English and vietnamese jokes from a pragmatic perspective m a thesis linguistics 60 22 15

-1- VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ********************** PHAN THỊ QUYÊN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE JOKES: FROM A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE (Phân tích truyện cười Anh- Việt bình diện ngữ dụng học) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Course: 17 HA NOI- 2010 -2- VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ********************** PHAN THỊ QUYÊN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE JOKES: FROM A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE (Phân tích truyện cười Anh- Việt bình diện ngữ dụng học) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Course: 17 Supervisor: CHU PHƯƠNG VÂN M.A HA NOI- 2010 -6- ABBREVIATIONS CP : The Cooperative Principle QUAL : Quality QUAN : Quantity QDA : Qualitative data analysis REL : Relevance MAN : Manner EFL : English as a Foreign Language E joke : English joke V joke : Vietnamese joke -7- LIST OF CHARTS Table Chart 1: Illocutionary acts of participants in English and Vietnamese jokes Chart 2: Non- observance of maxims of participants in English and Vietnamese jokes -8- TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF CHARTS PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Methodology of the study Format of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Theory of jokes 1.1.2 Definition of jokes 1.1.3 Incongruity theory 1.2 Theories of pragmatics related to jokes 1.2.1 Definitions of pragmatics 1.2.2 Speech act theory 1.2.2.1 Locutional act 1.2.2.2 Illocutional act 1.2.2.3 Perlocutional act 1.2.3 Conversational implicature and context 1.2.4 The cooperative principle 1.2.5 Conversational maxims 1.2.5.1 The maxim of quantity 1.2.5.2 The maxim of quality 1.2.5.3 The maxim of relevance 1.2.5.4 The maxim of manner 1.2.6 Principles of conducting maxims 1.2.6.1 Flouting 1.2.6.2 Violating CHAPTER 2: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 2.1 Difficulties of joke analysis -9- 2.1.1 Cultural factor 2.1.2 Making inferences 2.2.Analysis procedures 2.3.Joke analysis 2.3.1 Speech act analysis of the set- up in English and Vietnamese jokes 2.3.2 Maxim analysis of the punch line in English and Vietnamese jokes 2.3.2.1 Maxim of quantity 2.3.2.2 Maxim of quality 2.3.2.3 Maxim of relevance 2.3.2.4 Maxim of manner 2.4.The analysis results 2.4.1 The speech act analysis result of the set- up 2.4.2 The maxim analysis result of the punch line 2.5.Findings 2.5.1 Pragmatic analysis of English and Vietnamese jokes 2.5.2 Similarities 2.5.3 Differences CHAPTER 3: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 3.1.Introducing pragmatic knowledge 3.2.Utterance teaching via English jokes 3.3.Utterance meaning teaching via English jokes 3.4.Culture and pragmatic teaching via English jokes 3.5.Conversational maxim teaching via English jokes 3.6.Speech act teaching via English jokes 3.7.Suggestions for classroom activities 3.7.1 Speech act exercise 3.7.2 Conversational maxim exercise 3.7.3 Sample speech act quiz 3.8.Some constructive suggestions for pragmatic teaching of jokes PART C: CONCLUSION Concluding remarks Limitation of the study Suggestions for further study REFERENCES APPENDIX -10- PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study One of the best ways to understand people is to know what makes them laugh (H Golden) It is worth saying that we can laugh when reading or hearing jokes if we can understand what make us laugh Hence, we should know the communication between the participants in jokes, the context jokes take place, and the language used Pragmatics, therefore, will let us know what make us laugh and then we may say jokes are interesting for our life And we now also understand that we should pay more attention to the study of jokes pragmatically as semantic analysis, sociological analysis, etc on jokes have been studied quite extensively over the years Pragmatic analysis is, thus, a relatively new approach of language And quite different from other linguistic studies, pragmatics puts more attention on language users and the context in which the language is used And in fact, in analyzing jokes pragmatically, we might find a harmony between language for humor, language users and contexts It is so much hoped that the study may bring a good understanding of pragmatics and concepts of pragmatics via English and Vietnamese jokes When analyzing jokes, the author is trying to reveal how the matters are interpreted in the jokes Another reason is that, as a teacher of English, the author wants to help Ha Tinh university learners of English not only read a regular text but understand its functions in context The study is also hoped to offer a suggestion about the pragmatic reading