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A Contrastive Analysis Of English And Vietnamese Puns In Newspaper Headlines I confirm that: 1.. ABSTRACT This paper presents a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese puns in ne

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

(ĐỐI CHIẾU CHƠI CHỮ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

TRONG TIÊU ĐỀ BÁO CHÍ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Hanoi – 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF

LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

(ĐỐI CHIẾU CHƠI CHỮ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

TRONG TIÊU ĐỀ BÁO CHÍ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lam Quang Dong

Hanoi – 2017

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I, Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam, declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and has been generated by me as the result of my own original research

A Contrastive Analysis Of English And Vietnamese Puns In Newspaper Headlines

I confirm that:

1 This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University;

2 Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree

or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated;

3 Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed;

4 Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work;

5 I have acknowledged all main sources of help;

6 Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself

Signed: ………

Date: ………

Also, I would like to extend my special thanks to my teachers, my friends and my parents for their encouragement and support that help me overcome difficulties to complete this study

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese puns in newspaper headlines The study applies the framework of Delabatista (1996) and Yuan Chuandao (2005) to categorize puns 200 puns are collected randomly from 51 English newspapers and 31 Vietnamese newspapers in a bid to ensure the objectivity of the study Then, these puns are analyzed and compared The results of the research show that English and Vietnamese share the same communicative purpose and variety in the methods to create puns in newspaper headlines As for differences, English newspaper headlines tend to use puns based on the similarity of sounds, including homophonic, homonymic, paronymic puns while Vietnamese ones are inclined to meaning transference-based and idiom-based puns The significant impacts of using puns in newspaper headlines make articles become more eye-catching and easy to draw reader‟s attention

Keywords: puns, newspaper headlines

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Structure of the thesis 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Related studies 4

1.2 Definitions of newspaper headline and its functions 5

1.3 Definitions of puns 6

1.4 Pun and wordplay 7

1.5 Pun and ambiguity 8

1.6 Classifications of puns 9

1.6.1 Homonymic Puns 11

1.6.2 Homophonic Puns 11

1.6.3 Paronymic puns 12

1.6.4 Meaning transference-based puns 13

1.6.5 Idiom-based puns 14

1.7 An overview on Contrastive Analysis 16

1.8 Summary 18

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 19

2.1 The data 19

2.1.1 English newspapers 19

2.1.2 Vietnamese newspapers 19

2.2 Procedures 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 English and Vietnamese headlines using homonymic puns 21

3.2 English and Vietnamese headlines using homophonic puns 23

3.3 English and Vietnamese headlines using paronymic puns 25

3.4 English and Vietnamese headlines using meaning transference- based puns 27

3.5 English and Vietnamese headlines using idiom-based puns 29

3.6 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese puns in newspaper headlines 31

3.6.1 Similarities 32

3.6.2 Differences 33

3.7 Summary 35

PART III: CONCLUSION 36

1 Recapitulation 36

2 Limitations of the study 37

3 Implications 37

4 Suggestions for further studies 37

REFERENCES 38 APPENDIX I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The number of English and Vietnamese puns in

newspaper headlines in terms of punning methods

31

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

For centuries, the press has always played an important role in transmitting information to the wide public, and in that way, it exerts considerable influence on the public, governments, and almost all other social entities Therefore, journalists always find ways to improve their articles The headline of a newspaper can be seen as the most important part of an article

In other words, it is a crucial part that attracts readers The headline is always the first thing that readers pay attention to when they want to read or buy a newspaper It serves as a guide for readers to decide whether to continue reading the whole article or move to another one Therefore, a headline needs

to be titled carefully and creatively The more eye-catching and impressive a headline is, the more readers the newspaper attracts

There is no surprise that many newspapers are saturated with strategies

to draw readers‟ attention Among those strategies is the use of puns Although they may share certain similarities, puns tend to be unique forms and specific to each language Puns are also special forms of humor based on semantic ambiguity, polysemy, homophony, amongst others Speakers and writers use the similarities of sounds and meanings to create surprises in the listeners and readers‟ interpretation

