Dialogical humour in evening service encounters in the hospitality industry in Seville, Spain

Abstract

Given that humour greatly impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty, this paper explores thedialogical forms of humour occurring in evening service encounters. It reports on a studyfocusing on interactions between baristas and customers. The latter belong to two group:university students in their late teens and twenties, and regulars over forty years old. Theestablishments selected for the study are small cafes and small tapas bars in Seville. Thestudy is based on unobtrusive observation and field notes, as the humour authenticitydepends on naturalness and spontaneity. Although the interlocutors engaged in theencounters made use of dialogical forms of humour in order to achieve similar interactionalgoals, the results of the study reveal variation in terms of the quantity and categories ofcomical tokens. A series of individual and external factors explain this variation.