Humor in the workplace: A regulating and coping mechanism in socialization

Introduction

With growing globalization, professionals in the international workforce are experiencing increasing frequency of job change that includes integration into new working communities. This process can be referred to as workplace socialization, through which newcomers acquire the knowledge and skills that change them from being ‘new’ to being ‘integral’ (e.g. Van Maanen and Schein, 1979). Owing to cultural characteristics (e.g. Schein, 1984), different workplaces have different predominant language use; these different contexts shape communication patterns within a working community (e.g. Holmes, 2000a). Gaining proficiency in these unique communication patterns is one aspect of workplace socialization (e.g. Ramsey, 2004; Wilson et al., 2005) when making sense of (Kramer, 1994) and gaining recognition of membership in a working community (e.g. Wenger, 1998).

Workplace socialization is context-based (Bauer et al., 1998), so for newcomers lacking contextual knowledge, socialization may pose unexpected challenges. While this subtle knowledge can influence newcomers’ job performance, it can be acquired in informal settings such as tea breaks in which conversations are common (e.g. Blaka and Filstad, 2007; Iverson and McPhee, 2002). ‘Informal’ means settings in which discourse and activities happen spontaneously, but are not pre-designed in form or with specific objectives. This is in contrast with ‘formal’ settings in which discourse and activities are pre-set and largely structured, such as in training sessions.

Numerous studies on language and communication in the workplace focus on the phenomena of how task-processing can be accomplished by means of various linguistic strategies, yet relatively few studies focus on newcomers in this regard. As Holmes and Stubbe (2003) note, sociolinguistic examination of how newcomers learn a workplace’s communication patterns through social activities is far from investigated. This research therefore presents a case study of how a newcomer, transitioning towards integral status, interacts with the predominant use of humor within her working community, as well as how she and her colleagues interact with humor during her workplace socialization. We focus on the versatile linguistic features of humor from both newcomer and integral-member points of view.

Workplace socialization and workplace culture

Workplace socialization, traditionally termed organizational socialization (e.g. Van Maanen and Schein, 1979), is the longitudinal process through which an employee changes from being a newcomer to being an integral member of the organization (Cooper-Thomas and Anderson, 2006; also see Anderson and Thomas, 1996, for a chronology of definition change). During such change, newcomers acquire knowledge about the conventionalized working patterns and then put what they learn into practice (Taormina and Bauer, 2000). During such acquisition, newcomers learn technical skills for task completion and cultural knowledge for relationship development (e.g. Chao et al., 1994; Van Maanen and Schein, 1979). These two acquisition aspects often overlap and complement each other (e.g. Blaka and Filstad, 2007).

Workplace socialization usually requires mutual acceptance and interdependent relationships between newcomers and integral members, especially for workplaces which emphasize team work (Myers, 2005). It can occur in formal, instructional settings like pre-service training programs and in informal, everyday settings like free time between meetings. Some literature stresses process and outcome of socialization within formal settings (e.g. Cable and Parsons, 2001; Gruman et al., 2006), but there has been considerable work underscoring the importance of informal settings (Cooper-Thomas and Anderson, 2006). Actually, we suggest that in many workplace settings this line blurs (e.g. Billett, 2002). We therefore employ a framework, the Communities of Practice (CofP) (Wenger, 1998), which focuses on informal interactions but embraces a holistic understanding of settings.

The workplace as Communities of Practice

The CofP framework emphasizes how people rarely learn to become integral via schooling versus social participation in informal activities within communities of practice (Blaka and Filstad, 2007; Lave and Wenger, 1991). This framework is initially theorized and introduced into organizational studies by Lave and Wenger (1991), and is further refined by later works (e.g. Wenger, 1998). According to the Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s interpretation (1992: 464), a CofP is:

[. . .] an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of this mutual endeavor.

Newcomers participate in everyday interactions, simultaneously partly or totally understanding the social, cultural linguistic norms shared by the CofP members (Blaka and Filstad, 2007). This is why learning in CofP is considered ‘situated learning’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991). In a CofP, it is the mutual engagement (to allow interactions of members), shared repertoire (to form a proof of membership), and joint enterprise (to take for the members’ common goal) which ensure and motivate newcomers to continue acquiring the CofP knowledge through participation in daily workplace activities (Wenger et al., 2002). We particularly propose that when individuals enter a CofP, there will be an acknowledgment of relational change and transition of power among members; humor is a way of coming to awareness or understanding of such change and transition.

