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ELF speakers’ expert use of humor: catalyzing rapport in initial intercultural online video chat

  • Bingbing Lin EMAIL logo and Jagdish Kaur ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: April 7, 2025

Abstract

In this digital age, platforms such as OmeTV and Omegle have transformed intercultural communication by facilitating random video chats between individuals from diverse backgrounds. English functions as a lingua franca (ELF) in these interactions, bridging cultural and linguistic divides. While research has shed light on humor’s effectiveness in easing social interactions, its specific role in initial intercultural online video chat interactions between ELF speakers remains unexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating how humor fosters rapport between ELF speakers in this context. A purposive sampling method is used to select a subset of 25 OmeTV/Omegle video chat interactions on YouTube. These videos showcase previously unacquainted ELF speakers engaging in intercultural communication in an online video-mediated context. This study employs sequential analysis to examine the interactional dynamics of these conversations with a focus on the role of humor in fostering rapport. The analysis reveals how collaborative humor construction and early initiation of humor contribute to closer interpersonal relationships. Additionally, the cumulative escalation of humor and a unique strategy targeting humor at both speaker and recipient promote effective rapport building. These findings illuminate humor’s bridging function in initial intercultural online video chat interactions, and provide insights into digital intercultural communication dynamics and practical guidance for navigating such encounters.

摘要

在当今的数字时代, OmeTV 和 Omegle 等平台通过促进不同背景的人进行随机视频聊天, 改变了跨文化交流的方式。在这些互动交流中, 英语被用作通用语 (ELF), 跨越了文化和语言之间的鸿沟。尽管现有研究已经揭示了幽默在缓解社交互动中的有效性, 但其在英语作为通用语使用者之间初次跨文化在线视频聊天的具体作用仍未得到充分研究。本研究旨在填补这一空白, 探究幽默在这种情境下如何促进英语作为通用语使用者之间的融洽关系。本研究采用目的性抽样方法在 YouTube 上挑选了 25 个 OmeTV/Omegle 视频聊天的样本。这些视频展示了之前不相识的英语作为通用语使用者在在线视频介质的背景下进行跨文化交流。本研究采用序列分析来考察这些对话的互动动态, 重点关注幽默在促进融洽关系中的作用。分析揭示了协作式幽默的构建和幽默的早期发起是如何促进更紧密的人际关系的。此外, 幽默的累积升级以及针对说话者和接收者的独特幽默策略可以有效地建立融洽关系。这些发现阐明了幽默在初次跨文化在线视频聊天互动中的桥梁作用, 并提供了对在线跨文化交流动态的见解和应对此类交流的实用指导。


Corresponding author: Bingbing Lin, Independent Researcher, 570000 Haikou City, China, E-mail:

  1. Competing interests: None.

  2. Research funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Appendix A: Transcription symbols (adapted from Jefferson’s [2004] transcription notations)

[ ]

overlapping speech

=

latching speech

cut off

(.)

micro-pause

(2.0)

timed (e.g. 2-s) pause

wo:

lengthened sound or syllable

word.

falling intonation

word,

continuing intonation

word?

rising intonation

$

smiling voice

word

emphasis

{ }

non-verbal action or researcher’s comments (to provide more context or background information to the reader)

((laughter))

presence of laughter

(Korean ‘ ’)

code-switching to another language (e.g. Korean and ‘meaning’)

Appendix B: Links for the excerpts

Excerpt URL link Time frame for full interaction Time frame for excerpt
(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0IInb4-ORk&t=376s 00:00–03:30 00:50–01:16
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PIfOTgaehY 06:45–13:59 09:45–09:53
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eujqNCfx4nM 00:30–02:30 00:30–00:53
(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PIfOTgaehY 06:45–13:59 10:44–13:35

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Published Online: 2025-04-07
Published in Print: 2024-09-25

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