Implicature in english funny stories

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

IMPLICATURE IN ENGLISH FUNNY STORIES
(HÀM NGÔN TRONG MỘT SỐ TRUYỆN CƯỜI TIẾNG ANH)

HOÀNG THỊ LIÊN

Hanoi, 2016



HOÀNG THỊ LIÊN

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2014 - 2016


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

IMPLICATURE IN ENGLISH FUNNY STORIES
(HÀM NGÔN TRONG MỘT SỐ TRUYỆN CƯỜI TIẾNG ANH)

HOÀNG THỊ LIÊN

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Assoc. Prof. Ho Ngoc Trung, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2016



CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM
Độc lâp - Tự do - Hạnh phúc

XÁC NHẬN LUẬN VĂN ĐÃ CHỈNH SỬA
THEO GÓP Ý CỦA HỘI ĐỒNG CHẤM LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ
STT

NỘI DUNG CHỈNH SỬA

TRANG

1

Nội dung 1: Structure of chapter 3 and 4: The
methodology, finding and discussion were corrected in
line with the guided fomat
Nội dung 2: The objective of the study was mere
reiteration of the aims of the study
Nội dung 3: Review of previous study included the
similarities and differences between the studies review in
section 2.1 has been pointed out and met the answer for

the question the reason why there should be a study of
kind topic.
The relevance of the content of section 2.2 was discussed
as request
Nội dung 4: The research question

29-55

2
3

4

2
5-27

Tôi xin cam đoan tôi đã chỉnh sửa theo góp ý của hội đồng.

Hà Nội, ngày … tháng … năm …
HỌC VIÊN
(ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

GIÁO VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN
(ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

CHỦ TỊCH HỘI ĐỒNG
(ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report
entitled IMPLICATURE IN ENGLISH FUNNY STORIES submitted in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English
Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work
has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2016

Hoàng Thị Liên

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof. Ho Ngoc Trung, Ph.D

Date: ………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and
support from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc.
Prof. Ho Ngoc Trung, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly
supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas,
expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as
an academic researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to lecturers in Hanoi Open University,

without whose support and encouragement it would never have been
possible for me to have this thesis accomplished.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for
the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

ii


ABSTRACT
This study is written in an attempt to uncover the implicature in
English funny stories in terms of maxims. The study is implemented with
the investigation into selected English funny stories and collects data by
writing down dialogues in which breakings of the four maxims occurred. In
the study, it is noticed to which of the four – quality, quantity, relation and
manner is broken in each story and which are broken most frequently. From
that, the study points out some implications on the use of funny stories in
teaching English as a foreign language so that the learners of English can
understand and make full use of advantages of funny stories to make
English learning less challenging.

iii


LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1. English funny stories in terms of maxims analysis

34

Table 4.2. Speech act exercise

51

Table 4.3. Conversational maxim exercise

52

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY............................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................ II
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................. III
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................... IV
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1
1.1. Rationale for the research ................................................................... 1
1.2. Aims of the research ........................................................................... 2
1.3. Objectives of the research ................................................................... 2
1.4. Scope of the research .......................................................................... 2
1.5. Significance of the research ................................................................ 2
1.6. Structural organization of the thesis .................................................... 3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................... 5
2.1. Review of previous studies ................................................................. 5
2.2. Theoretical framework........................................................................ 8
2.3. Theoretical background .................................................................... 10
2.3.1. Overview of discourse, text and context ..................................... 10
2.3.2. Word meaning, Sentence meaning and Utterance meaning......... 12
2.3.3. Implicature ................................................................................. 16
2.3.4. Overview of funny stories........................................................... 27
2.4. Summary .......................................................................................... 28

