VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ HỢI HUMOR IN EVERYDAY TALKS: A STUDY OF VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE LEARNER’S COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN INTERCULTURAL SETTINGS HÀI HƯỚC TRONG HỘI THOẠI HÀNG NGÀY: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NĂNG LỰC GIAO TIẾP CỦA HỌC SINH VIỆT NAM TRONG BỐI CẢNH GIAO TIẾP LIÊN VĂN HÓA M. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 HANOI - 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ HỢI HUMOR IN EVERYDAY TALKS: A STUDY OF VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE LEARNER’S COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN INTERCULTURAL SETTINGS HÀI HƯỚC TRONG HỘI THOẠI HÀNG NGÀY: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NĂNG LỰC GIAO TIẾP CỦA HỌC SINH VIỆT NAM TRONG BỐI CẢNH GIAO TIẾP LIÊN VĂN HÓA M. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: Dr. Hoàng Thị Hạnh HANOI - 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Statement of Ownership I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge, it contained no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which has been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma of a university or other institutions of higher learning.
Name: Vũ Thị Hợi Date : ………………………………. i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Acknowledgements At the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Hoàng Thị Hạnh (my supervisor) of University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University for her constant and valuable guidance, encouragement and support. Particularly, her critical comments on every single piece of work of the thesis have contributed greatly to my learning, and to the development of my research skills.
Without her supervision, I would not have been able to complete this thesis. However, shortcomings and errors, if any, in the thesis are my own. I would like to give my thanks to the students and volunteers who participated in my studies though their name cannot be identified (for confidentiality). This thesis could not have been completed without their ideas, information and contribution.
Thanks to their participation, patience and painstaking efforts, this thesis has been done. My thanks also go to Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, where I have studied for two years, for providing me with valuable learning condition. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, my sisters, and my friends for their encouragements on my life-long learning, for their help on the completion of this thesis. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Abstract Conversational humor in language teaching and learning has risen in prominence since 1990s.
Recently, there has been much interest in and debate concerning conversational humor and how it links to participants‟ communicative competence in intercultural situations. However, there has been little empirical study into how humor is used and perceived by its participants, especially when all of them are L2 speakers of English. This research reports on a qualitative study investigating humor used by five L2 speakers of English in their everyday talks. Although the limited number of instances reported means that further research is needed to convincingly make generalizations, it is suggested that humor cannot be perceived as stative and presumptive but as adaptive and emergent resources which are negotiated and context-dependent.
Therefore, conversational humor needs to move beyond the traditionally conceived stative and context-independent as innate traits, typical connecting tools to incorporate an awareness of cultural and sociolinguistic differences in using humor and the skills needed to successfully negotiate the meaning of humor in intercultural settings. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Table of Contents Statement of Ownership. iii Table of Contents .iv List of Transcript Conventions.vi Notes on Quotations from the Stimulated Recall Interviews. vii List of Abbreviations.
viii List of Tables.ix List of Figures. Statement of problem and rationale. Statement of problem. Purpose and significance of the study.
Purpose of the study. Significance of the study. Structure of the thesis .6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Humor in intercultural communication.
Humor competence as a part of sociolinguistic competence .17 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Data collection methods. Stimulated recall interviews .29 CHAPTER 4: HUMOR IN EVERYDAY INTERCULTURAL TALKS. Humor as intention and the mismatch with humor comprehension.
Humor and jokes on linguistic features. Humor as the mark of the in-group .52 CHAPTER 5: THE INTERACTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF HUMOR. The interactive construction of humor. Limitations and further research.
I v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of Transcript Conventions. Indicate intonation that is a falling or final, not necessary at the end of the sentence. ? Indicate the rising tone, not necessary a question. , Indicate “continuing” intonation, not necessarily a clause boundary.
:: Indicate the prolongation or stretching of the sound just preceding them. The more colons, the longer the stretching. (?) Inaudible ((laughs)) Nonlinguistic features of the transcription or transcriber‟s description of the event.8) Numbers in the parentheses indicate silence, represented in tenths of a second, what is given here in the left margin indicates 0.8 seconds of silence. (…) Indicate a section of dialogue that is not transcribed [ ] Overlapping or interrupted speech /n/ Phonemic transcription of sounds or words = The utterance on one line continues without a pause where the next = picks it up.
Tell Strong emphasis. TELL Especially loud voice - Indicate a cut-off or self-interruption. hhh Indicate hearable aspiration or represent breathing, laughter, etc. The more h‟s, the more aspiration.
