A Vietnamese – English Cross-cultural Study on Expressing Sarcasm

A Vietnamese – English Cross-cultural Study on
Expressing Sarcasm


Nguyễn Thùy Linh

University of Languages and International Studies
M.A Thesis: English Linguistics, Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Dr. Dương Thị Nụ
Year of graduation: 2011

Abstract: The availability of sarcasm is a matter-of-fact which has been
going without much awareness even of the user. Moreover, the use of puns
in expressing sarcasm, in spite of being very interesting and noteworthy,
has received hardly any extensive research. Punning in expressing sarcasm
is the field that bears much difference among cultures and speakers of
different languages; this is a promising field of research for cross-cultural
researchers of English in particular and languages in general. However, it is
not an easy task at all due to sharp differences in the culture – specific
notions between Vietnam and English – speaking countries. This thesis
titled “A Vietnamese-English cross-cultural study of expressing sarcasm”,
therefore, is an attempt to find out the differences and similarities between
Vietnamese and English speakers in using puns to express their sense of
sarcasm, hence make some suggestions for teachers as well as learners of
English with a view to help them avoid culture shock and have fun learning
English.

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Giao thoa văn hóa; Kỹ năng nói; Lời nói châm
biếm

Content

PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
Sarcasm is a matter of fact in life.
Gresham, in his work, made an interesting conclusion that “Bad coinage drives out
goods”. This reflects the fact of money that debased or under weight coins will drive
good, full weight coins out of circulation. This assertion, however, was not properly
applied in the economics only but in other fields of life as well. It is the case for every
realm in which an exchange occurs. Nevertheless, the issue is not paid much attention
among Vietnamese researchers in detail and linguistic researchers of the world in general.
This research aims at discovering one of the most common and worth-studying
phenomena of pragmatics, sarcasm, for without sarcasm then, as one might say, there is
no art.
II. Scope of research
The study aims mainly at the major knowledge of sarcasm in Vietnamese and English
daily life and jokes. Specifically, the difference between the use of puns in expressing
sarcasm in spoken Vietnamese and English is focused. Moreover, the study is confined to
the verbal aspects of the act of using puns in expressing sarcasm. Other factors such as
paralinguistic and extra-linguistic ones are beyond the scope of the study.
- The dialects used in the North, the South and the Central of Vietnam are use among
which the Northern one is mainly used; especially the spoken accent of the Northern
version is used quite often; and the English spoken by Anglophone community of
England, America, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, are chosen for contrastive
analysis.
- The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires to examine the differences
in the way Vietnamese and English speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm.

III. Aims of research
The research has been carried out with a view to explore the similarities as well as the
differences in the way Vietnamese and English speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm
thus to equip language learners with a major description of sarcasm in English and

Vietnamese and help them avoid culture shock and communicate successfully.
IV. Research question:
What are the major similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and English
speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm?
V. Methodology
The following methods are resorted to:
- Conducting survey (with questionnaires as a data collection instrument)
- Conducting observations

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES
1. Culture:
Whether or not we realize it, we are trapped by our own culture. Anyone who encounters
another culture quickly becomes aware of this because of thousands of little things that
differ among countries. For example, only one third of people use tableware to eat,
another third eat with chopsticks, and the rest eat with their fingers. Even within a
country, differences are inevitable. Knowing the culture prevents us from culture-shock.
Culture can be defined in an abstract way as the know-how that a person must possess to
get through the task of daily living and only for a few does it require a knowledge of
some or much music, literature and the art; or it might be defined concretely as the way
of life of a people, for the sum of their learned behavior patterns, attitudes, and material
things All in all, culture is considered in terms of the three aspects: (1) learned behavior
patterns that refers to what people do, (2) attitudes that refers to what people think or
believe; and (3) material things that refers to property.
2. Language:
Definitions of culture all mention language. Obviously, language is one of the most
visible factors of culture. People face with cultural differences in languages when
contacting with someone from another country. The idiom “mưa như trút nước” in
Vietnamese, for example can be expressed as “it rains cats and dogs” in Britain, or “it
rains jugs” in Europe, “rains rope” in France, or “rains in basins” in Spain due to different

