Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Language play in conversation -- 2. Playing with turns, playing with action? A social-interactionist perspective -- 3. The shape of tweets to come: Automating language play in social networks -- 4. "This system's so slow": Negotiating sequences of laughter and laughables in call-center interaction -- 5. Laughter as a "serious business": Clients' laughter in prenatal screening for Down's syndrome -- 6. Jocular language play, social action and (dis)affiliation in conversational interaction -- 7. "Everything he says to me it's like he stabs me in the face": Frontstage and backstage reactions to teasing -- 8. Cities, conviviality and double-edged language play -- 9. Building rapport and a sense of communal identity through play in a second language classroom -- 10. The first English (EFL) lesson: Initial settings or the emergence of a playful classroom culture -- 11. The emergence of creativity in L2 English: A usage-based case-study -- 12. Teaching language learners how to understand sarcasm in L2 English -- 13. Anti-language: Linguistic innovation, identity construction, and group affiliation among emerging speech communities -- 14. Celebrations of a satirical song: Ideologies of anti-racism in the media -- Index