‘VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYÊN THỊ KIM PIƯƠNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME TYPICAL LINGUISTIC FACTORS CAUSING LAUGHTER IN BRITISH FUNNY STORIES Nghiên cửu về những yếu tố ngôn ngữ gây cười điển hình trơng một số truyện cười nước Anh M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 HA NOI - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYÊN THỊ KIM PHƯƠNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME TYPICAL LINGUISTIC FACTORS CAUSING LAUGHTER IN BRITISH FUNNY STORIES Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố ngôn ngữ gây cười điển hình trong một số truyện cười nước Anh M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 Supervisor: Associate Professor Vé Dai Quang, Ph. HA NOI - 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Aims of the study & RR RRPm 3. Objectives of the study 4.
Scope of the study anne 5. Design of the stud: PART Ti: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Funny stories and Jokes 1. Homonymy is traditionally defined as different words with the same forms.5), homonyms are classified into absolute and partial ones.
Polysemy vs Lomonymy 1. Transference of meaning 1. Summary: CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2. Research governing principles PART I: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Humor Humor is not as easy to define as it seems. There have been several people who tried to find out something about humour. Avner Ziv from Israel gives one example to define humour: Humor is defined as a social message mended to produce laughter or smiling. As with any social message, it fulfills certain functions, uses certain techniques, has content, and is used in certain situations.
These aspects of Iumor can he understood as relating to the questions of why people use humor (its functions), how it is transmitted (techniques), what it communicates (content), and where and when it is communicated (situation). Some of these aspects of humor are universal, characterizing humor everywhere. Others are more influenced by culture. Another definition is found in Merriam-Webster's entry on the word “humour™: that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly meongruous the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous something that is or is designed Lo be comical or amusing These definitions prelly much capture the essence of what could be called our general definition of humor, and they do capture the basics of what humor is, but there is more to fumor than just the ahility to make people laugh or to be able to langh al {umy things.
While laughter is indeed a typical reaction lo humor, things are more complicated than that. Something is perceived as humorous even though nobody jaughs al il people laugh at things that nol. really humorous, as laughter ean also be an emotional response to fear or embarrassment. Therefore, humor cannot be defined simply as something that makes you laugh.
The response to humor is important in the PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Peoples from all over the world, with different cultures and lifestyles, seom to have one thing in common — sense of humor. There are a great amount of funny stories from cullure to culture. Fach culture has its own (ypival joke-making characteristics Reading [ummy stories helps people relax with great ellicioncy.
The way Vietnamese leamers read and understand Vietnamese jokes is not quite similar to the way English poople do. English leamers may have some difficulties in reading between the ines in some funny stories if they don’t have the needed cultural and linguistic background. In my opinion, a research into linguistic factor causing laughter in British funny stories will bring about be cfils 1o readers ancl pedagogical implications for leaching and translation. And, this is the rationale for my study 2.
Aims of the study ‘The purposes of the research are as follows: ® ‘To help English leamers have a clear understanding of linguistic features available in Fnglish fumy stories ar jokes e To help English learners discover an interesting part of English besides complivaled grammar poinis or long complex reading passages © To help English leamers communicale more successfully with native speakers via joke understanding 3. Objectives of the study This study is an investigation into British funny stories and their linguistic features with reference 1o cullura perspective Lo point oul. the typical factors that cause 1 Chapter 2, Methodology, desoribes the research-governing principles, data collection instruments and dala analysis procedure Chapler 3, Analysis and Discussions, offers a detailed analysis of the dala, the results obtained and discussions of these results. This is the last part of the thesis which provides a recapitulation of the main points presented, concluding remarks on the research objectives, limitations, and suggestions for further studies.
by someone else. According to the theory, these jokes cause us to laugh hecause they make us feel superior to other peopte According to the definition on Wikipedia, a joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and olher devices. Jokes may have a punch-line that will end the sentence to make it humorous.
Their purposes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is gencrally laughter, when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" 1. Pun Acoording to Wikipedia, the pun, or also oalled paronormasia, is a form of word play which suggests wo or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of sunilar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. Because of the multiple meanings of words or similar sounding words that helps cause ambiguities and laughter to readers or listeners.
