1 UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN QUÝ

THE LINGUISTIC DEVICES MAKING
WITTINESS IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE HUMOUROUS STORIES: A
STUDY OF CONTRASTIVE DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
( Các phương tiện ngôn ngữ tạo nên sự dí dỏm trong truyện hài
Anh-Việt: Nghiên cứu đối chiếu phân tích diễn ngôn)


HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN QUÝ
THE LINGUISTIC DEVICES MAKING
WITTINESS IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE HUMOUROUS STORIES: A
STUDY OF CONTRASTIVE DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
( Các phương tiện ngôn ngữ tạo nên sự dí dỏm trong truyện hài
Anh-Việt: Nghiên cứu đối chiếu phân tích diễn ngôn)
***

M.A Thesis – Program 1
Field:Linguistics
Code: 602215
SUPERVISOR: NGÔ HỮU HOÀNG, Ph.D
2.1.2. Procedure 20
2.2. Data Analysis 21
2.2.1. Metaphor 21
2.2.2 Metonymy 29
2.3. Discussion and Contrastive Findings 33
2.3.1. Discussion 33
2.3.1.1. Metaphor 33
2.3.1.2. Metonymy 34
2.3.1.3. Context in the Interpretation of Jokes in the Humourous Stories 34
2.3.2. Contrastive Findings 37
2.3.2.1. Similarities 37
2.3.2.2. Differences 37
CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATIONS OF TRANLATION AND TEACHING 39
3.1. Implications of Translation 39
3.2. Implications of Teaching 43
CONCLUSION 45
1.Major Findings 45
2.Suggestions for the Translators, Teachers and a Further Study 46
2.1. Suggestions for the Translator and Teachers 46
2.2. Suggestions for a Further Study 47
It cannot be denied that humour plays an important role in the human life and the
whole society because it is not only the means of entertainment but also the weapon
to criticize the groups of people with the purpose of clearing away the negative
attitudes, the out-date thoughts, the discrimination existing in the society. Besides,
humour is the special means of reaching the better things which satisfy the
progressive thoughts and the lower-class‟s dream of equality. The laughter at the
specific objects with the deeply social meanings always carries the humour and
exists long in the spiritual products of human beings. In the relation with the
humour, the laughter is indispensable, but the humour may also include wittiness,
joke, criticism, etc. About these categories, the researcher is going to mention in the
next part of the study so that there is a full overview of what is investigated into.
It is said that Aristot is one of the first author that investigated the nature of humour
when he stated that the humour is aesthetic. However, it is necessary to note that the
humour is aesthetic only when it is aimed at the specific object with the deeply
social meanings. The humour was born out of hostility. If there had been no
hostility in man, there had been no laughter (and, incidentally, no need for laughter).
All the current humour and wittiness retain evidence of this hostile origin types.
Furthermore, humour is the product of the society when people, by different means,
make the laughter in the spiritual works like the HS, the play, the cartoons, the
funny pictures and movies, etc. Among those types of literature, the short
humourous stories (hereafter called HS) are really important in amusement by just
some short sentences, and it is easy for the readers to provoke the laughter at ease to
entertain or satire the negative sides of human beings or the whole society. Being
different from the other types of art like cartoon, funny pictures and play; the
humorous stories use the only means of language to express the laughter like the
following story: Phát triển không đồng đều
Buổi tối, anh thợ làm bánh mì thường dẫn người yêu ra ghế đá công viên. Có lần


Attardo and Victor Raskin with Script-Based Semantic Theory Of Humour (SSTH)
and The General Theory Of Verbal Humour (GTVH) respectively. The main
hypothesis is quoted by Avro Krikman (2006:31, internet 7) as follows:
SSTH is the theory refers to a text which can be characterized as a single-joke-
carrying text if both of the conditions are satisfied. The text is compatible, fully or
in part, with two different scripts. The two scripts with the text is compatible are
opposite in a special sense defined in section 4. The two scripts with which the text
is compatible are said to overlap fully or in part on this text.
GTVH is presented as a theory that allows us to relate perceived differences
between jokes to six hierarchically ordered Knowledge Resources (parameters),
namely knowledge concerning Language; Narrative Strategies; Target(s);
Situation; Logical Mechanism(s); Script Opposition(s).
The investigation of the linguistic devices making the wittiness by discourse
analysis is a large field that was implemented by the linguistics in the world.
Generally, this matter is investigated and explored long before by many people in
the field of language. However, everything seems to be different in Vietnam
because the study of humour is less and the study by discourse analysis, especially
the professional and contrastive one of English humourous stories and Vietnamese
humourous stories (hereafter called EHS and VHS respectively). Let‟s begin with
Vũ Ngọc Khánh who presented us the book named Hành Trình Vào Xứ Sở Cười
(translation: The Journey to the Land of Laughter) in 1996. He gave us the overview
of VHS, including the folklores and the scholar-styled literatures on the aspects of
time and space. During the history, Vũ Ngọc Khánh (1996:7) claimed that from the
17
th
century, VHS has developed with the appearance of Trạng Quỳnh collection
whose the objects to be laughed at were the king, officials, Gods and Budda, monks,
traders, etc. Also from this century, we have had other scholar-styled authors like
Nguyễn Bá Lân or Nguyễn Cư Trinh, and in the modern time there are Tú Mỡ, Tú

