Rationale
It cannot be denied that humour plays an important role in the human life and the whole society because it is not only the means of entertainment but also the weapon to criticize the groups of people with the purpose of clearing away the negative attitudes, the out-date thoughts, the discrimination existing in the society Besides, humour is the special means of reaching the better things which satisfy the progressive thoughts and the lower-class‟s dream of equality The laughter at the specific objects with the deeply social meanings always carries the humour and exists long in the spiritual products of human beings In the relation with the humour, the laughter is indispensable, but the humour may also include wittiness, joke, criticism, etc About these categories, the researcher is going to mention in the next part of the study so that there is a full overview of what is investigated into
It is said that Aristot is one of the first author that investigated the nature of humour when he stated that the humour is aesthetic However, it is necessary to note that the humour is aesthetic only when it is aimed at the specific object with the deeply social meanings The humour was born out of hostility If there had been no hostility in man, there had been no laughter (and, incidentally, no need for laughter)
All the current humour and wittiness retain evidence of this hostile origin types
Furthermore, humour is the product of the society when people, by different means, make the laughter in the spiritual works like the HS, the play, the cartoons, the funny pictures and movies, etc Among those types of literature, the short humourous stories (hereafter called HS) are really important in amusement by just some short sentences, and it is easy for the readers to provoke the laughter at ease to entertain or satire the negative sides of human beings or the whole society Being different from the other types of art like cartoon, funny pictures and play; the humorous stories use the only means of language to express the laughter like the following story:
Phát triển không đồng đều
Buổi tối, anh thợ làm bánh mì thường dẫn người yêu ra ghế đá công viên Có lần anh hỏi:
- Em yêu, tại sao cứ nửa buổi hẹn hò là em đổi chỗ bên này qua bên kia vậy?
- Tại vì nếu em cứ ngồi mãi một bên như vậy thì cơ thể em sẽ phát triển không đồng đều
In the evening the baker often takes his girl friend to the park bench
- My dear, why do you change your side after the half-date?
- Because if I remain one side, my body would develop unequally
In the past, there were a lot of studies about the humour of scholars, humorists, philosophers and psychologists, dating back as far as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, to Darwin and Freud, Eastman and Pittington, through to Koestler and Midess; plus more than 100 theories of humour and laughter, some of them brilliant investigations into the social and behavioral nature of humour and laughter
According to the standard analysis of Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (internet
23), humor theories can be classified into three neatly identifiable groups: the incongruity, superiority, and relief theories Incongruity theory is the leading approach and includes historical figures such as Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, and perhaps has its origins in comments made by Aristotle in the
Rhetoric The paradigmatic superiority theorist is Thomas Hobbes (1958: c.8, internet 5), who said that humor arises from a “sudden glory” felt when we recognize our supremacy over others Plato and Aristotle are generally considered superiority theorists, who emphasized the aggressive feelings that fuel humor The third group, relief theory, is typically associated with Sigmund Freud and Herbert Spencer, who saw humor as fundamentally a way to release or save energy generated by repression Today, there are two well-known linguistics as Salvatore
Attardo and Victor Raskin with Script-Based Semantic Theory Of Humour (SSTH) and The General Theory Of Verbal Humour (GTVH) respectively The main hypothesis is quoted by Avro Krikman (2006:31, internet 7) as follows:
SSTH is the theory refers to a text which can be characterized as a single-joke- carrying text if both of the conditions are satisfied The text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different scripts The two scripts with the text is compatible are opposite in a special sense defined in section 4 The two scripts with which the text is compatible are said to overlap fully or in part on this text
GTVH is presented as a theory that allows us to relate perceived differences between jokes to six hierarchically ordered Knowledge Resources (parameters), namely knowledge concerning Language; Narrative Strategies; Target(s);
Situation; Logical Mechanism(s); Script Opposition(s)
The investigation of the linguistic devices making the wittiness by discourse analysis is a large field that was implemented by the linguistics in the world
Generally, this matter is investigated and explored long before by many people in the field of language However, everything seems to be different in Vietnam because the study of humour is less and the study by discourse analysis, especially the professional and contrastive one of English humourous stories and Vietnamese humourous stories (hereafter called EHS and VHS respectively) Let‟s begin with
Vũ Ngọc Khánh who presented us the book named Hành Trình Vào Xứ Sở Cười (translation: The Journey to the Land of Laughter) in 1996 He gave us the overview of VHS, including the folklores and the scholar-styled literatures on the aspects of time and space During the history, Vũ Ngọc Khánh (1996:7) claimed that from the
17 th century, VHS has developed with the appearance of Trạng Quỳnh collection whose the objects to be laughed at were the king, officials, Gods and Budda, monks, traders, etc Also from this century, we have had other scholar-styled authors like Nguyễn Bá Lân or Nguyễn Cư Trinh, and in the modern time there are Tú Mỡ, Tú Xương, Vũ Trọng Phụng, Nguyễn Công Hoan, Bút Tre, etc About the aspect of space, he stated that the humour is created by people in the specific lands like Vĩnh Hoàng village, Đông Anh villages, Hòa Làng villages (Vũ Ngọc Khánh, 1996, p.54) One more point in his book is that he introduced us the linguistic uses for making laughter, including puns, slang and bad language We can find the words having the co-equal meanings as follows: ‘Lên phố Mía gặp cô hàng mật, cầm tay kéo lại, hỏi thăm đường’ (Translated version: Downtown to Sugarcane street, see
Miss Treacle, ask her the direction) Another author should be mentioned is Nguyễn Hoàng Yến when he discovered the pragmatic mechanism through the disseration: „ Truyện Cười Dân Gian Việt Nam Dưới Góc Độ Dụng Học‟ (The Vietnamese Folklores: A Study of Pragmatics) Based on the cooperation principles of Grice Maxim, politeness principles, reference and implicature, Nguyễn Hoàng Yến (2011: 110) found out that implicatures in conversation appeared at the closings of the stories and played the substantial role in making laughter The implicatures of the opening and the body is the only cause and condition for the closings and the lessons of morality would be from such implicatures Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhung is the author of the master thesis: ‘Implicature in English and Vietnamese funny stories’ In this study, she discovered both languages have the same implicature mechanism based on flouting or violating the maxims that are important for the writers in order to evoke feelings and reactions in their readers (Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhung, 2010, p.37)
It can be seen that there have not been any study of HS under discourse analysis and contrastive between English and Vietnamese implemented before by any researchers in Vietnam, so the author of this study believes that this would be the first time this subject is carried out and hopes that it would be new approach to the humour under discourse analysis in Vietnam as well as to the literature of which HS are the object of the study In addition, the study would be helpful for the translators to be good at their translation from English and Vietnamese and vice verse because when reading the literature works, in terms of the discourse analysis views, the readers not only understand the humour mechanism, the linguistic devices, the nature of humour, etc but also are supplied with the knowledge of language, people characteristics, attitudes and thoughts of the culture the stories belong to Besides, the study also is necessary for the teachers in their jobs because it is said that the successful teacher need to have good sense of humour Through the study, the knowledge would be helpful for them to tell the jokes in the appropriate time to be the warm-up activities
- In the study, the researcher investigates the figure of speech as linguistic devices making the wittiness and then help us to understand/explain why people laugh when reading EHS and VHS
- The role of context in the HS, then readers can understand the jokes by the context when reading them
- To provide implications for the translators to understand the jokes in the stories and have good interpretation with the right transfer Besides, it is necessary to tell HS in language teaching, then the students can be supplied with language knowledge, cultures and motivated in learning, warm-up activities and release their study tension