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY.............................................................. 29
3.1. Research-governing orientations ....................................................... 29
3.1.1. Research questions ..................................................................... 29
3.1.2. Research setting .......................................................................... 29
3.1.3. Research approach ...................................................................... 30
3.1.4. Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 31
3.1.5. Data analysis techniques ............................................................. 31
3.2. Summary .......................................................................................... 32
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................ 34
4.1. Findings and Discussion ..................................................................... 34
4.1.1. Findings ........................................................................................ 34
4.1.2. Discussion ..................................................................................... 45
4.2. Pedagogical implication of the thesis .................................................. 46
4.3. Summary .......................................................................................... 55
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ................................................................... 57
v


5.1. Recapitulation................................................................................... 57
5.2. Concluding remarks .......................................................................... 58
5.3. Limitations of the current research .................................................... 59
5.4. Suggestions for a further research ..................................................... 61
REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 62
APPENDICES ........................................................................................... 65

vi


Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1.

Rationale for the research
Language is an essential form of communication. It allows people to

convey and elaborate their perspectives. However, there are many forms
and styles of language. Different countries and religions have different
ancestral languages and styles of speaking. Communication between
individuals can occur in many ways, but the skill of communicating
depends not only on the strength of one’s vocabulary, but also the ability
to express one's thoughts and ideas clearly. However, in our
conversational exchanges, people sometimes do not directly express their
ideas. According to Jenny Thomas (1995), the speaker frequently means
much more than their words actually say.
To point out what goes on in conversation, Grice provided four
conversational maxims. The speaker could have difficulty in observing a
maxim but still understand the meaning through to the hearer. Failing to
observe a maxim is often referred to breaking a maxim. In funny stories,
these maxims are broken to create humor.
“One of the best ways to understand people is to know what makes
them laugh” (H. Golden). Funny stories play an important role in social
interaction. A humorous story can break the tension in an awkward
conversation. Laughter may also relieve stress and distract people from
pain. Sometimes, it can be used as a means of weapon to fight again the
negative things in the society.
Being a student of English as a foreign language, I truely believe that
the use of humor in funny stories would improve second language
learning. However, to understand the implicature in English funny stories
1

is not an easy task. In order to build a deep understanding of implicature
mechanism to English learners as well as increase the interest in the
English learning, the study on “Implicature in English funny stories”
is carried out.
1.2.

Aims of the research
The study aims at uncovering the implicature in terms of flouted

conversational maxim.
The study also points out the implication of the research in English
teaching as a foreign language for Vietnamese learners by using funny
stories.
1.3.

Objectives of the research
This study is carried out to

(i) point out the implicature in terms of flouting conversational maxim
(ii) examine and investigate the contribution of implicature in English
funny stories in learning and teaching English for English learners
1.4.

Scope of the research

(i)

Academic scope: The study analyzes implicatures in selected English
funny stories from reliable sources in books, on internet…of English
authors.

(ii)

Social scope: the study focuses on one type of implicatures:
conversational implicature

1.5.

Significance of the research

2


The study helps readers to identify the importance of implicatures, and
also give them deeper understanding about social, cultural…issues in
English funny stories.
By this study, they will come up with easier English. It means that the
output of this study is a source material that the teachers and learners can
face less difficulty in teaching as well as learning English
The significance of the study is classified into two main points:
(i)

Firstly, the theoretical significance helps to clarify the framework of
the study; to give suggestion for subsequent research arising from the
findings for example: Comparising the implicature in English funny
stories to Vietnamese funny stories…; to be meaningful to the
practicing researchers in case of teaching English as a foreign
language.

(ii)

Secondly, the practical significance of the results of the study helps to
have influence in training program; to contribute to the solution of
education problems and to improve and give some better research.

1.6.

