Professionals transitioning into a workplace face the challenge of socializing into their new working communities. One important factor in this process is humor (Plester and Sayers, 2007). We present a case study of how a newcomer transitioning towards integral status interacts with the use of humor in her new workplace. Using the Communities of Practice framework (Wenger, 1998), we examine workplace discourse collected from a new recruit, Emma, and her colleagues in a Hong Kong firm. The analysis portrays a picture of how humor is a critical element as Emma negotiates relationships with other colleagues and works towards her assigned tasks. Findings suggest that humor can be an indicator to newcomers of appropriate or inappropriate behavior. Humor can be used for newcomers’ integration into the workplace; humor can be used by integral members to mold newcomers into the normative ways of doing things. We argue that humor may be used as a regulating and coping mechanism in workplace socialization.

People transitioning into a workplace usually face the challenge of socializing into their working communities. While small talk is one domain in the process, small talk itself is influenced by ethnicity of participants and norms of the workplace. We present a case study of how a newcomer transitioning toward integral status interacts with small talk in her new workplace. From a linguistic perspective, we examine the discourse of small talk collected from a new expatriate from Philippines, Anna, and her new colleagues in a Hong Kong firm. The analysis illustrates how their small talk is implicitly associated with Filipino core values, Hong Kong social customs, and the local organizational culture. Owing to discrepancies and similarities, small talk can be both a hurdle and an instrument during Anna's socialization. The findings suggest small talk can be an indicator of in/appropriate behavior and un/successful socialization. It can be used for newcomers' development of rapport; it can be used by integral members to mold newcomers into the workplace. Nonetheless, since small talk is not a universal behavior, any attempts can be counterproductive due to various cultural matters. We argue that small talk can be seen as a double-edged sword of sociocultural reality in workplace socialization.

Although gender is an important issue in many Asian countries where women often face serious discriminatory practices, this topic is notoriously under-researched from a socio-linguistic perspective. We aim to address this issue by conducting an in-depth case study of leadership and gender in Hong Kong. Drawing on more than 30 hours of authentic workplace discourse and a sample of representative emails, we explore how a successful female leader does leadership and how she enacts her gender identity in ways that reflect and respond to the overall masculine culture of her workplace and the socio-cultural context of Hong Kong. Our findings illustrate that in addition to considering the socio-cultural context, workplace culture and the norms of communities of practice, the specific interactional context is also of crucial importance for an understanding of how leadership and gender are performed. We conclude that in contrast to general perceptions, gender is indeed an issue in the professional domain in Hong Kong, and is reflected not only in leadership discourse but also in the gendered and often discriminatory practices that are still prevalent in many workplaces.