Exploring the Construction of Identities in Written Humorous Narratives by L2 Learners of Greek

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore how adult learners of Greek as a second language construct their identities through humorous written narratives. Analyzing 135 written humorous narratives with Bamberg’s (1997) narrative positioning model and the knowledge resources of script opposition and target from the General Theory of Verbal Humor (Attardo 1994, 2001), we detect two main categories: (a) narratives of legitimizing identities and (b) narratives of resistance identities. Here we discuss one narrative of each category in which narrators position themselves towards aspects of the Greek sociolinguistic context. Humor emerges as a basic tool for identity construction and stance expression, as narrators either align themselves with dominant values of the L2 context or disassociate themselves from it.