The role of humor in the workplace

Humor in our study is defined as ‘utterances which are identified by the analyst, on the basis of paralinguistic, prosodic, and discoursal clues, as intended by the speakers to be amusing and perceived to be amusing by at least some participants’ (Holmes, 2000b: 163). While humor can amuse participants, it can fail to fulfill the intention of the instigator for many reasons. Hay (2001) states that some humor may receive a non-response, indicating the addressees not recognizing the humor, and that non-response or even negative response can result if the humor is not appreciated by the addressee. Priego-Valverde (2009) names the former as ‘unperceived humor’ and the latter ‘rejected humor’.

Subject to the culture of individual workplaces, humor can have powerful dynamics and multiple meanings with work activities, especially teamwork in the workplace (Holmes and Schnurr, 2005; Schnurr, 2009). It can be used, for instance, as an indicator of the appreciated or depreciated (Linstead, 1985), a proof of membership (Boje, 1991), a form of entertainment, a tool to get tasks done, a strategy to deflate status differentiation (Heiss and Carmack, 2011), a tool to challenge management and form subculture, a means to subvert norms without touching the bottom line (Plester and Orams, 2008), and a means to build up relationships with integrated colleagues (Vinton, 1989). Plester and Sayers (2007) especially pinpoint that bantering humor defines integral insiders from partly socialized outsiders in that new members are usually not included in the exchange (also see Holmes, 2000b). Tracy et al. (2006) similarly argue that humor plays an essential role of socializing newcomers by assisting them in making sense of their duties, colleagues, and their workplaces. Since most workplace humor is context-sensitive, bound to shared histories (Marra and Holmes, 2007), it is opaque or ambiguous to outsiders (Heiss and Carmack, 2011). But still, humor can be a potent force in workplace socialization, for newcomers gaining entry to a CofP and for established members sustaining a social structure and environment. Therefore,

Method

The vignettes presented come from an original database of about 30 interactions emanating from 24 hours of audio-recordings collected in three workplaces over a period of five months. In this article we only use part of this data to form a case study.

Our data are audio-recordings of participant interactions and face-to-face interviews collected from an American–Chinese-owned company, Sunflower Holdings Limited (SHL), located in Hong Kong (HK). Most colleagues in the Hong Kong office were Hong Kong Chinese, except a Filipino newcomer, Emma, an assistant merchandiser who mainly used English to communicate.

Audio-recordings of participant interactions in SHL (HK) were conducted over a 10-week period, beginning from the seventh week of Emma’s employment and ending in the seventeenth. In total 11 recordings were made. Recording lengths varied but were on average one hour in length. All recordings took place on premises at SHL (HK). The settings ranged from informal discussions, held at Emma’s workspace area, to more formal settings such as organized strategy sessions, held in the office meeting space. Following recording, the deputy director of SHL (HK) was allowed to remove any confidential business information. Subsequent to this, the first author identified any parts of recordings that were not analyzable due to audio quality or a lack of sufficient clarity. After screening, four hours of workplace talk from 10 recordings were transcribed for in-depth analysis. This yield four recordings from the first month, four from the second, and two from the final half month of the data collection period. In the transcribed data there were three principal participants, Gavin, David and Emma, with Emma being the primary participant.

Interviews focused on providing contexts to the recorded conversations, to enhance understanding of our data and validity of inferences (see Holmes and Stubbe, 2003). In addition, interviewees were asked for their interpretations of critical moments of workplace socialization. Nine interviews were conducted, in total. Over the 10-week data collection period, two 20-minute interviews were conducted with each of the three principal participants. At the end of the 10-week period, one final 45-minute to one-hour interview was conducted with each participant. In total, approximately five hours of interview data were collected. Interviews were conducted on site at SHL (HK) in the conference room.

Results and data analysis

SHL (HK) is a workplace where colleagues sometimes enact spontaneous humor about products, partners, their American counterparts, and local colleagues. Humor can take place both in a top–down or in a bottom–up direction. Nevertheless, humor seldom occurs in formal business meetings (especially when meeting with the American managerial team), but usually arises in informal conversations. Humor also rarely occurs when people are discussing profit, loss, or other money-related matters.

Our transcription convention is based on Holmes and Stubbe’s (2003) conventions, with one modification: English discourse is shown in small letters while Cantonese discourse is in small capitals; the modification designates the code-switching in vignette four. Italics indicate direct quotations from interviews with the participants.