Indicate specific parts of an extract discussed in the text. vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Notes on Quotations from the Stimulated Recall Interviews (SRIs) The Stimulated Recall Interview quotes were spoken in Vietnamese by two Vietnamese participants with some code switching. Quotations from these data were translated into idiomatic English by the researcher, with no attempt to reproduce grammatical or lexical errors. The following system was devised to reference quotations from the participant observation extracts or the main task interactions: TSRI1–06 ext.5–00:16:35 T: Thành Participant pseudonym SRI: Quotes taken from stimulated recall interview 1: The order number of the interview 06: The participant reflects on the corresponding line in the main task interaction ext.5: The number of the extract in the main task interaction 00:16:35: The beginning time of the quote in the interview.4–00:38:15 J: Jonas Participant pseudonym SRI: Quotes taken from stimulated recall interview 1: The order number of the interview 07: The participant reflects on the corresponding line in the main task interaction ext.4: The number of the extract in the main task interaction 00:38:15: The beginning time of the quote in the interview.
vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of Abbreviations ARs Audio recordings Ext. Extract L2 Second language (for example: L2 speakers, L2 learners) NNSs Non-native Speakers NSs Native Speakers SRIs Stimulated recall interviews VRs Video recordings viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of Tables Table 3.1: Demographic Information about the Participants .2: Information about Participant Observations .3: Video and Audio Recordings (VRs /ARs) .4: Information about Stimulated Recall Interviews .24 ix TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of Figures Figure 2.1: Four-level Model of Humor Appreciation (Hay, 2001) .3: Relationship between Humor Competence and Sociolinguistic Competence .1: Procedure of Using Stimulated Recall Interviews (SRIs) .2: Information about data collection and analysis procedure .3: A streamlined codes-to-theory model for qualitative inquiry (Saldana, 2009).31 x TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART 1: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction This thesis examines how humor is used in daily intercultural talks between Vietnamese students and German volunteers and how they perceive the humor used by their conversation partners. This first chapter introduces the research topic, and the rationale of the present study in sections 1.2 describes the purpose and significance of the study.
The last section outlines the structure for the research presentation. Statement of problem and rationale 1. Statement of problem The purpose of teaching English is to develop learner‟s communicative competence (Hymes, 1972, 1974; Canale & Swain, 1980, 1983; Damen, 1987; Dodd, 1988; Park, 1994; Schinitzer, 1995; Ting-Toomey, 1999; Schmitz, 2002; Lantolf, 2000, 2006; Fantini, 2006; Byram, 1997, 2000; Hoa, 2007; Moosmüller & Schönhuth, 2009; Deardorff, 2009; Cetinavci, 2012). Canale and Swain (1980, 1983) divide communicative competence into four parts: (1) linguistic competence or the ability to use the linguistic code, grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary correctly; (2) discourse competence which is the ability to maintain cohesion between segments of discourse; (3) strategic competence which is the leamer's ability to repair communication breakdown and work around gaps in his or her knowledge of the target language, and finally (4) sociolinguistic competence or learners‟ ability to use language appropriately in various social contexts (Byram, 1997).
To assess the communicative competences when using English as an international language, each competence cannot be viewed separately from its context (Lantolf, 2000, 2006; Fantini, 2009; Byram, 1997, 2000; Hoa, 2007; Moosmüller & Schönhuth, 2009; Deardorff, 2009; Cetinavci, 2012). This research, regarding sociolinguistic competence, studies humor competence of Vietnamese high school students who are fluent in linguistic competence when they come to 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com interact with German students using English as an international language. These Vietnamese students can speak English with fluency in everyday talks. However, when they use English as an international language to communicate with German students, it is noticeable that there are still observable peculiar moments.
Rationale Having a sense of humor helps us a lot in socializing. Trachtenberg (1979) indicates that humor is indispensable in everyday socialization such as greeting someone, introducing oneself, leaving a social meeting. Humor helps bring people closer to each other (Askidson, 2005; Mak, 2008; Bell, 2006; Aboudan, 2009); clear away tension atmosphere and make it enjoyable and meaningful (Attardo, 1994; Alison, 1998; Bell, 2007a; Lundquist, 2009; Lynch, 2002; Crăciun, 2014); and dispel the feeling of shyness and unconfidence (Bell, 2007a). Humor within the language teaching can reduce affective barriers to language acquisition; stimulate behaviors that are essential to success within a communicative context and create conducive learning environment (Masten, 1986; Kang & Gianato, 1999; Sullivan, 2000; Askidson, 2005; Bell, 2005; Aboudan, 2009; Hoang, 2014).
Currently, there is a noticeable shift in humor research and theory from a universal communication view point in which humor can be recognized by laughter, smiling or linguistic cues such as “I‟m teasing you”, “I‟m joking”, or “it was so funny” (Chiaro, 1992; Attardo, 1994; Carrell, 1997; Hay, 2001; Wiseman, 2002; Andrew, 2010) to a personal and situated perspective in which humor is constructed, perceived and negotiated in intercultural interaction (Lee, 1994; Lynch, 2002; Bell, 2006, 2007a, 2007b; Wiseman, 2002; Wiseman & Gonzalez, 2005; Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Mak, 2008; Lundquist, 2009). This research is done, taking the latter view point of humor, seeing humor as a part of sociolinguistic competence. However, it is different from the previous studies on interactional humor (Lee, 1994; Bell, 2006, 2007a, 2007b; Mak, 2008; Lundquist, 2009) in that the participants in my research are all L2 speakers of English. Questions remain as to the conditions under which L2 speakers may be more or less receptive to humor 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com created by the other L2 users and how they perceive and respond to such humor.
My research is an attempt to answer these questions. Purpose and significance of the study 1. Purpose of the study It is expected that this research will shed some light on conversational humor. According to Attardo (1994) and Norrick (2009), conversational humor focuses on how humor works closely with its context.
They emphasize that if humor is just found and analyzed in books or collections of jokes, its text does not depend on contextual factors. Thus, it obviously bears little relationship to the ongoing human interactions.