an investigation into some typical linguistic factors causing laughter in british funny stories = nghiên cứu về những yếu tố ngôn ngữ gây cười điển hình trong một số truyện cười nước anh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYÊ
̃
N THI
̣
KIM PHƯƠNG



AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME TYPICAL
LINGUISTIC FACTORS CAUSING LAUGHTER IN
BRITISH FUNNY STORIES

Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố ngôn ngữ gây cười điển
hình trong một số truyện cười nước Anh


M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

HA NOI - 2012


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYÊ
̃
N THI
̣
KIM PHƯƠNG



AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME TYPICAL
LINGUISTIC FACTORS CAUSING LAUGHTER IN
BRITISH FUNNY STORIES

Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố ngôn ngữ gây cười điển
hình trong một số truyện cười nước Anh


M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Associate Professor V Đi Quang, Ph.D.






HA NOI - 2012
i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 1
3. Objectives of the study 1
4. Scope of the study: 2
5. Design of the study 2
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Theoretical background: 4
1.1.1. Humor 4
1.1.2. British humor 5
1.1.3. Funny stories and Jokes 5
1.1.4. Pun 6
1.1.5. Ambiguity 6
1.1.6. Lexical ambiguity 7
1.1.6.1. Polysemy 8

1.1.6.2. Homonymy is traditionally defined as different words with the same
forms. In Lyons (1995, p.55), homonyms are classified into absolute and partial
ones. 8
1.1.6.3. Polysemy vs Homonymy 11
1.1.6.4. Transference of meaning: 11
1.1.7. Grammatical ambiguity 13
1.1.7.1. Morphology 13
1.1.7.2. Syntax 13
1.2. Previous works 14
1.3. Summary: 16
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17
2.1. Research governing principles 17
ii

2.1.1 Research question 17
2.1.2 Data types to be collected 17
2.2. Research methods 18
2.2.1. Major methods: 18
2.2.1 Techniques for data collection 19
2.2.2. Techniques for data analysis 19
2.3. Summary: 20
CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 21
3.1. Data Analysis 21
3.1.1. Lexical ambiguity: 21
3.1.2. Grammatical ambiguity: 26
3.1.2.1. Morphological ambiguity: 26
3.1.2.2. Syntactic ambiguity: 28
3.2. Findings and discussions: 33
3.2.1. Findings: 33
3.2.2. Discussions and implication for language teaching and learning 34

3.3 Summary: 34
PART III: CONCLUSION 36
1. Recapitulation 36
2. Concluding remarks 36
3. Limitations 37
4. Suggestions for further study 37
REFERENCES 39
APPENDIX I
1

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Peoples from all over the world, with different cultures and lifestyles, seem to have
one thing in common – sense of humor. There are a great amount of funny stories
from culture to culture. Each culture has its own typical joke-making characteristics.
Reading funny stories helps people relax with great efficiency. The way Vietnamese
learners read and understand Vietnamese jokes is not quite similar to the way English
people do. English learners may have some difficulties in reading between the lines in
some funny stories if they don‟t have the needed cultural and linguistic background.
In my opinion, a research into linguistic factor causing laughter in British funny
stories will bring about benefits to readers and pedagogical implications for teaching
and translation. And, this is the rationale for my study.
2. Aims of the study
The purposes of the research are as follows:

 To help English learners have a clear understanding of linguistic
features available in English funny stories or jokes
 To help English learners discover an interesting part of English besides
complicated grammar points or long complex reading passages
 To help English learners communicate more successfully with native

speakers via joke understanding


3. Objectives of the study
This study is an investigation into British funny stories and their linguistic features
with reference to cultural perspective to point out the typical factors that cause
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laughter. In doing this, typical features causing laughter in funny stories can be
pointed out.
This objective can be further elaborated into the following research question:
What are the typical linguistic features that cause laughter in British funny stories?
4. Scope of the study:
The issues raised in this thesis are investigated from both linguistic and cultural
perspective. The study primarily deals with research issues from a linguistic approach.
Furthermore, there is a difference in humour creating way from country to country so
the stories are also studied under culture perspective.
As the exploitation of linguistic features in funny stories is quite huge and diversified,
and the number of stories has been increasing year after year, the analysis is supposed
to be selective rather than comprehensive in three senses: (i) only two groups of
stories are chosen, (ii) only 33 stories are selected as typical samples and (iii) in each
group, just some stories are picked up for a further in-depth study.
5. Design of the study
In addition to “References” and “Appendix” parts, the study consists of three main
parts:
Part 1: Introduction. This part discusses the rationale, scope, aims, objectives, and
design of the study.