Structural organization of the thesis
The study begins with Certificate of originality, Acknowledgement,

Abstract, and Table of contents. The main body of the study consists of 5
chapters:
Chapter 1 is the Introduction. This part provides a brief account of
relevation information about the rationale, aims, objectives, scope,
significance and Structural organization of the thesis.
Chapter 2 is the Literature Review that consists of theoretical notions
necessary for the study including review of previous studies

and
3


overview of theoretical background: discourse and text, word meaning,
sentence meaning, utterance meaning, implicature and overview of funny
stories.
Chapter 3 is the Methodology. This part includes: Researchgoverning orientations and Research methods.
Chapter 4 focus on the Findings, Discussion and Implications of the
research.
The last chapter, chapter 5, is the Recapitulation, Concluding
remarks, Limitation of the research and some recommendations for a further

research.
Apart from the three main parts, the references and the appendices of
the study are also included.

4


Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.

Review of previous studies
This section presents the related studies after the thorough and in-

depth search done by the researchers. This will also present briefly reviews
of what has been found, and then identifies a gap. The study discusses the
related researches with key findings, but then identifies weaknesses in the
method and/or limitations in the findings and finally, discusses how the next
researchers tried to address these problems.
Firstly, the MA thesis: A study on implicature in English and
Vietnamese funny stories (Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhung, 2010) was written in
an attempt to uncover the implicature in English and Vietnamese funny
stories in terms of maxims. To implement this study, the author investigates
randomly 100 breakings of maxims in English and 100 breakings of maxims
in Vietnamese funny stories. The author collects data by writing down
dialogues where breakings of the four maxims occurred, mainly by violating
and flouting. The author looks at which of the four – quality, quantity,
relevance and manner are broken in each story and which are broken most
frequently.
Furthermore, the author looks at the reason why and when the
maxims are broken to create humor in funny stories. As a result, the author

draws out some similarities and differences between implicatures in English
and Vietnamese funny stories in terms of maxims.
Secondly, the study by Yao Xiaosu, University Gent Academic year
2008-2009: Conversational Implicature Analysis of Humor in American
Situation Comedy “Friends” analyzes samples on the theoretical basis of
Grice’s conversation maxims to see how the humorous conversation in
5


sitcom varies from the basic rules we should obey in our daily conversation,
at the same time is also a kind of cooperative effect, and why conversational
implicature is one of the mechanisms which cause the humor in sitcom.
Utterances only become meaningful in context. When any utterance is
analyzed, context always plays an important role for its interpretation. This
study, in the light of pragmatic approach, intends to discover the
relationship between verbal irony and the cooperative principle proposed by
Grice in the scripts of the American sitcom “Friends” (from episode 1 to
episode 10) and unpack the great contributions of the art of flouting certain
maxims to the appealing of this sitcom. To provide the framework for the
analysis, a more detailed account of Grice’s theory of implicature and the
cooperative principle have been presented. The study has been carried out
by combining both qualitative and quantitative methods. After analyzing the
scripts of this sitcom, 61 situations which flout certain maxims to generate
verbal irony have been chosen for analysis and synthesis. The data have
been grouped and compared to find out which maxim is the most preferably
flouted to generate verbal irony. The findings of the study have proved that
in order to generate verbal irony, interlocutors can flout not only the maxim
of quality but also other three maxims.
Another study named The role of conversational maxims,
implicature and presupposition in the creation of huhour: An analysis

of woody Allen’s anything else ( Ramiro Nieto Álvaro, 2011; Department
of English Philology I, UCM) concentrates on the analysis of different
instances of conversation, extracted from the film Anything Else, which
give rise to humour. Humour is a usual phenomenon but quite complex to
analyse, from the linguistic point of view, due to the varied factors that
come into play to create it. The purpose of this paper is not to analyse all the
resources used to create verbal

humour

but

to

show

that

the

6


recurrent

use

of

implicature

and

presupposition, functioning as

linguistic mechanisms of humour and being combined with other rhetorical
figures, generate humour and hilarious situations in the different scenes of
Allen's comedy. Although there is much literature and research on
humour

