Phát triển khả năng hiểu tính hài hước trong các truyện cười tiếng anh của sinh viên ngành hướng dẫn du lịch qua tài liệu nguyên gốc

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ________________________ TRẦN THỊ ÁI HOA DEVELOPING TOUR GUIDE STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO MAKE SENSE OF

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ ÁI HOA

DEVELOPING TOUR GUIDE STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO MAKE SENSE

OF HUMOUR IN ENGLISH JOKES THROUGH

AUTHENTIC MATERIALS

Phát triển khả năng hiểu tính hài hước trong các truyện cười tiếng Anh của

sinh viên ngành Hướng dẫn du lịch qua tài liệu nguyên gốc

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

of Doctor of Philosophy

Major: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 62140111 Supervisors: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Phương Nga

Dr Tô Thị Thu Hương

HÀ NỘI-2018

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, the undersigned, certify my authority of the dissertation entitled

―Developing Tour Guide Students‘ Ability To Make Sense Of Humour In English Jokes through Authentic Materials‖ in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy

Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the dissertation

TRAN THI AI HOA

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On the very outset of this report, I would like to extend my sincere and heartfelt obligation towards all the personages who have helped me in this endeavour Without their active guidance, help, cooperation and encouragement, I would not have made headway in the project

First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Phuong Nga for her tolerant perseverance with me in the world of combustion research It was only due to her initial valuable guidance and accurate judgement that I received to be able to drive my research work in a respectable manner.I am eternally grateful to my associate supervisor, Dr To Thi Thu Huong for her extensive expertise and her generosity in steering me through the research She has always been in a cheerful, enthusiastic and ever-friendly nature that inspires me to administer and complete this research They both have made my research possible by providing me with precious lessons and giving me the chance to gain access to every stage of research

My warm and sincere thanks are also merits to Prof Nguyen Hoa, Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, Assoc Prof Le Van Canh, Assoc Prof Pham Thi Hong Nhung, Assoc Prof Le Hung Tien, Dr Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa and Dr Dương Thi Thu Mai for their valuable suggestions and assistance

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of all the tour guides, foreign tourists, teachers and tour guide undergraduates who participated in the survey in Khanh Hoa Travel Agency and at college and university in Nha Trang City I am thankful for the teachers and tour guide undergraduates at Nha Trang College of Art, Culture and Tourism (now renamed Khanh Hoa University) for verifying the proposed authentic materials Particularly, I am grateful for the 20 students at Khanh Hoa University who were so enthusiastically participatory and hard-working in the intervention course

Last but not least, I am deeply and forever indebted to my beloved family, specifically my husband for their unconditional love, and my supportive foreign and Vietnamese friends, especially my best friends in Nha Trang City for their precious friendship and strong faith in me through all the fluctuations of my study

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ABSTRACT

Using humour in tourism by telling English jokes to English-speaking tourists in guided trips is a much needed capacity for Vietnamese tour guides Vietnamese EFL tour guide students, therefore, need to be trained and qualified with this capacity for their tour guiding job This study is an attempt to help develop Vietnamese EFL tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes (defined as being able to understand and retell jokes in English to appropriate audience in appropriate situations) through the use of authentic materials to enable them to appropriately use humour in their tourguiding with particular reference to English-speaking tourists

An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was used for collection of both quantitative and qualitative data to enhance validity and reliability of the findings The research was designed with two phases: one for authentic materials selection and related competency-based experimental intervention course design and the other for the implementation of the course to help develop tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour

After 8-week extra-curricular intervention, post test results presented a significant rise compared with pre-test Nearly all the students were able to comprehend the humour in the introduced English jokes and two-thirds of the students could retell suitable English jokes to appropriate audience in appropriate situations The findings have offered a considerable contribution not only to the field of language education but also to the one of humour research Thus, it can be stated that EFL tour guide students could make sense of humour in English jokes when properly trained and humour can be taught, a confirmation of the finding in Pham‘s (2014) study The contribution of the study is that it helps to provide the tour guiding community in Viet Nam with a high-quality workforce to promote the tourism industry development in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Significance of the study 5

3 Aims and objectives of the study 6

4 Scope of the study 7

5 Research context 8

6 Research questions 9

7 Key terms and definitions 9

7.1 Humour 9

7.2 Sense of humour 9

7.3 Cognitive-perceptual processes in humour 10

7.4 Humour comprehension, humour appreciation and humour competence 10

7.5 (Canned) jokes 10

7.6 Pragmatic competence 10

7.7 ―Make sense of‖ and ―Tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes‖ 11

7.8 Authentic materials, authentic texts, authentic English jokes 11

8 Study componential schema 11

9 Structure of the study 12

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 13

1.1 Humour and its importance in tourism 13

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1.1.1 Sense of humour 13

1.1.2 Classification of humour 14

1.1.3 Theories of humour 18

1.1.4 Humour research and the field of the present study 20

1.1.5 Humour in English jokes 23

1.1.5.1 English (canned) jokes 23

1.1.5.2 Integration of the three traditional theories of humour in a joke 24

1.1.5.3 The ambiguity in jokes 27

1.1.5.4 Pragmatic perspective of jokes 31

1.1.5.5 Cultural elements in English jokes 34

1.1.6 ELT tour guide students‘s ability to make sense of humour in English jokes 35

1.1.6.1 Humour competence 36

1.1.6.2 Pragmatic competence and its interface with humour competence 40

1.1.6.3 Obstacles for EFL tour guide students to make sense of humour in English jokes 44

1.1.6.4 Conditions for ELT TG students to interpret humour in English jokes 47

1.2 Authentic materials for developing EFL students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes 48

1.2.1 Authenticity and authentic materials 48

1.2.2.Competency-based approach to syllabus/ materials design/ selection 49

1.2.2.1 An overview of approaches to syllabus/ materials design/ selection 49

1.2.2.2 Competency-based language teaching 51

1.2.2.3 Process of establishing competencies to guide the selection of AM and the design of relating course 54

1.2.3 Criteria for selection of authentic materials 56

1.2.4 Cognitive theory to guide the teaching and learning process 58

1.2.4.1 Questions and tasks 59

1.2.4.2 Using scripts and learners‘ experience 60

1.2.4.3 Simulation (Role play) 61

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1.2.5 Syllabus design and materials evaluation 61

