VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
NGUYỄN THÙY LINH
A VIETNAMESE – ENGLISH CROSS-CULTURAL
STUDY OF EXPRESSING SARCASM (NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VIỆT – ANH VỀ CÁCH
DIỄN ĐẠT LỜI NÓI CHÂM BIẾM )

M.A. Minor Thesis English Linguistics
602215
Hanoi, 2011
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration
Acknowledgement
Abstract
Table of contents
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale 1
II. Scope of the study 2
III. Aims of the study 2
IV. Research questions 2
V. Methodology 2
VI. Design of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES
1. Culture 4
2. Language 4
3. Language and Culture 5
CHAPTER II: SARCASM, PUNS AND TYPES OF PUNS
2.1. Sarcasm 7
2.2. Puns and types of puns 9
CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

3.3. Suggestions for further research 40

REFERENCES
APPENDICES
1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
There‘s a point of view holding that all modern art is more or less sarcastic because the
viewer cannot help but compare it to previous works. For example, any portrait of a
standing, non-smiling woman will naturally be compared with the Mona Lisa; the
tension of meaning exists, whether the artist meant it or not. As a matter of fact, it is
the case not only in art but for many other fields of life including language.
Gresham, in his work, made an interesting conclusion that ―Bad coinage drives out
goods‖. This reflects the fact of money that debased or under weight coins will drive
good, full weight coins out of circulation. This assertion, however, was not properly
applied in the economics only but in other fields of life as well. It is the case for every
realm in which an exchange occurs, with nowhere more vital than in the Kingdom of
Ideas, where the coin of realm is the word. In particular, we can easily observe that bad
meanings or associations of words tend to give good ones out of circulation. Some
examples might be the words ―girl‖ and ―lady‖. Nowadays, people, especially men,
tend to use the word ―girl‖ to refer to their darling. In Vietnamese the phenomenon can
be clearly realized in the use of ―gái‖. In the past, ―gái‖ was used to address a girl so it
appeared normally in calls like ―gái ơi‖. Gradually, with the appearance and popularity
of call-girls, the word has a new, more popular meaning of prostitutes. Also, the word
―lady‖ has a completely different use from the previous. It is used to mean a woman
who is weak inside and cannot protect herself. The same situation happens to the words
such as ―cô nương‖ or ―tiểu thư‖ in Vietnamese. Hence, it can be seen that ―negative‖

What are the major similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and English
speakers use puns in expressing sarcasm? 3
V. Methodology
The following methods are resorted to:
- Conducting survey (with questionnaires as a data collection instrument)
- Conducting observations

VI. Design of research
The study is composed of three main parts:

Part A (Introduction) presents the rationale, scope, aims, research questions, and
methodology of the study
Part B (Development) consists of three chapters:
Chapter I (Theoretical preliminary): discusses the notions of language-culture
relationship.
Chapter II (Sarcasm, puns and types of puns): explores different
conceptualizations of sarcasm, puns and types of puns, types that are used in common
between English and Vietnamese and ones that only appear in English or Vietnamese.
Chapter III (Data analysis and findings) analyses collected data to find out
major cross-cultural similarities and differences in the choice of puns in expressing
sarcasm.
Part C (Conclusion) summarizes the main findings of the study, provides some
implications for TEFL, and offers suggestions for further research.
Reference includes all the books, articles or website that has been referred to during
the writing of this thesis.
The appendices list examples of different groups of equivalence in order of the
alphabet.

abstract phenomenon that can be realized through a number of verbal and non-verbal

5
codes‖ (Emmitt and Pollock). Whichever definition is used, language is put in a given
community and functions as a systematic means of communicating.

3. Language and culture
It is often commented that someone is ―cultured‖ or ―uncultured‖ depending on his
behaviors and reaction in certain situations. Most of these actions are taken with
utterances. What one speaks when greeting or departing someone can reveal much
about him. In other words, whether someone is judged to be cultured or uncultured is
much relevant to what he utters in social communication. Therefore, language is
regarded as a mean to measure other‘s cultural reality. Expressed in another way,
language is a system of signs that is seen as having its own cultural value.
Besides, what people utter refers to common experience such as facts, ideas or events
that are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that
other people share. Words also reflect the speaker‘s attitude, belief, and their point of
view. In other words, language realizes culture. It is interestingly asserted by Sapir that
culture is ―what society does and thinks‖, and language is ―a particular how of
thought‖.
People also create experience in real life. The way they transfer messages directly
through face to face communication or indirectly on telephone, etc. brings them with
numerous experience which is handed down from generation to generation. The
process is in a continuous flow. Hence, language embodies and maintains cultural
reality. Language and culture simply do not independently and separately exist. The
language of Esperanto couldn‘t survive because it has no culture background. Vice
versa, no culture can exist without its own language.

