The linguistic devices making wittiness in the English and Vietnamese humorous stories A study of contrastive discourse analysis

This study is aimed at investigating the figure of speech as linguistic devices in the English humourous stories and Vietnamese humourous stories.. Besides, Vietnamese humorous stories h

Các phương tiện ngôn ngữ tạo nên sự dí dỏm trong truyện hài Anh – Việt: Nghiên cứu đối

chiếu diễn ngôn Hoàng Thị Xuân Quý

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: Ph.D Ngô Hữu Hoàng

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: Reading humourous stories is the good means of entertainment because it can

help the readers to release the stress and reduce the tension Beside the function of entertainment, humour is the special means of reaching the better things which satisfy the progressive thoughts and the lower-class’s dream of equality This study is aimed at investigating the figure of speech as linguistic devices in the English humourous stories and Vietnamese humourous stories The analysis is carried out on 50 samples collected from the different books of English and Vietnamese humourous stories The results show that there is the similarity in the using of metaphor between these two languages Besides, Vietnamese humorous stories have the higher percentage of metonymy, comparing to English humourous stories Context is the important element that helps the reader to understand and interpret the figure of speech in the humourous stories Furthermore, the study offered the implications of translating and teaching so that the translator and teachers can use in their jobs

Keywords: Ngôn ngữ học; Phân tích diễn ngôn; Tiếng Anh

Content

INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of Rationale for The Research

It cannot be denied that humour plays an important role in the human life and the whole society because it is not only the means of entertainment but also the weapon to criticize the groups of people with the purpose of clearing away the negative attitudes, the out-date thoughts, the discrimination existing in the society Besides, humour is the special means of reaching the better things which satisfy the progressive thoughts and the lower-class’s dream of equality The laughter at the specific objects with the deeply social meanings always carries the humour and

exists long in the spiritual products of human beings In the relation with the humour, the laughter is indispensable, but the humour may also include wittiness, joke, criticism, etc About these categories, the researcher is going to mention in the next part of the study so that there is a full overview of what is investigated into

It can be seen that there have not been any study of HS under discourse analysis and contrastive between English and Vietnamese implemented before by any researchers in Vietnam, so the author of this study believes that this would be the first time this subject is carried out and hopes that it would be new approach to the humour under discourse analysis in Vietnam as well as to the literature of which HS are the object of the study In addition, the study would be helpful for the translators to be good at their translation from English and Vietnamese and vice verse because when reading the literature works, in terms of the discourse analysis views, the readers not only understand the humour mechanism, the linguistic devices, the nature of humour, etc but also are supplied with the knowledge of language, people characteristics, attitudes and thoughts

of the culture the stories belong to Besides, the study also is necessary for the teachers in their jobs because it is said that the successful teacher need to have good sense of humour Through the study, the knowledge would be helpful for them to tell the jokes in the appropriate time to be the warm-up activities

2 Aims of the study

- In the study, the researcher investigates the figure of speech as linguistic devices making the wittiness and then help us to understand/explain why people laugh when reading EHS and VHS

- The role of context in the HS, then readers can understand the jokes by the context when reading them

- To provide implications for the translators to understand the jokes in the stories and have good interpretation with the right transfer Besides, it is necessary to tell HS in language teaching, then the students can be supplied with language knowledge, cultures and motivated in learning, warm-up activities and release their study tension

3 Scope of the study

The types of humour can be cartoons, funny pictures, plays, etc However, this study is limited to the verbal humour The object of research is the EHS and VHS

This research is limited to investigate the figure of speech as the linguistic devices like metaphor, metonymy and others which make the wittiness in the selected EHS and VHS

4 Method of the study

By means of quantitative method, the investigation is carried out through text analysis, previous researches, individual analysis and observations

Data are gathered in the books collection of EHS and VHS

Based on the collected books, the samples shall be sorted out in terms of the figure of speech as linguistics devices and types of the theory of humour

DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In this chapter, the researcher offers the literature review and theoretical background related to

discourse, humour and linguistic devices as metaphor and metonymy

1.1 Discourse

1.1.1 Definition of discourse

1.1.2 Types of discourse

1.2 Context

1.3 Humour and its categories

1.4 Overview of HS

1.5 The Incongruity Theory in Humour

1.6 Figure of Speech as Linguistics Devices in HS

1.6.1Metaphor

1.6.2Metonymy

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2 1 Methodology

2.1.1 Data Collection

The main aim of this section is to explore how figure of speech as linguistic devices is used in the stories The researcher found 50 samples which are collected from the selected books The samples are from the books: 120 English-Vietnamese HS (episode 1 and 2), Best Funny Stories,