1.3 Review of previous studies on humour competence 63

1.3.1 Review of previous studies in other countries 63

1.3.2 Review of previous studies in Viet Nam 68

1.4 Chapter conclusion and theoretical framework 69

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 71

2.1 Research design 71

2.2 Phase 1 –Materials selection 77

2.2.1 Stage 1 - Needs analysis 77

2.2.1.1 Participants and sampling 77

2.2.1.2 Data collection instruments 80

2.2.1.3 Data collection procedure 83

2.2.1.4 Data analysis 84

2.2.2 Stage 2 - Materials verification and piloting 85

2.2.2.1 Participants and sampling 85

2.2.2.2 Data collection instruments 86

2.2.2.3 Data collection procedure 87

2.2.2.4 Data analysis 87

2.3 Phase 2: Intervention 88

2.3.1 Participants and sampling 88

2.3.2 Data collection instruments 89

2.3.2.1 Tests 89

2.3.2.2 Interview 92

2.3.3 Data collection procedure 93

2.3.4 Data analysis 93

2.4 Significance of quantitative data and qualitative data integration 94

2.4.1 Validity 95

2.4.2 Reliability 95

2.5 Chapter conclusion 96

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CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 97

3.1 Phase 1 –Materials selection 97

3.1.1 Stage 1- Results from needs analysis 97

3.1.1.1 Results from survey questionnaire 97

3.1.1.2 Results from interviews 104

3.1.1.3 Results from observation data 108

3.1.2 Summary of findings from Phase 1, Stage 1 109

3.1.2.1 Target situation and learning needs 110

3.1.2.2 Criteria and strategies for authentic materials selection and teaching 112

3.1.2.3 Teaching methodology guideline for the proposed authentic materials 113

3.1.3 The Proposed Authentic Materials 115

3.1.4 Materials verification and piloting 119

3.1.4.1 Result from questionnaires (Teachers‘ assessment) 119

3.1.4.2 Results from the interview (Students‘ opinions) 119

3.1.4.3 Adjustments after the materials verification and piloting 121

3.2 Phase two – Intervention 122

3.2.1 Results of pre-post tests of humour interpretation in English jokes 122

3.2.1.1 Description of the process of learning 122

3.2.1.2 Pre-post test data results 124

3.2.1.3 Interview data 130

3.2.2 Pre-post test about difficulties 135

3.2.3 Results of test of performing jokes 140

3.3 Discussions 141

3.3.1 Application of the authentic materials: benefits and challenges 141

3.3.2 Application of humour competence model 144

3.3.3 Role of pragmatic competence 146

3.3.4 Role of teaching methods to the proposed authentic materials 148

3.4 Chapter conclusion 150

CONCLUSION 151

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1 Recapitulation 151

1.1 Answer to sub-question 1 151

1.2 Answer to sub-question 2 152

1.3 Answer to sub-question 3 152

2 Implications 155

2.1 Methodological implications 155

2.2 Theoretical implication 155

2.3 Pedagogical implication 156

3 Limitations 158

4 Suggestions for further studies 158

REFERENCES 159 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TOUR GUIDES I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TOURISTS VI APPENDIX 3: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS VIII APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS X APPENDIX 5: A INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TOUR GUIDES XIV APPENDIX 6: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH FOR TOURISM XV

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS XVII APPENDIX 8: PRETEST FOR 20 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS XVIII APPENDIX 9: POST TEST FOR 20 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS XXI APPENDIX 10: THE INTERPRETATION OF HUMOUR IN ENGLISH JOKES XXIV APPENDIX 11: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR 10 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS XXVII

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APPENDIX 12: EVALUATION CHECKLIST FOR 20 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS XXVIII APPENDIX 13: RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRES ON NEEDS ANALYSIS XXX APPENDIX 14:RESULTS OF OBSERVATIONS ON BUS TOURIST TRIPS XXXVIII APPENDIX 15: RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE ON MATERIALS VERIFICATION XLII APPENDIX 16: T-TEST OUTPUT XLIII APPENDIX 17: RESULTS OF JOKE-TELLING CONTEST XLIV APPENDIX 18: PARTICIPANTS‘ BRIEF PROFILE XLV APPENDIX 19: STUDENTS' BOOK XLVIII APPENDIX 20: TEACHER'S BOOK LXXXIX APPENDIX 21: SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHENTIC MATERIALS CXVIII APPENDIX 22: TEACHING METHODOLOGY GUIDLINE FOR THE SUGGESTED MATERIALS CXLI APPENDIX 23: LESSON PLAN CXLVI

x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a foreign language

ESL English as a second language

SSTH Semantic Script Theory of Humour TEFT Teacher of English for tourism

TGS Tour guide student

TGU Tour guide undergraduate

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 Classification of humour 17

Table 1.2: Ambiguities of English jokes 28

Table 1.3: Humour competence and the interaction of three systems 39

Table 1.4: Interface of humour competence and pragmatic competence 42

Table 1.5: EFL TG Sts‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes 43

Table 1.6 Descriptions of steps in competency-based materials (Sujana, 2005) 54

Table 1.7.Equality of the Target Situation Needs and Learning Needs 55

Table 1.8: Criteria for selection of authentic materials 58

Table 1.9 Summary of the previous studies on humour competence 63

Table 2.1 Summary of information and data needed for research questions 76

Table 2.2: Participant groups 78

Table 2.3 Description of joke test 91

Table 3.1: Categories of TGUs‘ difficulties in interpreting humour in English jokes 107