The types of humour can be cartoons, funny pictures, plays, etc However, this study is limited to the verbal humour The object of research is the EHS and VHS
This research is limited to investigate the figure of speech as the linguistic devices like metaphor, metonymy and others which make the wittiness in the selected EHS and VHS
By means of quantitative method, the investigation is carried out through text analysis, previous researches, individual analysis and observations
Data are gathered in the books collection of EHS and VHS
Based on the collected books, the samples shall be sorted out in terms of the figure of speech as linguistics devices and types of the theory of humour
There are three main parts in the study as follows:
This part includes rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study, organization and methods of the study
Development Chapter 1: The Theoretical Background
THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Discourse
The term „discourse‟ is defined differently by the linguistics One of the definitions is that discourse is a set of meanings in which a group of people communicate about a particular topic Discourse can be defined in a narrow or a broad sense and a narrow definition of discourse might refer only to spoken or written language The term of discourse refers to the conventions underlying the use of language in extended stretched of written and spoken text (Alison Ross, 1998, p.41) Here is Crystal‟s statement as quoted by David Nunan (1993:5): „A continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative‟ However, Cook (1989:156) as quoted by David Nunan (1993:6) defined discourse as stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive
From the above extracts, it can be seen that the definitions of discourse are different and still argumentative For some authors, the term of discourse can be the text and used in the interchangeable way For others; however, discourse seems to be the language used in the context David Nunan (1993: 5) agreed with the idea that discourse need to be defined in terms of meaning, and the coherent texts/pieces of discourse are those form of meaningful whole
Although discourse analysis is the new branch of the linguistics, it has developed for the recent years and received the great concern of the linguistics in the world
According to Nguyễn Hòa (2008:13), discourse analysis was named officially by the linguistics caring the coherence and the structure of text, especially in the time of „post-functional grammar‟ About the name, Nguyễn Hòa also added that Harris
(1952) was the first to use the term of discourse analysis and this has been called until now (2008, p.13)
Discourse analysis involved in the language use and has been received the great concern in the second half of this century Discourse analysis is related to conversation analysis, pragmatics, some sort of text grammar, text linguistics in which cohesion and coherence are mentioned essentially in text
Nguyễn Hòa (2008: 66) admitted that it is not always easy to classify the types of discourse because language occurs in a numerous situations of communication
Thus, there a variety of discourse types, depending on the situations they are in In other words, different types of communications events result in different types of discourse, and each of these will have its distinctive characteristics (David Nunan, 1993,p.7) However, Nguyễn Hòa (2008: 66) added that Halliday is the first to improve the term register which is used to refer to the types of discourse Thus, register can be literature, science, press, daily communication and other subregisters The term register include subregister, for example the news, reports and advertising belong to the press, short stories, poetry, play included in literature (Nguyễn Hòa, 2008, p.78)
It is a shortcoming not to mention the term genre when we investigate discourse analysis According to Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics, the term genre is a particular class of speech event which are considered by the speech community as being of the same type (Jack C Richards, John Platt & Heidi Platt,
2000, p.156) It highlights the fact that different types of discourse can be identified by their overall shape or generic structure; actually it refers to the types of communicative events (David Nunan, 1993, p.48) There are different types of genres like non-literature, literature, everyday/social discourse, general genre, etc
The humourous discourse is so special that in this research the humorous discourse may belong to the general discourse with the hidden meanings
The genre and registers may be related because different types of communicative events result in different types of discourse, and each of these will have its own distinctive characteristics Each of texts is very different in terms of its structure, grammar and physical appearance (David Nunan, 1993, p.51).
Context
There is no doubt that context plays the central role in discourse analysis because communication cannot happened in the vacuum (Nguyễn Hòa, 2008, p.281)
Specifically, context is related to the language in the triangle: language – communication – context David Nunan (1993:8) stated that there are two types of context: (1) linguistic context - the language that surrounds and accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis (2) non-linguistic context/experiential context – communicative event (for example: joke, story, lecture, greeting and conversation), the topic, the purpose of the event, the setting; the participants and the relationships between them; and the background knowledge Based on the David Nunan‟s ideas, context is the situation that helps to rise to the discourse and within which the discourse embedded Nguyễn Hòa (2000: 47) argued that context refers to those that are outside language and features of context include: the addressor/addressee, audience, topic, setting, channel, code, message form, event, key, and the purpose
In some cases, however, context is not enough for the interpretation, so it is necessary to mention the co-text which is restricted to the linguistic factors
According to Hallliday quoted by Nguyễn Hòa (2000:43), co-text is known as „the stretch of language that occurs before or after the utterance which need to be interpreted‟ with the example:
The same evening I went ashore The first landing in any new country is very interesting (Brown & Yule, 1983: 47)
Based on landing in the previous discourse, it is easy to interpret the utterance: The person came ashore or travelled by ship, and did not arrive by plane.
Humour and Its Categories
In this section, the researcher presents the definition of what counts as „humour‟ and considers the other factors which make wittiness Humour is a term used in both wide and narrow sense In the wide sense, it is applied to all literatures and informal speech or writing with the purpose of amusement In its narrow sense, humour is distinguished from wit, satire and laughter For some HS, people release their energy by making laughter; this phenomenon is called laughter by the incongruity mechanism However, for some other HS, it is necessary for the reader to laugh, but they still feel the wittiness deep inside the content of the stories because „often humor will produce laughter, but sometimes it results in only wittiness‟ (John Lippit, 1995, p.11, internet 19) Wei Liu (2010:1) defined humour as communication (written or verbal), including the teasing, joke, wittiness, satire, cartoon, puns, which induces (or is intended to induce the amusement, with or without laughing and smiling
For some ideas like those of John Dewey quoted by Jonh Lippit (1995:11), the laughter is just the standpoint of humour However, other thinker make a distinction: laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, whereas, humour arise from pleasant cognitive shift
Actually, the terms such as humour, irony, sarcasm, funny, laughter, etc are the barely distinguished ones because lexicographic studies have shown that the semantic field of what has been broadly defined as „humour‟ is very rich Salvatore Attardo & Victor Raskin (1994: 17, internet 1) introduced the humour as main category and others like irony, sacram, wittiness, funny, etc as subcategory due to the methodology of semantic field in the following figure:
Figure 1: The semantic field of humour
In general, it is not easy to define humour and its categories because humour and others involved in „mental phenomenon (humor) with a complex neuro- physiological manifestation (laughter)‟ (Salvator Attardo & Victor Raskin, 1994, p.17, internet 1) Almost every major figure in the history of philosophy has proposed a theory, but after 2500 years of discussion there has been little consensus about what constitutes humor Despite the number of authors who have participated in the debate, the topic of humor is currently understudied in the discipline of philosophy In this research, the researcher agrees with the ideas in Humour in Woody Allen (2008:18, internet 22) that people adopt the word „humour‟ as an umbrella term encompassing all the above terms, and the linguistics, psychologists and anthropologists have taken humour to be an all-encompassing categories because it can cover any event or object that make laughter, amuses or is felt to be funny Salvator Attardo & Victor Raskin (1994:8, internet 1) considered humour to be „the least restricted sense‟, so humour and wittiness are the two terms refers to the amusement which is funny; and they can go with or without laughter interchangeably with „the funny‟.