of any jokes, which, in turn, help shaping a scientific view towards pragmatics Lastly, the author wants to share a significant reference of jokes for others who are willing to make another further pragmatic research Aims of the study The aims of this study are:  To provide whether the theory of speech acts and theory of conversational maxims has explanatory power on humor in English and Vietnamese jokes -11-  To figure out a brief account of possible similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese jokes in terms of the speech acts and conversational maxims  To provide some proposals for further study and pedagogical implications for raising Ha Tinh university students’ pragmatic awareness Scope of the study Many fields of pragmatics related to jokes need to be explored and a variety of jokes can be selected However, due to the limited time, the study is confined to the following aspects:  Only five English jokes and five Vietnamese jokes are selected to test the theoretical preliminaries, and the jokes chosen must have the set- up and the punch line (two way- communication)  Speech acts of Austin including locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary act are explored to interpret the set- up of English and Vietnamese jokes  Types of Searle’s illocutionary act including directives, commissives, expressives, representatives and declaratives are used to identify speech acts  Non- observance of conversational maxims looked at only due to flouting and violating  The inferences made in context to interpret the way of conducting conversational maxims of joke participants  This is a linguistic study for academic purpose only Methodology of the study The methodology employed is a qualitative research This is a study of grounded theory It has been acknowledged that with this method, the researcher as an instrument for gathering data during the study The data is analyzed inductively, selected in the form of words, and done before finding out the research questions The process for the qualitative data analysis (QDA), Corbin and Strauss (1990: 62) will be: -12-  Noticing: This step means gathering English and Vietnamese jokes and the theoretical preliminaries related to the topic This is done by producing a record of interesting things and coding them Then, a descriptive scheme is developed for the study  Collecting: The second step means sorting the date into discrete parts under the analysis The statistics are done to adopt percentages and scales based on the analysis results for each part to determine significance of data  Thinking: In this step, English and Vietnamese jokes are firstly examined closely with the theoretical background Secondly, the constant comparisons are intended to identify similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese jokes Moreover, questions are always asked about the phenomena as reflected in the data to generalize findings for the study and provide pedagogical implications The joke collection:  Five sample English jokes are selected from an English linguistic book and two reliable websites: http://rd.com Reader’s Digest, http://www.basicjokes.com  Five sample Vietnamese jokes are selected Vietnamese funny story books and two reliable websites: http://www.tuoitrecuoi.com, http://cuoi.net/truyen-cuoi/pstory The research questions:  How are English and Vietnamese jokes analyzed pragmatically?  What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese jokes as seen from a pragmatic perspective?  What tips are utilized to improve the awareness of pragmatics of learners via the study? The hypotheses of the study are formulated  All the types of speech acts proposed by Austin (1955) and Searle (1969) are found in English and Vietnamese jokes  Conversational maxims are broken to arouse humor -13-  Different breakings of maxims result in different ways of producing humor in English and Vietnamese jokes Format of the study The study begins with declaration, acknowledgement, table of contents, and abbreviation The main body of the study consists of three parts They are introduction, development and conclusion Part one provides a brief account of relevant information about the rationale, aims, scope, methodology and format of the study Part two includes three chapters  Chapter 1: This chapter is about theoretical notions necessary for the study including the theory of pragmatics, concepts of pragmatics, and theory of jokes  Chapter 2: This chapter offers an analysis of English and Vietnamese jokes one by one Firstly, the speech acts and conversational maxims are applied to interpret the set- up and the punch lines of the jokes Secondly, the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese jokes will be worked out in terms of speech acts and conversational maxims  Chapter 3: This chapter