Table 3.2: Needs of learning humour 110

Table 3.3: Criteria for selecting the authentic materials 112

Table 3.4: Strategies for selecting the authentic materials 112

Table 3.5: Task procedure 114

Table 3.6: The proposed syllabus 116

Table 3.7: Summary of the students‘ opinions 120

Table 3.8: Percentage of the scores of the subjects 127

Table 3.9: Results of the post test 130

Table 3.10: Results of the interviews 133

Table 3.11 Achievement of competencies 134

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Research Componential Schema 12

Figure 1.1 Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary research of humour 21

Figure 1.2 Research field of the present study 23

Figure 1.3: The integration of the three humour theories 25

Figure 1.4 Incongruity-resolution model (Suls, 1972) 26

Figure 1.5 Linguistic humour structure spectrum(Obrst, 2012) 27

Figure 1.6 Non-bona fide communication in verbal humour 33

Figure 1.7.a Hay‘s scalar implicature of unqualified humour support 37

Figure 1.7 b Hay‘s scalar implicature of unqualified humour support 38

Figure 1.8 Theoretical framework for developing tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes 70

Figure 2.1 Explanatory Sequential Design (Creswell, 2011) 72

Figure 2.2: Visual research design 73

Figure 2.3 Data collection procedure of the study 74

Figure 3.1.Tour guide undergraduates' difficulties in telling jokes 98

Figure 3.2 Tour guides' difficulties in telling jokes 99

Figure 3.3 Agreement on the need to learn and teach jokes 101

Figure 3.4 Tourists' favourite types of jokes 102

Figure 3.5 Tourists' favourite topics of jokes 103

Figure 3.6 Appropriate time and place for jokes 104

Figure 3.7: Merging findings for authentic materials collection 109

Figure 3.8 Illustrating the mean of each joke in T1 and T2 126

Figure 3.9 Statistically Significant Difference between T1 and T2 126

Figure 3.10 Difficulty in identifying the ambiguities 135

Figure 3.11 Difficulty in finding meaning of words 136

Figure 3.12 Difficulty in clarifying joke structure 137

Figure 3.13 Difficulty in word pronunciation 137

Figure 3.14 Length of jokes causes difficulty for comprehension 138

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Figure 3.15 Difficulty in being aware of culture 139

Figure 3.16 Difficulty in defining the joke context 139

Figure 3.17 The fun degree of the TGU students‘ performance 140

Figure 3.18 The quality degree of the TGU students‘ performance 140

The benefits of humour in the workplace are that a happy work environment will make employees to be more loyal and productive For instance, tactful jokes may create healthy working environment increasing people‘s enjoymen of work The turnover may increase as employees feel content and loyal to the company And the cost associated with illness may decrease as people experience the positive physiological and psychological effects of laughter (Pham, 2014) This is true with some previous studies that people who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive, better decision-makers, and get along better with co-workers

Likewise, in the field of tourism, humour is necessary, especially in the job of tour guides where humour is essentially delivered and appreciated, the relationship is accordingly improved and there comes a nice trip Actually, one of the most

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common rhetorical devices for successful tour guides during their practice is to use humour (Meged, 2010) Tour guides can use jokes in communication with tourists and run a successful tour: Tourists laugh or feel amused and have a good trip as a result As Howard, Twitches and Smith (2001: 34) confirm, "humour was also used

as a means to ―wake-up‖ people, to change the pace of the tour, to renew people's interest in their surroundings and to ensure an enjoyable experience" Woodside et

al (2007) reminds that, during the travel phase, the tourists may experience informal humour when sharing a joke with their travelling companions, with the tourism employees or the local people they encounter because it is important to use humour to create a friendly and cooperative atmosphere among tour participants: tourists and tour guides The kind of humour for tourism is named informal humour which is "the spontaneous creation and sharing of jokes during the travel situations" (Pearce & Pabel, 2015: 55) Tour guides open humorous conversations with tourists helping them to become directly involved in producing and co-creating their own humour based on social interactions (Anderson, 2007; Edersor, 2001), cope with a range of stressful, awkward or frustrating travel situations (Frew, 2006a) and more specifically, gain control of a situation by making it appear less threatening, difficult or embarrassing (Solomon, 1996)

In reality, there are many cases for the effectiveness of using humour in tour guiding practice Meged (2010) observed indigenous tour guides at work on tour guiding capacity in Australia and concluded thathumour enhanced group cohesion The guide had a very interactive style and direct, racy humour, which worked well with the tourist group on the day On a tourist website (2017), a foreign tourist expressed his pleasure

in an eight-hour tour which was filled with laughter because the Vietnamese tour guide ambushed them with jokes in a stop in Ho Chi Minh City Likewise, in NhaTrang in an observation of a city tour in the preliminary study of this study, experienced tour guides told interesting jokes that made foreign tourists happy and their guided tours were very successful Travel agents in Khanh Hoa Travel Company agreed that it was necessary

Actually, it is not usually easy for Vietnamese learners of English as their foreign language (EFL) to appreciate English humour let alone producing it because they are not to be absolutely competent at humour and humour mechanism (Raskin, 1985, Attardo, 1994; Ritchie, 2004) As being seen, when a native speaker reads or hears a

joke in their language, he/she unconsciously and effortlessly makes the judgments

(Freud, 1905) about the appropriacy of the humour they use, which means they naturally mention the formation of the surprise element or the rule or the context of the joke but for the issue that they quickly or slowly understand it Foreign language (EFL) learners, on the contrary, must learn how to understand the joke in different social contexts in which the addressers are from different cultures Moreover, while native speakers (NS) within their own native context usually have no problems

socio-be equipped with such knowledge to interpret EFL humorous utterances That means he/she has to be taught about EFL humour and has lessons to practice it