Vignettes one and two are taken from the informal mentoring time period in the first month of data collection, vignette three from the final part of a task-based talk in the second month, and vignette four from the middle part of a long meeting in the last half month. All names of companies and participants are presented as pseudonyms.

Vignette one

Context: Gavin and David (Emma’s mentors) teach Emma to use a computer programme for business.

This excerpt illustrates how Emma learns and practices to appropriately deal with spontaneous, bantering humor by making fun of herself and answering the humor of her senior co-workers in jest. From lines 1 to 3, Emma tells Gavin and David that she has ticked the wrong box for an order of flowers. They pick up the mistake and promptly initiate a humorous exchange. David suggests Emma fix the problem in ‘zero point one’ minutes (lines 4–5); Gavin extends this suggestion by encouraging Emma, ‘you make it’ (line 6). Emma plays along by yelling ‘oh help’, followed by signaling that she needs more advice to finish the task (line 8). In line 19, the bantering is picked up by the two mentors again. From lines 19–21, Gavin and David ask Emma to do another practice in 30, 20, and then not more than 20 seconds. Once more, Emma plays along with the bantering by jesting that she actually needs ‘ten times’ the time they are suggesting (line 22). This makes everybody laugh (lines 22–24).

This vignette demonstrates that humor taking place within a learning activity can become instructive and reveal newcomer status. The humor happens in the context of mentoring; it can be considered as incident-based (Vinton, 1989) in that it happens within a work activity (i.e. use of the software) in which Emma is learning to engage. In such a context, humor becomes a channel to indicate both to the two mentors and the mentee what insider information Emma does not know.

While Emma participates in the two exchanges of humor, there is one subtle difference between the two responses from Gavin and David. Her ‘oh help’ (line 8) is followed by a five-second silence, but her ‘ten times of it’ is followed by laughter (lines 22–24). Her second utterance seems to receive more feedback than the first one. In interviews, Gavin and David similarly reported at first they had no idea why they had found Emma’s latter response more laughable than the former. Gavin then said, ‘it may be because Emma is more humorous (funny)’ (‘抵死’ in Cantonese slang) in the second response. Nonetheless, the first response is not necessarily interpreted as ‘unperceived humor’, because it is the integral members who create a context of humor first (see Priego-Valverde, 2009). Nor is it necessarily interpreted as ‘rejected humor’, because even interviews cannot prove that Gavin and David chose to pretend not to acknowledge the humor (see Priego-Valverde, 2009). Yet the difference suggests a boundary between the more appreciated and the less appreciated (Linstead, 1985). The difference in responses also suggests that even if there is place for humor at work newcomers’ humor does not necessarily receive fully normative feedback, because it may not fully adhere to the CofP norms.

When asked in the interview why her first response in line 7 did not make Gavin and David laugh, Emma said she did not know; it is unclear to Emma what constitutes that boundary or what generalizable rules arise from the difference. Therefore, the different responses from the integral members enable humor to mark what Emma does not know, potentially stimulating Emma’s socialization. In addition, validation of one utterance over the other is opaque to Emma in this exchange, illustrating a degree of newcomer membership or outsider status (Holmes, 2000b) as she integrates herself into the CofP.

Emma’s attempt to use humor as a response to navigate the practice of error identification and correction seems conducive to her socialization into this CofP. As the existing literature argues, appropriate negotiation of humor in this way establishes one’s rapport or social relationship with other members (e.g. Hatch and Ehrlich, 1993; Martineau, 1972). Likewise, Emma’s response (which is followed by Gavin and David’s laughter) in line 22 yields a light atmosphere of mentoring which facilitates her integration into this CofP. The humor followed by a five-second silence, on the other hand, suggests insufficient understanding of the CofP culture. For a newcomer, humor can be both beneficial to workplace socialization and indicative of a newcomer’s lack of full membership as well as cultural knowledge of the CofP. From an integral-member point of view, Gavin and David’s initiation and negotiation of humor also help their understanding of Emma as a newcomer and the importance of their situated assistant role as mentors (Kramer, 1994).

In other circumstances, Emma’s participation in humor is unavoidably restricted by her level of language proficiency. The next example demonstrates how Emma negotiates a humorous exchange when the focus of humor is in Cantonese.

Vignette two

Context: Gavin and David tell Emma how to search for potential clients from the SHL database. The two mentors make fun of the transliterated English name of a company.