is about some implication of the study for EFL teaching and learning Part three includes concluding remarks, limitation of the study, and recommendations for further research Apart from the three main parts, the references and the appendix of the study are included -39- encouraged because when learners read they have to produce responses within them which are precisely the ones the author wrote Thus, joke readers will be involved with the visual analysis skills of speech acts and maxims through jokes Therefore, it is highly recommended that some pedagogical suggestions and activities should be done for improving the awareness of pragmatics of learners via jokes in English 3.1 Introducing pragmatic knowledge Introducing pragmatic knowledge means that teachers should convey information about the communicative function of different linguistic forms to students In fact, EFL learners are commonly misled by the so-called standard linguistic patterns they have learnt in class and they may not be able to make adjustment in different contexts For instance, most of the Vietnamese EFL learners greet foreigners by saying “Nice to meet you” just because they are taught to use the pattern “Nice to meet you - Nice to meet you too.” by their teachers when they first begin to learn English However, in fact, many more different ways of greeting are used by native English speakers So in English classes, teachers should avoid introducing pragmatic knowledge in a fixed way Instead, they should teach students to interpret the meaning of utterances from both linguistic and pragmatic perspectives so as to obtain correct understanding Owing to the variability of language itself, there is no absoluteness of communicative functions of different linguistic forms Therefore, it is not advisable to provide rules of using certain linguistic forms exclusively Statements like “the imperative is used to order” are often made by teachers And this may cause students’ misunderstanding since imperative does not always entail order, and order can also be expressed through other linguistic forms For instance, in the following sentences, imperative actually means offering, advising and welcoming  Have some tea, please (Offering)  Stay in bed and have some rest (Advising)  Come in (Welcoming) Considering this, when teaching the imperative, it is better that teachers provide more examples of imperative sentences that are applied in different contexts so that the students can have a more comprehensive understanding of the communicative functions of imperative and avoid committing pragmatic failures in cross cultural communication 3.2 Utterance teaching via English jokes -40- Generally speaking, there exist roughly equivalent models between sentence types and language functions in every joke However, the equivalence can never be absolute Language function varies according to a situation Some types of clauses possess several flexible functions to be determined by different pragmatic factors Pragmatic knowledge should not only be taught, but also covered in the official teaching syllabus because the ultimate purpose of utterance teaching is to help the student communicate successfully in English The key of success lies in whether the student can use English appropriately Appropriateness turns out to be more challenging than correctness in English communication The linguistic fact requires when a student understands the common law on the structure of English sentence, then surely a teacher should teach him the alternatives and convention in real settings For example, among the following three sentences,  Be quiet  Have some coffee  Give us this day our daily bread It can be seen that though all of them are imperatives, Johnson (1987: 97), only the first one expresses an order while the second and the third indicate an invitation and a request respectively 3.3 Utterance meaning teaching via English jokes The teacher is expected to stress the utterance meaning in a specific situation through each joke The approach to interpret the meaning contextually is encouraged, rather than always the one to understand literally Take the sentence “Kim's got a knife” as an example The sentence can be used to accomplish different things in different contexts: “to make an assertion”, “to give a warning” or “to ask a question” Or in another example, “Can you tell me the truth?” “Well, I can‟t break my promise.” The utterance “well” in this conversation means that the speaker realizes his response can’t satisfy the hearer Besides the purposeful training of “pragmatic awareness via jokes” at classroom, there are many other accesses to improve the student’s pragmatic skills, namely, watching English comedies, funny movies, reading in the original, conversing with foreigners, and so on 3.4 Culture and pragmatic