The World of English Humour, Teacher – Jokes, Quotes, And Anecdotes, Nụ Cười Nước Anh, Tiếu Lâm Việt Nam Hiện Đại, Cười…Hở Mười Cái Răng, Truyện cười dân gian Việt Nam

2.1.2 Procedure

The display of the data classification will be done by means of tables in which the type of jokes

in English and Vietnamese will be reflected, as well as the pieces of text to be described and analyzed

After doing the in-depth analysis, the cases of each phenomenon in each field will be quantified and the results are reflected in tables The count will be done manually and calculated in the percentage

2.2 Data Analysis

The researcher found there are 50 samples in the selected books of HS as mentioned, in which metaphorical jokes are 37 and metonymical jokes are 13 The metaphor jokes and metonymy jokes are subdivided into the categories of English and Vietnamese

2.2.1 Metaphor

The aim of the study deals with the metaphor as linguistic device, so this part was paid special attention because of the purpose of the study A total of 37 samples as metaphor jokes in the books of humorous stories, there are 18 (49%) and 19 (51%) in the English and Vietnamese respectively Overall, this means that the difference between these two languages is rather small Table 1 reveals the frequency and percentage of metaphor jokes occurring in total and between two languages in particular

Table 1: Metaphor jokes in EHS and VHS

Metaphor jokes Percentage EHS 18 jokes (49%) VHS 19 jokes (51%)

It can be seen from Table 1 that the percentages of EHS and VHS are rather equal There are the equivalent percentages of metaphor jokes, the findings indicate that both the English and the Vietnamese are fond of using metaphor as the linguistic devices in their humours stories

2.2.2 Metonymy

Metonymy is the other linguistics device that the researcher investigates in this study The number of metonymical jokes are 13, in which English jokes are 5, account for 38% and

Vietnamese jokes are 8, accounting for 62% The results of metonymy jokes in English and Vietnamese are presented in table 2

Table 2: Metonymy jokes in EHS and VHS

Metonymy jokes Percentage EHS 5 jokes (38%) VHS 8 jokes (62%) With regard to the percentage of metonymy jokes in the table 2, this study found a big different result According to the finding, metonymy jokes in VHS have the majority, accounting for 62% This means that there is the difference in the culture of two countries in using figure of speech in communication It seems that Vietnamese people are more fond of using metonymy to display the referential function, it allows them to use one entity to stand for another While the English metonymy is not often used in the jokes, the Vietnamese metonymies are favored when talking

about the place for the institution

2.3.1 Discussion and Contrastive Findings

2.3.1 Context in the interpretation of jokes in the HS

During investigation, the researcher found that context is one of the substantial elements that

help the reader to understand the stories and interpret the jokes

In the stories, we find that there are linguistic and non-linguistic contexts The term woodeater, is

the linguistic context and it is related to the language in the triangle: language – communication – context By analyzing some features of context, we can make clear the implicature in the stories

2.3.2 Contrastive Findings between EHS and VHS

2.3.2.1 Similarities

The only similarity is that metaphor as the linguistic device is used much by both English and Vietnamese This means the figure of speech’s using plays an important role in the creating joke

to satisfy the amusement, criticism or other purposes in both cultures Once again, the researcher agrees with the idea of George Lakoff & Mark Johnson (1984: 10), in which our ordinary conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature and metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just language, our thought and action Besides, irrespective of differences in culture, there are some concepts are universal, i.e people at all levels and of any culture can employ and interpret the metaphor because it has the similarities in source domain and target domain Here the researcher is not claiming that all cultural values coherent with a metaphorical

system and all things are equal in value because there has been still the conflict between the concepts and the values among the languages

2.3.2.2 Differences

The difference is that VHS account for the bigger percentage of metonymical jokes It is possible that the Vietnamese are fond of using one entity to refer another which is in the relation, then to provoke the laughter in the jokes Metonymy performs the function of reference or substitution, and serves the purpose of identifying the particular characteristic of the entity or person Because the way we conceptualize the things in the world and the fundamental values in the cultures are different, there is a direct physical or casual association (the relationship existing in the nature of metonymy) Here the researcher support with George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, G (1984:35) when two both linguistics claimed that metonymies are grounded in our experience and provide

an essential means of comprehending the cultural concepts

It seems that Vietnamese people are really fond of using the humour to be the means of criticizing the individuals and groups in the society, and when laughing, they have the feeling of criticism and the amusement better than others One more thing is that Vietnamese has a history under the rule of Northern Feudal Oppression, people suffered from the sorrow, the separation, the misery, so humour played a central role in the people’s entertainment and the struggle for the working class and with the enemy of country In the modern time, the mechanism of national organizations with the negative effect, corruptions caused by the low educated officials is another reason why Vietnamese people use much figurative speech in their HS