Emma tries to participate in humor that she fails to understand. Gavin, David, and Emma are practicing finding factory numbers; David demonstrates the search method for the factory, Fei Cai, which is coded ‘290’ (line 3). Gavin suddenly repeats the name of this company and laughs (line 4), David then laughs as well (line 5). Then Gavin repeats the name once again in a ridiculous tone (line 6); David laughs again before they return focus to the practice for Emma (line 7). However, after a few seconds, David laughs once more (line 9), and at this point, Emma laughs as well (line 10).

Emma provides little conversational input in lines 2, 10, and 12. However, there is a lot of laughter shared by Gavin and David from lines 4 to 9; the laughter is anchored to the word ‘Fei Cai’ (lines 4 and 5). In interviews, Gavin and David said that they found this funny because the English translation of the company’s name, ‘Fei Cai’ has similar pronunciation as ‘fatty’ (肥仔) and ‘hooligan’ (飛仔) in Cantonese.

This vignette demonstrates that humor can boost uniformity among integral members and can distance their relationship from a newcomer. It also indicates the role of language competence in humor. While the two Cantonese colleagues find the name funny, the joke rests on a complex knowledge of Cantonese, which Emma does not possess. The laughter at the play on words triggers an implicit style-shifting from English to Cantonese, making the Cantonese interpretation of the factory’s English name funny. This humor strengthens the uniformity of speech community shared by Gavin and David, but extends the distance between them and Emma. It is Gavin and David’s subtle change in audience design (Bell, 1984) that excludes Emma, which renders Emma’s new membership apparent through humor. Full proof of membership (Boje, 1991) in this CofP may rest on developing a significant expertise in Cantonese, as humor in SHL (HK) tends to refer to the ethnicity of its members, Hong Kong Chinese (Marra and Holmes, 2007).

At one point, however, Emma does laugh (line 10); when asked about this in the interview, Emma said that although she ‘did not know the Cantonese word’, she tried to guess ‘what’s going on by looking at their facial expressions’. Her intentional laughter may represent a marginal participation in humor. After observing that Gavin and David are amused by something, Emma chooses to laugh, despite the obvious exclusionary linguistic nature of the humor. In choosing to laugh, Emma may be attempting to negotiate her lack of social capital (Clark, 2006), Cantonese. Language can be seen as a form of social capital (Clark, 2006) in that it has ‘overt’ as well as ‘covert’ prestige (Meyerhoff, 2006: 37). In this CofP, Cantonese has overt prestige, because it is the standard language used in everyday communication; it is also of covert prestige, because Cantonese is the prevalent dialect of Hong Kong. Conversing in Cantonese, then, ‘carries strong connotations of naturalness and straightforwardness because it is acquired naturally and used in people’s most informal and intimate styles’ (Meyerhoff, 2006: 37). If and when one uses Cantonese, one is demonstrating belonging. Thus, the ‘Fei Cai’ play of humor demonstrates and reinforces a relationship between Gavin and David based on belonging; at the same time, it creates a power differential between Emma and the two mentors who have the linguistic resources to exclude her.

Whereas humor can function towards team building (e.g. Holmes and Schnurr, 2005; Schnurr, 2009) and status equalization (Vinton, 1989), in this example humor demarcates boundaries: the new and the integral as well as the Cantonese and the non-Cantonese. Whether integral members’ practices involve newcomers or not is relevant to their socialization performance (Slaughter and Zickar, 2006). That Emma self-forces her participation anyway may also suggest how even non-understandable humor may influence her socialization.

Language use is not the only barrier to participation in humor. The following vignette shows how Emma avoids full participation in humor even when she is able and encouraged to participate.

Vignette three

Context: Gavin has just finished giving detailed instructions to Emma preparing for participating in an upcoming industrial fair. He is discussing some of her related duties. ‘Leonard’ is a merchandiser in Sunflower Holdings Limited. He works at another branch of the company.

The above example displays how Emma avoids full participation in humor that involves an unfamiliar business partner. Gavin reminds Emma of her duties in the coming industrial fair, specifically note-taking (lines 6–7), and in doing so, informs Emma that Leonard is absent-minded (lines 1–4, 9). During the instruction process, Gavin laughs repeatedly (lines 6), so he may be giving his description of Leonard half-jokingly. From lines 9 to 10, he attempts to draw Emma into the humor by saying jokingly (lines 10–11) that Leonard would shift the blame onto her if any problems arose. Despite Gavin’s obvious intent to display humor and draw Emma into the humor of the exchange, Emma merely responds with an affirmation, ‘okay’ and very brief laughter (line 12).