teaching via English jokes -41- In order to integrate cultural teaching with English teaching, jokes should be added to the syllabus Teachers can create real situations for students to participate in For instance, the teacher first invites students to read a joke named “A fly”, and then asks the students to act as the waiter and customer at a restaurant in England Students are required to talk with each other independently This provides a great opportunity for them to think and speak in accordance with foreign social conventions and at the same time they have to understand what other people say so as to make the conversation continue smoothly This role-playing activity increases students’ awareness of the appropriate application of cultural information learnt in class and prepares them for real communication with native English speakers Besides, in order to make sure that students fulfill the activities successfully, teachers should convey enough information about the foreign culture to the students beforehand 3.5 Conversational maxim teaching via English jokes For the inferences made from those jokes were not quite easy, then a familiarity with Grice's cooperative principle will help learners understand participants’ intentions This principle holds that in any utterances both parties are assumed to be cooperating and that any apparent violations of this cooperation compact will be interpreted as “implicating” some non- literal meaning Therefore, learners with a fairly low level of target language competence can be taught to recognize such obvious violations of the conversational maxims 3.6 Speech act teaching via English jokes The view that pragmatic competence is not learned merely by exposure is shared by many learners of English What is at issue for teachers is how to go about the task of teaching speech acts This can be done as follows:  Diagnostic assessment is often the first step which helps the teacher determine the students’ level of awareness of speech acts in general  Model dialogues are a useful way to present students with examples of the speech act in use  The evaluation of a situation is a useful technique to further reinforce the learners’ awareness of the factors affecting the choice of semantic formulas  Role-play activities are particularly suitable for practicing the use of speech acts -42-  Feedback and discussion are useful activities for speech act teaching because students need to talk about their perceptions & awareness  When doing exercises after reading jokes, for the specific and frequently used speech act in many communities, such as compliment, complaint, invitation, apologies and request, etc present samples without responses and encourage discussion on how each speech act makes students feel  When reading jokes, provide the context of a situation and ask students to arrange short jokes in order to experience the speech acts as authentic as possible Drawing on the above implications, the following classroom activities can be prepared: 3.7 Suggestions for classroom activities 3.7.1 Speech act exercise The activity is organized progressively in five phases: feeling, doing, thinking, understanding and using These phases are organized to help students to become aware of pragmatic aspects of language use by analyzing their own language use and by looking for aspects of conducting speech acts that are in common or different between English and Vietnamese The students are, of course, given pragmatic instructions in advance Each joke uses the following instructional procedure: Order 3.7.2 Conversational maxim exercise Students read jokes in English and then look at the punch lines to derive which maxim broken and why This is done as follows: Order Joke Punch I am a multimillion a penniless) Joke A: I'll pay you back promise B: Sure, and pigs wi sing Joke A: What should I headache? - B: Take 3.7.3 Sample speech act quiz Students are invited to read a list of statements, may be extracted from English jokes Next, they decide which type of speech acts represented by each of these statements from English jokes  Locutionary act  Illocutionary act  Perlocutionary act Your teacher says, "For class tomorrow, please read pages twenty-one through forty- seven." You and a friend are talking about a television show that you both watched the night before You say, "What did you think about Luke's reaction to Laura's news?" -44- Quiz answer The teacher intends to affect your behavior Speech by which the speaker attempts to get someone else to something is a perlocutionary act You are inviting your friend to respond to your question Speech by which the speaker attempts to interact with someone else is an illocutionary act 3.8 Some constructive suggestions for pragmatic teaching of jokes If learners fail to read jokes associated with pragmatic