Overview of Humourous Stories
In this study, the object is the EHS and VHS, in which EHS is the main target of investigation
For some authors, the HS tells the behaviors of the character (including the speech acts) to trigger laughter The behaviors can be aimed at the disadvantages or the misfortunes
The language is chosen closely, compressed and coherent to show the purposes and implicatures of the speakers All the elements of the stories like the structure, the contents, the characters and the language serve the only purpose of humour: making laughter The surprising is the common feature; i.e the last sentence would make the laughter for the readers Nguyễn Hoàng Yến (2011: 110) concluded that the implicature interpreted from the last sentence is the decisive factor to make the laughter through the story
People can laugh at the blind, the stingy, the high class; the low-educated persons and the out-date thought The below HS is the type of satire:
Một ông bố 50 tuổi có cậu con đã 30 tuổi nhưng lười, không biết nghe gì làm ăn, chỉ nhờ vào bố Một hôm, ông thầy tướng coi tướng cho cậu ta bảo:
- Bố anh sống 80 tuổi, còn anh sống tới 62 tuổi
Cậu ta thấy thế liền òa lên khóc Thầy tướng lấy làm lạ hỏi:
- Tôi bảo bố con anh đều thọ cả, cớ sao lại khóc?
- Bố tôi chết trước hai năm Thế thì hai năm ấy ông bảo ai nuôi tôi mà tôi chẳng khóc?
A 50-year-old man had got a 30-year-old son but the son was too lazy, he did not work and lived on the father One day, a fortune teller told him:
- Your father will live 80 years, and you will live 62 years
He burst into cry The fortune teller felt strange and then asked him:
- I told you that both of you live long, so why do you cry?
- My father will die before I will two years So, within such the duration, who will nurse me?
Besides, the HS has a variety of topics like teacher-student jokes, the politicians, the priest, the doctor-patient, the lawyer, etc Through such topics, the readers understand the relations among the character and the feeling, the attitudes towards such people in the society Let‟s see one joke about the teacher:
A new teacher, trying to make use of her psychology courses, started her class by saying, ‘ Everyone who thinks you’re stupid, stand up.’
After a few seconds, little Johnny stood up The teacher said, ‘ Do you think you’re stupid, Johnny?’
‘ No Ma’am,’ he said, ‘But I hate to see you standing up there all by yourself.’
The shape of the HS is so special that it has the turn-taking in the conversation of the character or just one sentence as follows:
Trên bức tường của một trường học, người ta nghi: ‘Cấm không được chửi bậy’
On a wall of the school, it is noted that: ‘Forbid not to swear’
It is funny that the negative forms are used double in the notice, i.e the school allows their students to swear By using one sentence, the shape of joke is stimulated and created the laughter to the reader
The conversation in the HS can be long or short, in some cases there is a mini-talk like the following jokes:
Mother: ‘What did you learn in the school today, Clarence?’
Clarence: ‘How to whisper without moving my lips.’
As known before, the HS is short; therefore, its structure is established in the neatly and short way, the total number of sentences is just one sentence in some cases, and the average number is about 10 sentences (Nguyễn Thiện Khanh, 2012, internet 11)
Although they are short, they are the completed stories with the opening, the development and the closing Generally, the opening and closings are essentials to the subject of the story, in which the closings with the last sentence provoke laughter for the readers.
The Incongruity Theory in Humour
There were a lot of studies about the humour of scholars, humorists, philosophers and psychologists, dating back as far as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, to Darwin and Freud, Eastman and Pittington, through to Koestler and Midess; plus more than 100 theories of humour and laughter, some of them brilliant investigations into the social and behavioral nature of humour and laughter, and now we have Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin As being mentioned, humour is a large and complex field because it is involved in the psychology, physiology, the conscious and unconscious, the cognition, the culture, the language, etc Therefore, the researcher just focused on the linguistic theory of verbal humour, in which the incongruity is more cared because it is actual verbal and include the linguistic devices as metaphor, metonymy and others
According to Avro Krikmann (2006:1, internet 7), he called theory of incongruity the inconsistency or contradiction or bisociation He explained that this involves in being cognitive, i.e the theory is based on some objective characteristics of humourous text or other act like situation, event, picture, etc For this idea, Schopenhauer & Kant (1970: 7, internet 14) stated that a humourous situation would arises when two or more real objects are thought through one concept, and the identity of the concept is transferred to the objects: it then becomes striking apparent from the entire difference of the objects in other respects, that the concept was only applicable to them from a one-sided point of view It is more explained that the incongruity caused by the single real object and the concept subsumed and then suddenly felt So, different objects are understood in just one interpretation under one concept
It is said that incongruity is known as something inconsistent, not fitting well together, disappointed and unsuitable For the structure of the story, Nguyễn Đức Dân (1977:1, internet 10) claimed that laughter is made at the end of the story
Incongruity involves in the end of the story and makes the surprise of laugh or wittiness Nguyễn Đức Dân (1977:2, internet 10) also added that there are three stages of a HS, including the opening, the development and the closing (making laugh) In the opening, the readers find everything run smoothly and develop normally In the body, they expect the result A, but in the conclusion, the result is C which is out of expectation and different from the result A The more the result B is different from the result B, the more the humour is interesting
Alison Ross (1998:30) stated that humour is created out of a conflict between what is expected and what actually occurs in the joke Other author argued that incongruity is often indentified with „frustrated expectation‟ The incongruity theory focuses on the element of surprise Additionally, by using the incongruity theory, the readers smiles because they can find the inappropriate within the appropriate In any community, the certain attitudes are felt to be appropriate to something but not to others; so that stereotype developed (Hantoro, S, 2004, internet
6) Schopenhauer & Kant (1970: 177, internet 14) developed this theory to make the laughter an affection arising from „sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing‟ in their work named the Critique of Judgment For a joke to work, the resulting interpretation must result in the incongruity (Arjun Karande, 2006, p.31).