Understanding puns is part of the process of language acquisition, so puns are part of charm that belongs to any language Learning to understand puns in a new language is both a cause and a consequence of language proficiency

However, even native speakers need to utilize a great deal of linguistic information and background knowledge to understand a pun Without

adequate background knowledge and cultural understanding, readers or listeners are likely to encounter difficulty understanding puns in another language Likewise, Vietnamese learners who study English encounter many difficulties in comprehending puns, especially English puns in newspaper headlines Obviously, it is not simply the matter of vocabulary It is language and cultural understanding The unique characteristics of puns pose a great challenge to Vietnamese learners of English when they begin to read English newspapers

This is the reason why I decided to conduct the research “A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese puns in newspaper headlines” My

expectation is that this research will help Vietnamese learners of English comprehend the use of puns and distinguish the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese puns in newspaper headlines

2 Aims of the study

In light of Contrastive Analysis, the study attempts to help readers and learners gain better knowledge about puns in general and puns in English and Vietnamese in particular In addition, from this research, readers or learners can have some reference to make their own interpretation of puns in English

or Vietnamese newspaper headlines which they encounter in real life

3 Research questions

The study is an attempt to analyze and contrast puns in English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines Therefore, the research seeks answers to the following questions:

- What are the similarities between puns in English newspaper

headlines and their counterpart in Vietnamese in terms of punning method?

- What are the differences between puns in English newspaper

headlines and their counterpart in Vietnamese in terms of punning method?

4 Scope of the study

Like all other linguistic phenomena, puns can be examined in different aspects Moreover, as a verbal product of human intelligence, it is very abundant and diverse So, surely there will be innumerable issues about punning to be discussed However, within the framework of an M.A thesis, the study cannot cover all aspects of puns but limits to some major linguistic features and types of English and Vietnamese puns in newspaper headlines

5 Methods of the study

The study is conducted as an attempt to understand more about the nature of puns which are used in English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines Given this nature of the study, comparative and contrastive methods will be used as the principal methods Besides, descriptive and analytical methods are also used to clarify data in the study

6 Structure of the thesis

The thesis is structured in three parts:

In part I, the reasons for choosing the topic, the aims, the research questions, the research methods, the scope and the structure of the thesis are introduced Part II, which is the main part of the thesis, consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 is the Literature Review The methodology used in the study

is presented in the second chapter It includes a description of data collection and data analysis procedures used in the study The findings of the study are presented in the third chapter

Part III provides the conclusion of the study, its limitations as well as suggestions for further research

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Related studies

Puns have been a subject of studies by a lot of linguists in English as well as Vietnamese at different levels

Ling, X (2006) views puns from the angle of language function to analyze typical functions of puns in English advertisements He founds that the most distinctive functions in English advertisements are aesthetic function and vocative function Vocative function of puns refers to the language function that the readers may take actions to do as the text expects Aesthetic function refers to the language function that can create a sense of beauty among readers

Stelter, J (2011) in her study investigate hypotheses related to puns in English and German based on a bilingual corpus of 2400 jokes from published collections From testing these hypotheses, she points out distinctive features of puns in English and German While the former inclines puns that use linguistic phenomena and devices such as homophony, phrasemic ambiguity and syntactic ambiguity, the later depends on systemic ambiguities

For the pedagogical purpose, Lems, K (2013) pays much attention to the way of teaching English using puns in class With her fresh view, teaching and studying seem to be more interesting She believes that if students in a class can laugh together, they likely to learn better together, too

Giorgadze, M (2014) investigates deeply the linguistics features of pun and its classification From his study, the new classification is set up with

three types of puns: lexical-semantic puns, structural-syntactic puns and structural-semantics puns

Monsefi, R., & Mahadi, T S T (2016) are interested in wordplay in English Online New Headlines They find that the most frequent wordplay in these headlines is that of tropes or more specifically metonymy

In Vietnamese, Lê Trung Hoa and Hồ Lê (2013) point out types of puns

in Vietnamese with clearly explained examples Their work demonstrates the variety and diversity of puns in Vietnamese as well as the creativity of Vietnamese people in using puns