activities, it is likely they lack the background information and the competence of language They may consult their instructors, classmates or other knowledgeable persons Or teachers should prepare questions involved with the intended meanings they not understand to ask about them in class Often, simply look at items they not understand or the funny parts to help them derive the implicature It is beyond doubt that students can learn to use English well via jokes only when they are exposed to authentic learning materials, especially when learning English in Vietnam where they not have many opportunities to have direct communication with native English speakers In order to increase English learners’ pragmatic competence, more authentic teaching materials should be provided Authentic materials refer to those that involve the social conventions, customs, habits, and culture of the target language, which will help students understand how people in English-speaking countries think and behave in everyday life By trying to think and act like native English speakers, EFL learners can use English in a more natural and native way in cross-cultural communication Apart from textbooks, there are a lot of other sources from which students can further broaden their knowledge about the foreign culture and these materials can be used as supplements to the textbook Reliable websites, magazines, newspapers, movies and TV serials can all be made good use of Teachers are responsible for transmitting pragmatic knowledge about the target language to the learners Thus it is absolutely essential that teachers of English meet the needs of their students To develop their language and teaching competence, they should be encouraged and required by the university authorities to attend professional training programs, where they can update their knowledge about pragmatics and learn new teaching -45- techniques In addition they have to broaden their pragmatic and cultural knowledge about the target language through self-study and make good use of all the available resources, which include all kinds of academic journals and books both published in Vietnam and abroad, academic conferences, research projects, and short-term courses abroad and thus improve their language proficiency In order to be qualified, teachers must keep on studying to keep up with changes in the English language, its culture and society Since many teachers are not confident in their own knowledge of pragmatics, they should actively try to seek and read some related books or materials related to pragmatics to develop their English competence Moreover, if the purpose of EFL courses is to improve the pragmatic competence of Vietnamese learners of English, then the courses should include activities designed to help them handle speech acts and implications in English jokes in particular In short, once pragmatic theory of a joke is proposed to learners, they surely engage in their humorous productions well PART C: CONCLUSION The previous part has looked critically at English and Vietnamese jokes from pragmatic perspective to determine the punch lines and make inferences The coming sections will present a very brief summary of the study And, in this chapter, the author also looks back at the limitation of the study and gives suggestions for further study Concluding remarks The thesis subject is “English and Vietnamese jokes: from a pragmatic perspective” But as we all see, finding a perfect method of study to interpret all pragmatic aspects about jokes between the two languages is a large and complicated issue, which requires research on deixis, speech acts, implicature, presupposition, politeness, relevance, etc Therefore, in scope of this master thesis, we have focused on two basic fields of pragmatics to examine the five English jokes and the five Vietnamese ones They are the speech act theory proposed by Austin and Searle and the conversational maxims of Grice defined by -46- Thomas And we also know that the limited given English and Vietnamese jokes are not enough to test the given theories Nevertheless, we have tried to analyze and summarize the most distinguishing features of pragmatics via those jokes The thesis has solved all the aims mentioned in the introduction We have also found out the answers to some research questions raised in the methodology part of the thesis The findings have also proven some of the hypothesis to be true The following are summaries on the work we have done in this master thesis:  Applying the formulated theoretical preliminaries for the analysis of English and Vietnamese jokes The theory of speech acts are useful for interpreting the set- up of the jokes and the theory of conversational maxims are important for analyzing the punch lines of the jokes Besides, the definitions of