Figure of Speech as Linguistic Devices in Humourous Stories
These linguistic devices are mentioned by Alison Ross (1998: p.p1-63) and they contribute to make the laughter in the humour
Metaphor is one of the most significant parts of semantics field and is known as figurative language use Besides, it is used widely and sophisticatedly in literature or poem as well as HS Because metaphor involves in cognitive models, the element of different culture play a significant role in the interpretation People have different ideas of the metaphor explanation but a common one is somewhat has the analogy
In fact, the meaning would be transferred from one concept to another and the transference depends on some properties A metaphor is an extension in the use of a word beyond its primary referent (Edward Finegan, 2004, p.197) Sebastian Lobner said that a metaphor yields a new concept in the target domain, a concept that is similar to the original concept of the source domain in that it contains certain elements, although not all, of the source concept (1999, p.50)
In Semantics & Description, Jonh, I Saeed (2003:13) introduces some terminology, including the target domain and the source domain This view of metaphor is known as „something outside normal language and which requires special forms of interpretation from listeners or readers‟ (Saeed, J, 2003, p.13) To emphasize the using and the role of metaphor in language, it is said that it was metaphor that helps people to understand one domain of experience in terms of another For example, one group up-down has many metaphors, in which up is interpreted as happy, conscious, health and life, good but down is interpreted as sad, unconscious, sickness and down
There are other linguistics following the traditional theory when they approved of semantic metaphor like the comparison theory and interaction theory as mentioned by Stephen C Levinson (2000: 147), for example: I ago is like an eel Whatever the theories of metaphor, the researcher still agrees with traditional or modern views as long as it makes the laughter in the jokes
In the humorous stories, the using of metaphor is presented and makes the laughter
Both linguistics and cognitive theories of humour rely on narrative jokes of Raskin in 1985 and Attardo in 1994 Actually, metaphor are used in „discourse and on the relationship with humour Sometimes, metaphor is emerged from a play on words and serves no other purpose but to present things in a new and witty way Let‟s see the following HS:
A rich beautiful young girl said to her dancing friend
- My future husband is the handsome man who can sing well the songs that I favour when I am sad and he can play piano a little but he has to be the famous player He knows literature, history so he can tell me interesting stories He can speak French, Italian and Spanish so that we can take long time travels around the world Specially, he does not smoke and drink Dear friend, give me an advice! What do I have to do?
- You have to buy a television set!
In the above story, the using of ‘a television set’ stands for the girl‟s perfect husband The readers of the joke are led to form a certain expectation: she wants a husband who possesses the qualities The result is that only a television that satisfies the girl‟s requirements of a perfect husband with above qualities The incongruity arises from what is not explicitly mentioned in the form, yet what the hearer takes for granted: he must be a human being The context that ‘a rich beautiful young girl said to her dancing friend’ and ‘my future husband’ lead us to assume that she expect ‘a man with qualities’, belonging to the source domain The assumption is made base on our presupposition that she want a human being as husband The actually answer of the dancing partner is a television, belongs to the target domain because it is just a television that meet all the qualities
In Meaning And Reading, Sebastian Lobner (2002: 49) defined metonymy as a term
„that primarily refers to object of a certain kind is used to refer instead to things that belong to objects of this kind‟ Consider the following exampled borrowed from the book of Sebastian Lobner:
(a) The university lies in the eastern part of the town (b) The university has closed down the faculty of agriculture
(c) The university starts again on 15 th April
The subject university refers to the campus in (a), to the institutional body in (b) and to the courses at the university in (c) Apparently, a metonymy shift of reference of the word from a standard referent, a university, to an essential element of the underlying concept Additionally, when we talk metonymically, we remain within the same domain We borrow an element from the original concept, but the links to the other element remain (Sebastian Lobner, 1999, p.50)
George Lakoff & Mark Johnson (1984: 35) claimed that we are imputing human qualities to things that are not human theories, diseases, inflation, etc Thus, in those cases, there are no actual human to refer to When we say ‘The ham sandwich is waiting for his check’, there is no man named ‘the ham sandwich’, instead, we use one entity to refers to another that is related to It can be understood that ‘the ham sandwich’ refers to the people who buy the ham sandwich
It is the metonymic concepts that help us to „conceptualize one thing by means of its relation to something else‟ (George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, 1984, p.35) When we think of Nixon, we are not just thinking of himself alone, but we have concepts about him: he is male, a president of America, he was involved in Vietnam war, etc
Thus, with the utterance of ‘Nixon bombed Hanoi’, it is explained that Nixon was the person in charge, not Nixon was the actual person who performed the action of bombing
In short, this Development part offers the theoretical background of discourse, context, overview of HS, theory of humour and the figure of speech For discourse, the researcher introduces the definition and types of discourse, in which genre and register are related and paid more attention because different types of communicative events result in different types of discourse, and each of these will have its own distinctive characteristics Each of texts is very different in terms of its structure, grammar and physical appearance (David Nunan, 1993, p.51) For context, both context and co-text are really important for the reader in interpretation of the jokes The HS is special in the shape, the structure, the topic, the conversation between the character, etc; but all of these features serve only purpose of making humour There are over 100 theories of humour, some theories are of psychology, some are of physiology but the researcher selects the the incongruity theory because it has the linguistic devices Figure of speech with hidden meanings has more than two linguistic devices (metaphor and metonymy), and all of these make the ambiguity Under the hidden meaning of ambiguity, the figure of speech makes the laughter to the reader, so despite the metaphor or metonymy, the researcher reckons that they all are ready-made or living The readers can find the ready-made linguistic devices in the dictionary because they exist naturally in the society with the conventional understanding For the living linguistic devices, they are created by the speakers in the stories and sometimes the readers are difficult to understand them.
THE STUDY
Methodology
The main aim of this section is to explore how figure of speech as linguistic devices is used in the stories The researcher found 50 samples which are collected from the selected books Those have been reprinted and published in the recent years; it means that they have been receiving the concerns of readers The books are the series of HS collected by the editors and the publishing houses The samples are from the books: 120 English-Vietnamese HS (episode 1 and 2), Best Funny Stories, The World of English Humour, Teacher – Jokes, Quotes, And Anecdotes, Nụ Cười Nước Anh, Tiếu Lâm Việt Nam Hiện Đại, Cười…Hở Mười Cái Răng, Truyện cười dân gian Việt Nam
The samples collected from the above books are the HS having the various jokes with the theory of verbal hurmous in English and Vietnamese However, it should be noted that humour is the large and complicated field as mentioned in the previous chapter, thus within the scope of the study and the purpose to be aimed at, the total samples are 50 which fit the investigation of the study Any other irrelevant cases would be ignored and not be considered because it is worth indicating the cases that have to do with metaphor and metonymy as linguistic devices have been gathered
The display of the data classification will be done by means of tables in which the type of jokes in English and Vietnamese will be reflected, as well as the pieces of text to be described and analyzed
After doing the in-depth analysis, the cases of each phenomenon in each field will be quantified and the results are reflected in tables The count will be done manually and calculated in the percentage
Alison Ross (1998:4) claimed that there have been two approaches to the study of humor: the functional and the descriptive The functional approach has emphasized the socio-psychological aspects of joke-telling The descriptive approach foregrounds semantic and structural properties of jokes Regardless of the approach, there is a consensus among humor researchers of jokes, which typically results in laughter, is essentially an intentional act that evolves from laughter, humour, wittiness and the joke.
