Министерство общего и профессионального образования

Свердловской области

Управление образования Администрации города Нижний Тагил

МБОУ гимназия №18

Направление «Иностранные языки»

Образовательная область «Английский язык»

Особенности английского юмора

The peculiarities of English humour

Исполнитель: Разгоняйлова Александра,

учащаяся 9 а класса

Научный руководитель: Чернышева Юлия Сергеевна,

МБОУ гимназия №18,

 учитель английского языка

Внешний рецензент: Григорян Вера Григорьевна,

Преподаватель английского языка

 г. Нижний Тагил

2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction………………………………………………………………...3

Chapter 1. Humour as a multifunctional phenomenon…………………..5

1.1. Humour: etymology and notion………………………………………5

1.2 Characteristics of English humor……………………………………..7

Chapter 2. Methods of realization of English humor……………………11

2.1 A joke as one of the genres of humorous texts…………………......11

2.2 The ways of expressing humor in a joke…………………………....13

2.3 Reasons for misunderstanding of English humor…………………..20

Conclusion………………………………………………………………..23

Sources…………………………………………………………………....25

The appendix 1……………………………………………………………27

The appendix 2…………………………………………………………...28

The appendix 3…………………………………………………………...29

The appendix 4…………………………………………………………...30

Introduction

This work is devoted to the peculiarities of English humour.

Humour is an important part of human communication. Sense of humour is an individual characteristic of a person. It either exists or is lacking. The question, what the sense of humour of these or those people depend on, still remains open. Humour has an individual colour, depends on the belonging of an individual to a particular culture. National humour has a number of features which distinguish it from others. English humour is not an exception. It is so often spoken and written about, that it has been perceived as a national feature of the English character. Knowledge of English humour can help to get deeper into the culture of the Englishmen, get to know the English language, as cultural and linguistic values of the country are expressed in humour. Thus the urgency of this research work can be explained.

The object of the research work is English humour.

The subject is the methods of creation of humorous effect in the text.

The aim of the work is to show the main features of English humor.

For achievement of this aim we set the following tasks:

1) to examine and analyze the phenomenon of «humour»;

2) analyze the notion of «joke»;

3) to study the ways of expressing English humour;

4) conduct a questionnaire among students;

4) to consider the reasons for misunderstanding of English humour;

The following methods were used:

- method of overall selection;

- comparison and correlation;

- statistical methods;

-classification;

- questioning;

- analysis and synthesis of received information.

The practical significance of the research: the analyzed, systematized material can be used at the lessons of English, with the purpose of deeper penetration into the culture of the Englishmen, and the development of language knowledge.

The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, conclusion and appendices.

Chapter 1. Humour as a multifunctional phenomenon

In this chapter the etymology of “humour” will be considered. Historical development of this notion will be described. The basic characteristics of English mentality and humour will also be given.

1.1. Humour: etymology and notion

Humor is a difficult and multidimensional phenomenon, acting as an object of studying of many scientific disciplines.

Humour is a kind of the comic and it has the following characteristics:

1. It connects serious and ridiculous and it is characterized by prevalence of the positive moment in the ridiculous.

2. Humour has a subjective character.

3. The originality of humour is connected with the fact that it assumes the ability to see ennobled in limited and imperfect.

4. The irony reveals insignificant or ridiculous things behind the visible gravity, but humour, on the contrary, opens the gravity and importance of those that can seem ridiculous [Бергсон 1992].

Depending on the emotional tone and cultural level humour can be good-natured, cruel, friendly, rough, sad, touching, etc. The nature of humour has the ability to take any forms, corresponding to the “mood” and “temper” of different historical periods.  Humour can be combined with any other kinds of laughter such as: ironical, witty, satirical, amusing [Борев 1970].

Goethe called humour to be one of the elements of the genius, and Bernard Shaw gave it even higher appreciation: “... humour – the feature of Gods!  There is nothing more serious than the deep humour”.