Part 2: Development. This part is divided into three chapters:
Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the previous studies related to the topic and a

brief theoretical background with such concepts and conceptions as Humor, British
humour, Funny stories and jokes, Punning, Ambiguity, Lexical ambiguity,
Grammatical ambiguity.

3

Chapter 2, Methodology, describes the research-governing principles, data collection
instruments and data analysis procedure.

Chapter 3, Analysis and Discussions, offers a detailed analysis of the data, the results
obtained and discussions of these results.

Part 3: Conclusion. This is the last part of the thesis which provides a recapitulation
of the main points presented, concluding remarks on the research objectives,
limitations, and suggestions for further studies.

4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Theoretical background:
1.1.1. Humor
Humor is not as easy to define as it seems. There have been several people who tried
to find out something about humour. Avner Ziv from Israel gives one example to
define humour:
Humor is defined as a social message intended to produce laughter or smiling.
As with any social message, it fulfills certain functions, uses certain
techniques, has content, and is used in certain situations. These aspects of
humor can be understood as relating to the questions of why people use humor
(its functions), how it is transmitted (techniques), what it communicates
(content), and where and when it is communicated (situation). Some of these
aspects of humor are universal, characterizing humor everywhere. Others are
more influenced by culture.

Another definition is found in Merriam-Webster's entry on the word “humour”: that
quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous the mental
faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly
incongruous something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing.
These definitions pretty much capture the essence of what could be called our
general definition of humor, and they do capture the basics of what humor is, but
there is more to humor than just the ability to make people laugh or to be able to laugh
at funny things. While laughter is indeed a typical reaction to humor, things are more
complicated than that. Something is perceived as humorous even though nobody
laughs at it people laugh at things that not really humorous, as laughter can also be an

emotional response to fear or embarrassment. Therefore, humor cannot be defined
simply as something that makes you laugh. The response to humor is important in the
5

definition of something as humorous, but there are aspects and details to humor and
laughter which are sometimes overlooked.
1.1.2. British humor
The British have a unique sense of humour. Of all the characteristics which the
English are known all over the world, the sense of humour is one of the best-known
and most positively regarded. In England, you may consider humour a way of getting
along in society. Britain is the only country in the world which is inordinately proud
of its sense of humour. In other countries, if they find you inadequate or they hate
you, they will call you stupid, ill-mannered. In Britain, they will say that you have no
sense of humour. This is the final condemnation, the total dismissal.
1.1.3. Funny stories and Jokes
Funny stories are the stories that are told to make people laugh (Oxford
Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary). It is characterized by humorous phenomena. There
are two theories for what people find humorous, incongruity theory, superiority
theory. The most popular theory of why we find jokes funny revolves around the
concept of „incongruity‟. The idea is that we laugh at things that surprise us because
they seem out of place. It‟s funny when clowns wear outrageously large shoes, people
have especially big noses or politicians tell the truth. In the same way, many jokes are
funny because they involve ideas that run against our expectations. “A bear walks into
a bar. Animals talk.” And so on. But there is more to this theory than such simple
forms of incongruity. In many jokes, there is an apparent incongruity between the set-
up and the punch line. Scientists refer to this as the „incongruity-resolution‟ theory.
We resolve the incongruity caused by the punch line, and the accompanying feeling of
sudden surprise makes us laugh.
The superiority theory also explains why we laugh at certain types of jokes. Many
jokes make us feel superior to other people. In these types of jokes, people appear