However, not most of people can apply pun in their daily conversations because pun is an art of using and playing with words. Moreover, the listeners also have a wide range of vocabulary and kmawledge of local or regional dialects and particular cultures to understand the wilertional use of words of the speakers. Pun expresses the beauty of words; therefore it differs from another kind of word play- malapropism. Malapropism is an amusing mistake somebody makes when they use a word with sounds similar to the word they want to usc but means something different.
Pun mentioned here is to emphasize the art of playing with words based on Tnguisties faclors such as phonology, homophony, morphology, ele. Ambiguity According to Wikipedia, ambiguity of information is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is generally contrasted with vagueness, in that specific and disuincl interpretations arc permitted (although some may nol be immedialsly apparent), whereas with information that is vague it is difficult to form any by someone else. According to the theory, these jokes cause us to laugh hecause they make us feel superior to other peopte According to the definition on Wikipedia, a joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous.
To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and olher devices. Jokes may have a punch-line that will end the sentence to make it humorous. Their purposes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is gencrally laughter, when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" 1.
Pun Acoording to Wikipedia, the pun, or also oalled paronormasia, is a form of word play which suggests wo or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of sunilar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. Because of the multiple meanings of words or similar sounding words that helps cause ambiguities and laughter to readers or listeners. However, not most of people can apply pun in their daily conversations because pun is an art of using and playing with words. Moreover, the listeners also have a wide range of vocabulary and kmawledge of local or regional dialects and particular cultures to understand the wilertional use of words of the speakers.
Pun expresses the beauty of words; therefore it differs from another kind of word play- malapropism. Malapropism is an amusing mistake somebody makes when they use a word with sounds similar to the word they want to usc but means something different. Pun mentioned here is to emphasize the art of playing with words based on Tnguisties faclors such as phonology, homophony, morphology, ele. Ambiguity According to Wikipedia, ambiguity of information is the ability to express more than one interpretation.
It is generally contrasted with vagueness, in that specific and disuincl interpretations arc permitted (although some may nol be immedialsly apparent), whereas with information that is vague it is difficult to form any definition of something as humorous, but there are aspects and details to humor and Taughter which are sometimes overlooked. British humor ‘the British have a unique sense of humour. Of all the characteristics which the English are mown all over the world, the sense of humour is ane of the best-known and most positively regarded. In England, you may consider humour a way of getting, along in society.
Britain is the only country in the world which is inordinately proud of its sense of humour In other countries, if they find you inadequate or they hate you, they will call you stupid, ill-mannered. In Britain, they will say that you have no sense of humour. This is the final condemnation, the total dismissal. Funny stories and Jokes.
Funny stories are the stories that are told to make people laugh (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). It is characterized by humorous phenomena. There are two theories for what people find humerous, incongruity theory, superiority theory. The most popular theory of why we find jokes funny revolves around the concept of ‘incongeuity’.
The idea is that we laugh at things that surprise us because they seer out of place. TCs furmy when clowns woar oulragcously large shoes, people have especially big noses or politicians tell the truth, In the same way, many jokes are fimny because they involve ideas that mm against. “A bear walks into a bar.” And so on. But there is more to this theory than such sunple forms of incongruity.
In many jokes, there is an apparent incongruity between the set- up and the punch ling. Scientists refer to his as the ‘incongruily-resolulien’ theory. We resolve the incongruity caused by the punch line, and the accompanying feeling of sudden surprise makes us laugh. The superiority theory also explains why we laugh at certain types of jokes.
Many jokes make us feel superior to other people. in these types of jokes, people appear stupid because they have misunderstood an obvious situation, made a stupid mistake. beer the hapless victim of unfortunate eeumsianee or have been made to took siupid.2 Data types to be collected 2.1 Techniques for data collection. Techniques for data analysis.
Summary: CHAPTER3: ANALYSI AND DISCUSSION 3. Findings and discussions: 3.2, Discussions and implication for language teaching and learning.3 Summary: PART TI: CONCLUSION. 4, Suggestions for further study. In doing this, typical features causing laughter in funny stories can be pointed out ‘This objective can be further elaborated into the following research question: What are the typical linguistic features that cause laughter in British furmy stories? 4, Scope of the study: The issues raised in this thesis are investigated from both linguistic and cultural perspective.
