Abstract
This paper demonstrates how multilingual adolescents initiate language-directed teasing in family interaction and thus contribute to reinforcing or challenging social hierarchies and norms in the family. It investigates the case of a multilingual family living in Northern Norway (two parents and five children ranging from 3 to 18 years old). To a varying extent, and with varying degrees of competence, all family members use three languages in their daily lives: English, Spanish, and Norwegian. The data consists of self-recorded material of family interactions (9 h; 549 min) that were collected over the course of one year. A close interactional analysis shows how the siblings target linguistic production in teasing attacks, and use language-directed teasing as an interactional resource to position themselves and their family members. Drawing on Billig's (2005) theory of disciplinary humor, the article argues that playful corrections of perceived norm transgressions may be understood as situated (re)production and negotiation of social and linguistic norms, through which the young family members participate in the construction of the family as a community of practice.
Highlights
By focusing on the interpersonal functions of teasing occasioned by prior linguistic transgressions, this article investigates how a multilingual family is constructed as a community of practice through teasing among siblings
While many of these functions are present in this material, this paper documents how teasing can be viewed as a peek into the negotiation of social and linguistic norms of a multilingual family
A close analysis of instances of teasing directed at linguistic form shows that the teasing attacks often start off as corrections, but turn into teasing attacks
Summary
By focusing on the interpersonal functions of teasing occasioned by prior linguistic transgressions (cf. Haugh, 2017), this article investigates how a multilingual family is constructed as a community of practice through teasing among siblings. The analyses show how the young family members exploit the whole range of the family's repertoire of linguistic resources to (playfully) engage in linguistic sanctioning, and to create links between language forms and social attributes. Basing on Billig's (2005) theories of humor and social order, the article demonstrates that teasing offers a glimpse into how linguistic resources and competences are negotiated in a multilingual family. Teasing is used by the children as an interactional resource in (re)producing, negotiating and subverting socialroles, hierarchies, ideologies and norms, and locally relevant identitycategories within the family
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