Cheikhna Amar looks at laughter in the TGG role-play recordings
Part of the data we collected from the TGG facilities includes video recordings from a group of university students who spent one day there. During this time, they participated in many activities, including a role-play scenario featuring an onboard airplane experience. In this task they had to interact with an agent playing the role of a flight attendant, as can be seen in the screenshot below.
In this squib, I will focus on how these university students interact with the flight attendant in this data. Prior to starting the role-play, the participants were given a mission card. They have to read it and then interact with the flight attendant later based on what they have on their mission card. I am particularly interested in how the participants (both the students and the flight attendant) share laughter to orient to certain off-script scenarios as unplanned. For example, once the participants have covered the content outlined on the mission card, the flight attendant often introduces a piece of new information to elicit more talk from the students. At these moments, the participants orient to this information as unplanned or off-script by sharing laughter.
The following excerpt shows this phenomenon.
Excerpt 1. Aurora (the role play)
01 PRA thank you for waiting ma’am, (.) how can I help you
02 (0.4)
03 HAN a:: i can change (1.0) i want to change
04 (0.3) my seats to:: (.) see the: northern bro-
05 northern lights
06 (0.3)
07 PRA a:h i see:
08 (0.4)
09 HAN (because) i heard this plane can be see(n)
10 the northern lights
11 PRA >that’s righ- that’s right< it’s very beautiful.
12 em although today we are la:te so i’m not sure
13 (0.2)
14 HAN o:h
15 PRA whether you will be able to [see or not]
16 HAN [yea yeah ]
17 (0.3)
18 PRA and e- actually the flight is full so i can’t
19 really take a seat
20 HAN yeah
21 PRA ↑but (.) if: (.) we can see the (r)aurora in this
22 flight? (0.2) a: i can wake you up and
23 take you to the emergency exit(ing) seat. and you
24 can see it from there.
25 HAN ah o[kay (thank you) ]
26 PRA [okay ºi can help you with that=º]
27 .hh ↑is it okay, <to wake you up>
28 (.)
29 PRA in the $middle of the nighth$
30 HAN eh- that’s no pro[blem hehe]hehe
31 PRA [hehehehe ]
32 PRA ($that’s) uh- ↑the hours are weird$.
33 HAN y(h)ah y(h)eh
34 PRA ºokay alrightº
35 (0.1)
36 PRA anything else ºi can help you withº
37 HAN nos- nothing
38 PRA okay thank you
From lines 1 to 26, the participants engage in an interaction based on the student's mission. The mission is for the student, Hanaka, to ask if she can change her seat to be able to see the northern lights. Lines 25 and 26 conclude the interaction as both parties close the sequence with an agreement on the solution that Praja, the flight attendant, provided. However, Praja starts a new sequence in line 27, asking Hanaka if it is okay to wake her up in the middle of the night. Hanaka and Praja share laughter to orient to this off-script scenario.
Many of the other cases which I have transcribed include similar phenomena. When the participants finish talking about what is on their mission card, they orient to the off-script scenarios by laughing.
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