the linguistic devices making wittiness in english and vietnamese humourous stories a study of contrastive discourse analysis = các phương tiện ngôn ngữ tạo nên sự dí dỏm trong truyện hài anh-việt

1








UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES





HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN QUÝ







THE LINGUISTIC DEVICES MAKING
WITTINESS IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE HUMOUROUS STORIES: A
STUDY OF CONTRASTIVE DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
( Các phương tiện ngôn ngữ tạo nên sự dí dỏm trong truyện hài
Anh-Việt: Nghiên cứu đối chiếu phân tích diễn ngôn)

***

M.A Thesis – Program 1
Field:Linguistics
Code: 602215







HÀ NỘI-2012

2









UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN QUÝ






THE LINGUISTIC DEVICES MAKING
WITTINESS IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE HUMOUROUS STORIES: A
STUDY OF CONTRASTIVE DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
( Các phương tiện ngôn ngữ tạo nên sự dí dỏm trong truyện hài
Anh-Việt: Nghiên cứu đối chiếu phân tích diễn ngôn)
***

M.A Thesis – Program 1
Field:Linguistics
Code: 602215



SUPERVISOR: NGÔ HỮU HOÀNG, Ph.D

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT II
LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS III
TABLE OF CONTENTS IV
ABSTRACT VI
INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2.Aims of the study 5
3.Scope of the study 5
4.Method of the study 6
5.Organization of the study 6
DEVELOPMENT 7
CHAPTER 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 7
1.1. Discourse 7
1.1.1. Definition of Discourse 7
1.1.2. Types of Discourse 8
1.2. Context 9
1.3. Humour and Its Categories 10
1.4. Overview of Humourous Stories 12
1.5. The Incongruity Theory in Humour 14
1.6. Figure of Speech as Linguistic Devices in Humourous Stories 16
1.6.1. Metaphor 16
1.6.2. Metonymy 18
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 20
2.1. Methodology 20
2.1.1. Data Collection 20

2.1.2. Procedure 20
2.2. Data Analysis 21
2.2.1. Metaphor 21
2.2.2 Metonymy 29
2.3. Discussion and Contrastive Findings 33
2.3.1. Discussion 33
2.3.1.1. Metaphor 33
2.3.1.2. Metonymy 34
2.3.1.3. Context in the Interpretation of Jokes in the Humourous Stories 34
2.3.2. Contrastive Findings 37
2.3.2.1. Similarities 37
2.3.2.2. Differences 37
CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATIONS OF TRANLATION AND TEACHING 39
3.1. Implications of Translation 39
3.2. Implications of Teaching 43
CONCLUSION 45
1.Major Findings 45
2.Suggestions for the Translators, Teachers and a Further Study 46
2.1. Suggestions for the Translator and Teachers 46
2.2. Suggestions for a Further Study 47

ABSTRACT
Reading humourous stories is the good means of entertainment because it
can help the readers to release the stress and reduce the tension. Beside the
function of entertainment, humour is the special means of reaching the better
things which satisfy the progressive thoughts and the lower-class‟s dream of
equality. This study is aimed at investigating the figure of speech as
linguistic devices in the English humourous stories and Vietnamese
humourous stories. The analysis is carried out on 50 samples collected from
the different books of English and Vietnamese humourous stories. The
results show that there is the similarity in the using of metaphor between
these two languages. Besides, Vietnamese humorous stories have the higher
percentage of metonymy, comparing to English humourous stories. Context
is the important element that helps the reader to understand and interpret the
figure of speech in the humourous stories. Furthermore, the study offered the
implications of translating and teaching so that the translator and teachers
can use in their jobs.








INTRODUCTION
1. 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?
Cô gái bẽn lẽn:
- Tại vì nếu em cứ ngồi mãi một bên như vậy thì cơ thể em sẽ phát triển không
đồng đều.
Translated version:
Develop unequally
In the evening the baker often takes his girl friend to the park bench.
Once he asked her:
- My dear, why do you change your side after the half-date?
She answered softly:
- 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.
2. Aims of the study


- 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.
3. Scope of the study
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

4. Method of the study
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.
5. Organization of the study
There are three main parts in the study as follows:
Introduction
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 researcher represents the ideas of other linguistics and researchers about their
previous studies and books to build up the theory as the background for this study to
be based on and develop.
Chapter 2: The Study.
This part gives the detailed description of the study, which includes data collection,
data analysis and the results and discussion
Chapter 3: Implication of Translation and Teaching
In this part, the researcher offers the implications for the translator and teacher how
to apply the humour in their jobs.
Conclusion
This is the last part of the thesis which summaries the findings and makes
suggestions for the translators and teacher; and a further study.

DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1 Discourse
1.1.1 Definition of 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.
1.1.2 Types of discourse
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).
1.2 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.
1.3 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



WIT





Pun

Bon
mot

Satire








Irony

Nonsense

RIDICULE
mock
sarcasm


joke
Comic


HUMOR

whim

Tease




Practical
Joke




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‟.

1.4 Overview of HS
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:
Ai nuôi tôi?


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?
Cậu ta trả lời:
- Bố tôi chết trước hai năm. Thế thì hai năm ấy ông bảo ai nuôi tôi mà tôi
chẳng khóc?

Translated version:
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?
The son answered:
- 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’.
Translated version:
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.
1.5 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).


1.6 Figure of Speech as Linguistics Devices in HS
These linguistic devices are mentioned by Alison Ross (1998: p.p1-63) and they
contribute to make the laughter in the humour.
1.6.1Metaphor
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.
1.6.2Metonymy
Metonymy
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.

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY
2. 1 Methodology
2.1.1 Data Collection
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.
2.1.2 Procedure
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.
2.2 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.
2.2.1 Metaphor
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
Metaphor jokes
Percentage
EHS
18 jokes (49%)

VHS
19 jokes (51%)
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