Luận văn tiếng Anh:A study on implicature in English and Vietnamese funny stories = Hàm ngôn trong truyện cười tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt. M.A. Thesis Linguistics: 60 22 15

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP………................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………… ii
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………… iii
LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURE…………………………………………………... vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………… 1
1. Rationale…………………………………………………………………………. 1
2. Aims of the Study………………………………………………………………... 2
3. Scope of the Study.................................................................................................. 2
4. Method of the Study................................................................................................ 2
5. Organization of the Study....................................................................................... 2
PART B: DEVELOPMENT.................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND................................................ 4
1.1. Overview of Discourse Analysis.......................................................................... 4
1.1.1. Definition of Discourse..................................................................................... 4
1.1.2. Discourse versus Text....................................................................................... 4
1.1.3. Discourse Analysis............................................................................................ 5
1.1.4. Context in Discourse Analysis.......................................................................... 6
1.2. Word Meaning..................................................................................................... 6
1.3. Sentence Meaning................................................................................................ 7
1.4. Utterance Meaning............................................................................................... 8
1.5. Implicature........................................................................................................... 12
1.5.1. The Notion of Implicature................................................................................. 12
1.5.2. The Cooperative Principal and Maxims............................................................ 13
1.5.2.1. The Maxim of Quantity.................................................................................. 13
1.5.2.2. The Maxim of Quality.................................................................................... 14
1.5.2.3. The Maxim of Relation.................................................................................. 15
1.5.2.4. The Maxim of Manner................................................................................... 16 1.5.3. Non- Observance............................................................................................... 16
1.6. Overview of Funny Stories.................................................................................. 17
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY..................................................................................... 19
2.1. Research question................................................................................................ 19
2.2. Data collection..................................................................................................... 19
2.3. Data Analysis....................................................................................................... 19
2.3.1. Maxim of Quantity............................................................................................ 19
2.3.2. Maxim of Quality.............................................................................................. 24
2.3.3. Maxim of Relation............................................................................................ 27
2.3.4. Maxim of Manner............................................................................................. 30
2.4. Discussion............................................................................................................ 34
2.4.1. Result and Discussion of the Result………………………………………...... 34
2.4.2. Similarities........................................................................................................ 35
2.4.3. Differences........................................................................................................ 35
PART C: CONCLUSION........................................................................................ 37
1. Major Findings........................................................................................................ 37
2. Implications to Language Teaching and Learning.................................................. 37
3. Limitation of the Study and Suggestions for Further Study................................... 40
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................... 42
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………... I
APPENDIX 1: ENGLISH FUNNY STORIES........................................................... I
APPENDIX 2: VIETNAMESE FUNNY STORIES.................................................. V 1. Rationale
Language is one of the most important areas of human development. It is the
mechanism by which people communicate, and the means by which people convey their
emotion. However, in our day-to-day conversational exchanges, for some reasons, people do
not always directly express their ideas. As Jenny Thomas states in her book “Meaning in
Interaction” that speaker frequently means much more than their words actually say (Thomas
1995: 1). The hearer interprets a meaning that is not clearly stated in the utterance of the
speaker. Utterances, standing alone out of context, make us confused in our communication.
However, being put into the context, words and phrases can be interpreted in a way that
makes people understand the intentional meaning of the utterances. The reason is that we as
speakers and hearers, according to the American philosopher- linguistics Paul Grice, operate
under the cooperative principal, which means that both speaker and hearer converse with
good intentions. In other words, the speaker utters words and phrases in order to deliver a