Trần Thị Thu Hiền (2011) conducts a study to examine word-playing methods used by manufacturers in their advertisements in English and Vietnamese

Despite their extensive use in many languages, up to now a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese puns in newspaper headlines has not been taken into consideration in any studies For this reason, the thesis is carried out to investigate in-depth on this issue

1.2 Definitions of newspaper headline and its functions

In “The Language of Newspaper” (2002: 13), Reah stated that a newspaper headline is “a unique type of text that consists of a range of functions that specifically dictate its shape, content, and structure, and it operates within a range of restrictions that limit the freedom of the writer” According to Ungerer (2000:48), “a headline describes the essence of a complicated news story in a few words It informs quickly and accurately and arouses the reader’s curiosity” In “Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary Third Edition”, headline is defined as “the title of a newspaper article printed

in large letters, especially at the top of the front page” In short, a headline is

the title of an article It is a condensed form of writing and enables readers to know the whole content of the news in a few words

According to Conboy (2007), headlines serve three important functions First, they provide a brief summary of the main news to the reader; hence, readers do not have to read the whole story to capture the point Secondly, newspaper headlines attract attention Headlines draw people‟s attention by various font sizes and vocabulary used Finally, they often provide an initial indicator of the content and style of the news value of the newspaper This is

an important way for newspapers to appeal to the audience

1.3 Definitions of puns

Puns are a figure of speech commonly used in all languages The English punning tradition goes back a long time and the greatest punsters include William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Lewis Carroll Now, puns are still frequently used in English speaking countries in many genres such as riddles, jokes, humorous quotations, advertising slogans and newspaper headlines In Vietnam, punning has existed for a long time from old folk songs to modern written literature It actually enriches Vietnamese literature and culture by exploiting the potentials of language

Puns are defined in various ways In “Longman Dictionary of American English” (2008: 825), pun is considered “an amusing use of a word

or phrase that has two meanings or of words with the same sound at different meanings”

Keith Brown and Jim Miller (2013: 366) claim that pun is “a play on words for humorous effect”

Wales (2001: 326) emphasizes that a pun is an ambiguity; specifically,

a foreground lexical ambiguity It involves the use of a polysemous word to suggest two or more meanings; or the use of homonyms, i.e different words which look or sound the same but having different meanings The whole point

of a pun, however, is the user‟s intent to produce a humorous or witty effect from the juxtaposition of meanings Thus puns commonly occur in jokes

Delabastita (1996:128) implies pun as “the general name for the various textual phenomena in which structural features of the language(s) used are exploited in order to bring about a communicatively significant confrontation of two (or more) linguistic structures with more or less similar forms or more or less different meaning”

Hoàng Phê and other Vietnamese scholars (2003: 172) assert that pun

is the use of homophones, polysemy and so on in a language to create a specific effect in an utterance such as humor, criticism and others

From the above definitions, it can be concluded that pun is a figure of speech which intentionally uses some phenomena of a language based on meanings, sounds or structures to make an utterance produce at least two different readings Humorous or any other effects are created by puns depend

on the ambiguities words entail

1.4 Pun and wordplay

There is no consensus among scholars on the difference between wordplay and a pun Some scholars underline these two terminologies mostly interchangeable and synonymous terms (Delabastia, 1996) By contrast, Giorgadze, M (2014) claims that pun is one of the types of wordplay, whereas wordplay is classed as an umbrella term denoting all the subclasses

I do totally agree with Giorgadze‟s point of views In my opinion, the relation between wordplay and pun is hierarchy in which pun is a subtype of

wordplay Wordplay is made up of pun, spoonerism, anagram, palindrome, onomatopoeia, mondegreen, malapropism, oxymoron, etc

1.5 Pun and ambiguity

Ambiguity relates to the language user‟s limited knowledge of syntax and lexicology and it often causes a great deal of confusion to the listeners or readers Take the sentence below as an example

E.g.: Where do fish learn to swim?

