Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN THỊ AN A STUDY ON THE MAIN FEATURES OF SHORT JOKES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING SPEAKING TO STUDENTS OF GRADE 12 AT NGOC TAO UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐẶC ĐIỂM CHÍNH CỦA THỂ LOẠI TRUYỆN CƯỜI NGẮN VÀ NHỮNG ỨNG DỤNG TRONG VIỆC DẠY NÓI CHO HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT NGỌC TẢO- HÀ NỘI M.A MINOR THESIS Major: Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HANOI – 2010 Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN THỊ AN A STUDY ON THE MAIN FEATURES OF SHORT JOKES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING SPEAKING TO STUDENTS OF GRADE 12 AT NGOC TAO UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐẶC ĐIỂM CHÍNH CỦA THỂ LOẠI TRUYỆN CƯỜI NGẮN VÀ NHỮNG ỨNG DỤNG TRONG VIỆC DẠY NÓI CHO HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT NGỌC TẢO- HÀ NỘI M.A MINOR THESIS Major: Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Prof Dr Nguyễn Xuân Thơm HANOI - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1 Significance of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I.1 Humour I.2 The distinction between humour and witticisms I.3 The language of humour I.3.1 The Incongruity theory I.3.1.1 Structural ambiguity I.3.1.2 Unconventional use of language I.3.2 The Superiority theory I.3.3 The Release/Relief theory I.4 Humour competence I.4.1 Joke competence and humour competence I.4.2 Social factors of humour competence 10 I.5 English language and the English sense of humour 12 I.6 Jokes and the use of jokes in teaching English as a foreign language 13 I.7 Ambiguity in language and humour studies 15 CHAPTER TWO: MAJOR LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH SHORT JOKES II.1 Ambiguity in English short jokes 19 19 II.1.1 Focus of ambiguity 19 II.1.2 Proportion in the focus of ambiguity 23 II.2 Further analysis of ambiguity exploited in English puns 24 II.2.1 The ambiguity devices 24 II.2.1.1 Lexical ambiguity 24 II.2.1.2 Syntactic ambiguity 25 II.2.2 Proportion of ambiguity devices exploited in English humour 28 CHAPTER THREE: LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL DIFFICULTIES IN APPRECIATING SHORT JOKES OF NGOC TAO STUDENTS SUGGESTIONS ON IMPLYING TEACHING SHORT JOKES IN SPEAKING CLASSES III.1 Ngoc Tao Upper Secondary School’s Profile 30 III.2 Linguistic difficulties in appreciating jokes of students at Ngoc Tao High School III.2.1 Attitude of the learners to the humour in speaking lessons 31 III.2.2 Difficulties in appreciating English short jokes of students in Ngoc Tao High School 32 III.3 Cultural difficulties in appreciating jokes of students at Ngoc Tao High School 35 III.4 Suggestions to use short jokes in teaching speaking skill to students of grade 12 in Ngoc Tao Upper Secondary school 35 III.5 Finding 37 PART III: CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICE 44 ABSTRACT English jokes tend to cause problems to language learners because of their linguistic, cultural and socio features In this study, the author examined the corpus of 100 simple jokes given in the book “America one and two liners” and some searched from websites to investigate the linguistic features of English short jokes The study is based on theories of humour From the findings of linguistic features of short jokes, the author suggests some activities for teaching speaking skill at a high school with the aim to use jokes as a useful material to motivate students Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one  Select page range of PDF to merge  Select specific page(s) to merge  Extract page(s) from different PDF files and merge into one ...Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN THỊ AN A STUDY ON THE MAIN FEATURES OF SHORT JOKES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING. .. difficulties in appreciating jokes of students at Ngoc Tao High School 35 III.4 Suggestions to use short jokes in teaching speaking skill to students of grade 12 in Ngoc Tao Upper Secondary school ... skill at a high school with the aim to use jokes as a useful material to motivate students Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to