cultures.
Yet it is not easy to define what language is. Language can be defined as any set or
system of linguistic symbols used by a community of people who are enabled to
communicate intelligibly with one another (Random House Dictionary of the English
Language). Or it might be defined in a short and succinct way as “a complex and abstract
phenomenon that can be realized through a number of verbal and non-verbal codes”
(Emmitt and Pollock). Whichever definition is used, language is put in a given
community and functions as a systematic means of communicating.
3. Language and culture
It is often commented that someone is “cultured” or “uncultured” depending on his
behaviors and reaction in certain situations. Most of these actions are taken with
utterances. What one speaks when greeting or departing someone can reveal much about
him. In other words, whether someone is judged to be cultured or uncultured is much
relevant to what he utters in social communication. Therefore, language is regarded as a
mean to measure other’s cultural reality. Expressed in another way, language is a system
of signs that is seen as having its own cultural value.
Besides, what people utter refers to common experience such as facts, ideas or events that
are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other
people share. Words also reflect the speaker’s attitude, belief, and their point of view. In
other words, language realizes culture. It is interestingly asserted by Sapir that culture is
“what society does and thinks”, and language is “a particular how of thought”.
People also create experience in real life. The way they transfer messages directly
through face to face communication or indirectly on telephone, etc. brings them with
numerous experience which is handed down from generation to generation. The process
is in a continuous flow. Hence, language embodies and maintains cultural reality.
Language and culture simply do not independently and separately exist. The language of
Esperanto couldn’t survive because it has no culture background. Vice versa, no culture
can exist without its own language.
The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted. Language is used to
maintain and convey culture and cultural ties. Different ideas stem from differing

language use within one’s culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships starts
at one’s birth.
CHAPTER II: SARCASM, PUNS AND TYPES OF PUNS
2.1 Sarcasm
Sarcasm is an example of the so-called unplain speaking, ways of speaking in which what
is said differs from what is meant. Other examples are forced politeness, ritual language,
affectation and speaking in aphorisms. In essence, sarcasm is one of the two extremes of
irony which is defined as the conflict of two meanings which has a dramatic structure
peculiar to itself. At first, one meaning, the appearance, presents itself as the obvious
truth, but when the context of this meaning unfolds, in depth or in time, it surprisingly
discloses a conflicting meaning, the reality, measured against which the first meaning
now seems false or limited and, in its self-assurance, blind to its own situation. Irony
“lies,” but it does so only as a dramatic means of bringing two meanings into open
conflict. Some theorists assert that by encompassing this conflict in a single structure,
irony resolves it into harmony or unity. Others say that irony is blame through praise and
praise through blame. The aspect of “blame through praise” is named sarcasm. As the
story goes, sarcasm is “to blame by praise”. In other words, sarcasm aims at the defeat of
a recognized victim.
The definition shows the variable factors in the ironic structure including:
(1) The degree of conflict
(2) The field of observation
(3)The author
(4) The aspects

2.2. Puns and types of puns
The dictionary describes a pun as: “A play on words, sometimes on different senses of
the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words”. Based
on the definition, puns could be divided among several main branches focusing on the
play of sense or sound, or the combination of the two. In detail, types of puns in English
include homographic puns (homograph), homophonic puns (homophone), palindrome,

Tom Swifty puns, anagram, spoonerisms, oxymorons, chiasmus, portmanteau, and
daffynition.

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

3.1. GENERAL VIEW
3.1. 1. Comments on the survey questionnaires
The questionnaires used for this study are designed in Vietnamese and English with the
similar contents for Vietnamese and English native speakers respectively, aiming to
collect authentic and reliable data. The questionnaires are comprised of two main
sections. To begin with, the first part requests the respondents to fill in their age, gender,
marital status, and living area (residence). All of the obtained information about the
respondent serves as a useful source for comments and later analyses.
In the second part, question 1 aims at finding out purposes of using puns in social life in
general and in expressing sarcasm in particular. Question 2 investigates the realized
appropriateness of puns in different situations ranging from 1 to 4, i.e. from advisability
to strong inadvisability of using puns in expressing sarcasm. Question 3 asks if the
informants would express sarcasm in such situations. There are four groups of situations
under investigation. They are family life, social life, academic life, and business life.
For the DCT questions, the situations from the MCQ section are chosen and modified in
question 4 with the hope of obtaining “really-be” utterances. The informants are
requested to choose from a list of possible utterances for each situation; they could also
give their own expressions after the list.
3.1. 2. Comments on the informants
Firstly, the questionnaire aims at finding out the informants’
o Age
o Gender
o Marital status, and
o Living area
All of the informants are Vietnamese and English native speakers from UK, the USA and

