Rape jokes are a contentious topic on the internet; arguments over whether “rape is funny” unfold in a diverse range of forums, but they generally take the same predictable form. In this article, I analyze the text of a variety of disputes on American websites over the funniness of rape jokes. I show not only that both sides of these arguments are premised on the same underlying assumptions about the ways that humor and language function, but more importantly that these shared assumptions make it possible for rape humor (and humor more generally) to carry social and political valence—and that in order to understand the significance of the debate over rape jokes, we need to understand the identity work that people are doing when they tell rape jokes, laugh at them, or frown and shake their heads. (Humor, language ideologies, rape, joking)*

The language of a speech community can only act as an identity marker for all of its speakers if linguistic norms are widely shared and if a minimal number of language varieties are spoken. This article examines briefly how a linguistic norm came to serve the whole of Iceland and how a situation of relative linguistic homogeneity was maintained for centuries. Sociolinguistic theory tells us that the speech community that we can reconstruct for early Iceland should lead to the establishment and maintenance of local norms. However, Iceland, arguably monodialectal, was certainly characterized by long-term linguistic homogeneity and remained a society where nucleated settlements barely formed over a thousand-year period. Scholars have argued that a mixture of dialects leveled shortly after the settlement of Iceland in the ninth century (Settlement). Studies show that dialect leveling requires dialect mixing, the convergence of people on one place, and sustained linguistic contact between the speakers. The settlement pattern of Iceland is indicative of population divergence (not convergence) and there is limited evidence of sustained contact. It is therefore proposed that the dialect leveling might be linked instead with significant population movements and social upheaval in mainland Scandinavia in the immediate pre-Viking period. The variety of Norse that was taken westward across the Atlantic might itself already have been the result of several earlier stages of mixing and koineization. It is only by combining linguistic, historical, and archaeological knowledge that this problem of how one linguistic norm came to serve the whole of Iceland can be understood.

Traditional perceptions that view leadership as a top-down process are increasingly challenged by so-called critical perspectives that acknowledge that leadership may involve several people. This article explores a particular type of these other leadership constellations, namely co-leadership where members share several leadership responsibilities.

Drawing on more than twenty hours of authentic discourse data recorded in two workplaces in Hong Kong, we employ the analytical concepts of face and identity to identify and describe some of the complex processes through which co-leadership is enacted. Our particular focus is situations in which members of the co-leadership team disagree with each other.

Our findings indicate that co-leadership is a dynamic process in which both members position themselves and each other as leader and co-leader at different moments throughout an interaction. This dynamic nature can be captured particularly well by exploring how face-work and identity construction are accomplished in interlocutors' everyday workplace talk. (Co-leadership, identity, face, workplace discourse, Hong Kong)*

This study provides a qualitative examination of African American Language (AAL) in use and explores the interaction between phonological, syntactic, and rhetorical features of AAL and situational factors related to event structuring, speaker goals, and audience composition. Data for this research is derived from the speech of four prominent African Americans who spoke during the 2008 State of the Black Union. Analysis of their speech suggests that switches to black preaching style help speakers to redefine their relationship with audience members. Overall, shifts in style correspond to shifts in interactional framework, suggesting that black preaching style allows the speakers in this study to temporarily cloak themselves with the status and respect associated with black preachers, providing a favorable context for the reception of their message while allowing for the display of their ethnic affiliation with the black community. (African American Language, style, audience design, rights and obligations, black preaching)*