: no +++ told him to call Mr Lion
5. Rob: oh yeah
6. Den: oh yeah
7. Ger: mr lion called for him
8. Den: [laughs]
9. Ger: she gave him the phone number
10. Den: /the zoo
11. Ger: /he called up the Wellington zoo
12. [laughter]
13. Ger: (only Peter)
14. Rob: yeah (good morning) Wellington zoo ( )
15. is mr lion there please [laughs]
16. so did anyone er get Ginette or what
17. Ger: no (everyone’s being good today)

This is an account of a classic April Fools’ Day trick played by the team super-
visor, Ginette, on team members: she fooled several team members into ringing
the zoo to ask for ‘Mr Lion’, much to the mirth of their colleagues. Note the
typical use of the intensifier fucking (line 1), the supportive feedback from Den-
nis and Rob (lines 5, 6, 10), and the colloquial style throughout. As in example
1, the reported speech is presented in a direct style, without quotatives yeah
(good morning) Wellington zoo ( ) is Mr Lion there please (lines 14–15), giving
it immediacy and impact.
This kind of joking regularly characterizes this team’s interactions (as indi-
cated by Dennis’s reference to another practical joke did she throw that plastic
full of water, line 3), providing relief from the repetitiveness of their daily work,
and making their interactions more enjoyable. We have many examples of their
interactive style which includes a good deal of good-humoured but challenging
‘slagging off’ at each other (see for example Holmes and Stubbe 2003a: 109ff).
This in-your-face interactional style could not be more different from the
low key style of humour described in case study 1. About a third of the Power
Rangers team identify as Samoan and Ginette, the team leader, is Samoan, and
so it is not surprising that Samoan styles of humour appear to predominate in the
team as a whole. ‘Ribbing’ one’s mates and ‘having them on’ is a well-accepted