stupid because they have misunderstood an obvious situation, made a stupid mistake,
been the hapless victim of unfortunate circumstance or have been made to look stupid
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by someone else. According to the theory, these jokes cause us to laugh because they
make us feel superior to other people.
According to the definition on Wikipedia, a joke is a question, short story, or
depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end,
jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a
punch-line that will end the sentence to make it humorous. Their purposes are
typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is
generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat".
1.1.4. Pun
According to Wikipedia, the pun, or also called paronomasia, is a form of word play
which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or
of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.
Because of the multiple meanings of words or similar sounding words that helps cause
ambiguities and laughter to readers or listeners. However, not most of people can apply
pun in their daily conversations because pun is an art of using and playing with words.
Moreover, the listeners also have a wide range of vocabulary and knowledge of local or
regional dialects and particular cultures to understand the intentional use of words of the
speakers. Pun expresses the beauty of words; therefore it differs from another kind of
word play- malapropism. Malapropism is an amusing mistake somebody makes when
they use a word with sounds similar to the word they want to use but means something
different. Pun mentioned here is to emphasize the art of playing with words based on
linguistics factors such as phonology, homophony, morphology, etc.
1.1.5. Ambiguity
According to Wikipedia, ambiguity of information is the ability to express more than
one interpretation. It is generally contrasted with vagueness, in that specific and
distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately

apparent), whereas with information that is vague it is difficult to form any
7

interpretation at the desired level of specificity. Ambiguity describes the linguistic
phenomenon whereby expressions are potentially understood in two or more ways: an
ambiguous expression has more than one interpretation in its context.
There are two types of ambiguity: grammatical and lexical ambiguity. Lexical and
structural ambiguity is frequent enough to present a substantial challenge to natural
language processing. The fact that ambiguity occurs on so many linguistic levels in
language especially in jokes or funny stories make it difficult for English learners
understand the humour. Studies on the linguistic causes of ambiguity are perhaps is
really helpful in the field of humor research.
1.1.6. Lexical ambiguity
According to Fromkin et al (1983, p. 207), lexical ambiguity is created by a word
which can be understood in more than one way. For example, the sentence:
“She cannot bear children”
may be understood to mean either “She cannot tolerate children” or “She is unable to
give birth to children”. It is the word „bear‟ with one form and two different meanings
that gives rise to the lexical ambiguity in the sentence.
Similarly, this lexical ambiguity is traditionally illustrated with the word „bank‟ which
may mean either as “a business establishment in which money is kept for saving or
commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for loans, or exchanged” or “the slope of
land adjoining a body of water, especially adjoining a river, lake, or channel”. The
sentences:
I went to the bank.
We finally reached the bank.
I was on my way to the bank
contain the ambiguous word „bank‟, thus they are lexically ambiguous.
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1.1.6.1. Polysemy
A polyseme is a word or phrase with different, but related senses. English has many
words which are polysemous. A case of polysemy is, according to Hurford and
Heasley (1983, p. 123), the one where a word has two more closely related senses.
„Mouth‟ (of a river versus of an animal) is an example of polysemy as the two senses
are clearly related by the concepts of an opening from the interior of some solid mass
to the outside, and of a place of issue at the end of some long narrow channel.
Another example of polysemy is „guard‟ meaning either “a person who guards,
sentinel” or “solid protective shield, e.g. round machinery” for both meanings contain
the concept of protection against danger.
Polysemy is undeniably a main cause of lexical ambiguity.
1.1.6.2. Homonymy is traditionally defined as different words with the same forms.
In Lyons (1995, p.55), homonyms are classified into absolute and partial ones.
Absolute homonyms will satisfy the three conditions of:
(i) unrelatedness in meaning,
(ii) identity of all their forms, and
(iii) grammatical equivalence of their identical forms
The two words „bank‟ with two different meanings of either “a business establishment
in which money is kept for saving or commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for
loans, or exchanged” or “the slope of land adjoining a body of water, especially
adjoining a river, lake, or channel” is a good illustration of absolute homonyms.
Partial homonyms are those with one minimally identical form and one or two, but
not all the above three conditions of absolute homonyms satisfied. For example, the
verbs „find‟ and „found‟ share the word-form found but not find, finding, etc., or
found, founding, etc., and as a form of „find‟, found is not grammatically equivalent
to found as a form of „found‟. These two words „found‟ result in lexical ambiguity in:
9

They found hospitals and charitable institutions.
„Found‟ in this sentence might be understood to mean “discover” or “establish”.

