MASTERARBEIT Titel der Masterarbeit „Appreciation and interpretation of humour in American English by Serbian EFL speakers“ Verfasserin Ivana Turković, BA angestrebter akademischer Grad Master of Arts (MA) Wien, 2011 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 066 812 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Masterstudium English Language and Linguistics UG2002 Betreuerin: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Ute Smit Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of people without whom this project would not have been possible. First of all, I am very grateful to Professor Ute Smit for choosing to mentor a topic that is not entirely in her line of research interest. Her supervision and advice were invaluable. She helped me shape the topic and gave me very insightful comments that, hopefully, made this thesis better in quality. Thank you! I am also very grateful to the participants of my study, for taking the time to watch the videos and talk to me about them and for letting me record them. This study would not exist without them. Moreover, I want to thank Petar, for the past seven years, for bringing me to Vienna and for everything. Last but not least, a very special thanks goes to my family, for their endless support and love, for believing in me and helping me in more ways than they can even imagine. This thesis is partly dedicated to them and partly to my grandparents, I wish I could share this with you. ii Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................... 1 1.1 Research questions ................................................................................... 3 1.2 Why EFL? ................................................................................................. 4 1.3 Outline of thesis ........................................................................................ 5 2. Defining culture ............................................................................. 6 2.1 Cultural difference .................................................................................... 7 2.2 Issues with taboo topics ............................................................................ 9 3. Humour research ........................................................................ 13 3.1 Definitions of humour ............................................................................ 13 3.2 Types of Humour .................................................................................... 16 3.3 Functions of humour ............................................................................... 22 3.4 Joke competence and humour competence ............................................ 25 3.5 Theories of humour ................................................................................. 27 3.5.1 Incongruity theories ............................................................................................... 28 3.5.2 Hostility theories ................................................................................................... 29 3.5.3 Release theories ..................................................................................................... 31 3.5.4 Considerations of the three theories ...................................................................... 32 3.5.5 Hybrid theories ...................................................................................................... 33 3.5.6 Sociological (social) theories................................................................................. 35 3.5.7 Linguistic theories of humour................................................................................ 38 3.5.7.1 Semantic script theory of humour .................................................................... 38 3.5.7.2 General theory of verbal humour...................................................................... 40 3.6 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 43 4 Material and methods ................................................................. 45 4.1 Mixed methods research design ............................................................. 45 4.1.1 Pilot study ............................................................................................................... 46 4.1.2 Outline of the main study ....................................................................................... 49 4.1.2.1 The sample ....................................................................................................... 50 iii 4.2 “Fishsticks” episode and the selected humour examples ....................... 55 4.2.1 Video 1 ................................................................................................................... 55 4.2.2 Video 2 ................................................................................................................... 59 4.2.3 Video 3 ................................................................................................................... 61 4.2.4 Video 4 ................................................................................................................... 63 4.2.5 Video 5 ................................................................................................................... 65 4.2.6 Video 6 ................................................................................................................... 68 4.2.7 The song ................................................................................................................. 71 5. Results and analysis .................................................................... 74 5.1 Subtitles .................................................................................................. 77 5.2 Video 1 .................................................................................................... 78 5.3 Video 2 .................................................................................................... 81 5.4 Video 3 .................................................................................................... 84 5.5 Video 4 .................................................................................................... 87 5.6 Video 5 .................................................................................................... 93 5.7 Video 6 .................................................................................................... 96 5.8 The song ................................................................................................ 101 5.9 Comparison of gender results ............................................................... 102 5.10 Disfluencies and other features of speech ............................................ 108 6. Summary of findings ................................................................. 111 7. Conclusion .................................................................................. 115 References ........................................................................................ 118 Appendices ....................................................................................... 124 Appendix 1 ..................................................................................................... 124 Appendix 2 ..................................................................................................... 127 Appendix 3 ..................................................................................................... 129 Curriculum vitae ............................................................................. 157 iv Abstract Humour has become one of the most productive fields of research in the past 30 years. A great deal of this research is focused on humour production, interpretation and appreciation in the native language, or on the translation of entertainment products for audiences worldwide. The purpose of the present paper is to attempt a research into humour-related processes in a foreign language. The starting point was Carrell‟s (1997) theory of joke and humour competence and the idea that foreign language acquisition entails the development of these competences. The study has been conducted on 14 Serbian EFL speakers, divided into two equal age groups (16-17 and 25-26). They were asked to watch several clips from an episode of a US animated TV show, South Park, and then subsequently rate and discuss the perceived funniness and offensiveness of these clips. The videos were chosen so as to represent different humour types and potential taboo topics. The findings show that these participants have a satisfactory level of joke and humour competence, but also give some insights into what types of humour appear to be more popular for this audience. The results also discuss speakers‟ reactions to taboo topics and their answers regarding the offensiveness aspect were analyzed bearing in mind that they were discussing contents of a fictional scene and not a real life situation. Humor hat sich zu einem der produktivsten Gebiete der Forschung in den letzten 30 Jahren entwickelt. Ein großer Teil dieser Forschung ist auf Humorproduktion, -interpretation und ˗wertschätzung in der Muttersprache oder auf die Übersetzung von Entertainment-Produkten für ein weltweites Publikum ausgerichtet. Der Zweck der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, die Humor-Prozesse in einer fremden Sprache zu erforschen. Ausgangspunkt war Carrells Theorie der Witz- und Humorkompetenz (1997) und die Idee, dass Fremdsprachenerwerb die Entwicklung dieser