This vignette suggests that, owing to disparities in title, authority and experience (that together might be seen as power), Emma may be hesitant to fully participate in humor that focuses on superiors or unfamiliar colleagues. Gavin engages in bantering humor in English, and seemingly through his laughter tries to draw Emma into the humor. Albeit unnecessary, laughter is one important indicator of doing humor (Plester and Orams, 2008). Emma also demonstrates that she is listening by back-channeling repetition of what Gavin just said (line 5), but finally she merely provides a minimum response, ‘okay’, with delayed, short laughter towards the end. In the interview, she said that she understood what Gavin meant in the talk; Gavin, however, in his interview commented that Emma’s reluctance to participate in the humor of the exchange might have been because of her unfamiliarity with Leonard, who has a higher position than Emma. If what Gavin interpreted was to the point, Emma’s wariness towards engaging in the humor may be due to her awareness of difference in position and the legitimate power (French and Raven, 1959) between her and Leonard constructed in this talk.

From Gavin’s perspective, he is using humor functionally as an integral member moving a newcomer into the CofP through real-time, friendly work instructions. He seemingly uses laughter as an invitation to participation in the humor (Hay, 2001). Theoretically, humor makes such instructions more humourous and easy to accept (Tracy et al., 2006). Although the humor is not explicitly responded to by Emma, Gavin attempts to warn Emma of a potential difficulty she may encounter in working with Leonard. This kind of information, while potentially invaluable in helping a newcomer navigate her work duties and interactions with colleagues, would not appear in any manual or formal business interactions in SHL (HK). It is the informality of the setting and the use of humor that makes the communication of information from integral member to new member possible.

All in all, Gavin uses humor to get across something important/serious (Plester and Sayers, 2007) but difficult or impermissible to discuss more formally: Leonard’s absent-mindedness. Emma only provides a minimum response, ‘okay’, with delayed and short laughter (line 12). This suggests an awareness that despite the invitation to participate she fails to gain the expert and legitimate power (French and Raven, 1959) to enter into the humor along with Gavin.

In the next and final vignette, Emma shows that she is transitioning from outsider to integral member, but is not yet integral.

Vignette four

Context: There is a long meeting, extensively discussing how a problem of potential business loss can be fixed. Emma is the contact person and is expected to take follow-up actions. The current topic is how to deal with their Mainland partners. Emma urges that colleagues of SHL go to one of the factories, X-Top, to negotiate with the partners face to face.

In line 5, Emma suggests colleagues have a face-to-face meeting with the company X-Top to discuss invoice and money problems. Her colleagues respond with laughter and humor. David immediately laughs at Emma’s suggestion (line 6). Rebecca, senior in the managerial team, then jokingly asks Emma to be the representative to fly to meet X-Top (line 7), followed by imitating Emma’s ‘oh no’ and laughing (line 9). The humor is continued by other integral members (lines 16–18, 20, 26–27), for instance by Gavin, suggesting she give X-Top ‘a red packet’, which is an envelope containing money given as a gift in Chinese culture for wishing people good luck (line 20). Rebecca extends the humor by creating a fantasy scenario in which Emma arrives at X-Top (lines 11–14, 21–25) and negotiates with the partners (lines 28–32, 34–35). The gently derisive humor clearly suggests that Emma’s colleagues do not view her suggestion as feasible or appropriate.

To analyze this interaction, we have to particularly stress two points. It is notable that Emma actively participates in the humorous exchange. She starts by replying ‘oh no’ in a low voice (line 8), and then adds laughter (line 15) and stresses the ‘no’ (line 19). As the hypothetical scenario develops, she moves beyond the minimal response to contributing with a humorous response (‘not leaving first (but) complete the conversation’) to Rebecca’s extension of the imagined scenario (line 33). Also, it can be seen that the interaction originally continues in Cantonese (lines 1–4). However, after Emma gives her suggestion in English (line 5), the integral members code-switch to English, with David being the first code-switcher (line 6), followed by Rebecca’s teasing humor (lines 7, 11–14). When Rebecca responds to Gavin’s humorous exchanges (lines 23–25), she code-switches back to Cantonese for the Hong Kong colleagues, and then to English again (lines 28–32).