Data Analysis
The researcher found there are 50 samples in the selected books of HS as mentioned, in which metaphorical jokes are 37 and metonymical jokes are 13 The metaphor jokes and metonymy jokes are subdivided into the categories of English and Vietnamese
The aim of the study deals with the metaphor as linguistic device, so this part was paid special attention because of the purpose of the study A total of 37 samples as metaphor jokes in the books of humorous stories, there are 18 (49%) and 19 (51%) in the English and Vietnamese respectively Overall, this means that the difference between these two languages is rather small Table 1 reveals the frequency and percentage of metaphor jokes occurring in total and between two languages in particular
Table 1: Metaphor jokes in EHS and VHS
It can be seen from Table 1 that the percentages of EHS and VHS are rather equal
There are the equivalent percentages of metaphor jokes, the findings indicate that both the English and the Vietnamese are fond of using metaphor as the linguistic devices in their humours stories
Mrs Robinson was a teacher in a big school in a city in America She had boys and girls in her class […] [1] One day, she said to the children: ‘ People in a lot of countries in Asia wear white clothes at funerals, but in America and Europe wear white clothes when they’re happy What colour does a woman wear in this country when she marries, Mary?’
Mary said: ‘ White, Miss, because she’s happy.’
‘ That’s good, Mary’, Mrs Robinson said, ‘ You’re quite right She wear white because she’s happy’
But then one of the boys in the class put his hand up
‘ Yes, Dick’, Mrs Robinson said, ‘ Do you want to ask something’
‘Yes, please, Miss’, Dick said, ‘Why do men wear black in this country when they marry, Miss?’
In the schemata of characters about the cognitive metaphor, the concepts of the colour like black and white are universal It is the universal knowledge of the character that black and white is not only the primary colour but also convey the figurative meaning, the abstract lying deep behind its form, that is the meaning as the metaphor As mentioned by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1984: 3): „The concepts they govern our everyday thought are not just matters of the intellect […]
Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities‟
In this story, the teacher explained that black is the representative of the sadness, sorrow and funeral while white is contrasted to black with the meaning of the new thing, the happiness and the pureness Hence, the Western people use the different colours for their clothes, depending on the situations they are in However, the boy students are too mechanical to understand the explanations of the teachers His question of „„Why do men wear black in this country when they marry, Miss?‟ seems to be mechanic but it is very suitable because it is raised by basing on the truth as follows: the wedding is a happy event but the groom is still in black
I’m Not Superstitious Personnel Manager: ‘ Have you had any business experience?’
Applicant: ‘ No, I’ve just finished school’
Personnel Manager: ‘What kind of job are you looking for?’
[1] The paragraphs are cut because the story is too long to put the full content in this study For seeing the full content of the story, see appendix
Applicant: ‘I’d like to be some sort of an executive Maybe a vice-president’
Personnel Manager: ‘But we already had twelve vice-presidents’
Applicant: ‘That’s all right I’m not superstitious It’s ok if I’m thirteenth’
This is the metaphor of cognitive concept in which the thirteenth is thought to be the unlucky to us, especially to the superstitious people Most of the Western people believe that the thirteenth is the number of evil and this is one of the features of
Western culture where most of the population follows the Christianity It may be explained that the thirteenth is involved in the religion, for example thirteen people attended the last party of Jesus Christ, the Last Day of Jesus Christ, etc Clearly, the applicant in the story acknowledged the thirteen‟s abstract meaning but he did not care about that because he is interested in getting the job above all
- Now, John, suppose there’s a load of hay on one side of the river and a jackass on the other side, and no bridges, and the river is too wide to swim, how can the jackass get to the hay?
- Well, That’s just what the other jackass did
There is the difference in the cognitive metaphor of the jackass in the story between the Western culture and the Eastern culture The jackass is claimed to be the stubborn animal, thus both cultures have the idiom: „As stubborn as donkey‟
However, the Western people add another characteristic of the jackass: the stupidity Therefore, by using the metaphor of jackass, the character implied that the other was stupid when he cannot give the results of the math how the jackass can get to the hay It is the similarity and connection between the two domains of John and the animal that create the metaphor and then the wittiness of story, here John is implied to be the stupid person
A father had been lecturing his young hopeful upon the evils of staying out late at night and getting up late in the morning
- You will never amount to anything – he continued – Unless you turn ove a new leaf Remember that the early bird catches the worm
- How about the worm, father? – inquired the young man – wasn’t he rather foolish to get up so early?
- My son – replied the father solemnly - that worm hadn’t been to bed all night, he was his way home!
It is interesting to note that there are two metaphors; they are the worm and the bird
The literal meaning of the worm and the bird are too easy to understand because by experiences, basic knowledge and observation we all know that one entity is the insect and the other is the bird However, for the figurative meaning, everything is different in the Vietnamese and Western countries The Vietnamese people use the bird as metaphor of the male sex organ and the worm as the metaphor of corrupt officials or the bad persons that are harmful for the whole group with the idiom
‘One scabby sheep is enough to spoil the whole flock’ For the Western people, the bird refers to the hard-working persons, on the contrary, the worm refers to the lazy ones Both father and son interpreted the metaphors including the bird and the worm; and the joke is created when the father implied the lazy worm sleeping daily, being out all night without any working As can be seen in the story there is the big difference among two cultures about the way entities are conceptualized Although some are universal, some are structured with totally different concepts
Put your poetry into the fire Poet: Do you think I should put more fire into my poem?
Editor: No, quite the reserve
In the schemata of the characters about the cognitive metaphor, the concepts of fire are burning and hot And, it is the universal knowledge of the character that fire is used in the figurative meaning lying deep under its form According to the Eastern philosophy, fire is one of the five factors ending the old things and starting the new things in the ring Yin-Yang Besides, it is said that the life is revived through the fire after the reborn of the phoenix Therefore, the figurative meaning of the metaphorical fire are indicated the innovation, the passion and the enthusiasm It is interesting, however, the laughter is created by the fact that the poet use metaphor with figurative meaning but the editor just used fire as literal meaning with the implication that the poetic works were not worth reading, they should be throw away This means that there is no target domain for the editor and he is so witty with his implication It should be noted that recognizing the incongruity between the poet‟s expectation and the editor creates and provokes the laughter
Chồng hơi bực nên sẵng giọng:
- Anh muốn hỏi cô ấy là ai, người thế nào… cứ nói không đầu không đuôi như thế, bố ai hiểu được, bộ định true chọc anh chắc?
Vợ mỉm cười thật tươi bảo:
- Rồi em đi xa khỏi cái gương, cô ấy lập tức biến mất Chồng chuyển từ tức giận sang tức cười mà rằng:
- Ối giời ơi! Thì ra nãy giời anh cứ tưởng…Đúng là mèo!