Nevertheless, humour is not a rarity in the field of tourism for EFL learners in Viet Nam‘s education and policies There have been changes in the teaching methods of English and in the English syllabus and textbooks used in colleges and universities‘ curricula Firstly, the application of the Communicative Language Teaching approach and the learner-centered approach has opened a new perspective for teaching English, supplying learners with pleasure Secondly, this can be seen through the decisions of the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) that the communicative approach has been introduced to many English language classrooms and any syllabuses and curriculum at any schools, colleges and university where a large number of people are trained for the country‘s work force (MoET, 2010; Pham, 2014) Specifically, according to the Curriculum Guidelines for English Training in Tourism Vocational Training in Viet Nam (2009: 9) the English proficiency for Tour Guideis required from low standard at 625 to high standard at 700 points which is equivalent to the level between B1 and B2 of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference, 2011) and says that at C1 learners ―can use language flexibly and effectively, including emotional, allusive and joking usage.‖ Moreover, professional regulations of English levels for international tour guides (MoCST, 2009) decide that tour guides are supposed to be able to tellfunny stories or quizzes for foreign tourists in the long journey Thus, this study has been carried out to meet such requirements and help tour guide students

be well-prepared for their future job

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One last but not least to pave the way for the present study is that two studies concluding humour can be taught and developed for EFL learners and humour is closely related with tourism Pham (2014) has a systematic investigation on the use

of humour in the EFL classroom at universities in the context of Viet Nam His findings reveal that humour can be trained and integrated in language syllabi althrough there needs to be consideration on how to apply a scientific and systematic method In parallel, Fabel (2014) has comprehensive examinations of humour in the field of tourism in Australia Fabel (2014) explored the multifaceted construct of humour in a naturalistic way and among multiple tourism audience Humour plays important role in creating enjoyable and engaging tourism experiences

Thus, for the above justifiable reasons, the present study has been carried out to help tour guide students have chance of access to humour and well-prepared for their future job

2 Significance of the study

This study is significant in many aspects as it endeavours to make following contributions

(1) As a contribution to the EFL teaching and learning methodologies, this study discovers the extent to which authentic materials (AM) can help develop TG students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes in the light of the theories of humour, pragmatic competence (PC) and humour competence (HC)

(2) The findings of this study contribute to the process of promoting a workforce of professional tour guides for Khanh Hoa province who not only have a good sense of L2 humour but also can use it in communication via English with foreign tourists visiting the province

(3) This study brings benefits to EFL students in improving their communicative competence by raising their awareness of the importance of understanding English jokes and providing them with strategies and methods to enhance their ability to interpret humour in English jokes

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(4) The results of the study are beneficial to English language instructors in introducing English jokes into their English language classroom, providing them with methods of integrating teaching humour in English jokes into other syllabi such as cross-culture, designing authenticity into the teaching materials and adapting authentic materials to suit their students‘ needs in making sense of English humor This is a new contribution of the present study as an evidence to confirm the fact that humour can be trained

(5) Personally, the study has enriched the researcher profoundly in terms of humour competence such that she has gradually developed into a more cheerful personality Her knowledge of humour theories has enabled her to perceive the humorous subtleties not only in the English language but also in the Vietnamese language, her mother tongue This, in turns, grows her love of the two languages intensively

3 Aims and objectives of the study

The overall goal of the study is to help improve Vietnamese student‘s ability to make sense of humor in English jokes through the use of authentic English materials The study elicits aims and objectives

Aims

(1) To develop the students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes (2) To explore the extent to which the students' ability to understand, interpret the humour and recite authentic English jokes for use in subsequent future jobs as international tour guides

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(3) To deal with the internal and external difficulties that tour guide students encounter in understanding and interpreting humour in English jokes in the suggested authentic materials

(4) To pursue methods/ strategies to help develop students' ability in making sense of humour in English jokes through authentic materials alongside the instructional aim of developing students‘ communicative competence

(5) To demonstrate the students' ability to make sense of humour before and after taking the intervention course as evidence of the intervention effectiveness

4 Scope of the study

Based on such goal, aims and objectives, the study was conducted under the following scopes First, the target population comprised the students whose major was English for tourism and whose future professional jobs are tour guides, the tour guides and tourists, teacher of English for tourism in NhaTrang so that the results of the study may be applicable to the groups of subjects and disciplinesthatshare the same needs, interest and enthusiasm in humour Second, the research samples were limited to college undergraduates who were at the third year since they already reached similar level of English proficiency and were able to catch up with the level

of linguistic competence for English humour comprehension Third, with the limitation of teaching time and resources, the proposed authentic materials only focused on verbal humour, an important element of the work of an international tour guide, to help students be ready for their real life job after graduation Finally, the focus of the study was on making sense of humour (i.e humour comprehension and interpretation) in English canned (ready-made) jokes, not on humour production or creation However, reciting of a canned joke, a low level of humour production, was included in the intervention because it is well understood that impromptu partially makes up the excellent tour guides

is the sense of humour which is indispensable for their future job since foreign tourists do not just hope to know much about the place they are visiting but to enjoy their trips with fun However, up to now, at the universities and colleges, there have not been any particular programs or syllabus to help the tour guide students at least

to develop their ability to make sense of humour in English jokes The tour guide training program is a load with major subjects mainly for training English language skills but with almost no element in helping students to develop their sense of humour in English for their future job as an international tour guide According to the training program outcome, the TGUs are supposed to get B2 English proficiency under the National Framework of Reference for Six-level Foreign Language Competencies (NFRSFLC, MoET, 2014) Accordingly, there has been a tendency towards increasingly teaching how to speak English well and engaging in professional subjects of Tourist presentation, Translation and Cross-culture without any course on humour This fact remains that tour guide students are largely short of the most powerful professional capacity of humour which they should be helped to develop (MoET, 2009) Thus, the ability to make sense of humour in English jokes

is timely developed for tour guide students at university and colledge

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6 Research questions

One research question that the present study sought to answer is as follows

To what extent do the EFL tour guide students make sense of humour in English jokes through authentic materials?