Humour is inherent in any human collective, at any stage of development. It is possible to imagine the society knowing nothing about tears and grieves, but it is difficult to imagine the society without laughter, without humour.

Humour has been studied by linguists for a long time. The notion of “humor” (Latin) was already known in antiquity and had a completely different meaning: “moisture”, “humidity”, “liquid”.

First, there was a mixture of the words UMOR (“moisture”) and HUMUS («earth, soil"). In many European languages the word “humour” is still written with "h": for example, English «humour», or German «humor». In the second century AD, the word was used to denote “the body fluids”, which caused human behavior. These fluids (or humors) were associated with the types of human temperament.  [Wikipedia: electronic resource].

And only in the XVIII century there began a new stage in the “semantic movement”. Humour got a new coloring of “special view of reality”, “cheerful mood” , “something fun and enjoyable” (in England), as well as “special manner of writing with a sense of a slight smile”(Germany and France).

In the XIX century the final change occurred. “Fluid” was gradually forgotten and “a slight smile” became the main definition.

 So in the XX century, along with the “irony”, the word “humour” comes in a wide range of notions about “ridiculous and comic” and becomes a notion which is clear to us.

Let us consider some of the definitions of the word “humour”, within a modern interpretation.

V.I. Dahl explanatory dictionary gives the following definition of humour: “humor is a funny, sharp, witty mentality, which is able to notice the oddity of customs and traditions in an innocent way”.

In the dictionary of the Russian language (edited by Evguenieva) humour is interpreted as “good-natured, mocking attitude towards anyone or anything; the ability to present the events, faults, weaknesses, etc. in a comic form”.

In the dictionary “Aesthetics” (edited by Belyaeva) humour is defined as “a special kind of comic; specific experience of an object, which combines serious and funny with the predominance of positive moments in the ridiculous ".

Nowadays researchers tend to understand humour, primarily as a cognitive phenomenon. And the following categorical attributes of humour are allocated:

- the discrepancy between the described object and its symbol;

- the possibility of involvement of background knowledge for humorous information decoding;

- the availability of models of “humorous situations”;  and all these parameters are cognitive by their nature [Бергсон 1992].

There are various kinds of humour: music, visual, verbal, etc. Among the different types of humour the verbal – linguistic joke is dominant. It is here that the functions of humour are particularly bright.

1.2 Characteristics of English humour

Throughout the world, there is a belief that you can recognize an Englishman by three qualities: arrogance, stiffness and a sense of humor. And it is the latter aspect that causes lots of misunderstandings among people who do not speak English sufficiently.

The specificity of English humour is well known. A sense of humour is a national trait, and it scares and annoys many foreigners. Nobody wants to find himself in a ridiculous situation, disregard and not to answer the snide remark in his address. In no country can people laugh at themselves, as Englishmen do.

“There are no barriers for humour. British laugh at everything that can bring a smile, including those things which we have considered sacred for centuries. They laugh at God, the government and even the members of the royal family.  A good laugh is often an impromptu” [Лавыш 1998].

You enter the central store in Oxford Street, and hear the shop-assistant, asking the customers for several times not to crowd around. When he sees that nobody reacts he says in a very businesslike tone: “Excuse me, are stupid or are you not English?”

Humour pursues guest everywhere: on television programs, adverts, advertisements.  Native speakers do not feel it so sharp. It’s the way of thinking, to which one must adapt and react adequately; always be ready to answer to a joke in any unexpected circumstances.

You ask the clerk in the subway, how to get to Bush House (the holy of holies of BBC broadcasters) and in response you hear: “You should go to America” (the residence of the President George Bush is meant). You can also get another answer: “Turn left; in the morning at least it was there”. It’s not the right way to take offence when somebody jokes. But the ability to laugh at yourself is considered to be a real dignity. “To laugh at yourself and others is quite natural for an Englishman. This feature has been cultivated for centuries. Being the most important dignity a sense of humor can be and must be cultivated” [Павловская: электронный источник].