The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted. Language is used to
maintain and convey culture and cultural ties. Different ideas stem from differing

culture (Allwright & Bailey 1991). Consequently, teachers of a language are also
teachers of culture (Byram 1989).
The implications of language being completely entwined in culture, in regards for
language teaching and language policy are far reaching. Language teachers must
instruct their students on the cultural background of language usage, choose culturally
appropriate teaching styles, and explore culturally based linguistic differences to
promote understanding instead of misconceptions or prejudices. Language policy must
be used to create awareness and understandings of cultural differences, and written to
incorporate the cultural values of those being taught.

CHAPTER II: SARCASM, PUNS AND TYPES OF PUNS

2.1 Sarcasm
Leaving for work, you notice it‘s incredibly cold and rainy. Nearby, your neighbor is
leaving too. "Great weather, huh?" you say. "Yes, wonderful!" he replies. Then just as
you are crossing the street to get to your office, suddenly a car comes out of nowhere
and comes close to hitting you in the middle of the crosswalk. "Thanks a lot!" you yell.
The driver rolls down his window and throw some dirty words at you. When you get
inside and sit down at your desk, you notice that one of your co-workers is talking
loudly on his phone. When he hangs up, you say, "I think you should talk a little bit
louder next time - the entire office didn't hear it." Your co-worker apologizes. Later
that day, you're in the break room talking with other co-workers. One of them says that
he's thinking of going to graduate school and then leaves the room. "Oh, I'm sure he'll
do really well!" you say. Everyone laughs, because this co-worker is known for being
on the flaky side. 8
What was really going on in each of these exchanges? The fact is that the weather
wasn't great; you really weren't grateful to the driver that nearly hit you, and you

example dramatic irony in literature; in life we have the irony of fate, God, events,
things, etc.; the relation between events and an observer's state of mind—the ironic
attitude, which may or may not externalize itself as verbal irony, dramatic irony, or the
irony of fate.
(3) Irony usually has an author, who by analogy is a superhuman power in some fields
of observation; in the irony of fate, for instance. It always has an audience, even if it is
only the author amusing himself; and a victim, who is deceived by appearance and
enlightened by reality, although an author may turn himself into a pseudo victim.
(4) The aspects of irony such as the conception of reality, the degree to which author
and audience sympathize or identify with the victim, and the fate of the victim –
triumph or defeat. To this extent, irony is identified as being comic or sarcastic
depending on the triumph or defeat of the victim, with sarcastic irony, or sarcasm,
indicating the victim defeat.

2.2. Puns and types of puns
A large amount of sarcasm is expressed with the use of puns. As a matter of fact, the
phenomenon has not been regularized in theory, but it is extremely common in
everyday life of any community of people.
Many see puns as cheap humour, one-liners, or groaners, despite their prevalence in
culture. They are most often seen in the names of businesses or advertisements. Others,
like the writer Jonathan Swift, see them as a challenging art form, where one shapes
words like cobbler bends leather. ―Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon
words,‖ said Swift, ―which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those

10
parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises
the cockles of the heart.‖
However the dictionary describes a pun as: ―A play on words, sometimes on different
senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different
words”. Based on the definition, puns could be divided among several main branches


Palindromes
Palindromes are the words which are spelled the same, backwards or forwards, such as
―mom‖, ―race car‖, or ―deified‖. Entire phrases can be palindromes. Punctuation does
not prevent a sentence or phrase from being considered a palindrome, for example
―Dogma: I am God.‖ counts as a palindrome. Scarily enough, there is a 306-word
palindrome name ―Dog sees Ada‖ showing how popular it is. In Vietnamese there also
exist words which read the same backwards or forwards like ―móm‖, ―tẹt‖, ―tát‖, but
none of them have so far been recognized as palindromes or puns at all. So far, no
palindromes at sentences level have been discovered, perhaps for the same reason with
anagrams mentioned above.

Portmanteau
Portmanteau words are words that are formed by telescoping two other words in on
themselves such as bit (binary unit), avionics (aviation electronics), and motel (motor
hotel). The use of portmanteau proves the connections of sounds of the words in
English while in Vietnamese which is sound-isolated, there are no such word plays.

Daffynition
In fact, to make a pun, one does not need to play on the pronunciation, or spelling at
all. Sometimes, a clever redefinition of a word can be considered a pun. These are

12
sometimes referred to as Daffynitions. For example, ―Flashlight: a carrying case for
dead batteries‖ or ―Shin: a device for finding tables in the dark‖ and, ―Professor: one
who talks in someone else's sleep‖. The definition was unexpected, and humorous. It
plays upon connotation rather than the denotation meaning of the word. Sometimes
words that sound like groups of other words can be cleverly redefined as well. This
type of pun is found mostly in academic contexts rather than daily spoken language.


homophonic puns. For the reason, and for the sake of the study, ―đồng âm khác nghĩa‖
in Vietnamese would be treated as homophonic puns. One interesting example of the
phenomenon in Vietnamese is the following poem:
―Bà già đi chợ cầu Đông
Bói xem một quẻ lấy chồng lợi chăng
Thầy bói gieo quẻ nói rằng
Lợi thì có lợi nhưng răng chẳng còn.‖

14
In the poem, the folk author wisely exploits the two meanings of the word ―lợi‖
(benefit/gum) to make fun of the old lady who wants to get married. The point of
sarcasm here is that the lady wants the fortune-teller to say if it is beneficial for her to
get married; in stead of answer the question with the same meaning of the word ―lợi‖,
the fortune-teller use the other meaning of it as gum, so it turns out to be an unexpected
answer when he says that she may keep her gum without any teeth.