The husband annoyed and explained severely:
- I just want to ask who she is and how she is…You keep talking about her without opening and closing, do you tease me?
The wife smile and said:
- And then I move away from the mirror, she disappreared immediately
The husband changed from the annoyance to the smiling and then said:
- Gee! I have thought that you talked about someone else for a short while…You, cat!
In the common knowledge, cat is the mammal being capable of catching chimneys and the body‟s movement is so gently and lissome Besides, the cat is able to comfort the owner with the fondle manner like the fable stories „Cat and Sheep‟ by Lev Tolstoi Hence, cat is the symbol of female; especially the ones are of fragile and weak characteristics with the interest of being flattering In this story, the husband has the reference from his wife into the cat because when comparing, he found the analogy between them This case belongs to the traditional theory of metaphor in which substitution is used It is likely that the readers assume the husband not mean what he says literally but that he is metaphorically saying „ the wife is fond of being praised‟
Discussion and Contrastive Findings
The researcher found there are 50 samples in the selected books of HS as mentioned in the part 2, in which metaphorical jokes are 37 and metonymical jokes are 13 The metaphor jokes and metonymy jokes are subdivided into the categories of English and Vietnamese
The English metaphors are 18 (49%) and the Vietnamese metaphors are 19 (51%)
From this result, it can be explained that metaphor is the common use in any cultures, because in simple terms, metaphor expresses similarity between the semantic vehicle (base or source) and the semantic tenor (topic or target) (Marta Dynel, 2009, p.29, internet 3), and metaphor is really important in the figurative meanings The interpreter first resolves this subordinate incongruity, and then tackles the higher-level one, i.e between the vehicle and the tenor, finding the relevant attributes and the ground Another explanation can be the resolvable incongruity between the two domains/concepts compared This supports the incongruity between the tenor and the vehicle to be resolved so that the full humorous potential and the metaphorical meaning can be acknowledged Two juxtaposed concepts stem from concrete vs abstract, non-human vs human with relevant attributes being transferred from one to the other
The fundamental concepts need to be basic and simple because it is difficult for us to function the world without interpretation of these concepts Besides, the researcher agree with the idea that „our ordinary conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature‟(George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, 1984, p.3) Actually, metaphor is our thought, not language, and a major and dispensable part of our ordinary, conventional way of conceptualizing the world
It would be specified that the number of metaphor as the rhetorical tool in the humor stories depends on the situation they are in In this study, the researcher analyzes the samples of metaphor to find if they are frequent or not as expectation
Let‟s consider some EHS and VHS to see how metaphor is represented
According to the result, EHS has the minority, accounting for 38 % while VHS has the majority, accounting for 62% This means that there is the difference in the culture of two countries in using figure of speech in communication It seems that Vietnamese people are more fond of using metonymy to display the referential function, it allows them to use one entity to stand for another While the English metonymies are not often used in the jokes, the Vietnamese metonymies are favored when talking about the place for the institution
It can be explained that like metaphor, metonymical concept structures are our thought, attitudes and actions about the things around us And, it is the groundings that are built from our experience that help us to interpret the metonymy Besides, the element of context is a central part of interpretation and would be discussed in the next part
2.3.1.3 Context in the interpretation of jokes in the HS
During investigation, the researcher found that context is one of the substantial elements that help the reader to understand the stories and interpret the jokes Let‟s see the below story:
Có một người chuyên làm nghể lừa tiền cướp của của người khác mà trở nên giàu có, làm nhà ngang dãy dọc Một hôm, có bạn đến chơi, anh ta đưa đi xem một tòa nhà mới làm và khoe:
- Gỗ làm nhà này tôi ngâm dưới nước hằng ba, bốn tháng, không đời nào mọt được
- Mọt ở trong bụng là thế nào?
- Thế bác không biết mọt trong bụng là mọt ‘tham’ à? Giống mọt tham này hễ thấy người ta có con trâu béo, có mẫu ruộng tốt là tìm cách lường gạt chiếm của người ta làm của mình […] Bụng mình có mọt, nhà mình cũng sẽ có mọt
There is a person who cheated others to get money and then became rich, he build the big houses prolonged by houses One day, he had a guest and showed him around the big house, he said:
- The wood for house were sunk into the water for three or four month, so it cannot be destroyed by the woodeaters
- How is the woodeater in the stomach?
- Do you know that the woodeater in stomach is the greedy ones? When finding people having the good buffalo, the nice rice land; this type of animal uses many ways to deceive them with the purpose of robbing money and properties […] There is the woodeater in stomach, there is the woodeater in house as a results
In the stories, we find that there are linguistic and non-linguistic contexts The term woodeater, is the linguistic context and it is related to the language in the triangle: language – communication – context By analyzing some features of context, we can make clear the implicature in the stories as follows:
+ The addressor/addressee: the owner and the guest + The topic: woodeater
+ The setting: newly- build house + The event: humouours story + The purpose: criticizing the greedy owner
Based on the David Nunan‟s ideas, context is the situation that help to rise to the discourse and within which the discourse embedded (David Nunan, 1993, p.17)
Nguyễn Hòa (2000: 47) argued that context refers to those that are outside language and features of context include: the addressor/addressee, audience, topic, setting, channel, code, message form, event, key, and the purpose
In the stories, the term woodeater as linguistic context is not enough for the interpretation, so it is necessary to mention context which occurs before or after the utterances Here we can find a part of the stretch of language surrounding woodeater as follows:
+ occurring before woodeater: When finding people having the good buffalo, the nice rice land; this type of animal uses many ways to deceive them with the purpose of robbing money and properties
+ Occurring after woodeater: there is the woodeater in house as a result
IMPLICATIONS OF TRANLATION AND TEACHING
Implications of Translation
Through investigation, it is noted that there are some terms and sentences which are translatable, difficult to be translatable and untranslatable Thus, how to be good at transferring from the source language into target language in the humorous stories is a challenge to the translator
Let‟s look at the following VHS:
Một thầy địa lý trẻ mới cưới vợ Trong đêm tân hôn, khi kề cận bên vợ, thấy ngứa nghề bèn trổ tài Đầu tien thầy sờ vào mũi cô vợ trẻ và nói:
- À! Đây chính là điểm phát long chi sơ!
Kế đó thầy sờ tiếp đến cặp vú vợ và bảo:
- À!Đây chính là vị thế đất long hổ cựu toàn!
Tiếp tục thầy sờ tới bụng cô vợ mà rằng:
- Ồ! Đây chẳng phải là một bãi bình sa lạc nhạn hay sao?
Rồi thầy lần sờ xuống phía bên dưới nữa và mừng rỡ kêu to:
- Đúng là một gò đất tốt A có một cái huyệt ở trong đó!
Thầy vội vàng trèo lên mình vợ Cô vợ ngây thơ thật tình hỏi:
- Đang xem địa lý sao bỗng dưng mình làm gì đấy?
