VNU UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HẢI HÀ EXAMINING LINGUISTIC AMBIGUITY AS A SOURCE OF CONSTRUCTING FUNNINESS IN ENGLISH VERBAL JOKES (KHẢO SÁT HIỆN TƯỢNG MƠ HỒ NGÔN NGỮ VỚI VAI TRÒ LÀ MỘT NGUỒN TẠO NÊN TÍNH HÀI HƯỚC CỦA CÁC CÂU CHUYỆN TẾU TIẾNG ANH) M. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 HANOI- 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VNU UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HẢI HÀ EXAMINING LINGUISTIC AMBIGUITY AS A SOURCE OF CONSTRUCTING FUNNINESS IN ENGLISH VERBAL JOKES (KHẢO SÁT HIỆN TƯỢNG MƠ HỒ NGÔN NGỮ VỚI VAI TRÒ LÀ MỘT NGUỒN TẠO NÊN TÍNH HÀI HƯỚC CỦA CÁC CÂU CHUYỆN TẾU TIẾNG ANH) M. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Assoc. Võ Đại Quang HAnOi- 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS ii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Statement of problems and rationale 1 1. Objectives of the study 3 1. Scope of the study 4 1. Significance of the study 5 1.
Structure of the thesis 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Types of linguistic ambiguity in English 9 2. English verbal jokes 11 2. The notion of Humor 11 2.
What counts as “verbal jokes”? 12 2. Definitions of verbal jokes 12 2. Types of verbal jokes 14 2. Verbal jokes versus other types of humor 14 2.
What makes a joke a joke? 18 2. The role of linguistic ambiguity in verbal jokes 18 2. Factors towards appreciating verbal jokes’ 19 funniness 2. Social functions of verbal jokes 20 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Reviewing studies on the practice of linguistic ambiguity in 21 humor and other registers CHAPTER 3: DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS 3. Analytical framework of linguistic ambiguity in 23 English 3. Selection of data 26 3. Types of linguistic ambiguity used as a source of constructing 27 funniness in English verbal jokes 3.
Polysemy and homonymy 28 3. Obscure deictic references 36 3. Specific and general word meaning 38 3. Word class shift 39 3.
Violating the maxim of Quantity 46 3. Violating the maxim of Quality 48 3. Violating the maxim of Manner 48 3. Violating the maxim of Relation 49 3.
Other types of ambiguity 50 3. Idiom and complex language 52 3. Classification of English verbal jokes based on types of 53 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ambiguity involved 3. Types of English verbal jokes based on linguistic 53 ambiguity 3.
Frequency level of English verbal jokes based on 53 linguistic ambiguity CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 4. Concluding remarks on each of the set forth objectives 56 4. Limitations of the study 63 4. Suggestions for further studies 64 REFERENCES 66 APPENDICES Appendix 1 List of jokes chosen for the paper I Appendix 2 Model of Grice’s cooperative principles VIII LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT English language teaching ST Source language TL Target language LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS FIGURES PAGE Figure 1: Jakobson’s general model of communication 21 Figure 2: Types of ambiguity (adapted from Walton 1996) 25 Figure 3: Analytical framework of linguistic ambiguity in English 26 Figure 4: Types of linguistic ambiguity exploited in English verbal jokes 58 CHARTS Chart 1: Frequency level of five types of English verbal jokes 54 based on linguistic ambiguity LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -1- CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Statement of problems and rationale It is a linguistic convention that language is used not only to convey information among participants but also to create rapport and personal attitudes of each participant in the communicative event, which is called the transactional and interactional functions of language. In other words, language, in both spoken and written forms, is message-oriented and serves a specific intended function so as to “pass on information” and “maintain social relationships” (Nguyen Hoa, 2004:16). Verbal humor is such a kind of language function aiming at the cooperation between Speaker (teller) and Hearer to see its funniness. The issue of verbal humor, along with its most common representative, verbal jokes, has been the focus of various studies in philosophical, psychological, social logical and cognitive linguistics fields.
Unlike non-verbal humor, which is related to extralinguistic features, verbal humor is perceived as that primarily constructed by means of language in the form of a single-joke-carrying text (Raskin, 1985). As a product of language, verbal humor is, undoubtedly, an exclusively human domain that no other creatures or entities can possess. In his work on the theory of linguistic verbal jokes in English, Lew (1996) asserts the fact that contrary to its abundant resources, humor in general is not equally available to all humans in the way that it requires “sense of humor” and language competence to appreciate its funniness, which apparently not everyone can possess, especially when the hearers of the humor can acquire modestly the language of the humor. Below is a very notable verbal joke: (1) In the diner of a southbound train, a honeymoon couple notices two nuns at another table.
When neither could identify the religious habit, the husband volunteered to settle the question. “Pardon me, Sisters,” he said, pausing politely before the nuns‟ table, “but would you mind telling me your Order?” One of the nuns smiled at him. “Not at all,” she said cheerfully. “Lam chops- and they‟re delicious!” (Hoke, 1965:194) LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -2- It is obvious that the funniness of the joke can only be revealed when two different text- readings are accessed, one by the husband to refer to the religious rank of the nuns; and the other by the two nuns to respond to the enquiry about their food selection.