It is quite clear that at least Rebecca and David explicitly code-switch to English to include Emma in the humor. For unbalanced bilinguals like David and Rebecca, it is less common to code-switch from using a proficient language to using a less proficient language than the reverse (Reyes, 2004). The reality in this extract, however, is that David and Rebecca code-switch from Cantonese to English to perform humor. Such a marked code-switching usually goes intentionally (Myers-Scotton and Bolonyai, 2001). Thus, the code-switching by Rebecca here is very likely to be manipulated primarily to signal the intended addressee (Ng and He, 2004), rather than going unnoticed to smooth effective communication (Reyes, 2004). This code-switching intentionally including Emma also signals the fact that Emma is part of the CofP (Di Pietro, 1978).

At a deeper level of analysis, three important phenomena with regard to humor can be seen in this extract. First, humor can be used as a means of identifying the mistake of a newcomer and directing the newcomer to learn without the identifier conducting a direct appraisal or overtly displaying veteran power (Heiss and Carmack, 2011). When Rebecca extends the hypothetical scenario in lines 28–32, she seems to emphasize the problems if they negotiate with X-Top face to face. The humor in this exchange, in which Emma is included in the joint enterprise of problem-solving, teaches Emma by pointing out the inappropriateness of her suggestion but being mitigated by humor, which has an effect on her socialization.

Second, while humor can be used to solve problems (Holmes and Marra, 2004; Holmes and Stubbe, 2003), it may also function to mark missing workplace knowledge about risk management and, in turn, new membership. Emma’s inappropriate solution originates from her in-transition status and insufficient workplace knowledge. It is humor which reifies such transitioning status and lack of expert power in the CofP. Nevertheless, this identification and revelation of missing workplace knowledge are actually done in a circumstance that provides space for building rapport between the integral and the new through humor itself. Consequently, when Emma accepts being the butt of humor and therefore tacitly accepts the criticism of integral members, her rapport with them is reinforced. The close communication relationship originating from such humor can further lead to productive socialization (Kramer, 1994).

Third, humor (and the norms of doing humor) can be negotiated between the formal and informal as well as the new and the integral in a CofP. Although such a conversation about crisis management might have a serious nature, humor can soften the stress and tension brought about by serious discussion issues (Plester and Orams, 2008; Tracy et al., 2006) and boredom from the long meeting (Plester and Sayers, 2007). It is Emma who triggers the humor. Because of Emma’s inappropriate suggestion, Rebecca and other integral members break the norm that ‘humor is not supposed to be linked to money or other money-related issues’ because ‘money was a sensitive and important topic in business’, as Gavin stressed in the interview. The two integral members, Gavin and Rebecca, even engage themselves in the sound imitation of “cutting to killing” (line 24). The ‘un-normative’ development suggests that newcomers without sufficient workplace knowledge about humor may allow the CofP norms to be reconstructed, at least for a tentative interaction (see Heiss and Carmack, 2011).

Last but not least, this scene is also in line with findings that new and unexpected ideas may provoke humor (Adelsward and Oberg, 1998; Ullian, 1976), and that the person who raises such new information may in fact become the object of the humor (Ullian, 1976). As new members are usually not included in bantering humor during their entry (Plester and Sayers, 2007), Emma’s acceptance of herself and her ideas as objects of humor in this vignette imply that she is actually socializing into the SHL (HK).

Discussion and conclusion

Humor embedded in task-based talk plays a multi-functional role in workplace socialization. It is one means for a person to transition from being a newcomer to being an integral member in the workplace. The four vignettes portrayed Emma as an active but careful non-local newcomer who was integrating into SHL (HK) through participation in humor. Each of the vignettes contained interactions which meet Holmes’s (2000b) definition of humor. However, they were further characterized by significant variations in the newcomer’s identity, perception, intent, and intended outcomes of humor use.