Thầy hổn hển trả lời:
- Đã tìm thấy một cái huyệt tốt nên cần phải làm lễ khai thông cho nó, nếu không nó sẽ bị phong bế mất!
A young geomancer is newly married In the wedding night, when being near the wife, he remembered his job and then started to show his skills First, he touched her nose and said:
- Well, This is the beginning of the land development Next he touched her breasts and said:
- Well, this is the joint- tiger and dragon land Next he touched her belly and said:
- Well, it is the lands making the bird lose its direction, isn’t it?
Then he touched the down part and said happily:
- This is the right good mound having a hole!
He quickly climbed his wife but she asked her husband naively:
- What are you doing while working?
He answered in the rapid voice:
- I found the good hole, so I need to open it otherwise it is blocked
The laughter arises from the incongruity and the relief of sex in which metaphors are used like the figurative imagination The incongruity between sex and body parts (what it is compared) caused the laughter In this story, the researcher is difficult to translate the terms like the beginning of the land development (translated from điểm phát long chi sơ), the joint- tiger and dragon land (translated from đất long hổ cựu toàn) and the land making the bird lose its direction
(translated from bãi bình sa lạc nhạn) The similarities between two languages allow the translator to evaluate how much a translated joke differs from the source joke The issue of the translation of puns is taken up and it is argued that humorous translation cannot be absolutely guaranteed in all cases (Yakin Orhun, 1999, p.1, internet 18) Sometimes, for the case of being difficult to transfer the equivalent meaning, the translators get lost in their translation Koponen as quoted by Farzard Akmali (2012:2, internet 2) stated that it does not have to mean that a part of the text has been completely lost, but rather that some aspect that was present in the source text is not there in the target text, e.g a double meaning, a connotation
For the untranslatable terms and sentences, it is noted that there are other cultural aspects existing in Vietnamese and English as well and such aspects be transferred to other cultures by ways of translation It is proposed that, although a perfect translation is always a desirable concept in almost every field, the translation of humour is possible within certain frameworks (Farzard Akmali, 2012, p.2, internet
2) Besides, the homonymy is the challenge for the translator Let‟s see the below HS:
Anh bộ đội nghe vậy thanh minh:
- Dạ, sao lại dám vậy ạ! Thưa bác, chúng cháu phải giữ cho nhau, vì cháu yêu một tình yêu chân chính chứ ạ Ông già cười và mỉa mai:
- Tôi biết anh là chân chính rồi, mà tôi có sợ cái chân chính của anh đâu Tôi chỉ sợ cái chân phụ của anh thôi Cái chân chính thì anh giữ được, còn chân phụ anh làm sao giữ nổi?
- Well, I don’t dare to do that Sir, we have to keep ourselves because of the true love
The old man smiled and satirized:
- I know your true love and I am not afraid of it I am just afraid of your subleg You can keep true love with your main legs, but your ‘subleg’…how can you keep it?
Actually, there is a big difference in the concepts when the Western people cannot interpret the metaphor as leg and subleg In their schemata, there is not concept of subleg, but they just have the concept of leg – an organ of the body for walking or movement This is actual case of being untranslatable It is difficult for the English readers to understand the term of subleg referring to another meaning Talking about sex as taboo in humour, the speaker use the metaphor to express the figurative meaning, here the old man created the metaphor of subleg to refer to the sexual organ of the male By using the metaphor, he just wanted to warn the soldier not to violate the taboo: having sex with his daughter
As we also have stated elsewhere in the text, the description of both humour and translation, as two separate concepts, are not available in certain and decisive terms
From the viewpoint of its cultural features, the original humor may include a concept or concepts which are totally unknown in the target culture The concept(s) may be abstract or concrete; it may relate to religious belief, a social custom or even a type of food (Bassnett, 1992: 21) The humor translators‟ mission is to overcome these challenges; to understand the historical and social nuances of the humor, approximate to its style, transfer the linguistic features and cultural concepts, as much as possible, to the extent that it makes the target audience laugh when reading or hearing the humor in his own language
It is often claimed that humour is a desirable characteristic of teaching and learning
According to Mellisa Kelly (internet 24), sense of humour is range one of the top 6 keys to a successful teacher In addition, it can relieve the tense classroom situations before they become disruptions A sense of humor will also make class more enjoyable for the students and possibly make students look forward to attending and paying attention Justifications for the use of humour include the promotion of understanding, holding the attention of students, managing disruptive behaviour, creating a positive attitude to the subject matter, and reducing anxiety Humor in the classroom is one of the most effective tools that the teachers should have in their teaching because it can diffuse tense situations, make the student pay attention and be excited by the lesson
However, the teacher should choose the topics of jokes, depending on the age and level of students If the students are elementary and high school, the sex jokes are not appropriate for them because they are taboo According to the investigated in this study, some sex jokes has body parts which are figurative meanings and very sensitive like the metaphor of bird or subleg If the topics are good and educational, the teachers can provide the students with knowledge in English language and culture and One more thing is that the teachers need to consider the suitable time to tell the jokes It is better for them to offer the student with the HS when they are tired and bored at the lessons Another good time is at the beginning of the lesson, then the students can be warm up by the exciting atmosphere
In short, this chapter offered the implications for the translator and English teacher how to be good at their jobs with the application of humour For the translator, considering the above-mentioned points and the fact that no two languages are completely the same, even when they share many features, (e.g grammatical and lexical) it is inferred that at some point every translator is faced with making a choice which is to be applied by using his/her linguistic and cultural competency as well as creativity Besides, the translator need to have good system of lexemes and good knowledge of culture, nature of figurative of speech like metaphor, metonymy and others so that they can be successful with their translation For the English teachers, it is suggested that they should tell the HS which are suitable for the age and levels of the students in the appropriate time in the classroom, helping their lesson to be paid more attention and the student to release from the tension of study
In this study, the researcher aimed to consider the types of figure of speech as linguistic devices that are found most in the verbal witticism as opposed to jokes, which exploits conceptual phenomena such as metaphor and metonymy And here are the major findings of the study:
About metaphor, it is used quite equally with the percentage of 49 % for EHS and 51% for VHS respectively From this finding, we can conclude that at any cultures, the linguistic device of metaphor is favoured and we can laugh at the metaphoric jokes with the universal interpretation Beside the universal concept, it can be denied that there have been still the different ones among the cultures when the source and target domain are not the same
About metonymy, the study discovered that the most frequency of metonymy exists in the Vietnamese stories, compared to English ones
Suggestions for a Further Study
Due to the limited time, the scope and focus of the thesis, there are some points that have not been investigated by the researcher In this study, the researcher just focused on one theory which is known as the incongruity in the relation of figure of speech as linguistic devices It is interesting to explore two other theories: the superiority and the relief in the relation of metaphor and metonymy By this way, we are able to know the figure of speech belongs to the superiority or the relief For some authors, the superiority is involved in the social discrimination and the relief is involved in the taboos Exploring the figure of speech as linguistic devices in the relation with these two theories would be the effective way for us to understand the stories‟ characters‟ thoughts, attitudes and feelings towards the society where they live in as well as their desire to release the sex energy and other taboos
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1 Appendix 1: English Humorous Stories a Metaphor As the Linguistic Device In EHS
A man wrote to a hotel to make reservation and asked if dogs were allowed
The hotel manager answered his letter as follows:
„ I‟ve been in this business for thirty years I have need had to call the police to eject a disorderly dog Never had a god set fire to a beg with a cigarette I have never found a hotel towel or blanket in a dot‟s suitcase Certainly the dog will be welcome‟
„P.S If your dog vouches for you, you can come along too.‟
„Mr Smith,‟ said the head of the firm, „I noticed there‟s a considerable item for meals in your expense account.‟
„ Er – I was entertaining customers and prospective buyer, sir.‟
„All right, I‟m not complaining, but I hope you will bear in mind that we are selling tractors, and not blue bird ever buys a tractor.‟