and

conversational implicature in the analysis of everyday

interaction (funny stories, casual speech, etc.), there has been less attention
paid to the role of implicature and presupposition as humour generators in
other realms such as cinema. The present study will try to throw some light
on the field and provide suggestions for prospective research, by means of a
substantial examination of humorous texts. To this end, a quantitative
analysis with a collection of empirical data has been followed to describe
the characteristics and peculiarities of Woody Allen's humour from a strictly
linguistic and pragmatic perspective. Thus, three big different areas were
brought together to elaborate this paper: humour, cinema and linguistics.
All in all, the review of related studies has been made. It was
observed that the previous studies were focused on similarities and
differences between implicature in English and Vietnamese funny stories in
terms of maxims and the analysis of different instances of conversation
which give rise to funny aspect. It is for the reason that it is the way of
bridging the perceived thing in line with the chosen course or field that is
suited for them and to be able to enhance the knowledge and skills that can

be used as a weapon in creating humour. Meanwhile, my study shows that
maxims are important for writers in order to evoke feelings and reactions in
their readers. As being shown, the in-depth examination of the maxims, as
well as the related implicature contribute to find out the linguistic
mechanisms that help produce laughter when reading funny stories, and
more generally, when talking in everyday conversation. Besides, the limited
scope of this study makes me not able to compare the implicature in English
7


funny stories to the implicature in Vietnamese funny stories in terms of four
maxims of Grice. The study has been completed with my greatest efforts
and to the best of my knowledge and understanding. However, it is obvious
that shortcomings and inadequacies are unavoidable. Therefore, any
comments or corrections from the readers for better work would be highly
appreciated.
2.2.

Theoretical framework

Among modern studies in this field, a lot of explorations have been made
from perspectives like semantics, syntax, pragmatics and rhetorics……
Pepicello (1983) summarizes the linguistic analyses of linguistic humor and
riddles in particular. He attached considerable importance to developmental
changes in children’s linguistic humor, proposing that linguistic studies of
humor and psychological studies of humor should be complementary. In
Hockett’s analysis of linguistic humor, funny stories are a variety of
humorous vehicles with a bipartite structure: buildup and “punch line”
(Quoted from Pepicello, 1983). Although semantic-oriented studies on
humor prevailed in the early years of humor research, many recent studies

have given attention to the social factors, especially in pragmatic oriented
studies of humor and funny situation.
According to Grice (1975), people assume that normal conversation
should follow these rules, and they try to infer the underlying meaning of
utterances in which the maxims are violated. For example, someone who
enters a dirty room and says, “What a beautiful room this is!” violates the
rule that one should tell the truth. A listener who can detect this violation
may infer the speaker's underlying meaning to be sarcasm. Understanding
conversational rules is therefore fundamental for smooth communication,
and conversational rules that are shared in society may contribute to mutual
8


understanding during conversation. However, people may have difficulty
understanding some of these conversational rules. Despite the importance of
the Grice maxims, few empirical studies have examined people’s
understanding of them, and the results have been mixed, and a few maxims
have been examined only.
Grice’s Cooperative Principle consists of several maxims that appear
simple, straightforward, and commonsensical at first sight. However, these
principles can be observed at work on a highly technical level in language
whenever spoken or written texts are analyzed. And they can be found in
any text of any genre in any language. If a speaker violates one or more of
these fundamental maxims, the communication breaks down. In a successful
discourse, you can relate this success to their observance. When
misunderstanding occurs, you can demonstrate that the breakdown is
generally due to a violation of one or more of the maxims. The degree to
which these principles are obeyed and applied is a criterion for the
evaluation of the quality of a text. As can be seen in the following statement
by Benthan Davis (2000) :“It had been noted that at the discourse level there

is no one-to-one mapping between linguistic form and utterance meaning. A
particular intended meaning, which could be produced via a direct speech
act, could in fact be conveyed by any number of indirect speech acts.” Grice
(1975) is concerned with this distinction between saying and meaning. How
do speakers know how to generate these implicit meanings, and how can
they assume that their addressees will reliably understand their intended
meaning? His aim is to discover the mechanism underlying this process.
Here is an example given by Jean Stilwell Peccei (2000):
(a)Tom: Are you going to Mark’s party tonight?
(b)Annie: My parents are in town.
9


In the above example, a competent speaker of English would have little
trouble getting the meaning that by saying that “My parents are in town”
Annie refuses the invitation. Grice posits the Cooperative Principle and its
attendant four maxims as a way of explaining this implication generating
process.
2.3.