They learn from a school (Carol, Alice‟s Adventures in Wonderland)

From the mentioned example, the listeners and readers may be confused about where the fish actually learn to swim They learn from a place where children go to be educated or they learn to swim together with a group

of fish Without a context for clarification, the example can be ambiguous, although the latter reading would be the natural one Such communication- hindering expressions should be completely avoided However, besides this unintentional kind of ambiguity is the deliberate one which is intentionally used and bring high rhetorical effects The extreme form of this ambiguity is pun Humor is considered the most significant feature that puns create In puns, ambiguity is comprehensively exploited and becomes one of the crucial modes of creating jokes

There are two categories of ambiguity, lexical and structural Lexical ambiguity is any ambiguity that results from the different meanings of a

certain word The polysemous word “school” in the previous example is

lexically ambiguous because it raises two separate readings Meanwhile, structural ambiguity arises when a complex phrase or a sentence can be parsed in more than one way In other words, a phrase or a sentence is

structurally ambiguous when it has more than one underlying structure Sometimes both semantic and syntactic (or structural) ambiguities co-occur, with semantic ambiguity leading to syntactic one or vice versa

E.g.: Waiter, will my pizza be long?

No sir, it will be round!

In this case, the question “Will my pizza be long?” can be interpreted in two ways due to the multiple meanings of the word long as well as the

sentence structure:

(1) Will I have to wait long for my pizza?

(2) Is the shape of my pizza long?

Actually, the guest refers to how long he/she has to wait, but the answer is totally humorous The waiter here skillfully exploited both semantic and syntactic ambiguity in his reply

1.6 Classifications of puns

As perceptions of puns are different, there are various approaches to classify puns

Lems, K (2013) divides puns into four major categories:

 Soundalike puns (two or more words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings)

 Lookalike puns (sound and look the same but have two or more unrelated meanings)

 Close-sounding puns (different meanings and spellings but sound similar, differing in only one or two sounds)

 Texting puns (the sounds and/or spelling of alphabet letters, numbers of

symbols, or simplified spelling as a way to represent or “spell” a word For example, “cre8” is for “create”.)

Yuan Chuandao (2005) claims that the creation of pun is connected not only to the meaning and the homophony of a word, but also to the context, manner of speech and logic Therefore, he figures out the following types of pun:

 Homonymic pun (identical sounds and spelling)

 Understanding pun (through the particular context, implied meaning of a sentences is revealed)

 Figurative pun (a simile or a metaphor as its surface meaning and the figurative meaning as its deep meaning)

 Logic pun (a rhetorical device, a kind of implication in a particular context)

Delabastita (1996:128) divided puns into four main categories based on the level of similarity concerning sounds and spelling:

 Homophony (identical sounds but different spellings)

 Homography (different sounds but identical spellings)

 Paronymy (there are slight differences in both spelling and sound)

As research reveals, a pun is one of the most important types of wordplay There are several subcategories of pun and consequently its various classifications and types are formulated by different scholars However, each framework has its drawbacks On the basis of the mentioned various classifications of puns and the analysis of the examples in the research, a new classification form of pun including the five most typical types of puns based

on punning methods will be in focus They consist of homonymic, homophonic, paronymic, meaning transference based and idiom-based puns

1.6.1 Homonymic Puns

This type of pun is a highly productive eye-catching device based on exploitation of words which are identical in both spelling and sounds However, these words have unrelated meanings

For example, “Panda can’t bear pal’s beastly behavior”, the headline in “The Sun” on November 2, 2011, uses homonymic puns The word “bear” has two

meanings, one is a kind of animal and the other is to have tolerance

Another example of homonymic in Vietnamese can be taken from its traditional folk verses

“Bà già đi chợ Cầu Đông Bói xem một quẻ lấy chồng lợi chăng Thầy bói gieo quẻ nói rằng Lợi thì có lợi nhưng răng chẳng còn.”