pragmatics are found to be a good support for the analysis  Finding similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese jokes as seen from a pragmatic perspective  Giving tips of teaching language in the light of pragmatics via jokes in English for Ha Tinh university students of English Overall, the study has raised the interpreter’s awareness of pragmatics via jokes and provided a platform from which the interpretations of jokes in the light of the theories of the speech acts and conversational maxims might help the interpreter use language well when conversing Hopefully, other researchers and teachers will shape a positive view towards pragmatics of any written discourses besides jokes to become more dynamic, effective and critical educators Limitation of the study Although the study has offered some insightful findings, it has a limitation The analysis results are just relatively reasonable because of the limited amount of English and Vietnamese jokes taken for interpretation I much hope that in the future research, more concepts of pragmatics will be covered and more jokes will be interpreted to have a standard result Suggestions for further study -47- It is regretful that within the limitation of time and scope of the thesis, we can not cover all issues related to the study If we have a good opportunity to continue our research, we wish to make a survey of the pragmatic competence of Vietnamese learners of English on jokes The purpose of this is to find out whether or not those learners can interpret English and Vietnamese pragmatically It is also our ambition to fulfill pragmatic theory- testing through practice- testing which might make our research more practical; in other words, to improve the awareness of learners on the importance of understanding language used under the pragmatic viewpoint Moreover, during the working time on “English and Vietnamese jokes: from a pragmatic perspective”, we are strongly attracted by the way participants in jokes produce their utterances as well as the way we interpret them It is suggested that more studies should be done on how to improve students’ awareness of pragmatics through jokes from different sources to help Vietnamese learners of English achieve the competence of language in written discourses The thesis has been completed with my greatest efforts and to the best of my knowledge and understanding However, it is obviously that shortcomings and inadequacies are unavoidable Therefore any comments or corrections from you for better work would be highly appreciated -48- REFERENCES In Vietnam: Nguyễn Cừ, Phan Trọng Thưởng (1991), Kho tàng truyện tiếu lâm Việt Nam, Nhà xuất văn học Nguyễn Khắc Phi (tổng chủ biên) (2002), Ngữ văn 6, tập 1, NXB Giáo dục Tam Tam, Khải Hùng (2009), Tiếu lâm truyện cười, Nhà Xuất Thanh niên In English: Antony J Chapman Hugh C Foot (1976), Humor and Laughter: theory, research and applications, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd AS Hornby (2000), Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press Attardo, S (1994), Linguistic Theories of Humor, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Austin, J.L (1955), How to Do Things with Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press Corbin, Juliet and Anselm Strauss (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications Cruse, Alan (2000), Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics, Oxford: Oxford University Press 10 Crystal, D (1985), A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Oxford: Oxford University Press 11 Finegan, Edward (1994), Language: its structure and use (2nd edition), Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company 12 George Yule (1996), Pragmatics, Oxford: Oxford University Press 13 Graeme Richie (2004), The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes, London: Routledge Press 14 Grice, H P (1991), Logic and Conversation in Pragmatics: A Reader edited by Steven Davis [M], Oxford: Oxford University Press 15 Hockett, Charles (1972), Jokes, Studies in linguistics in honor of George L Trager, ed by Estellie Smith, New York: Mouton 16 Levinson, Stephen C (1983), Pragmatics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press -49- 17 Mouton de Gruyter (2001), Humourous texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis, New York 18 Saville, Muriel- Troike (1989), Basic terms, Concepts, and Issues, The Ethnography of communication: an introduction 2nd ed., Blackwell Oxford UK 19 Searle, J.R (1969), Speech Acts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 20 Sherzer, Joel (1985), Puns and jokes, Handbook of discourse analysis: discourse and dialogue, ed by Teun A Van Dijk, London: Academic Press 21 Sinclaire John, ed (1987), Collins Cobuild English Dictionary, London: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 