There are two kinds of partial homonyms.
Homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in
meaning. The words may be spelt the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense
of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too.
Homophones that are spelt the same are also both homographs and homonyms.
Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs. The term
"homophone" may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, such as phrases,
letters or groups of letters that are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter or
group of letters.
Grammatically equivalent homophones may cause ambiguity in spoken English, as is
exemplified in the utterance:
My brother likes sweets/ suites.
It is lexically ambiguous because sweets and suites are the plural forms of the two
different words „sweet‟ and „suite‟, respectively. These forms have the same
pronunciation /swi:ts/ but different meanings: „sweet‟ meaning “a small piece of
sweet food made of sugar or chocolate, etc.” and „suite‟ meaning “a set of matching
furniture for a room”. They are homophones and nouns.
This level of language provides the great sources of puns in English that can spawn a
number of lexical ambiguities and misunderstanding for listeners. Usually, the
speaker intentionally uses homophonic factors to cause difficulties for listeners at first
and then make them bend their minds to think further of the joke to discover what it
really means based on phonologically induced ambiguity. Homophone is widely used
in English joke.
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Homographs (those identical in spelling only) - may also give rise to lexical
ambiguity in case they have the same lexical categories.
Grammatically equivalent homographs, meanwhile, may bring about the ambiguity in
written English. An example to illustrate is the word „leads‟ in:
They provided those leads.

“Leads” is the plural form of „lead‟. „Lead‟, pronounced as /li:d/ with the meaning “a
guiding suggestion or example”, “a clue” or “a length of rope, leather, etc. fastened to
an animal, usually a dog to control it”, is a homograph of „lead‟, pronounced as /led/
with the meaning “a thin stick of graphite used in pencils”.
It is important to note that when homonyms can occur in the same position in
utterances, the result is lexical ambiguity. However, quite often, when homonyms
belong to different lexical categories, they do not give rise to the ambiguity. For
instance, right /rait/ meaning “a morally just or legal claim” is a noun while right
/rait/ meaning “properly or correctly” is an adverb; tear /tiə/ meaning “a drop of salty
liquid that flows from the eye” is a noun; tear /teə/ meaning “to pull apart or into
pieces by force” is a verb; seen /si:n/ is a form of the verb “see”; scene /si:n/ is an
unrelated noun. In these cases, absolute homonyms, homographs and homophones are
not the cause of the ambiguity.
Interestingly enough, homonyms, though creating ambiguity when in the same
position in utterances, are good candidates for humour.
The following passage is an example:
“Mine is a long and sad tale”, said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.
“It is a long tail, certainly”, said Alice looking with wonder at the Mouse‟s tail, “but
why do you call it sad?”
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1.1.6.3. Polysemy vs Homonymy
Polysemy is, however, distinguished from homonymy not only according to the
criterion of relatedness in meaning but also to that of etymology. The problem arising
is, therefore, to decide when we have polysemy and when we have homonymy as in
Palmer (1981, p.102). When several words have the same forms from the same origin,
but unrelated meanings, should they be treated as homonyms or polysemous words?
We have to decide whether a particular item is to be handled in terms of polysemy or
homonymy because a polysemous word will be treated as a single entry, while a
homonymous one will have a separate entry.

It is obvious that whether the meaning of words are related or unrelated, the multiple
meanings of words often give rise to lexical ambiguity. The sentence:
“The bachelor finally died.”
is lexically ambiguous due to the multiple meanings of „bachelor‟ including (a) “a
man who has never married”, (b) “a young knight serving under the banner of
another”, (c) “someone with a first degree”, and (d) “a young male unmated fur seal
during the mating season”.
1.1.6.4. Transference of meaning:
A word may have both a “literal” meaning and one or more “transferred” meaning,
which is the cause of the multiplicity of meaning or a polysemous word; the result is
thus lexical ambiguity.
Metonymy:
One kind of transference of meaning is metonymy, the transference of meaning from
one object to another based on the association of contiguity of notions, i.e. instead of
the name of one object or notion, we use the name of another because these objects
are associated and closely related: „The kettle boils‟ instead of „The water in the kettle
boils‟, „crown‟ instead of „monarchy‟.
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According to Nguyen Hoa (2004, p. 113), the main different cases of metonymy are:
the name of container used instead of the thing container, e.g., „to drink a glass‟;
names of past of human body used as symbols, e.g., „to have a good eye‟, „kind
heart‟; the concrete used instead of abstract, e.g., „from the cradle to the grave‟; the
material used for the things made of it, e.g., „canvass‟, „glass‟; the name of authors
instead of their works, e.g., „Shakespeare‟, „Picasso‟; and the part instead of the whole
and vice versa, e.g., „roof‟ for „house‟ or „bike‟ for the part of a bike in „to repair a
bike‟.
Metaphor:
Another basic kind of transference of meaning is metaphor, the transference from one
object to another based on the association of similarity between these two objects, i.e.,