Australia.
3.2. FINGDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.2.1. The use of puns
The aim of exposing some informative sentences containing some puns is to find out the
purposes of using puns in expressing sarcasm in everyday conversations.
The data suggest that the reasons why the Vietnamese and the English use puns show
some differences as well as some similarities. As much as 34% of the Vietnamese
respondents confirmed that they used puns to make fun of the situation in a conversation,
only 12.5% of the English ones would agree with the choice. There is a relative similarity
as 36% of the Vietnamese speakers would use puns to make fun of a third party not
related in the conversation, which ranked the second in the four reasons, and the figure
for English users of puns is 27.5%. Another thing in common is that the reason to make
fun of the hearer stood at the end of the list for both Vietnamese and English speakers
though with different rates (15% and 7.5% respectively). The biggest difference in the
purposes of using puns lies in last reason in the given list. While only 37% of the
Vietnamese informants chose to use puns to show wit and the sense of the humour of the
speaker, which did not show much difference with the other reasons, as much as 52.5%
of the English would use puns for the same purpose. In general, the Vietnamese may use
pun whether to make fun of someone else rather than the speaker or the hearer, to make
fun of the situation, or to show their wit and sense of humour almost equally. In the mean
time, most English native speakers like using puns to show their wit and sense of
humour, and speakers of Vietnamese and English would agree with each other that puns
should not be used to make fun of the hearer.
3.2.2. Puns in expressing sarcasm in Vietnamese and English
The MCQ data analysis shows not only the similarities but also the differences between
the Vietnamese and English cultures in using puns in expressing sarcasm in given
situations. The similarities help us more confident and the differences make us aware of
potential culture shocks, thus avoid face threats in not only intra-cultural but also cross-
cultural communication.

3.2.3. Puns in expressing sarcasm in Vietnamese and English in detail
Similarities
Both Vietnamese and English speakers are partly influenced by the position they hold in
the situation. In general, they would feel more comfortable and open to use puns in
expressing sarcasm when playing the role of an outsider who is giving comment, and
even more so when a narrator retelling the story. The problems relating politics as well as
business life receive much attention while privacy would make both confused. When the
happening does them no harm or has no impact, fewer people of both groups will choose
to pun in expressing sarcasm. Of the four types of pun, oxymoron gains most user’s
sympathy of both groups, and people stuck in a marriage appear more sarcastic.
Differences
Firstly, the differences caused by the socio-cultural factors are realized by contrasting
informants’ parameters of the two groups. As it is implied, Vietnamese people below the
age of 30 seem much more sarcastic than older people. In contrast, the matured people in
English speaking country appear more ironic than the younger ones. The difference
between the two genders is even more interesting. As expected, Vietnamese women are
more interested in punning and expressing sarcasm. Then surprisingly, in English
speaking countries this feature exposes clearer in gentlemen. Finally, besides oxymoron,
another favourite choice of Vietnamese user is polysemy while the English one prefers
homophone.

In conclusion, to raise Vietnamese learners’ awareness of these cross-cultural similarities
and differences is really important in TEFL in order to avoid culture shock and
communication breakdown.
Generally speaking, Vietnamese people are more open to puns in expressing sarcasm.
Beside, people of Vietnamese group and English group agree more in fields of politics
and business while issues belonging to personal life and academic life receive more
contrasting opinions.
PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION IN TEFL
3.1. Conclusion

3.1.1. Main similarities
Both Vietnamese and English speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm mostly to show
wit and the sense of humour.
Of the four types of puns mentioned, oxymoron is chosen quite frequently. This agrees
with the informants’ statement that they pun mostly to show wit and the sense of humour
in that oxymorons make use of contrasting but still gentle components in meaning.
3.1.2. Main differences
Vietnamese people are more open to puns in expressing sarcasm. In addition, informants’
age, gender, marital status, and living area have, to various degrees, affected the ways
Vietnamese people pun to express their sense of sarcasm whereas these factors do not
seem to strongly interfere with English speakers’ punning choices.
Last but not least, with regard to types of pun used in expressing sarcasm, oxymoron and
polysemy are more popular among the Vietnamese while speakers of English give
priority to oxymoron and homophone.
3.2. Implication for teachers and learners
3.2.1. Teachers as a means of learning a second culture
With the aim of helping students appropriately use language in general and punning
strategies in particular, teachers should make their students be aware of cross-cultural
differences in communication.
Teachers should incorporate cultural knowledge into language teaching. Following
suggestions are recommended:
1. Access culture through the language being taught
2. Make the study of cultural behaviors an integral part of each lesson
3. Assist students to achieve the socio-cultural competence, which they feel needed.
4. Point to cross-cultural differences and similarities at all levels of language
acquisition

3.2.2. Suggestions for learners
It should be born in mind that: “our culture influences our way of thinking and acting. To
learn another language, we need to learn to appreciate the culture of which the language

is a part. We can’t really learn a second language or more precisely, learn the use of that
language unless we learn about culture because many of the meanings constructed in the
language are culture specific.” (Pollock, 1990: 39).
Therefore, students are recommended to:
1. Work with authentic materials, compare, and contrast as much as possible ways of
expression in the source and target languages and cultures.
2. Expose themselves to native speakers whenever and wherever possible.
3. Try to go native as much as possible.
3.3. Suggestions for further research
For better understanding and more effective use of hedges before giving bad news, it is
suggested that
(i) areas such as sarcasm and irony, sarcasm and face, punning strategies,
paralinguistic and extra-linguistic factors be investigated in depth
(ii) more detailed data analysis be made to bring more light to the area under
investigation, thus, arriving at more convincing conclusions



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