CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.3. POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS FOR SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE EXPRESSIVE MEANS OF THE PUN IN
82. Tom Swifties, which mainly exploit morphology, do not have their frequency in the two languages (22.5% in English and 17.5% in Vietnamese).
To know the similarities and
the pun in English and Vietnamese is really interesting and useful, but to find out the causes of these things is surely equally necessary because such knowledge, on one hand, gives us a deeper sight into the nature of the two languages; on the other, helps to answer certain questions relating to the field of contrastive study between the two languages.
4.3. POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS FOR SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE EXPRESSIVE MEANS OF THE PUN IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
English and Vietnamese, as mentioned earlier in this study, are typologically different. The former is rather inflectional while the latter is quite isolating. In English, we use a variety of suffixes, both derivational which can change the meaning and sometimes the part of speech of the word stem and inflectional ones which, while not changing the basic part of speech of a word, carry grammatical meaning and change the form of the word. In Vietnamese, there are no suffixes. All words are invariable in form. That is why the Vietnamese pun does not have such categories based on words of the same root or the inflectional forms of a word as shown in examples 81 –
equivalents in the Vietnamese pun for the same reason. Meanwhile, Vietnamese, as an isolating language in which each form consists of a single morph
– rely on this linguistic phenomenon. In its turn, Vietnamese, as a to
eme that very often corresponds to a single concept, and two forms can cooperate to create a concept as well (học sinh = pupil), is very suitable for such kinds of wordplay based on word seperation and combination as đã dốt thì nát, đã sang thì trọng, tin…tức mình, ca dao…cạo and so on.
Nevertheless, this distinctive feature itself accompanied by the six tones makes such very popular types of pun in English as Anagram and Pangram hard to be done in Vietnamese.
Since the way to pronounce a word is closely fixed by its spelling, there is hardly homophony in the Vietnamese language. On the contrary, a large number of puns in English – a language which almost has no fixed spelling rules
nal language, can be quite proud to own such types of pun as word- puzzles and Câu đối, an extremely sophisticated form of wordplay that requires nearly all the linguistic skills as well as a sharp mind from the punster. These Vietnamese outstanding types of pun are created still thanks to the fact that much of Vietnamese vocabulary contains Hán Việt (Sino- Vietnamese) words as a result of nearly a thousand years of Chinese domination.
As we know, the pun primarily plays on the meaning of a word, phrase or sentence to produce rhetorical effects. As a result, the pun in any languages can rely on such meaning relations as synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homonymy and ambiguity. The ones in English and Vietnamese are not exceptions. Besides, since words can be bent, twisted, and shaped into humorous molds, the pun still exploits the other basic aspects of the
language including sound and spelling. Actually, punsters everywhere never ignore such things which obviously belong to the nature of the language as sound similarity, repetition of sound, interchange of sound or word seperation and combination. Neither do English and Vietnamese ones.
Moreover, modern English is considered a weakly inflected language remaining just a few vestiges of inflection such as plurals, the pronouns, and some forms of verbs; and both English and Vietnamese generally rely on syntax and word order to show gra
ble linguistic phenomena to make as many predominant puns as possible. Nevertheless, it does not mean that the pun in English nd Vietnamese does not have its own colors. On the contrary, either of them ontains certain expressive means that are not shared by the other. Thanks to these dissimilarities, the pun in the two languages becomes very distinguishable. Simultaneously, these differences also have a part in the abundance and diversity of the linguistic world which unceasingly absorbs hum study and discovery.
mmatical relationships. Consequently, such interesting kinds of wordplay as Palindrome can be done in both the languages while they are almost impossibe in highly inflectional languages like Russian. However, considering the quantity of acedamic works as well as the web pages relating to the pun, seemingly the pun in English is more popular than the one in Vietnamese. This is quite understandable when we consider the internationality of the English language.
In summary, with the purpose of playing on the language, the pun in both English and Vietnamese exploits and applies the same expressive means which mainly rely on three fundamental aspects of a language, viz.
form, sound and meaning. In fact, punsters, including English speakers and Vietnamese ones, unceasingly exploit and utilize these availa
a c
an
the most characteristics. Almost any kind of sense relation