On the focus of the overarching question, there are three sub-questions

1 What are the criteria and strategies for selecting appropriate authentic materials to help develop EFL tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes?

2 What problems do the tour guide students face in comprehending and telling English jokes?

3 How much can the EFL tour guide students interpret humour in English jokes and tell English jokes?

7 Key terms and definitions

7.1 Humour

Humour is the (i) ―quality of being amusing or comic‖; and (ii) ―ability to appreciate things, situations or people that are comic, ability to be amused‖ (Oxford Advanced Learner‘s Encyclopedia, 1992: 442) It is partially one element of the comic – as wit, fun, nonsense, sarcasm, ridicule, satire, or irony – and basically denotes a smiling attitude toward life and its imperfections: an understanding of the incongruities of existence (Ruch, 1998)

7.2 Sense of humour

Sense of humour is understood with reference to both humour creation and humour appreciation (Eysenck, 1972) It is regarded as a mood, a frame of mind, a virtue, a talent and personality trait (Ruch, 1998)

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7.3 Cognitive-perceptual processes in humour

Cognition is a particular characteristic of humour To produce humour, an individual needs to mentally process information coming from the environment or from memory, playing with ideas, words, or actions in a creative way, and thereby generating a witty verbal utterance or a comical nonverbal action that is perceived

by others to be funny In the reception of humour, we take in information (something someone says or does, or something we read) through our eyes and ears, process the meaning of this information, and appraise it as nonserious, playful, and humorous Cognitive processes underly the perception and appreciation of humour (Martin, 2007)

7.4 Humour comprehension, humour appreciation and humour competence

- Humor comprehension is the ability to perceive relationships or ideas in incongruous ways (Ziv, 1984)

- Humour appreciation is the ability to understand and get pleasure from humorous messages (Ziv, 1984)

- Humour competence is the ability of the native speaker to pass judgements as to the funniness of a text (Raskin, 1985)

7.5 (Canned) jokes

A canned joke is ―a humorous short text repeated (almost) verbatim whose content

is usually irrelevant to, and dissociated from, the conversation and is geared towards amusement‖ (Dynel, 2009: 11)

7.6 Pragmatic competence

Pragmatic competence (PC) is the ability to understand language in context or to interpret the message of interlocutor as it was intended PC is seen as a subcomponent to the more level of communicative competence (Chomsky, 1980; Canale & Swain, 1980; Bachman, 1990)

7.8 Authentic materials, authentic texts, authentic English jokes

- ―Authentic materials are any texts written by native English speakers for native English speakers.‖ (Heitler, 2005: 5)

- ―An authentic text is a stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and design to convey a real message of some sort.‖ (Morrow, 1977: 98)

- Authentic English jokesare the original joke texts produced by and for native English-speaking people since ―they can only meet grammatically well-formed and syntactically complete sentences‖ (Euler, 1991: 63, cited in Mukherjee, 2001)

8 Study componential schema

A componential schema proposed for the study (Figure 1) was built from the literature review of humour interpretation and recitation through authentic materials such as training needs analysis, materials assessment, intervention and training evaluation The schema consists of two main components or phases:

(1) Phase 1: A materials selection process conducted in two stages namely Stage 1 – Needs analysis andproblem specification; Stage 2 – proposed authentic materials verification and pilotting The findings from Phase 1 address sub-research questions

1 and 2

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(2) Phase 2: An intervention - Explicit instruction The findings from Phase 2 address sub-research question 3

Figure 1 Research Componential Schema

9 Structure of the thesis

The thesis comprises three major parts, namely introduction, development and conclusion The introduction presents the study background, problem statement and other components as aims and objectives, research context, research questions and definitions of key terms relating to the study Next, the development consists of three chapters: chapter one presents a review of literature with many issues correlating humour and jokes, humour competence and pragmatic competence, and authentic materials; chapter two shows the research methodology and procedure for data collection and analysis; chapter three reports the results, findings and discussions The final is conclusion which carries sections of summary, implications for pedagogical practice, limitations and recommendations for further study

PHASE 1:

MATERIALS SELECTION

STAGE 1: NEEDS ANALYSIS &

PROBLEM SPECIFICATION

Tentative syllabus components

STAGE 2: PROPOSED MATERIALS VERIFICATION &

PILOTTING

Objectives, Contents, Methodology, Assessment

PHASE 2:

INTERVENTION

EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

Implementation Pre and post-tests

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CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Humour and its importance in tourism

Humour is an umbrella term that covers all the synonyms and overlapping meaning

of humour and humour-related subjects not only in neutral and positive format such

as comic, ridicule, irony, mirth, laughable, jolly, funny, ludicrous, merry, etc but also on negative forms such as sarcasm, satire and ridicule as well (Ruch, 1996; Attardo, 2014) The 20th and 21st century see a series of studies on humour topic towards positive outcomes of using humour in health, education and the workplace (Fabel, 2014)

1.1.1 Sense of humour

Sense of humour (SOH) is defined as a person‘s ability to perceive humour Because of a fact that humour itself does not sound funny or laughable if it is not understandable, sense of humour is a decisive factor That is humour exists, but it needs to be discovered through one's sense of humour (Chapman and Foot, 1976) SOH is thus a personality trait which refers to one's "humour-related behaviour" because humour is "an attitude of mind rather than an activity of mind" (Ruch, 2007) The term "sense of humour" is also understood with reference to both humour creation and humour appreciation (HA), which is so all-inclusive and highly-prized that Eysenck (1972) remarks "He has a grand sense of humour is also synonymous with: He is intelligent, he's a good sport, and I like him immensely" (Eysenck, 1972) Thus when a person is said to have sense of humour, he firstly can laugh at things he finds to be funny, laugh a great deal and easily to be amused, and secondly he can tell funny stories and amuse other people (Eysenck, 1972) However, not all people have SOH always laugh at humour and vice versa, a person who has little SOH can appreciate and laugh at a comic because the HA is an element of the mind while SOH is mostly in favour of in-born (Eysenck, 1972) Thus it can be stated that sense of humour relates to human behavior and is part of humour in terms of ability