3 How Did You Put It Together?
William as always a bad payer, but one day he walked into the shop of the local grocer, and paid the whole of his account without a murmur
„ That letter you send me did it,‟ he explained to the man behind the counter
„I‟ve never seen one like it Why, it would get money out of a stone How did you put it together?‟
„ I took the best bit out of the letter my wife sent me when she was vacationing at en expensive resort,‟ he explained
4 I Should Have Thought Of That
„ I don‟t like these photos at all,‟ said a client „I can call myself an ape.‟
The photographer, famous for his wit as well as for his art, favored him with a glance of lofty disdain
„ You should have thought of that before you had them taken,‟ was his reply as he turned back to work
5 Turtle Soup Diner: Waiter, it‟s been half an hour since I ordered that turtle soup
Waiter: Yes, but you know how slow turtles are
6 The Tenth Although it was raining heavily, the poorly dressed man sat on the side of a small pool fishing
A young man stopped and watched him pitifully
- Would you like to come into that restaurant and we have lunch? – Said the young man
When they sat at the table and waited for serving, the young man asked:
- How many fishes did you catch in this morning?
- You are the tenth – The man smiled and answered naughtily
7 (No subject) Mrs Robinson was a teacher in a big school in a city in America She had boys and girls in her class, and she always enjoyed teaching them, because they were quick, and because they thought about everything carefully One day she said to the children: „ People in a lot of countries in Asia wear white clothes at funerals, but people in America and in Europe wear white clothes when they‟re happy
What color does a woman wear in this country when she marries, Mary?‟
Mary said: „White, Miss, because she‟s happy‟
„ That‟s good, Mary‟, Mrs Robinson said, „ You‟re quite right She wear white because she‟s happy‟
But then one of the boys in the class put his hand up
„ Yes, Dick!‟, Mrs Robinson said, „Do you want to ask something?‟
„ Yes, please, Miss‟, Dick said, „ Why do men wear black in this country when they marry, Miss?‟
8 I‟m Not Superstitious Personnel Manager: „ Have you had any business experience?‟
Applicant: „ No, I‟ve just finished school‟
Personnel Manager: „ What kind of job are you looking for?‟
Applicant: „ I‟d like to be some sort of an executive Maybe a vice-president‟
Personnel Manager: „ But we already had twelve vice-presidents‟
Applicant: „ That‟s all right I‟m not superstitious It‟s ok if I‟m thirteenth‟
A rich beautiful young girl said to her dancing friend
- My future husband is the handsome man who can sing well the songs that I favour when I am sad and he can play piano a little but he has to be the famous player He knows literature, history so he can tell me interesting stories He can speak French, Italian and Spanish so that we can take long time travels around the world Specially, he does not smoke and drink Dear friend, give me an advice! What do I have to do ?
- You have to buy a television set!
- Now, John, suppose there‟s a load of a hay on one side of the river and a jackass on the other side, and no bridge, and the river is too wide to swim, how can the jackass get to the hay?
- Well, that‟s just what the other jackass did
11 You Can‟t Get Blood Out Of A Turnip
- How can I pay when I haven‟t any money? – said the debtor – You can‟t get blood out of a turnip
But the collector was ready for him: „ You‟re not a turnip you‟re a beat.‟
A father had been lecturing his young hopeful upon the staying out late at night and getting up late in the morning
- You will never amount to anything – he continued – Unless you turn over a new leaf Remember that the early bird catches the worm
- How about the worm, father? – inquired the young man – wasn‟t he rather foolish to get up so really?
- My son – replied the father solemnly – that worm hadn‟t been to bed all night, he was his way home!
13 Everybody Puts Their Nose Into My Business
- Everybody puts their nose into my business
14 A Fine Weapon To Kill Time
„ Do you sing and play much?‟ A young man asked the pretty girl who was carelessly thrumming the key of the piano
„Only to kill time,‟ she replied
„You‟ve got a fine weapon I must admit,‟ ventured the young man
15 Put Your Poetry Into The Fire Poet: Do you think I should put more fire into my poetry?
Editor: No, quite the reverse
Mr William was a gardener and a very good one too Last year he came to work for Mrs Elphinstone, who was old, fat and rich She knew nothing about gardens, but thought that she knew a lot, and was always interfering One day
Mr Williams got angry with Mrs Elphinstone and called her an elephant She did not like that at all, so she went to a lawyer, and a few months later Mr Williams said to him: „Does that mean that I am not allowed to call this lady an elephant any more?‟
„ That is quite correct‟, the magistrate answered
„ And am I allowed to call an elephant a lady?‟ the gardener asked
„ Yes, certainly‟ the magistrate answered
Mr Williams looked at Mrs Elphinstone and said „Goodbye, lady‟
17 I‟m Not Superstitious Personnel Manager: „ Have you had any business experience?‟
Applicant: „ No, I‟ve just finished school‟
Personnel Manager: „What kind of job are you looking for?‟
Applicant: „I‟d like to be some sort of an executive Maybe a vice-president‟
Personnel Manager: „But we already had twelve vice-presidents‟
Applicant: „That‟s all right I‟m not superstitious It‟s ok if I‟m thirteenth‟
18 No Hogs On The Farm
Having enjoyed the previous summer at a farm in the country, John Jones wrote to the farmer and asked if he might have the same accommodations for the coming August „But‟, he added in his letter „I wish you‟d move that pig-pen out back of the house It was tight under my windows last year and was most obnoxious.‟
Shortly Mr Jones received farmer‟s reply, assuring him of the same accommodation and adding by way of explanation: „ As to that pig-pen there, don‟t let that worry you We are not had no hogs on this farm since you went away last year.‟ b Metonymy as The Linguistic Device In The EHS
A certain sales manager has a very loud voice One morning, when he was shouting in his office, the managing director asked his secretary, „What‟s was all this noise about?‟
„ Mr Blank is talking to San Francisco, sir‟, was the reply
„ then why on earth does he use the telephone?‟ asked the managing director