Clearly, it has nothing to do with the lack of context in this piece of humor but it is more of the problems of one word denoting two possible referents or antecedents in the context. To be more specific, it is the noun “order” with its double meanings of “a group of people, especially monks or nuns, living under religious rules” and “a request for food and drinks in a hotel, restaurant, etc.” that causes the contradiction between the two responses, thus, creates the humor or funniness of the joke. Let us now look at another example of verbal joke and examine what its humor is: (2) A man eating a kebab goes up to a lady who has a yapping Chihuahua at her heels. “Can I throw your dog a bit?” he asked politely.
“Certainly,” came the reply. So he scooped the dog up and flung it a hundred yards. (Lew, 1996:33) Like in (1), the original text can be interpreted in two different ways, either “your dog” is the indirect object and “a bit” is the direct object of the ditransitive verb “throw”, which can be rephrased as: (2a) “Can I throw a piece of kebab to your dog?” or “your dog” is the direct object and “a bit” is the adverb of the monotransitive verb “throw”, which also means: (2b) “Can I pick up your dog and fling it away a bit?” As the story proceeds, it is easy to conclude that one and the same question of the man is understood as (2a) by the lady and meant as (2b) by the man himself, and the final reaction, which is unexpected, has created the funniness herein. The two examples above have partially revealed one of the most favorite mechanisms of inventing a verbal joke, which lies in the different possible interpretations attached to one and the same word or phrase, i.
linguistic ambiguity- known as the major humorous stimulus (Bucaria, 2004). LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -3- The issue of ambiguity in English texts, in fact, has always been attracting scholars and linguists worldwide; nevertheless; compared to a good number of papers on ambiguity in other disciplines such as headlines and advertisements (Kess and Hoppe, 1981; Leno, 1990 and 1992; Oaks, 1994; Bucaria, 2004; Hoenisch, 2004; among many others), studies on ambiguity in the field of humor are much less numerous, which may be resulted from the fact that in previous studies, much attention has been devoted to analyzing the mechanism that generates the ambiguity or the one that helps to resolve the ambiguity. This, to a large extent, can contribute to ruining the ambiguous and funny features of the humorous texts. As warned by W.
Auden, a famous English poet, the study of the humor can threaten the humor to dead. Stimulated by this recognition as well as personal interests, the researcher has conducted the paper entitled “Examining linguistic ambiguity as a source of constructing funniness in English verbal jokes”, with the view to exploring English verbal jokes in a deeper sense, without damaging the humor nature of the jokes. In short, the paper places a strong emphasis on analyzing how one particular type of linguistic ambiguity becomes the humorous stimulus of various English joke-carrying texts, then, makes up one type of linguistically ambiguous English verbal jokes. The findings of the paper, hopefully, can bring about a closer look into the being discussed matter together with a holistic picture of how a joke is ambiguously humorous.
Furthermore, with its merits and drawbacks, the study is expected to contribute a stronger voice into the modest number of studies on the same field and be a helpful and sufficient reference for future studies. Objectives of the study As mentioned clearly earlier, the current paper aims at tackling the existing shortcomings of previous studies on the application of linguistic ambiguity in verbal jokes. To be more specific, through extracting and linguistically analyzing 50 verbal-joke texts collected for the paper in detail, some rules that govern humorous stimuli of linguistic ambiguity-based English verbal jokes are expected to be captured, concurrently, some categories and subcategories of English verbal jokes involving linguistic ambiguity can LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com -4- also be proposed. Additionally, the results of the paper can help to reveal an overall trend about the frequency of each type of ambiguity-based English verbal jokes.
In the final place, from the analysis of the chosen joke texts, some implications for teaching and learning the English language and for proper translation of those texts into Vietnamese can be drawn. These objectives, shortly speaking, can be elaborated into the following research questions: 1. What types of linguistic ambiguity can be used as a source of constructing funniness in English verbal jokes? 2. In what way can English verbal jokes be categorized in accordance with the types of linguistic ambiguity involved? 3.
What is the frequency level of each type of ambiguity-based English verbal jokes? 1. Scope of the study As suggested by the title of the paper, it targets at English verbal jokes, one type of English humor, conveyed primarily by means of language. Henceforth, visual humor (as in cartoons and clowning) and any non-verbal joke-carrying acts like in silent films should and must be excluded from the paper. Also, by “verbal jokes”, the texts collected for the study are mainly in written form as spoken jokes in fact depend chiefly on features of quality and tone of voice and need sophisticated phonetic analysis, which should be treated as beyond the scope of this study.
In addition, at this point, the researcher wants to make a clear cut between “verbal jokes” and its commonly heard counterpart of “verbally expressed jokes” or “verbalized jokes”, defined as every way in which language is used to create amusement (Chiaro 1992, Ritchie 2004). Similar as they may appear, verbal jokes and verbalized jokes actually have the relationship of hyponym-superordinate with the former concerned with verbal matters (specific properties of a language) and much narrower a term than the latter.