message to the hearer, who interprets a meaning with the knowledge that there is a message
behind the utterance.
In order to show what goes on in conversation, Grice introduced four conversational
maxims. A speaker might fall to observe a maxim but still get the intended meaning through
to the hearer. Falling to observe a maxim is often referred to as “breaking a maxim”. In
funny story, these maxims are constantly broken to create humor.
Funny stories are a crucial part of every culture and every society. From the past to
now, it has been an entertaining form to make people feel cheerful and happy. Sometimes, it
can be used as a means of weapon to fight against the negative things in the society.
However, different types of humor are more appealing to different people based on their
personal sense of humor and background. And people from different countries have their
own sense of humor, therefore understanding funny stories means that you have to uncover
many things relating to their nations. Sometimes we wonder why some unfinished and
meaningless sentences can make people laugh. To achieve this interpretation successfully,
readers have to understand intended meaning from the characters and the authors.
Being a teacher of English as a foreign language, I strongly believe that the use of
humor in funny story would significantly improve second language learning. However, to
understand the meaning of implicature in English funny story is a challenging task. In order
to create more interests in the English learning and build a deep understanding of inplicature mechanism to English learners, the study on “Implicature in English and Vietnamese
funny stories” is inspired and carried out. .
2. Aims of the study
The purposes of the research study could be clearly identified as followings:
- To provide background knowledge of implicature
- To uncover the implicature in terms of maxim conveyed in the English and Vietnamese
funny stories under study
- To point out implicature in some English and Vietnamese funny stories in terms of
maxims.
- To draw out the implication in English language teaching and learning.
3. Scope of the study
This research is limited to analyze implicature in some selected English and Vietnamese
funny stories.
This research only touches a small aspect of implicature: maxim
Within the scope of the study, no attention is paid to any other features of funny stories.
4. Method of the study
The main method of the study is qualitative one executed with descriptive and contrastive
analysis with the following techniques:
+ Collecting data containing funny stories with mechanism of implicature
+ Basing on the data collected, we sort out the samples into categories in terms of maxims.
+ On the basis of the analysis of mechanism of implicatures in English and Vietnamese
funny stories, we predict the difficulties that Vietnamese learners have to deal with.
5. Organization of the study
The study consists of three parts. They are:
Part A: Introduction. This part contains rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study,
and methods of the study.
Part B: Development. This is the main part of the thesis and has two chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature review In this chapter, review on some field of semantics, pragmatics and discourse such are given
in the first place. Later part deals with concept of implicature and a brief background
knowledge about funny stories.
Chapter 2: The study
This part gives the detailed description of the study, which includes data collection, data
analysis and presents the results and discussion
Part C: Conclusion
This is the last part of the thesis which summarizes the major points and gives the
implication as well as giving suggestions for further study. PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Major findings
In this study, the author investigates some broken maxims in English and Vietnamese
funny stories. The data analysis reveals that both English and Vietnamese funny stories have
the same implicature mechanism. It is based on flouting or violating the maxims. The study
shows that maxims are important for writers in order to evoke feelings and reactions in their
readers. I have seen that it is necessary for the readers to have the characters break maxims
in order to create and develop humorous and dramatic situations in verbal interaction.
Without the Giúp of Grice‟s maxims, we would not be able to properly describe the dynamics
of interaction and understand the phenomenon of cooperation and non-cooperation. Here it is
important to note that the conversational maxims are commonly observed in funny stories
for various reasons. The writers adhere to different maxims in order to get the intended
meaning from one speaker to another. In order to create humor as well as to bring out
different characteristics and personality traits in the different character, it is necessary to
break the maxims. However, working out the implicature of native funny stories is not an
easy task for non-native speakers. The study indicates that in order to properly understand
funny stories, the readers are required to have a considerable background knowledge.
In summary, Grice's maxims and the cooperative principle are used not only to
understand how we communicate but also why and when we are uncooperative. When we
converse we constantly fail to observe maxims in order to emphasize a message, create irony
or to avoid unpleasant situations, in other words, to communicate effectively. The different
non-observances lead to different interpretations which are dependent on the context in
which it occurs.
2. Implications for language learning and teaching
Funny story can create humor in classroom which contribute a positive environment
for learning. The enhancement of enjoyment is probably the most important contribution that
funny story makes in the teaching of English to language students. The use of humor in
classroom reduces tension, improves classroom climate, increases enjoyment and student
teacher rapport, and even facilitates learning.
From the selected funny stories under story, different cultural values and aspect of
life are illustrated. Therefore, funny stories would be important sources to Giúp non-native
speakers be aware of the native country. For instance, understanding English funny story can


2b2X31ZQSXYs9S6

---