when reading the literature works, in terms of the discourse analysis views, the
readers not only understand the humour mechanism, the linguistic devices, the
nature of humour, etc but also are supplied with the knowledge of language, people
characteristics, attitudes and thoughts of the culture the stories belong to. Besides,
the study also is necessary for the teachers in their jobs because it is said that the
successful teacher need to have good sense of humour. Through the study, the
knowledge would be helpful for them to tell the jokes in the appropriate time to be
the warm-up activities.
2. Aims of the study - In the study, the researcher investigates the figure of speech as linguistic
devices making the wittiness and then help us to understand/explain why
people laugh when reading EHS and VHS.
- The role of context in the HS, then readers can understand the jokes by
the context when reading them.
- To provide implications for the translators to understand the jokes in the
stories and have good interpretation with the right transfer. Besides, it is
necessary to tell HS in language teaching, then the students can be
supplied with language knowledge, cultures and motivated in learning,
warm-up activities and release their study tension.
3. Scope of the study
The types of humour can be cartoons, funny pictures, plays, etc. However, this
study is limited to the verbal humour. The object of research is the EHS and VHS.
This research is limited to investigate the figure of speech as the linguistic devices
like metaphor, metonymy and others which make the wittiness in the selected EHS
and VHS

4. Method of the study
By means of quantitative method, the investigation is carried out through text

DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1 Discourse
1.1.1 Definition of discourse
The term „discourse‟ is defined differently by the linguistics. One of the definitions
is that discourse is a set of meanings in which a group of people communicate about
a particular topic. Discourse can be defined in a narrow or a broad sense and a
narrow definition of discourse might refer only to spoken or written language. The
term of discourse refers to the conventions underlying the use of language in
extended stretched of written and spoken text (Alison Ross, 1998, p.41). Here is
Crystal‟s statement as quoted by David Nunan (1993:5): „A continuous stretch of
(especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent

register can be literature, science, press, daily communication and other
subregisters. The term register include subregister, for example the news, reports
and advertising belong to the press, short stories, poetry, play included in literature
(Nguyễn Hòa, 2008, p.78).
It is a shortcoming not to mention the term genre when we investigate discourse
analysis. According to Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics, the
term genre is a particular class of speech event which are considered by the speech
community as being of the same type (Jack C. Richards, John Platt & Heidi Platt,
2000, p.156). It highlights the fact that different types of discourse can be identified
by their overall shape or generic structure; actually it refers to the types of
communicative events (David Nunan, 1993, p.48). There are different types of
genres like non-literature, literature, everyday/social discourse, general genre, etc.
The humourous discourse is so special that in this research the humorous discourse
may belong to the general discourse with the hidden meanings.
The genre and registers may be related because different types of communicative
events result in different types of discourse, and each of these will have its own
distinctive characteristics. Each of texts is very different in terms of its structure,
grammar and physical appearance (David Nunan, 1993, p.51).
1.2 Context
There is no doubt that context plays the central role in discourse analysis because
communication cannot happened in the vacuum (Nguyễn Hòa, 2008, p.281). Specifically, context is related to the language in the triangle: language –
communication – context. David Nunan (1993:8) stated that there are two types of
context: (1) linguistic context - the language that surrounds and accompanies the
piece of discourse under analysis (2) non-linguistic context/experiential context –
communicative event (for example: joke, story, lecture, greeting and conversation),
the topic, the purpose of the event, the setting; the participants and the relationships
between them; and the background knowledge. Based on the David Nunan‟s ideas,

laughter is just the standpoint of humour. However, other thinker make a
distinction: laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, whereas, humour
arise from pleasant cognitive shift.
Actually, the terms such as humour, irony, sarcasm, funny, laughter, etc are the
barely distinguished ones because lexicographic studies have shown that the
semantic field of what has been broadly defined as „humour‟ is very rich. Salvatore
Attardo & Victor Raskin (1994: 17, internet 1) introduced the humour as main
category and others like irony, sacram, wittiness, funny, etc as subcategory due to
the methodology of semantic field in the following figure: Figure 1: The semantic field of humour
WIT Pun

