A Vietnamese-English cross-cultural study of expressing sarcasm

Punning in expressing sarcasm is the field that bears much difference among cultures and speakers of different languages; this is a promising field of research for cross-cultural researc

A Vietnamese-English cross-cultural study

of expressing sarcasm Nghiên cứu giao thoa văn hóa Việt - Anh về

cách diễn đạt lời nói châm biếm

Nguyễn Thùy Linh University of Languages and International studies M.A Thesis English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Supervisor : Assoc Dr Dương Thị Nụ

Năm bảo vệ: 2011

Abstract The availability of sarcasm is a matter-of-fact which has been going without much

awareness even of the user Moreover, the use of puns in expressing sarcasm, in spite of being very interesting and noteworthy, has received hardly any extensive research Punning in expressing sarcasm is the field that bears much difference among cultures and speakers of different languages; this is a promising field of research for cross-cultural researchers of English in particular and languages in general However, it is not an easy task at all due to sharp differences in the culture – specific notions between Vietnam and English – speaking countries

This thesis titled “A Vietnamese-English cross-cultural study of expressing sarcasm”, therefore, is an attempt to find out the differences and similarities between Vietnamese and English speakers in using puns to express their sense of sarcasm, hence make some suggestions for teachers as well as learners of English with a view to help them avoid culture shock and have fun learning English

Keywords Tiếng Anh; Giao thoa văn hóa; Kỹ năng nói; Lời nói châm biếm

Content

I Rationale

There’s a point of view holding that all modern art is more or less sarcastic because the viewer cannot help but compare it to previous works For example, any portrait of a standing, non-smiling woman will naturally be compared with the Mona Lisa; the tension of meaning exists, whether the artist meant it or not As a matter of fact, it is the case not only in art but for many other fields of life including language

Gresham, in his work, made an interesting conclusion that “Bad coinage drives out goods” This reflects the fact of money that debased or under weight coins will drive good, full weight coins out of circulation This assertion, however, was not properly applied in the economics only but in other fields of life as well It is the case for every realm in which an exchange occurs, with nowhere more vital than in the Kingdom of Ideas, where the coin of realm is the word In particular, we can easily observe that bad meanings or associations of words tend to give good ones out of circulation Some examples might be the words “girl” and “lady” Nowadays, people, especially men, tend to use the word “girl” to refer to their darling In Vietnamese the phenomenon can

be clearly realized in the use of “gái” In the past, “gái” was used to address a girl so it appeared normally in calls like “gái ơi” Gradually, with the appearance and popularity

of call-girls, the word has a new, more popular meaning of prostitutes Also, the word

“lady” has a completely different use from the previous It is used to mean a woman who is weak inside and cannot protect herself The same situation happens to the words such as “cô nương” or “tiểu thư” in Vietnamese Hence, it can be seen that

“negative” use of words is preferred to positive one Studying sarcasm would therefore

be of great value to linguists and researchers Nevertheless, the issue is not paid much attention among Vietnamese researchers in detail and linguistic researchers of the world in general This research aims at discovering one of the most common and worth-studying phenomena of pragmatics, sarcasm, for without sarcasm then, as one might say, there is no art

II Scope of research

The study aims mainly at the major knowledge of sarcasm in Vietnamese and English daily life and jokes Specifically, the difference between the use of puns in expressing sarcasm in spoken Vietnamese and English is focused Moreover, the study is confined

to the verbal aspects of the act of using puns in expressing sarcasm Other factors such

as paralinguistic and extra-linguistic ones are beyond the scope of the study

- The dialects used in the North, the South and the Central of Vietnam are use among which the Northern one is mainly used; especially the spoken accent of the Northern

version is used quite often; and the English spoken by Anglophone community of England, America, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, are chosen for contrastive analysis

- The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires to examine the differences in the way Vietnamese and English speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm

III Aims of research

The research has been carried out with a view to explore the similarities as well as the differences in the way Vietnamese and English speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm thus to equip language learners with a major description of sarcasm in English and Vietnamese and help them avoid culture shock and communicate successfully

IV Research question:

What are the major similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and English speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm?

V Methodology

The following methods are resorted to:

- Conducting survey (with questionnaires as a data collection instrument)

- Conducting observations

VI Design of research

The study is composed of three main parts:

Part A (Introduction) presents the rationale, scope, aims, research questions, and

methodology of the study

Part B (Development) consists of three chapters:

Chapter I (Theoretical preliminary): discusses the notions of language-culture

relationship

Chapter II (Sarcasm, puns and types of puns): explores different

conceptualizations of sarcasm, puns and types of puns, types that are used in common between English and Vietnamese and ones that only appear in English or Vietnamese

Chapter III (Data analysis and findings) analyses collected data to find out

major cross-cultural similarities and differences in the choice of puns in expressing sarcasm

Part C (Conclusion) summarizes the main findings of the study, provides some

implications for TEFL, and offers suggestions for further research

Reference includes all the books, articles or website that has been referred to during

the writing of this thesis

The appendices list examples of different groups of equivalence in order of the

alphabet

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