Spoonerisms
Spoonerisms are a result of changing around, whether on purpose or accidentally, the
initial sounds of two or more words when speaking, for example ―well-boiled icicle‖
for well-oiled bicycle. Others include ―sky as a height‖, ―nark staked‖, and ―dain
bramage‖.

Things are not so simple for Vietnamese, for there are several different styles of
spoonerism. The word ―thầy giáo‖ could be spoonerized as ―thấy giào‖ when only the
tones of the two syllables are changed, as ―thào giấy‖ if only the vowels are changes,
or as ―tháo giầy‖ if both the tones and the vowels of the syllables are changes. Another
slight difference in the actual use of spoonerism is that spoonerized words in English
usually require form-changing while spoonerism in Vietnamese involves in no such
changes. As for an example, almost any Vietnamese is familiar with the poem by the
female poet Ho Xuan Huong:

form a network, and (iii) understanding the ‗inner‘ one contributes to understanding of
the ‗outer‘ one.
Polysemy is an expressive way of utterance to cause a sentence to have two different
interpretations, and it is also a rhetorical device in which a certain feeling is
transmitted. For example ―Perhaps from some vague rumor of his college honors,

16
which had been whispered abroad on his first arrival, perhaps because he was an
unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the Bachelor.‖ In this
sentence, the word "bachelor" has two meanings: the holder of a Bachelor‘s Degree
and an unmarried man.
The Vietnamese, once again, use polysemy smartly and mischievously in folk poems to
tease each other, like in the following folk poem:
―Em ơi nên lấy thợ bào
Khom lưng ảnh đẩy cái nào cũng êm‖
What can be drawn out here is that if thoroughly exploited, puns can be of great value.
In expressing sarcasm, especially, the use of puns proves much effectiveness, which is
worth serious research.

bribes
Group 3: Academic life
- You witnessed your classmate cheat in the exam

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- You got high mark for an assignment for which you did not spend much
time and effort
Group 4: Business life
- A colleague with bad work record is promoted
- You are watching an ad on TV
In this part, the informants were asked to put a tick in the column which they thought
would appreciate to use puns in expressing sarcasm in a given situation. The initial
purpose of the situations designed is to find out cross-cultural differences and to rate
the assessment of possible choices by both Vietnamese and English speakers in their
real exchange, thus to reach an initial understanding of the informants‘ behavior,
beliefs and norms when they encounter those situations.
Question 3 tries to find out the behaviour and belief of informants in using puns to
express sarcasm when they are put in different relationships and positions in the
situation: when they are engaged in the story taking place, when they are an outsider
watching and talking about it with another witness, and when they narrate the story to
someone else.
For the DCT questions, the situations from the MCQ section are chosen and modified
in question 4 with the hope of obtaining ―really-be‖ utterances. The informants are
requested to choose from a list of possible utterances for each situation; they could also
give their own expressions after the list.

3.1. 2. Comments on the informants
Firstly, the questionnaire aims at finding out the informants‘
o Age
o Gender

Single
10
6
Married
10
14
Living area
Urban
18
16
Rural
2
4

3.2. FINGDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.2.1. The use of puns
The aim of exposing some informative sentences containing some puns is to find out
the purposes of using puns in expressing sarcasm in everyday conversations.
Table 2: The main purposes of using puns in expressing sarcasm
Purpose
Vietnamese
English
to make fun of the hearer
15%
7.5%
to make fun of someone else
36%
27.5%
to make fun of the situation
34%


21
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 D1 D2
Acceptable Yes/No Unacceptable Strongly unacceptable

Chart 1: Vietnamese informants’ opinion of appropriateness of puns in expressing
sarcasm
Family life
In situation A1 (―Two guys fighting outside‖), the rate of choosing is distributed
almost equally among the four options with the highest falls in option 3 (unacceptable-
30%). Options 1 (Acceptable) and 4 (Strongly unacceptable) occupy the same rate of
15%. Almost no one chose Yes/No option (4%). Therefore, the data lead to an initial
conclusion that Vietnamese people hold different viewpoints in using puns to show
sarcasm when they see guys fighting each other.
Compared to what has been seen in situation A1, the rate of situation A2 ―Your
husband/wife comes home late again‖ is rather different. ―Acceptable‖ (65%) proves to
outweigh other columns. Ranked the second is the option ―Yes/No‖, only 5% approves
of ―Unacceptable‖, and no one thinks it is strongly unacceptable to use puns in
expressing sarcasm in this situation.

Social life
Situation B1 (―You witnessed your colleague‘s wife/husband going about with