Theoretical background

2.3.1. Overview of discourse, text and context
Concept of discourse
There is no agreement among linguists as to the use of the term
discourse in that some is used in reference to texts, while others claim it
denotes speech which is illustrated by the these following definitions
"Discourse: a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language
larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon,
argument, joke, or narrative" (Crystal, 1992).

Cook (1989: 156) shares his similar idea with Crystal that discourse is
as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and
purposive”. Cook also suggests that “What matters is not its conformity to
rules, but the fact that it communicates and is recognized by its receivers as
coherent”. Discourse is supposed to be meaningful and thus to be used to
communicate with one person in a way that another person does not have
the necessary knowledge to make sense of.
In Nunan’s opinion, discourse is considered “communicative events
involving language in context” (1993:118)
In general, discourse is defined differently but had something in
common. Discourse is understood as language in use, which can reflect
people’s point of view and value systems.
10


The relationship between discourse and text, context
The relationship between discourse and text was raised in the recent
debate in Applied Linguistics between Widdowson and De Beaugrande
involved a dispute about the relationship between text and discourse.
Widdowson sees the two as distinction. My reading of his position is that
discourse is text in use but that texts in corpora or presumably other
linguistic collections of language are not discourse.
Texts need to be “brought to life” to become discourse. The texts which
are collected in a corpus have a reflected the reality, they are only real
because of the presupposed reality of the discourses of which they are a
trace.
As Crystal states: discourse is “a continuous stretch of language larger
than a sentence” whereas a text is “a piece of naturally occurring spoken,
written or signed language identified for purpose of analysis”.
Nunan (1993: 6) appears to share the same view when he uses “the term

text to refer to any written record of a communicative event in context” and
discourse refers to “interpretation of the communicative event in context”.
Context plays a very important role in discourse analysis. A discourse
and its context are in close relationship, discourse elaborates context and
context helps interpret the meaning of utterances in discourse. According to
Nunan (1993:7),there are two different types of context. The first is
linguistic context; it refers to the words, utterances and sentences
surrounding a piece of text. The second is non-linguistic or experiential
context, it refers to the real- world context in which the text occurs. Nonlinguistic context includes the type of communicative event, the topic, the
purpose of the event, the setting, the participants and the relationship
11


between them. Non-linguistics also includes background knowledge and
assumptions underlying the communicative event. Background knowledge
can be either cultural general knowledge that most people carry with them
in their minds, about areas of life, or interpersonal knowledge, specific and
possibly private knowledge about the history of the speakers themselves.
The role of context in discourse analysis is considered as:
Eliminating Ambiguity: Ambiguity
sentence

or

group

of

sentences

refers

with

to

more

a

word,

phrase,

than

one

possible

interpretations or meanings. There are two kinds of ambiguities: lexical
ambiguity and structural ambiguity.
Indicating Referents: To avoid repetition, we usually use such words
like: “ I, you, he, this, that” to replace some noun phrases, or words like: “
do, can, should” to replace verb phrases, or “ then, there” to replace
adverbial phrase of time and place.
Detecting Conversational Implicature: Grice found that when people
communicate with each other, they do not always adhere to the four
maxims. The violation

of

a

maxim

may

result

in

the

speaker

conveying, in addition to the literal meaning of his utterance, an
additional meaning, which is conversational implicature.
To sum up, it can be see that there is disagreement about the meaning of
these two terms. However, all seem to agree that both text and discourse
need to be defined in terms of meaning and the coherent texts/ pieces of
discourse are those that form a meaningful whole.
2.3.2. Word meaning, Sentence meaning and Utterance meaning

12