Bon
mot
Tease

Practical
Joke

In general, it is not easy to define humour and its categories because humour and
others involved in „mental phenomenon (humor) with a complex neuro-
physiological manifestation (laughter)‟ (Salvator Attardo & Victor Raskin, 1994, p.17, internet 1). Almost every major figure in the history of philosophy has
proposed a theory, but after 2500 years of discussion there has been little consensus
about what constitutes humor. Despite the number of authors who have participated
in the debate, the topic of humor is currently understudied in the discipline of
philosophy. In this research, the researcher agrees with the ideas in Humour in
Woody Allen (2008:18, internet 22) that people adopt the word „humour‟ as an
umbrella term encompassing all the above terms, and the linguistics, psychologists
and anthropologists have taken humour to be an all-encompassing categories
because it can cover any event or object that make laughter, amuses or is felt to be
funny. Salvator Attardo & Victor Raskin (1994:8, internet 1) considered humour to
be „the least restricted sense‟, so humour and wittiness are the two terms refers to
the amusement which is funny; and they can go with or without laughter
interchangeably with „the funny‟.


- Your father will live 80 years, and you will live 62 years.
He burst into cry. The fortune teller felt strange and then asked him:
- I told you that both of you live long, so why do you cry?
The son answered:
- My father will die before I will two years. So, within such the duration, who
will nurse me?
Besides, the HS has a variety of topics like teacher-student jokes, the politicians, the
priest, the doctor-patient, the lawyer, etc. Through such topics, the readers
understand the relations among the character and the feeling, the attitudes towards
such people in the society. Let‟s see one joke about the teacher:
A new teacher, trying to make use of her psychology courses, started her class by
saying, ‘ Everyone who thinks you’re stupid, stand up.’
After a few seconds, little Johnny stood up. The teacher said, ‘ Do you think you’re
stupid, Johnny?’
‘ No Ma’am,’ he said, ‘But I hate to see you standing up there all by yourself.’
The shape of the HS is so special that it has the turn-taking in the conversation of
the character or just one sentence as follows: Trên bức tường của một trường học, người ta nghi: ‘Cấm không được chửi bậy’.
Translated version:
On a wall of the school, it is noted that: ‘Forbid not to swear’
It is funny that the negative forms are used double in the notice, i.e the school
allows their students to swear. By using one sentence, the shape of joke is
stimulated and created the laughter to the reader.
The conversation in the HS can be long or short, in some cases there is a mini-talk
like the following jokes:
Mother: ‘What did you learn in the school today, Clarence?’
Clarence: ‘How to whisper without moving my lips.’
As known before, the HS is short; therefore, its structure is established in the neatly

then suddenly felt. So, different objects are understood in just one interpretation
under one concept.
It is said that incongruity is known as something inconsistent, not fitting well
together, disappointed and unsuitable. For the structure of the story, Nguyễn Đức
Dân (1977:1, internet 10) claimed that laughter is made at the end of the story.
Incongruity involves in the end of the story and makes the surprise of laugh or
wittiness. Nguyễn Đức Dân (1977:2, internet 10) also added that there are three
stages of a HS, including the opening, the development and the closing (making
laugh). In the opening, the readers find everything run smoothly and develop
normally. In the body, they expect the result A, but in the conclusion, the result is C
which is out of expectation and different from the result A. The more the result B is
different from the result B, the more the humour is interesting.
Alison Ross (1998:30) stated that humour is created out of a conflict between what
is expected and what actually occurs in the joke. Other author argued that
incongruity is often indentified with „frustrated expectation‟. The incongruity
theory focuses on the element of surprise. Additionally, by using the incongruity
theory, the readers smiles because they can find the inappropriate within the
appropriate. In any community, the certain attitudes are felt to be appropriate to
something but not to others; so that stereotype developed (Hantoro, S, 2004, internet
6). Schopenhauer & Kant (1970: 177, internet 14) developed this theory to make the
laughter an affection arising from „sudden transformation of a strained expectation
into nothing‟ in their work named the Critique of Judgment. For a joke to work, the
resulting interpretation must result in the incongruity (Arjun Karande, 2006, p.31). 1.6 Figure of Speech as Linguistics Devices in HS
These linguistic devices are mentioned by Alison Ross (1998: p.p1-63) and they
contribute to make the laughter in the humour.
1.6.1Metaphor
Metaphor is one of the most significant parts of semantics field and is known as