Emma rarely initiated humor, and she acknowledged this in the interview as well. While such conservative participation indicates an awareness of membership of a newcomer transitioning inward, it is worth exploring this phenomenon deeper. In vignette one, Emma responded to the integral members’ humor through being humorous herself; in vignette two, she responded to the humor that she did not understand through laughter; in vignette three, she responded to the humor that she understood through delayed laughter to avoid full participation; in vignette four, she responded to the humor through humorously opening herself to be the butt of it. On one hand, at least in our representative data selected, Emma did not initiate humor, at the same time she did not completely exclude herself from humor. Not initiating humor could be due to her awareness of being new and her unfamiliarity with the new workplace; not totally excluding herself from humor could be due to the need for socialization through situated practice (Wenger, 1998). On the other hand, she usually responded to others’ humor, and her degree of participation depended on relations with the initiators (vignette one), relations with the humor object (vignette three), understanding of content (vignette four), and language of the humor play (vignette two). This is in line with the idea in Wenger et al. (2002) that members within a CofP participate differently according to their membership. We argue that because of the uncertainty (e.g. Cooper-Thomas and Anderson, 2006), loose relations with other colleagues (e.g. Chao et al., 1994), and insufficient workplace information (e.g. Van Maanen and Schein, 1979) during socialization, a newcomer can partly participate in humor by responding differently in different contexts, and partly avoid full participation in humor by not initiating it.

Integrated members’ (like Gavin and David’s) participation in humor can be seen as an indicator to the newcomer of appropriate or inappropriate performance. As a CofP, SHL (HK) had largely predefined norms and well-defined participation patterns through shared repertoire (Wenger, 1998). Such cultural understanding shared by existing members constituted a resource of expert power to evaluate if Emma’s participation was appropriate or normative. Humor then becomes an indicator and regulating mechanism to express norms and participation patterns that were essential to transition into a CofP like SHL (HK). Beyond judgment, as Plester and Orams (2008) pinpoints, humor initiators who know and do humor in relation to workplace knowledge play the role of inviting newcomers to participate and passing such humor norms and workplace information to them. Better still, humor helps integral members themselves strengthen their CofP norms (Tracy et al., 2006).

As most workplaces are sustained by existing members, it is important to see workplace CofPs as bi-symmetrical, which means that self- and situated-learning takes place but passing of knowledge or transmission of practice also exists. Humor hence may be seen as a mechanism with two main purposes in workplace socialization. It is a regulating mechanism for integral members of a CofP to acknowledge their partial acceptance of a newcomer, and mold newcomers into normative functions and positions in the workplace. As vignette three suggested, humor allows for the transmission of information which could be interpersonally sensitive and unapproachable without humor. On the other hand, humor is a coping mechanism for newcomers to integrate into the CofP. Further, as vignette four demonstrated, the transition of someone from outsider to integral member may also have an effect on established norms of the CofP. Humor allows for this to happen without such a (potential) change causing significant disruption. In line with Heiss and Carmack (2011), we suggest that newcomers’ practices of humor are indicators of their identity, and that existing members can use humor to determine if a newcomer is accepted as ‘one of them’. We also argue that humor can be seen as a tactic in workplace socialization employed by all parties.

This discourse analytical study of linguistics, albeit descriptive in nature, also provides a number of insights about humor and mentoring. One important point is that humor provides a shared repertoire for CofP members to make sense of each other (Wenger, 1998), so developing the humor skills of new immigrant colleagues (like Emma), whose home languages are not the common language used in the CofP (Marra and Holmes, 2007), is significant. Some research found that mentoring may not include many social activities like social talk and phatic talk (Chiles, 2007), but our study found that transactional knowledge can be passed with humor (vignette one). This suggests the potential role of humor that can provide both career and psychosocial support in effective informal mentoring (Ehrich and Hansford, 1999). In workplace socialization, more experienced mentors constructing higher legitimate power and expert power in their talk are responsible for imparting knowledge and providing guidance to less experienced newcomers (Townley, 1994), so mentoring activities are usually asymmetrical, which may lead to the prevalence of bantering humor (vignette four) or exclusive humor (vignette two). Yet sometimes such kinds of humor can be hurtful, offensive (Plester and Sayers, 2007), and create work tension if inappropriately performed (Plester and Orams, 2008). In addition, as newcomers usually lack knowledge and belonging of their new workplaces, humor based on too many localized contexts or particular objects (vignette three) might result in difficulties in participation for newcomers.

To sum up, our study underscores how humor takes place between one newcomer and her colleagues who are integral members in the CofP. The findings are especially significant for workplaces in Chinese and other Asian cultures where business talk is often integrated into social settings (Hofstede, 1991). Our findings also suggest that it will be worthwhile for linguists to consider exploring context-sensitive and interactive frameworks (Holmes and Stubbe, 2003) to explain the relations between language and workplace socialization. Certainly, more research is needed to give insight into the linguistic dimensions of challenges faced by newcomers transitioning into new workplace cultures.