Chapter 3: IMPLICATIONS OF TRANSLATION AND TEACHING

3.1 Implications of translation

Through investigation, it is noted that there are some terms and sentences which are translatable, difficult to be translatable and untranslatable Thus, how to be good at transferring from the source language into target language in the humorous stories is a challenge to the translator The laughter arises from the incongruity and the relief of sex in which metaphors are used like the figurative imagination The incongruity between sex and body parts (what it is compared)

caused the laughter In this story, the researcher is difficult to translate the terms like the

beginning of the land development (translated from điểm phát long chi sơ), the joint- tiger and dragon land (translated from đất long hổ cựu toàn) and the land making the bird lose its direction (translated from bãi bình sa lạc nhạn) The similarities between two languages allow

the translator to evaluate how much a translated joke differs from the source joke

For the untranslatable terms and sentences, it is noted that there are other cultural aspects existing in Vietnamese and English as well and such aspects be transferred to other cultures by ways of translation

As we also have stated elsewhere in the text, the description of both humour and translation, as two separate concepts, are not available in certain and decisive terms From the viewpoint of its cultural features, the original humor may include a concept or concepts which are totally unknown in the target culture The humor translators’ mission is to overcome these challenges;

to understand the historical and social nuances of the humor, approximate to its style, transfer the linguistic features and cultural concepts, as much as possible, to the extent that it makes the target audience laugh when reading or hearing the humor in his own language

3.2 Implications of Language Teaching

It is often claimed that humour is a desirable characteristic of teaching and learning However, the teacher should choose the topics of jokes, depending on the age and level of students If the students are elementary and high school, the sex jokes are not appropriate for them because they are taboo According to the investigated in this study, some sex jokes has body parts which are

figurative meanings and very sensitive like the metaphor of bird or subleg If the topics are good

and educational, the teachers can provide the students with knowledge in English language and culture and One more thing is that the teachers need to consider the suitable time to tell the jokes It is better for them to offer the student with the HS when they are tired and bored at the lessons Another good time is at the beginning of the lesson, then the students can be warm up by the exciting atmosphere

CONCLUSION

1 Major findings

About metaphor, it is used quite equally with the percentage of 49 % for EHS and 51% for VHS respectively From this finding, we can conclude that at any cultures, the linguistic device of metaphor is favored and we can laugh at the metaphoric jokes with the universal interpretation

Beside the universal concept, it can be denied that there have been still the different ones among the cultures when the source and target domain are not the same

About metonymy, the study discovered that the most frequency of metonymy exists in the Vietnamese stories, compared to English ones

Additionally, the other result shows the sharing of the incongruity theory of humour by both Vietnamese and English humourous From this finding, we can see that there is a difference of two cultures, and the Vietnamese tend to amuse at the individuals and groups to laugh at The humour accompanies the working class to the better society which is the dream of the

Vietnamese people Suggestions for the translators, teachers and a further study

2.1 Suggestion for the translator and teachers

First, the translators need to have a good system of English and Vietnamese lexemes – semantics – grammar with the understanding of the nature’s metaphor and metonymy as the linguistic devices in the HS Second, the translator need to build up the good knowledge of the cultures, and the difference of cross-culture to see which characteristic is universal or not

2.2 Suggestions for a further study

Due to the limited time, the scope and focus of the thesis, there are some points that have not been investigated by the researcher In this study, the researcher just focused on one theory which is known as the incongruity in the relation of figure of speech as linguistic devices It is interesting to explore two other theories: the superiority and the relief in the relation of metaphor and metonymy By this way, we are able to know the figure of speech belongs to the superiority

or the relief For some authors, the superiority is involved in the social discrimination and the relief is involved in the taboos Exploring the figure of speech as linguistic devices in the relation with these two theories would be the effective way for us to understand the stories’ characters’ thoughts, attitudes and feelings towards the society where they live in as well as their desire to release the sex energy and other taboos

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