The word “lợi” means “benefit” and “gum” The punster makes use of

the ambiguity of meaning in the folk verses to criticize the old woman who wants to get married It is not highly approvable in Vietnamese culture at that time The fortune-teller says that getting married is acceptable but her gums and teeth show that her age and health are no longer suitable for marriage, or she is too old to get married

1.6.2 Homophonic Puns

A homophonic pun is the common type of puns which exploits distinct meanings or spelling of the same spoken words Its central feature is phonemic ambiguity Understanding how they work helps learners with both

phonological awareness and, later, reading and spelling

E.g 2: On Sunday they pray for you and on Monday they prey on you

The pun is based on the similarity in pronunciation of the word “eight” and “ate” in example 1 In the other example, “pray” and “prey” are pronounced the same, but the meanings are entirely different “Pray” means speak to God, especially to give thanks or ask for help while “prey” means

plunder

Another example of homophonic pun which seems easy to recognize and

understand for beginners is “A peace of cake” In this case, punster exploits the same sounds between “peace” and “piece” in order to create a witty

utterance

1.6.3 Paronymic puns

Paronymic puns are based on words that have different meanings and

spellings but their sounds are nearly similar For example, “How do turtles talk to each other? By using shell phones!” In this example, “shell phones” is quite similar to “cell phones” in terms of the sounds There is a little

difference between the consonants of /ʃ/ and /s/

These examples below demonstrate the humorous use of patronymic puns

E.g 1: The barber went to the bank and opened a shaving account

E.g 2: Question: How did you keep your dog out of the street?

Answer: I took her to the Barking Lot

The hilarious factor in the former example is that the “shaving account” here actually is “saving account” However, the author uses the word “shaving” intentionally to relate it to the occupation of the barber It is

similar to the latter example which exploits of the minimal pairs of /b/ and /p/

(“barking lot” and “parking lot”.)

1.6.4 Meaning transference-based puns

A meaning transference-based pun uses types of transference of meaning such as metaphor and metonymy For example, the newspaper

headline “Old Lady Unable to Master BATE At Home” is posted by

Goal.com on 10 December, 2008 Actually, “Old Lady” does not mean an old

woman It is the nick name of the Italian football team- Juventus – which was unable to beat Belarusian side FC BATE in a Champions League game back

in 2008 The punning method used here include metonymy (Old Lady and Juventus) and homophony (master BATE and masturbate)

“Apple loses its core” is a headline which appears in “The Daily News” on

is that “Apple loses its score” to refer Apple may cope with losing in markets

because of this event

1.6.5 Idiom-based puns

Idiom-based puns are puns in which idioms are manipulated in such a way as to obtain a playful humorous effect These puns involve a conflict between the compositional, literal reading of idiom and its accepted figurative meaning

For instance, on February 26, 2015, a picture of a dress is posted by an

account named “BreadTheLadLong” on Twitter became a controversial topic,

when viewers disagreed over whether the item of clothing depicted was black and blue or white and gold The Salvation Army of South Africa makes use of

this event to release a powerful new advertisement “Why is it so hard to see black and blue?” in advance of the International Women‟s Day The pun exploited here is “black and blue” The literal meaning is about two colors

“black” and “blue”, while the figurative meaning is “covered with bruises”

The advertisement shows a woman in the mythical white-and-gold version of the now infamous Roman Originals dress, but that is not the only thing that covers her She is also abundantly bruised, with violet welts on her knees and

a massive black eye However, women who are abused often keep silent

Moreover, society overlooks this issue so “it is so hard to see black and blue”

This campaign aims to highlight the insidious problem of domestic violence, which is common but often ignored

Another example:

A: Did you take a bath?

B: No, only towels, is there one missing?

“Take a bath” is a fixed expression which means “to wash oneself in a bath tub” However, direct word-for-word translation can be “carry away a bath”, or “to carry a bath from one place to another” These double

interpretations of one and the same phrase create ambiguity and cause laughter The two examples use idioms; however, punsters can also use similar, homophonic words or separate words in idioms to replace the original one

E.g.: A breathe of fresh heir (Courier Mail – July, 23th 2013)

At first glance, readers or listeners will find it very similar to an idiom

“A breathe of fresh air” “Air” is replaced by “heir” to imply Princess

Charlotte of Cambridge, the daughter of Prince William and Catherine

In short, the difficulty level of these puns is often high, as readers or learners have to require more advanced language proficiency, background knowledge and cultural exposure to interpret them

1.7 An overview on Contrastive Analysis

Contrastive Analysis was a hypothesis pioneered in the late 1950s by

Robert Lado (1957) with his book “Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers” Contrastive Analysis was developed to

examine the differences between two languages in an effort to identify problem areas for language learners

Contrastive Analysis is defined in many ways The definition of CA is

introduced by Fisiak (198:1): “Contrastive linguistics may roughly be defined

as a subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them.”