we call one object by the name of another because we compare these objects and find
some common features between them. For example, a cunning person is commonly
referred to as a fox. As a result, the following sentence is lexically ambiguous:
(11) He is a fox.
Of all kinds of transference of meaning, metaphor is the most familiar. The term
“metaphor” refers to cases where a word appears to have both a “literal” and a
“transferred” meaning, which are easily and clearly identified. The easy and clear
identification of meaning in a case of metaphor is its distinctive feature while in other
cases of transference, it is not always clear which should be considered literal and
which transferred. To illustrate, we assume that words such as „hand‟, „foot‟, „face‟
and „eye‟ apply first to the body from which they deserve their literal meanings but in
other cases such as „hand of clock‟, „foot of the mountain‟, „face of a clock‟ and „eyes
of a needle‟, they have their transferred meanings.
Fromkin et al (1983, p.227) state that in English, metaphor is a violation of semantic
rules to create figurative meanings. The sentence:
(12) Walls have ears.
13

is an illustration for the breaking of semantic rules. In other words, it is certainly
anomalous. It can, however, be interpreted as meaning “you can be overheard even
when you think nobody is listening”. It is consequently ambiguous in some sense.
Transference of meaning obviously brings about the multiple meanings of the words
or constitutes polysemy, thus causing lexical ambiguity.
1.1.7. Grammatical ambiguity
1.1.7.1. Morphology
The term morphology is generally attributed to the German poet, novelist, playwright,
and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), who coined it early in
the nineteenth century in a biological context. Its etymology is Greek: morph -
means „shape, form‟, and morphology is the study of form or forms. In
linguistics, morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to

the branch of linguistics that deal with words, their internal structure, and how they
are formed.
This kind of pun requires the speakers to have wide knowledge of vocabulary to use it
precisely and artistically. Playing on the morphological properties of words is rather
interesting because in some utterances there are many words used nearly the same but
they are obviously different in meanings.
1.1.7.2. Syntax
Syntactic ambiguity arises not from the range of meanings of single words, but from
the relationship between the words and clauses of a sentence, and the sentence
structure implied thereby. When a reader can reasonably interpret the same sentence
as having more than one possible structure, the text is equivocal and meets the
definition of syntactic ambiguity.
When a sentence can be interpreted in more than one way, it is grammatically
ambiguous, as exemplified in the following sentence (Hurford & Heasley, 1983, p.
121):
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“Visiting relatives can be boring” which can be interpreted in two ways:
It can be boring to visit relatives.
Relatives who are visiting can be boring.
1.2. Previous works
Regarding the linguistic theories of humor, several previous studies have been
conducted in the linguistic study of humor (Raskin, 1985; Chiaro, 1992; Ross, 1998).
These theorists mainly focus on how the humor is achieved by the use of language.
In the light of the Cooperative Principles proposed by Grice (1975), Raskin (1985)
proposes the non-bona-fide mode of joke-telling:
(i) Maxim of Quantity: give exactly as much information as is necessary for the joke;
(ii) Maxim of Quality: say only what is compatible with the world of the joke;
(iii) Maxim of Relation: say only what is relevant to the joke.
(iv) Maxim of Manner: tell the joke efficiently.

