1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

A STUDY ON IMPLICATURE IN
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FUNNY STORIES

(Hàm ngôn trong truyện cười tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)
M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: M.A Đào Thu Trang Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: M.A Đào Thu Trang HANOI-2010

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP………
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………
ii
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………
iii
LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURE…………………………………………………
vi
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
7

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

REFERENCES
42
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………
I
APPENDIX 1: ENGLISH FUNNY STORIES
I
APPENDIX 2: VIETNAMESE FUNNY STORIES
V
8

LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURE

Table 1: Breaking maxims in English and Vietnamese funny stories……………………34
Figure 1: Breaking maxims in English and Vietnamese funny stories……


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
10

mechanism to English learners, the study on “Implicature in English and Vietnamese

Chapter 1: Literature review
11

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.

There has been a lot of confusion between the two terms discourse and text. For some
linguists, these two terms seem to be used almost interchangeably. As Halliday & Hasan
(1976: 2) state in their book “Cohesion in English”.
A text is a unit of language in use, it is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a
sentence… A text is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit not of form but of
meaning. Thus it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by realization, the
coding of one symbolic system in another. A text does not consist of sentences; it is
realized by, or encoded in, sentences.
They use “text” to refer to “discourse”. They see text as a “semantic unit” characterized by
cohesion.
13

Some other linguists draw a clear distinction between them. They argue that
discourse is language in action while a text is the written record of that interaction.
As Crystal‟s point of view, he states that 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”
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.

1.1.3. Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis is developed by different works of different scholars. One of the
most prominent scholars is Yule (1997: 139), he states in his study of language that
“In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions arise in connection
with the way language is used, rather than what its components are…We were, in
effect, asking how it is language –users interpret what other language-users intend to

1.2. Word meaning
According to Nguyen Hoa (2004: 67), words are regarded as the smallest indivisible
meaningful units of a language which can operate independently.
Every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings. The grammatical meaning
can be defined as an expression in speech of relationships between words based on
contrastive features of arrangement in which they occur. The lexical meaning is the
individual meaning that each word has in the system of language.
In terms of component, lexical meaning is classified into denotative and connotative
meaning.
Denotative meaning is the explicit, literal meaning or in other words, it is dictionary
definitions. It involves a broader consensus. That is, the denotative meaning of a sign would
be broadly agreed upon by members of the same culture and by different cultures.
For example, “dog” denotes a common animal with four legs, a tail that they are often kept
as pets, and they can bark and bite.
Connotative meaning, on the other hand, refers to the associations that are connected to a
certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word. It exists together with the
denotative meanings. Connotative meaning conveys value, judgments and evaluative
implications behind literal meaning. We might say it is the emotional meaning of the word.
It is determined by the cultural codes to which the interpreter has access and the connotative
meaning of a word can have strong emotional content.
15

For example, the word “dog” has different connotative meanings in different
cultures.
In Arabic culture: it has negative connotation, dirty and inferiority but in British
culture, it has positive one: friendship and loyalty.
Sometimes two or more words will have the same or almost the same denotation
(definition), but will have very different connotations. Depending on how it is used, a word
might have a positive, neutral, or negative connotation to it.
All of the following words and phrases refer to "a young person" but their

feelings, attitudes and opinions. The last is to express the speaker‟s attitudes or opinions
towards, or assessment of, the representational content of sentence.
For example
Good morning Establish social relationship
Can you get me some water, please? Request
What she said may be right Speaker‟s attitude
Textual meaning is to create texts. It helps to give texts coherence and cohesion.

1.4. Utterance meaning
Nguyen Hoa claims that an utterance is often regarded as any stretch of speech before
which and after which there is a pause. Utterance meaning is defined as what a speaker
means when he makes an utterance in a certain situation. In other words, utterance meaning
is context-dependent and the meaning of an utterance is determined by the context in which
it is used.
Austin presents two kinds of utterances: constative and performative utterance. A
constative utterance is a statement-making utterance. What it does is to represent a state of
affair or experience. In contrast, a performative utterance is one that performs an act of doing
something rather than saying. It brings about a state of affairs such as bids, blessings, firings,
arrests, complaints, marrying. A performative utterance is neither true nor false. For
instance, I say “I apologize for my behavior”, it may be right or wrong for me to do so
because the utterance “I apologize” is used to perform rather than to describe an act.