According to Richard, J.C et al (1992), Contrastive Analysis is “the comparison of the linguistic systems of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical system.”

From Carl James‟s view (1980:2) Contrastive Analysis is “a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e contrastive, not comparative) two values typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared.”In general,

Contrastive Analysis is a method of analyzing, investigating the differences between pairs (or small sets) of languages against the background of similarities

Contrastive Analysis is designed with the purpose of determining the difficulties and problems that a native speaker encounters when learning a second language Therefore, it can greatly contribute to language teaching Contrastive Analysis also anticipates errors rendered in learning a second language and helps to solve them

According to Al-khresheh, M.H (2017), there are five steps to conduct

a contrastive analysis The steps for making a comparison and contrast of any two languages are selection, description, comparison, prediction and verification

The first step is to select linguistic units in the two languages and theoretical models In this step, there is a need to decide what is to be contrasted or compared with what It is impossible to compare everything so the analysis should be limited to a specific category

Once the selection is done, the selected linguistics units can be described This step is called description The two languages should be linguistically described with in the same theory which is CA

The next step is comparison In this step the similarities and differences can

In my research, headlines containing puns are collected from English and Vietnamese newspapers Punning methods are the criteria to contrast and compare between these puns To do the description, examples of puns in newspaper headlines in the research are analyzed and explained in details Comparisons and predictions are also given in chapter 2 In chapter 3, conclusion of similarities and differences as well as their explanations are provided for verification

1.8 Summary

In this chapter, the definition of newspaper headline and its function are presented clearly The research also gives the various notions of puns as well as classifications Although there are many ways to divide puns in terms

of the level of similarity concerning sounds and spelling or in terms of the context, manner of speech and logics, five crucial types of puns can be classified based on the punning methods The study also gives a brief overview of Contrastive Analysis, which is the theoretical framework the study bases on

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 The data

To carry out the contrastive analysis with the purpose exploring the similar and different characteristics of punning methods used in English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines, many headlines from various newspapers are collected Many newspapers as well as articles were randomly selected in order to ensure the objectivity of the study and the diversity of the data is guaranteed The headlines were issued from 2006 to 2017 The headlines taken for analysis belong to various fields such as culture, politics, health, sports, etc

2.1.1 English newspapers

The number of English headlines reached a total of 100, which come from 51 English newspapers They are from both printed newspapers and online ones These newspapers are quite popular in English cultures For example, “The Sun” seems to be famous for their humor by using puns and actually it has been existed for a long time It is also considered one of the best sellers in United Kingdom

2.1.2 Vietnamese newspapers

The Vietnamese counterparts are made up of 100 headlines from 31 printed and online newspapers There are much more newspaper headlines using puns in online sources than printed ones The reason is that may be the language found in Internet is more flexible In addition, the subjects each kind

of papers gearing readers to products is different Online newspapers attract the young while printed ones are for adults or the old Therefore, it can be easier to find headlines using puns in online versions

2.2 Procedures

This research first analyzed the punning methods used in English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines Then, general characters and differences and similarities were identified

At the start, the investigation began with a description of punning methods in English and then Vietnamese The analysis was based on the theoretical framework provided in the previous chapter

In the following step, the researcher synthesized all punning methods analyzed previously and did statistical computations on the percentage for each typical method of English and Vietnamese headlines Then, explanations

as well as conclusions were given

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the results of the study will be discussed with relevant citations from puns in English and Vietnamese headlines The two research questions will be answered in turn