Associated with this mode, the joke-telling occurs in four situations by the
combination of the two possibilities in (i) & (ii) with two possibilities in (iii) &(iv): (i)
The speaker makes the joke unintentionally; (ii) The speaker makes the joke
intentionally; (iii)The hearer does not expect a joke; (iv) The hearer expects a joke.
Besides, Chiaro (1992) examines the verbal techniques of jokes. She claims that the
humorous effect in jokes is created by the uses of puns- word play and ambiguities.
She classifies two groups of language techniques of jokes: the first one is slips of
tongue including metathesis, malapropisms and misplaced words; the second one is
deliberate word play, that is playing with graphology, playing with sounds, playing
with word boundaries, playing with formation, playing with lexis, playing with syntax
and playing with the rules of conversation. Another important issue about linguistic
analysis of humor is based on ambiguity. Ambiguity refers to a word or phase that has
more than one meaning. Hence, humorous effect is created by wordplay. Pepicello
15

and Weisberg (1983) state that the linguistic humor in jokes is based on the
manipulation of phonological, morphological or syntactic features to produce
ambiguities. And, they outline 12 types of linguistic humor in jokes, including
homonym, minimal distinction, deliberate distortions, shifts of stress, and the like.
After all, ambiguities are the most salient features misleading the understanding.
These ambiguities can be a result of the possibilities of words, which are either
semantically or phonologically ambiguous in terms of the idea the speaker tries to
declare (Nilsen & Nilsen, 1994).
Likewise, Ross (1998) attempts to divide ambiguities into four subcategories:
phonology, graphology, morphology, lexis, and syntax. According Ross‟s analysis,
first, “phonology” is related to sound systems in a language. For example,
homophones in jokes refer to word of the same pronunciation but with different
spellings and two possible interpretations. Second, “graphology” signifies how a
language is represented visually. Next, “morphology” refers to the ways of word
construction. Morpheme is the smallest meaning unit of logic. Lexis also refers to the

word system of a language. In addition to phonology, the lexicon, or vocabulary, is
also a source of puns. Finally, in terms of the syntactic structure, meaning is produced
by the way of how words, phases, and clauses are arranged. In order to understand the
syntactic ambiguities, EFL learners have to undertake a systematic level of analysis.
As a result, they are led to develop an awareness of syntactic function and get the
possible interpretations of sentence structures.
These previous studies provide general background knowledge to deal with this
problem. The examples above prove that lexical ambiguity is a complicated problem
to cope with, especially for English learners, whose vocabulary and knowledge of
interpretation is limited. Ambiguity is a pervasive phenomenon in language which
occurs at all levels of linguistic analysis. Resolving the ambiguity necessarily
designates one specific lexical entry, which, in turn, automatically disambiguates the
semantic representation (and vice versa).
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1.3. Summary:
This chapter has briefly reviewed theory of funny stories/ jokes and some linguistic
issues which cause laughter in funny stories. They are Ambiguity, Lexical Ambiguity
and Grammatical Ambiguity. In each of these theories, the author has pointed out
some details and sample analyses. In short, this chapter serves as the theoretical
foundation for the study.
The following chapters are spared for the presentation of the methodology, the
analysis, findings established and discussions and some implications regarding
humour creating features in British funny stories.

17

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research governing principles
2.1.1 Research question
Based on the aims set in Chapter One, the present study addresses the following
research question:
What are the typical linguistic features that cause laughter in British funny
stories?
Much work has been devoted to investigate the various factors that cause laughter in
English funny stories and jokes. This thesis will not cover all the factors but focus on
the linguistic ones, including: phonological ambiguity, morphological ambiguity and
grammatical ambiguity.
2.1.2 Data types to be collected
The data collected for this study includes stories in which laughter is caused by
linguistic factors. Besides, all the chosen stories are in British settings. The reasons
for the author‟s choice are:
+ The British are famous for their humour and it is famous all over the world. They
have special way of creating laughter in their funny stories and jokes.
+ The understanding of the subjects‟ record is believed to be necessary for data
analysis; therefore; the following parameters are taken into consideration:
Lexical ambiguity