1.4.1. Related acts in producing an utterance
When attempting to express themselves, people not only produce utterances
containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions via those utterances
A: Would you like to go fishing tomorrow?
B: My father will visit me, tomorrow
In this conversation, A wants to invite B to go fishing, but B does not agree and
he/she refuses A‟s invitation. Both A and B‟s utterances are speech acts.
17

act is closely connected with speaker‟s intentions, for instance, stating, questioning,
promising, requesting, giving commands and so on. As Yule (1996: 48) claims, the
illocutionary act is performed via the communicative force of an utterance which is also
18

generally known as illocutionary force of the utterance. Basically, the illocutionary act
indicates how the whole utterance is to be taken in the conversation.
The illocutionary act is communicatively successful only if the speaker‟s
illocutionary intention is recognized by the hearer. These intentions are essentially
communicative because the fulfillment of illocutionary intentions consists in hearer‟s
understanding. However, there are cases when the hearer fails to recognize the speaker‟s
intentions and he therefore wrongly interprets the speaker‟s utterance. This
misunderstanding may lead to funny situations and hence it is often unfailing source for
various jokes.
Perlocutionary act
Perlocutionary act, Austin‟s last element in the three-fold definition of speech acts, is
performed with the intention of producing a further effect on the hearer. Sometimes it may
seem that perlocutionary act does not differ from illocutionary act very much.
For example, “Would you close the door?”
Considered merely as an illocutionary act (a request in this case), the act is successful if the
hearer recognizes that he should close the door, but as a perlocutionary act it succeeds only if
he actually closes it.

1.4.2. Types of speech act
Austin’s classifications
According to Austin, speech acts are classified into five types. Verdictives are
typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury, umpire, arbitrator such as acquit, grade,
estimate, diagnose. Exercitives are the exercising of powers, rights, or influence such as
appoint, order, advise, and warn. Commisives commit the speaker to do something but also
include declarations or announcements of intention such as promise, guarantee, bet, oppose.

b) Do you have to stand in front of the TV?
c) You are standing in front of the TV.
d) You’d make a better door than a window.
The basic function of all the above utterances is a command/ request that the speaker wants
the addressee not to stand in front of the TV. However, only the imperative structure in (a)
represents a direct speech act. The interrogative structure in (b) is not being used only as a
question, hence it is an indirect speech act. The declarative structure in (c) and (d) are also
indirect requests.

1.5. Implicature
1.5.1. The notion of implicature
The term “implicature” is used by Grice to account for what a speaker can imply,
suggest or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says. In other words, the notion
20

of implicature rests upon a distinction between what is actually said and what is implied in
saying what is said.
Consider the following example Yule (1996: 43)
Rick: Hey!, coming to the wild party tonight?
Tom: My parents are visiting
In order to make Tom‟s response relevant, Rick has to draw on some assumed knowledge
that one college student in this setting expects another to have. Tom will be spending that
evening with his parents, and time spent with parents is quiet. So, Tom implicates that
tonight he will be busy and he cannot go to the party.
Grice discussed two different types of implicatures, including the conventional and the
conversational.
The conventional implicature has the same implication no matter what the context is.
It means that it does not have to occur in conversation, and they do not depend on special
contexts for their interpretation.
For example:

2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
The maxim of quantity requires the speaker to give the right amount of information
when he/she speaks, which means not to be too brief or to give more information than the
situation requires. During a conversation, the quantity maxim is often violated in directions,
creating prolixity if we say too much and terseness if we are too brief.
Woman to a friend: “We haven’t reached an agreement yet- I’d like a Bermuda honeymoon,
and he doesn’t want a wedding”
The woman violated the maxim of quantity because she provided more information
than necessary. This led to humor, she mentioned “a Bermuda honeymoon”, but, as a matter
of fact, her boy friend did not want a wedding at all.
Consider another example;
A farmer gave two city fellows permission to hunt on his land, asking only a small favour in
return “You’ll find a still up yonder”, he said “I’d like you to bring me a jugful or two”
The hunter located the still easily enough, but as they approached, bullets started whizzing
past their ears. They fled down the hill and found the farmer. “Your still is being raided”,
they gasped.
“Oh, that’s probably the old man Turner” the farmer said.
“Who’s he “the hunter wanted to know.
“My neighbour” the farmer replied “He owns the still”
In this example, the farmer violated the principle of quantity because he just gave the
information on the existence of the still. However, the person was actually not as informative
as required, and as a result, caused misunderstanding on the part of his listeners.

22

1.5.2.2. The maxim of quality
Try to make your contribution one that is true
1. Do not say what you believe to be false
2. Do not say that for which you lack evidence.
The maxim of quality is a matter of giving the right information. The speaker says

result, they agued and fought each other, that caused humor.

1.5.2.3. The maxim of relation
Be relevant
The maxim of relevant requires the speaker to be relevant to the context and situation in
which the utterance occurs
A: I am out of petrol
B: There is a garage round the corner
In this exchange, Grice suggests that B would be violating the maxim “Be relevant”.
The implicature, derived from the assumption that speaker B is adhering to the cooperative
principal, is that the garage is not only round the corner, but also will be open and selling
petrol. In order to understand implicature, we have to know certain facts about the world. It
is that garages sell petrol and that round the corner is not a great distance away. A‟s
utterance not only is a description of a particular state of affairs, but also as a request for
help, for instance.