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Making sense of humour (MSOH) thus helps a person first understand and discover the fun of an object or a humorous stimulusto appreciate it, and then be able to recite and create humour Tour guides (TG) are the ones who are supposed to have the best SOH One of the six characteristics of great tour guide (Rezdy.com, 2016) mentions that hiring someone who can tell a good joke at the right time is ideal because a tour guide with a good sense of humour will be able to put customers at ease and allow them to truly relax as they enjoy their tours and activities In some cases, tour guides discover humour and use humour and fun as part of their experience offerings for reasons of entertainment and enjoyment An example in Fabel‘s (2014) study shows that happiness appeared when the tour guide said to

tourists after their landing in Cape Town: ―Ladies and gentlemen, we have landed in Cape town Please take all your possessions Anything left behind will be shared equally between staff Please note we do not accept unwanted mothers-in-law or children.‖ However, creating humour by using English jokes helps gain English-

speaking tourists‘ attention and put a smile on their face is a burden for Vietnamese tour guides in spite of their own good sense of humour since what one culture can laugh at (superiority), laugh about (incongruity) or laugh in spite of (relief) may vary widely from another country (Geddert, 2012)

1.1.2 Classification of humour

It is complicated to classify humour because there is no universal theoretical framework which can satisfactorily account for all types of humour and the functions that they serve Ermida (1968) holds that humor can be either verbal or non-verbal; it can be a subjective experience or serve communicative purposes; it can draw upon common everyday reality or consist of fiction and imagination; it can charm or attack, be created spontaneously or be used as a well-prepared technique of personal and professional interaction; it can be a simple joke told among friends or amount to the sophistication of Shakespeare‘s plays (Ermida, 1968) According to a criterion of language and non-language convey, it is divided

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into verbal and non-verbal humour Besides, humour is clarified apparently into style and types

Verbal and non-verbal humour

Verbal humour (VB) is firstly defined as a joke-carrying text while non-verbal

humour (NVH) is a humorous situation not created, described or expressed by any text (Raskin, 1985) However, not only jokes but also other humorous forms (e.g teasing or neologisms) need to be included in the definition (see Introduction, 7.1)

Later another concept of ―verbalized humour‖, expressed by ―means of a linguistic system‖, is synonymous to the term ―verbal humour‖ used in a broad sense (Attardo, 1994: 96) Similarly, another notion of ―verbally expressed humour‖

(Ritchie, 2004) is introduced mostly mentioning wordplay so is not as popularly used as term ―verbal‖ relating to humour conveyed by means of language (Suls, 1983; Raskin, 1985; Alexander, 1997; Norrick, 2004)

The opposite epithet of ―verbal‖ is ―non-verbal‖, whose humour is ―not conveyed

by means of words‖ In social studies of psychology and anthropology, non-verbal refers to body language, collocating with ―non-verbal communication‖ or ―non-verbal aspects of speech‖ (Dynel, 2009) Therefore, humour which is not produced

by language but by body and facial gestures, pictures or sounds should best be labeled as non-verbal humour, and further covered with visual, musical and kinetic subtypes Norrick (2004) specifies that some presentation of NVB involves slapsticks, cartoons and joke-teller‘s performance such as his/her body language, accent and other paralinguistic features such as the tone of voice or stammering In addition, even if a non-verbal stimulus (as a picture) is accompanied by a text but humour does not directly result from VB, it is still a case of NVB (Norrick, 2004)

In tourism, verbal humour is popular and acceptable Hence,in the present study, term ―verbal humour‖ is used and―verbal‖ means ―connected to words and their use‖ for its origin from the Latin word ―verbum‖ meaning ―a word‖ (Dynel, 2009)

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Styles of humour

Styles indicate the ways to express humour (Martin et al., 2003; Stieger et al., 2011; Gignac et al., 2014) There are two groups of styles of humour which are known by four names as affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating and aggressive Affiliative humour style is characterized by making humorous comments and telling jokes and funny anecdotes in order to amuse others and to facilitate relationships.Self-enhancing style humour refers to the use of humor to regulate emotions and cope with stress by maintaining a humorous and cheerful outlook on life By contrast, aggressive humour involves the use of humor for the purpose of demeaning or manipulating others, as in sarcasm, teasing, or ridicule such as racist jokes, sarcasm and disparagement of individuals for the purpose of amusement are of this humour style which is used by people who do not consider the consequences of their jokes, and mainly focus on the entertainment of the listeners Self-defeating humor involves attempts to amuse others by means of excessively self-disparaging humor People with this style of humour tend to laugh along with others when being taunted and these people may have an implicit feeling of negativity

Types of humour

Types refer to the form or message of humour Types of humour are varied and overlapped in naming (Raskin, 1985; Hay, 1995; Alexander, 1997; Bryant et al, 1980; Long and Graesser, 1988; Norrick, 2003).All types of humour have criteria and structures to be distinguished and in some case they are by no means mutually exclusive, for example teasing may entail punning while mockery may involve sarcasm (Dynel, 2009) Table 1.1 presents classification of humour

Gag Crack (jokes) Epigram Observation Quote Pun or wordplay

Blue Caricature Howler Irony Lampoon Misprint Ridicule Sardonic Self-deprecating Satire