22 Thomas, Jenny (1995), Meaning in Interaction: An introduction to pragmatics Harlow: Pearson Education 23 Victor Raskin (1944), Semantic Mechanism of Humor, CIP: D Reidel Company Press 24 Johnson, K (1978), Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology, Oxford: Pergamon Websites: 25 http://cuoi.net/truyen-cuoi/pstory 26 http://iteslj.org/c/jokes-long.html 27 http://rd.com.Reader’s Digest 28 http://www.basicjokes.com/djoke 29 http://www.tuoitrecuoi.com 30 http://www.wisegeek.com/what- is-a- joke.htm -50- APPENDIX ENGLISH JOKES Joke 1: A Fly Diner: Waiter! There is a fly in my soup! Waiter: Please don’t shout so loudlyeveryone will want a fly now Source: the website: http://rd.com Reader’s Digest Joke 2: Were you born in a barn? Our son was constantly wandering in and out of the house, leaving the front or back door wide open "Once and for all, will you please close that door!" my exasperated wife pleaded one day "Were you born in a barn?” - “No, I was born in a hospital," he replied, smirking." with automatic doors.” Source: the website: http://www.basicjokes.com Joke 3: Follower “Dear, look at the new spouse there Every time before going to work, the husband always kisses his wife forehead first Why don’t you so? A wife asked her husband “How can I dare? If I so, her husband will surely get mad” replied her husband Source: the website: http://rd.com Reader’s Digest -51- Joke 4: Does your dog bite? There is a woman sitting on a park bench and a large dog lying on the ground in front of the bench A man comes along and sits down on the bench Man: Does your dog bite? Woman: No (The man reaches down to pet the dog The dog bites the man’s hand) Man: Ouch! Hey! You said your dog doesn’t bite Woman: He doesn’t But that’s not my dog Source: George Yule, 1996: 36 Joke 5: The Good News A doctor went into a patient’s room anxiously Then he stood beside the patient’s bed and said, “Mrs Smith, I have one good news and one bed news” “Tell me the bad one first, Doc” Smith said firmly Mrs.Smith, I have cut the wrong leg “Oh, God!” Smith screamed “And what about the good one, Doc?” The doctor said, “Actually, your leg is no need to be amputated.” Source: the website: http://rd.com Reader’s Digest VIETNAMESE JOKES Joke 6: Càng giàu Càng keo Một người hành khất chìa nón trước cửa nhà bà giàu có: - Thưa bà, nhà cháu chân Bà nhà giàu đáp: - Có thể lắm, anh lại tưởng chân anh đây? Sourtce: the website: http://www.tuoitrecuoi.com Joke 7: Tiễn Quan -52- Một ông quan ăn tiền rát Có giấy đổi quan nơi khác Ðợi chẳng thấy ma đến tống tiễn cả, bà quan gọi nha vào, trách: - Dân tình mà bạc thế! Quan phụ mẫu đổi nơi khác mà chẳng đứa lên tiễn chân cả! Nha lại thưa: - Bẩm bà lớn, hàng huyện sẵn lễ tiễn quan đầy đủ ạ! Bà huyện mừng rỡ, hỏi: - Họ lễ thầy? Nha lại ân cần thưa: - Bẩm, toàn gạo muối Source: Tiếu lâm truyện cười p.53 Joke 8: Nói cho có đầu có Một lão nhà giàu có anh đầy tớ tính bộp chộp, thấy nói ấy, gặp đâu nói đó, chẳng có đầu Lão gọi bảo : - Mày ăn nói chẳng có đầu cả, người ta cười tao lẫn mày Từ nói phải nói cho có đầu có nghe khơng? Anh đầy tớ vâng dạ Một hôm lão mặc quần áo sửa chơi, ngồi hút thuốc thấy anh đầy tớ đứng chắp tay trịnh trọng nói: - Thưa ơng, tằm nhả tơ, người ta mang tơ bán cho người Tầu, người Tầu đem dệt thành the bán sang ta Ông mua the may thành áo Hôm ông mặc áo, ông hút thuốc Tàn thuốc rơi vào áo ơng, áo ơng cháy (Lão giật nhìn xuống áo cháy to bàn tay rồi.) Source: Kho tàng truyện tiếu lâm Việt Nam, p 97 Joke 9: Lợn cưới, Áo -53- Có anh tính hay khoe Một hôm, may áo mới, liền đem mặc, đứng hóng cửa, đợi có qua người ta khen Đứng từ sáng đến chiều chả thấy hỏi cả, tức Đang tức tối, thấy anh, tính hay khoe, tất tưởi chạy đến hỏi to: - Bác có thấy “lợn cưới” chạy qua không? Anh liền giơ vạt áo ra, bảo: - Từ lúc mặc "áo mới" này, chẳng thấy lợn chạy qua cả! Source: Ngữ văn 6, Tập 1, p 29 Joke 10: Lo Xa Người chồng hấp hối nói với vợ: - Bây anh gần đất xa trời rồi, em thú nhận mối quan hệ với tay hàng xóm khơng? Lúc thứ chẳng cịn ý nghĩa gì, song anh muốn biết thật trước nhắm mắt xuôi tay Cô vợ ngần ngừ lúc hỏi lại: -Thế nhỡ anh không chết sao? Source: http://cuoi.net/truyen-cuoi/pstory ... How are English and Vietnamese jokes analyzed pragmatically?  What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese jokes as seen from a pragmatic perspective?  What tips are... CHAPTER 2: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS This chapter is aimed at discovering how English and Vietnamese jokes are analyzed pragmatically and what similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese. .. observance of maxims in English and Vietnamese jokes The chart illustrates the percentage of conversational maxim breakings when English and Vietnamese jokes carried out Different ways of maxim breakings