1.5.2.4. The maxim of manner
1. Avoid obscurity of expression
2. Avoid ambiguity
3. Be brief
4. Be orderly
The maxim of manner is a matter of being clear and orderly when conversing. The
speaker describes things in the order in which they occur and avoid ambiguity and obscurity.
Consider the following example:
The plane took off to the west and taxied down the runway
This may confuse people as to what actually happened, so the requirement of being
orderly is not carried out. In fact, when describing things, we should make them in a good
order in which they really occurred. The above example should be changed into “The plane
taxied down the runway and took off to the west”
In summary, what can be derived from the cooperative principal is the fact that

B gives less information than required.
When violating a maxim the speaker intends to mislead the hearer. The speaker speaks the
truth but implies what is false.

1.6. Overview of funny stories
Funny story is story that is told to make people laugh (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s
Dictionary). It is characterized by humorous phenomena. There are two theories for what
25

people find humorous, incongruity theory, superiority theory. The most popular theory of
why we find jokes funny revolves around the concept of „incongruity‟. The idea is that we
laugh at things that surprise us because they seem out of place. It‟s funny when clowns wear
outrageously large shoes, people have especially big noses or politicians tell the truth. In the
same way, many jokes are funny because they involve ideas that run against our
expectations. A bear walks into a bar. Animals talk. And so on. But there is more to this
theory than such simple forms of incongruity. In many jokes, there is an apparent
incongruity between the set-up and the punch line. Scientists refer to this as the „incongruity-
resolution‟ theory. We resolve the incongruity caused by the punch line, and the
accompanying feeling of sudden surprise makes us laugh.
The superiority theory also explains why we laugh at certain types of jokes. Many jokes
make us feel superior to other people. In these types of jokes, people appear stupid because
they have misunderstood an obvious situation, made a stupid mistake, been the hapless
victim of unfortunate circumstance or have been made to look stupid by someone else.
According to the theory, these jokes cause us to laugh because they make us feel superior to
other people.
Funny story may be based on four typical forms as follow
- eccentricity ( against the authority of social convention)
- wordplay ( against the authority of serious discourse)
- non sense ( against the authority of sense)
- black humor ( against the authority of moral)

The non-oberservance the author finds out are flouting and violating. 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 violating and flouting. The author identifies which of the four –
quality, quantity, relevance and manner are broken in each story and which are broken most
frequently. Furthermore, the author investigates why and when the maxims are broken in
order to create humor in funny stories.

2.3. Data analysis
2.3.1. Maxim of quantity
This maxim is broken so as to bring readers humor when the characters do not want
to reveal information that can get them into trouble or when they give too much unneeded
information in the conversation. In English funny story, this maxim accounts for 9%.
Let‟s consider this English funny story
That’s Why
A woman told her husband:
“It is sad when you are away!”
“Honey, I’ll be back sooner than you expected…”
“Yes, that’s why…”
27

The wife in this story flouted the maxim of quantity by giving less information than
the situation requires, she did not finish the sentence she started. She did not want to upset
the listener, her husband. She said that “Yes, that‟s why…” and she left out “You‟ll be back
sooner than I expect that makes me sad because I can not go with another man”.
The character is actually not as informative as required, and as a result, cause
misunderstanding on the part of his listeners.
For example, in an English funny story
There is a woman sitting on a park bench and a large dog lying on the ground in front of the

One man was about to go away for a long time. He left a letter and asked his son to give it to
the guest. Unfortunately, the boy fired the letter. When the guest visited , he asked:
- “Where is your father?”
- “Die”
He asked surprisingly” “when”
-“Last night”
-“Why”
-“On fire”
The humorous effect in the above example was inspired by the violation of quantity.
The guest and the son in this story indicated two different things, the father and the letter,
because the boy and the guest gave too little information. When the guest asked “Where is
your father?” instead of answering “My father‟s letter was lost”, the son answered “Lost”
because he thought of his father‟s letter and the misunderstanding between two people
continued at the end of the story. The guest asked the reason “Why?”, he referred to father,
and the son answered “On fire”, he indicated the letter. The violation of this maxim made the
two characters misunderstand and it caused laughter.
In some Vietnamese funny stories, the characters are portrayed as stupid people in
that they do not know where to stop or they intentionally give too much information to show
off something. This maxim is broken in 7 times (7%) of 100 stories.
For example, in a Vietnamese funny story,
“Lợn cưới, áo mới”
Có anh tính hay khoe của. Một hôm, may được cái áo mới, liền đem ra mặc, rồi đứng hóng ở
cửa, đợi có ai qua người ta khen. Đứng mãi từ sáng đến chiều chả thấy ai hỏi cả, anh ta tức
lắm.
Đang tức tối, chợt thấy một anh, tính cũng hay khoe, tất tưởi chạy đến hỏi to:
- Bác có thấy con lợn cưới của tôi chạy qua đây không?
Anh kia liền giơ ngay vạt áo ra, bảo:
- Từ lúc tôi mặc cái "áo mới" này, tôi chẳng thấy con lợn nào chạy qua đây cả
English version
A pig for wedding, a new shirt