Non-verbal humour Droll

Juvenile or prank Role play

Situational Slapstick

Fantasy Impersonate Parody Sardonic Vulgarity Typically, Alexander (1997) proposes a list of types of humour which are designated by definition and criteria Six criteria ascertain sixteen types of humour They are (i) intention on part of speaker or writer; (ii) consciousness on part of speaker or writer; (iii) malevolent or benevolent intent; (iv) purpose to amuse people; (v) general light-heartedness; (vi) witty Under Alexander‘s (1997) criteria, joke, gag, epigram and crack are in one group to be ranked in the characteristics of being intentional and conscious, benevolent or non-benevolent and the most part wit and amusement Pun is both intentional and unintentional and same for

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consciousness Though pun is not in the domain of benevolent, it is classified in state of being the most amusing and light-hearted, whereas, group of spoonerism, howler and misprint are unintentional and unconscious and not amusing either The other group including irony, satire, lampoon, caricature, parody, impersonation, sarcasm and sardonic is amusing but not kind-hearted or humane Hence, group of joke, gag, epigram, crack and puns belonging to verbal humour and in the style of affiliative and self-enhancing humour which are suitable and essential for humour in tourism (Table 1.1) From this division, it can be seen that joke is a type of humour and disguised in different forms This is in the scope of the present study verbal humour is handled in the form of canned joke (Definition 7.5, Introduction)

1.1.3 Theories of humour

Language of humour originally comes from three theories of humour, namely superiority theory, incongruity theory and relief theory (Raskin, 1985) These theories are categorized into three paradigms: psychoanalytical, cognitive and social, respectively (Attardo, 1994)

Superiority theory

The theory of superiority under the paradigm of psychology dates back to Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century BC and is dominant until the 17th century (Morall, 1997) In literary, it is also named disparagement, or criticism, or hostility that accentuates the negative attitude of the producer or the user of humour towards its target and the often alleged aggressive character of laughter This theory indicates that people laugh because they feel superior to something or someone that is weak, stupid or unfortunate More understandably, laughter is aimed at the misfortunes of others (McGhee, 1979; Morrell, 1983) It reflects one‘s superiority over the others For example, when someone slips over a banana skin, laughter arises because they are seen miserable The person who witnesses the scene laughs because he/she feels superior to the one who is made to look silly tripping over the banana skin In this

or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances Also, Schopenhauer (1883: 76), said:

―The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.‖

Actually, the sudden perception of humour is evoked in a person‘s mind and is therefore concerned with the cognitive aspect of the humour and how the humour is processed rather than the psychological or social ones (Meyer, 2000; Critchley, 2005) Incongruity itself can cause laughter (Forabosco, 1992; Ruch, 1993)

Relief theory

Relief theory following the social paradigm rooted from Freud‘s (1905) idea and later revised by Spencer (1911) focuses mainly on the recipient of humour, or more specifically, on the psychological effects humour allegedly brings about in the recipient Regarding humor as a form of escape before the inhibitions that society imposes upon the individual has become a popular line of psychological research The underlying principle is that laughter provides relief to various tensions and allows repressed desires to be satisfied Ermida (1968) names two keywords within

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this framework pleasure and compensation When we laugh, we temporarily liberate ourselves from the fetters and limitations that oppress us, and we express emotions that would otherwise be forbidden

Moreover, humour is considered one of the so-called substitution mechanisms which enable to convert one‘s socially tabooed aggressive impulses to acceptable ones and thus avoid wasting additional mental energy to suppress them (Ross, 1998) It is worth noting here that Lorenz (1996) also says on this very point: ―Most jokes provoke laughter by building up a tension which is then suddenly and unexpectedly exploded‖ (1996:153) This note is quite important for EFL learners

to comprehend humour in English jokes and reminded in the below sections

1.1.4 Humour research and the field of the present study

The fields of humour research are numerous and interdisciplinary (Figure 1.1) (Ritchie, 2011; Dynel, 2013; Attardo, 2014) Ritchie (2011) has an overview of humour research In applications, humour is applied in the classroom to improve learning, in workplace to strengthen relationship and increase efficiency, and it is used as part of therapy to maintain mental, emotional or physical health In the theoretical area, humour is described or analyzed building up a picture of the types

of humour and their occurrence and measured by making precise quantitative empirical studies

Attardo (2014) has studied humour in a connection of two or more different fields

He points out that it is not uncommon to see psychologists borrowing ideas from linguist, sociologists debating philosophers, literary theorists using psychological theories, computer scientists working on folk genres such as riddles, and medical doctors being inspired by folklore Typically, in the field of education, humour is a preferred teaching technique, it is important to identify how the literature explains the way that teachers should use this humour (Bryant et al., 1979) In the field of therapy, studies examine the relationship between the uses of humour and health outcomes, as measured by perceived health, life satisfaction and morale (Simon,

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1988) In the field of society and management, humour can be seen to play an important role in the workplace: (i) ―Humour oriented to the solidarity dimension of workplace relationships‖ and (ii) ―humour oriented to the power dimention of workplace relationship‖(Homes, Schnurr and Marra, 2007: 125)

Figure 1.1 Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary research of humour

(Attardo, 2014)

In education, humour is studied for its use asa very effective tool in the ESL/EFL classrooms Humour helps make students know about the traditions and beliefs, manners and institutions of a culture, significantly facilitate intentional learning for the learners, maintain students‘ attention, provide mnemonic examples, and aid the relationships between teachers and students (Guegan-Fisher, 1975; Loomax and Moosavi, 1998) Humour in teaching could promote a positive and cohesive class atmosphere, but could also have unintended results if the teacher could not first develop a supportive relationship with the students (Kristmanson, 2000) Humour is used as a tool to get attention and reduce tension as well as a means for dealing with students and teacher errors in a humane and compassionate manner (Schmitz, 2002; Martin, 2007) Jokes or humour within an ESL context serve as an ideal vehicle for the conveyance of cultural patterns (Trachtenberg, 1979) and unseen cultural boundaries of a new language (Deneire, 1995) And classroom exposure to humour prepares students to understand and react to this pervasive and authentic element of discourse during real communicative