3.1 English and Vietnamese headlines using homonymic puns

Among the collected data, 14 English headlines and 5 Vietnamese headlines utilize this linguistic phenomenon Homonymic puns are one of the most common types of pun in both English and Vietnamese Usually, this type makes use of the homonymous relations between the words to provide a headline with at least two different interpretations Both English and Vietnamese languages are abundant in homonyms, which is a necessary condition to make homonymic puns One source of homonyms is phonetic changes As a result, words that were formally pronounced differently may

develop identical sound forms and become homonyms “Night” and

“knight”, for example, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial “k”

in the second word used to be pronounced However, “k” is dropped in

modern sound form In Vietnamese, “lợi” - “profit” is sometimes replaced

by “lời” - “profit”, which is homonymous with “lời” – “word” Borrowing is

another source of homonyms A borrowed word may duplicate in form either

a native word or another borrowing For instance, “rite”, “write” and “right” are homonyms, but “write” and “right” are of native origin, whereas “rite” is

a Latin borrowing A couple of Vietnamese homonyms are “sút1”- “to move suddenly or quickly in one direction” or to “kick a ball strongly to make it move fast in certain direction or at certain goal” and “sút2” – “decline” The former is a borrowing of the English origin “shoot”, while the latter is native

Shortening is a further type of word building, which increases the number of

homonyms “Fan” which means “enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport

or of an actor, singer, etc.” is a shortening form of “fanatic” It is homonymous with the word “fan” which means “a machine with blades that

go round to create a current of air”

The examples below explain clearly the use of homonymic puns in several newspaper headlines

Example 1: “Ho!Ho!Ho Santa Spitz bears gifts for Lis’ folks” (New

York Post- December 26, 2014)

On Christmas Eve, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his long-suffering wife Silda announced they were getting divorced The couple had been living apart for months, and days earlier the New York City tabloids

had revealed Spitzer was "shacking up with" Lis Smith Smith had worked as

communications director on Spitzer's failed comptroller bid and was currently New York City mayor-elect Bill de Blasio's spokesperson The new couple spent Christmas together Spitzer came to the Smiths‟ house for Christmas dinner He was caught red-handed when bringing many gifts for his new lover Lis Smith‟s parents On December 26, 2013, New York Post releases the

article “Ho!Ho! Ho! Santa Spitz bears gifts for Lis’ folks” Spitzer is compared with Santa Claus bringing many presents and laughing “Ho! Ho! Ho!” However, “Ho” is also a homonymous word Not only is it the sound of laughter but it also means “a female prostitute” The headline makes pun with the homonymous word “Ho” in order to criticize the former New York City

Mayor, Eliot Spitzer for patronizing high-priced prostitutes

Example 2: “Big rig carrying fruit crashes on 210 Freeway, creates jam” (Los Angeles Time – May 20, 2013)

A large lorry overturned on the 210 Freeway, which causes traffic jam

in the San Gabriel Valley Appearing in The Los Angles Time, the headline

“Big rig carrying fruit crashes on 210 Freeway, creates jam” creatively exploits the homonymous word “jam” to pun “Jam” means traffic

congestion, but it also means a thick sweet substance made from fruit and sugar This is a very funny and witty way because the incident relates to the lorry carrying fruits

Example 3: “Lúa “điếc” và hội chứng “lãng tai” – (Tuoitre.vn April

30, 2011)

The article is about the rice plants which grow near the highway and cannot enter their reproductive phase The reason comes from the light of the street lights affecting the usual development of rice plants The word “điếc” refers to a person unable to hear anything Besides, it also implies the unusual growth The irresponsibility of people in project management unit is strongly condemned

3.2 English and Vietnamese headlines using homophonic puns

While homophonic puns are used in 10 headlines in English, not any Vietnamese headline uses them It can be explained that the English spelling system does not maintain consistent correspondence to pronunciation, i.e the principle that one certain letter or letter combination represents only one sound Unlike phonogrammic spelling systems like Russian, Korean or Vietnamese, one English sound can be represented by different letters or letter combinations, and one letter or combination of letters can represent different sounds Therefore, it is not difficult to find two or even three English words having the same sound but different spellings