Grammatical ambiguity
However, it is such a hard job to know whether the story is originally British or not
because funny stories are universal. Therefore, carefulness is a must in the selection
of the stories for investigation.
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Data authenticity
To ensure the reliability of the research, the stories selected are of British origin and
from reliable sources such as books, websites, articles, newspapers…so they will have
different ways of creating humour and also ensure the authenticity of the study.
Data sources
In order to answer the research questions already stated in the very first part, the
number of 33 jokes/ funny stories is collected. As for the source, all the stories are
collected from books, websites and other materials.
+ As for books, books about funny stories are collected and studied. They are a
valuable source to gather essential information for the thesis.
Main material is: Truyện tiếu lâm Anh, Nhà Xuất Bản Thanh Hóa
+ As for websites, they are the tool that is made use of. The websites are a huge
source of funny stories.
Three basic websites are:






+ As for other materials, namely the previous theses in linguistics which are
involved in the content of the study are also collected to grab related information.
Article: Ambiguity as a Device in British Humour
2.2. Research methods

2.2.1. Major methods:
This study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. While quantitative method
helps us to build up a general picture over all the selected cases, qualitative analysis
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allows us to investigate each specific case. In fact, it is really helpful to fulfill the task
of defining the linguistic factors that cause laughter in each funny story mentioned.
The strategical method used in the present study is inductive method, which means
considerations and evaluations mainly come from analyzing statistical data.
2.2.1 Techniques for data collection
The author chooses to collect data from some published books and some reliable
websites in order to demonstrate how humor is created through linguistic factors in
funny stories. The data collected are British funny stories. They are intended to be
analyzed against the two aspects of lexical and grammar to find out major humour
creating way in British jokes.
The samples are collected from Truyện tiếu lâm Anh, Nhà Xuất Bản Thanh Hóa;
Syntactic Ambiguity as a Device in British Humour, María Teresa Sánchez Roura and
website
The samples have been carried out with funny stories whose humor mechanisms are
based on linguistic factors. The author investigates randomly 33 funny stories and
jokes using linguistic factors to create laughter. The author identifies which of the
linguistic factor are used in each story and which are used most frequently.
2.2.2. Techniques for data analysis
A collection of 33 British funny stories / jokes will be taken into consideration
regarding the linguistic means. For each group, the stories are classified into different
groups with different linguistic means to create fun. Based on the results, we will
provide findings, discussion and some implications for pedagogy and translation.
The result of this study will be presented based on the statistics regarding the humour
creating way analyzed. The way to have better understanding British funny stories
will be pointed out in a painstaking presentation and an analysis of some typical

samples taken from the stories collected.
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Data categorizing: Funny stories that are collected from websites and books
mentioned above are categorized into different groups with different linguistic
features that cause laughter.
Data describing: With different groups of funny stories classified, description of
their typical linguistic features causing laughter is herein provided.
After using quantification and classification to identify the linguistic factors that cause
laughter into different categories, we can base on the result of the classification to
make some conclusions in the study.

2.3. Summary:
To sum up, the major method employed in this study is a qualitative one. The
procedure for the qualitative data analysis in this study is:
+ Collecting data which are British funny stories which are linguistically ambiguous.
+ Basing on the data collected, we classify the samples into categories in terms of
linguistic aspects.
+ By analyzing the funny stories in each category, we point out typical linguistic
factors causing laughter, predict the difficulties that Vietnamese learners have to deal
with and point out some implications.

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CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Data Analysis
3.1.1. Lexical ambiguity:
This level of language provides the mechanisms for a large number of funny stories in
English. English speaking people often employ this technique – using lexical
ambiguity or punning to create humour in their stories.
Lexical ambiguities are produced when a set of sounds can be said or understood in
more than one way. One word might be made to sound like another word. This may
be because the words sound so similar, or it may be because of the way we mark out
the word when we say it. In this level, polysemy and homonymy are undeniably the
main method in punning.
(1)
How did you get that big red lump on your nose?
I smelt a brose while I was working in the garden.
But there is no „b‟ in rose.
There was in this one.
In (1), for example, „brose‟, „rose‟, „b‟ are homophones that are used intentionally to
cause laughter. The „b‟ that the speaker wants to emphasize is intelligently combined
with the word „rose‟ so that „brose‟ - „b‟ and „bee‟ are pronounced similarly. „Bee‟ is
what the speaker wants his friend to realize in his joke deeply. If he said to his friend
the reason why he had a red lump on his nose directly, there would be nothing
impressive and funny. Therefore, pun used here is very effective.

(2) That doesn‟t matter
Customer: I would like a book, please!