and serves no other purpose but to present things in a new and witty way. Let‟s see
the following HS:
A rich beautiful young girl said to her dancing friend.
- My future husband is the handsome man who can sing well the songs that I
favour when I am sad and he can play piano a little but he has to be the
famous player. He knows literature, history so he can tell me interesting
stories. He can speak French, Italian and Spanish so that we can take long
time travels around the world. Specially, he does not smoke and drink. Dear
friend, give me an advice! What do I have to do?
- You have to buy a television set!
In the above story, the using of ‘a television set’ stands for the girl‟s perfect
husband. The readers of the joke are led to form a certain expectation: she wants a
husband who possesses the qualities. The result is that only a television that satisfies
the girl‟s requirements of a perfect husband with above qualities. The incongruity
arises from what is not explicitly mentioned in the form, yet what the hearer takes
for granted: he must be a human being. The context that ‘a rich beautiful young girl
said to her dancing friend’ and ‘my future husband’ lead us to assume that she
expect ‘a man with qualities’, belonging to the source domain. The assumption is
made base on our presupposition that she want a human being as husband. The
actually answer of the dancing partner is a television, belongs to the target domain
because it is just a television that meet all the qualities.
1.6.2Metonymy
Metonymy
In Meaning And Reading, Sebastian Lobner (2002: 49) defined metonymy as a term
„that primarily refers to object of a certain kind is used to refer instead to things that
belong to objects of this kind‟. Consider the following exampled borrowed from
the book of Sebastian Lobner:
(a) The university lies in the eastern part of the town
(b) The university has closed down the faculty of agriculture


context, both context and co-text are really important for the reader in interpretation
of the jokes. The HS is special in the shape, the structure, the topic, the conversation
between the character, etc; but all of these features serve only purpose of making
humour. There are over 100 theories of humour, some theories are of psychology,
some are of physiology but the researcher selects the the incongruity theory because it has the linguistic devices. Figure of speech with hidden meanings has more than
two linguistic devices (metaphor and metonymy), and all of these make the
ambiguity. Under the hidden meaning of ambiguity, the figure of speech makes the
laughter to the reader, so despite the metaphor or metonymy, the researcher reckons
that they all are ready-made or living. The readers can find the ready-made
linguistic devices in the dictionary because they exist naturally in the society with
the conventional understanding. For the living linguistic devices, they are created by
the speakers in the stories and sometimes the readers are difficult to understand
them.
After doing the in-depth analysis, the cases of each phenomenon in each field will
be quantified and the results are reflected in tables. The count will be done manually
and calculated in the percentage. Alison Ross (1998:4) claimed that there have been two approaches to the study of
humor: the functional and the descriptive. The functional approach has emphasized
the socio-psychological aspects of joke-telling. The descriptive approach
foregrounds semantic and structural properties of jokes. Regardless of the approach,
there is a consensus among humor researchers of jokes, which typically results in
laughter, is essentially an intentional act that evolves from laughter, humour,
wittiness and the joke.
2.2 Data Analysis
The researcher found there are 50 samples in the selected books of HS as
mentioned, in which metaphorical jokes are 37 and metonymical jokes are 13. The
metaphor jokes and metonymy jokes are subdivided into the categories of English
and Vietnamese.
2.2.1 Metaphor
The aim of the study deals with the metaphor as linguistic device, so this part was
paid special attention because of the purpose of the study. A total of 37 samples as
metaphor jokes in the books of humorous stories, there are 18 (49%) and 19 (51%)
in the English and Vietnamese respectively. Overall, this means that the difference
between these two languages is rather small. Table 1 reveals the frequency and
percentage of metaphor jokes occurring in total and between two languages in
particular
Table 1: Metaphor jokes in EHS and VHS
Metaphor jokes
Percentage
EHS
18 jokes (49%)