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language interactions (Schmitz, 2002; Frarey and Aron, 2004) Recently, humour is asserted its affective and cognitive benefits for students, their learning, and the teacher-student relationship in EFL classrooms in Viet Nam (Pham, 2014)

In sociology, humour is studied in relation with tourism Fabel (2014) finds out three main domains of research in the relation of tourism and humour such as

―humour about tourists‖, ―humour for tourists‖ and ―humour perceived by tourists‖

―Humour about tourists‖ mentions the discovery of the relationship between jokes about tourists and their stereotypes (Cohen, 2010) This type of research has a look

at the incongruity of the joke such as mock on tourists‘ bad behaviors and insufficient knowledge of travelling ―Humour for tourists‖ refers to the studies on the ways to apply humour for entertainment (Carden, 2005; Kang and Mastin, 2008, cited in Fabel, 2014) ―Humour perceived by tourists‖ is encompassed in studies to discover the effectiveness of humour that is presented to tourists (Pearce, 2009) Thus, studies on humour in the contexts of education in Viet Nam (Pham, 2014) and

of tourism in Australia (Fabel, 2014) have paved the causeway for the present study Humour is studied in the form of English jokes learned by EFL learners and used for English-speaking tourists in the job of tourguiding It is really an interface of education, linguistics and tourism on humour research background (Figure 1.2) One special thing is that both the fields of education and linguistics are studied in an integrated way in the domain of tourism

Understandably, language teaching means educating and training learners with language competencies involving language skills, knowledge and attitude for use in their real life work or language education helps them be able to use the language in their real life Learners are EFL tour guide students (TGS) who are taught to recognize, comprehend and appreciatethe language of humour in English jokes so that they can be able to tell jokes or crack jokes with foreign tourists (FT) when they take the job of tour guiding Thus, humour and English jokes are the language

to be taught for TGS to develop some competence and skills that can help enhance their humour competence for successful tour guiding career in future

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Figure 1.2 Research field of the present study

1.1.5 Humour in English jokes

1.1.5.1 English (canned) jokes

An English joke is made up of ―grammatically well-formed sequencies of words‖ (Ritchie, 2004: 37) It consists of a setup and a punch line The setup, which includes all but the last sentence, creates in the listener a particular set of expectations about how the situation should be interpreted The punch line suddenly shifts the meaning in an unexpected and playful way, thus creating the perception of nonserious incongruity that is necessary for humour to occur (Martin, 2007: 11) This formulates a canned joke (Introduction, Definition 7.5) A typical example of a canned joke is illustrated as follows

―Do you allow your boys smoke?‖

―I‘m afraid not.‖

―Can they drink?‖

―No, by all means, no!‖

―What about dates?‖

―Oh, that‘s quite all right, as long as they don‘t eat too many.‖

(Misztal, 1990: 148, cited in Lew, 1996) Canned joke has a punch line as long as they don‘t eat too many English jokes suit the

Humour

Linguistics

Education Tourism

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current situation of teaching and learning English in Vietnam, the country which welcome big turns of English-speaking tourists to whom Vietnamese tour guides communicate and offer services

1.1.5.2 Integration of the three traditional theories of humour in a joke

The three traditional theories of humour (Superiority, Incongruity and Relief) provide a foundation for humour mechanism in a joke The three theories reflect three dimensions: The superiority points at the target or butt of humour, the relief refers to the recipient‘s response to humour and the incongruity relates the humour stimulus Lyttle (2003) explores that despite various theories debated with considerable acrimony, the three groups of theories of humor can be integrated in a joke text following three aspects (Figure 1.3)

(i) Incongruity of some sort is required to get the attention of receivers Congruous events are commonplace This aspect of the integration acknowledges the contribution of incongruity theories;

(ii) If that incongruity is not seen as threatening or frightening, it can be characterized as amusing This aspect of the integration acknowledges the contribution of superiority theories;

(iii) Depending on the degree to which this incongruity taps into repressed areas such as sex or aggression, it will be more or less funny (up to the point of offense) This aspect of the integration acknowledges the contribution of relief theories

The model consists of two stages in which the key of humour lies in the initial one

in which an incongruity is detected by the hearer Then while the hearer tries to solve the incongruity or make sense of the joke, he or she will search for a cognitive rule that reconciles the incongruous part, and upon finding a resolution to the incongruity, he or she will be relieved and perhaps will also be humorously entertained (Martin, 2006: 64)

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Figure 1.4 Incongruity-resolution model (Suls, 1972)

In fact, the process of perceiving and understanding in this two stage model is a cognitive one and generally agreed (Ruch, 1992: 31), but the way the resolution is achieved is various in different jokes On other occasions, the hearer has to

"backtrack and choose another interpretation (initially more unlikely and not as relevant, but eventually correct) in order to realize she or he has been fooled into selecting that initial interpretation (the one initially relevant), and set upon a different path of joke resolution" (Yus, 2016) Thus, it is not easy to understand the incongruity because it has a level of difficulty in interpreting the language of incongruity Obrst (2012) graphically depicts a spectrum of the linguistic humour at

a linguistic structural level focused on the incongruity theory (see Figure 1.5) Through the spectrum, Obrst (2012) shows that humor under the incongruity theory

is the result of misinterpretation at a linguistic structural level coming up from a basis on sound or word, syntactic attachment, sentence to discourse, etc It is an incongruous generation which is given by the humor provider and then possibly understood by the humor consumer as permitting anomalous interpretations In the

No incongruity

No humour

Incongruity

Search for a cognitive rule that reconciles the incongruous parts and make sense of joke

Rule found