English “subtle humour” is often built on a pun. The situation where the same phrase has two meanings can be found everywhere: in the names of musical groups, in the names of firms and companies, clubs and magazines, movies and taverns.  The name of a famous group “Beatles”, for example has the analogy with the words beat – “rhythm”, and beetles – “insects”.

There is another good example. A beautiful name of the tavern «DEW DROP INN» (means «Капля Росы» in Russian) sounds exactly the same as the expression «Do Drop In» that means “Come, come around” (“заскочи, зайди” in Russian). In the Russian language we have absolutely different phrases, but in English they sound the same way. Thus this pun is rather funny.

Another distinguishing feature of a typical English joke is that Englishmen are unruffled in improbable accidents and surprised at small details on the background of the general absurdity [Майол 2001].

A visitor comes to a bar and orders two whiskeys and one soda. After drinking and having paid off, he climbs up the wall, passes slowly across the ceiling then goes down the opposite wall and leaves the bar. All are amazed and look at the bartender. “It's strange; this gentleman usually ordered only one whiskey”.

“It is noteworthy that “humour” in English combines with the word “sense”, which carries the idea of sensory perception . Thus, a sense of humour for an Englishman is as natural and inalienable way to learn the world, as sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch [Английский юмор: электронный источник].

Another distinctive feature of English humor is that the primary role is given to irony and wit. It is less associated with the comedy of a situation; it is an intelligent humour , based on the phenomenon of the word, and its meaning is always in the subtext [Лавыш 1998] . The abundance of homonyms is a nice field of activity for humour creating: “What is black and white and red / read all over? - A newspaper”. In this case, a similar sounding of the words «red» and «read» is punned.
      The British love to make fun of their weather; smog and fog are the constant subjects of laughing. Here’s one of the most widespread examples.

 An American who was going to the West of England for a holiday, arrived by train at a town, and found that it was pouring. He called a porter to carry his bags to a taxi. On the way out of the station he asked the porter: “How long has it been raining like this?” “I don't know, sir, I've only been here for fifteen years," was the reply.

Englishmen are eager to joke about politics. Two men were stopped by a TV newswoman doing street interviews about the upcoming presidential primary election. “I'm not voting for any of the candidates,” the first man said. “I don't know any of them.” “I feel the same way,” the second man said. “Only I know them all.”

British humour has its own varieties.

- “elephant jokes”- especially stupid jokes;

- “dry sense of humour” (the irony);

-  “banana skin sense of humour” -  rather primitive jokes when someone slips on a banana peel and everybody is laughing;

-“shaggy -dog stories”, which are based on illogical funny sayings [wikipedia: electronic resource].

It’s quite possible to understand English humour if you pay special attention to the British culture, their lifestyle and habits.

So, humour being the form of human linguistic activity is an important aspect of intercultural communication, as it reflects the mentality of the representatives of this culture. It can both unite and alienate people of different cultures. The understanding of humor is “the key” to successful communication.

Chapter 2. Methods of realization of English humor

In this chapter we will consider the notions “joke” and “anecdote”. Will describe and analyze the ways of expressing humour in different texts. The reasons for misunderstanding and the results of the survey will also be considered.

2.1 A joke as one of the genres of humorous texts

The notion “anecdote” came from the Greek  “Τὸ ἀνέκδοτoν” and means “not published”. It is a brief story about an interesting case; folklore genre, a short funny story, usually passed on from mouth to mouth. The most often peculiarity of an anecdote is an unexpected semantic resolution at the end that creates laughter.

In the Russian language we use the word “анекдот” when we tell a joke. But it mustn’t be confused with an English “anecdote” which means a short story. So for this reason in our research work we will use the word “joke”.

The main functions of jokes are:

• the compensatory reduction of official values;
• the elimination of qualities recognized in this culture as socially dangerous

Hardly one can find a person who is unfamiliar with the world of the joke. The earliest jokes were funny and instructive tales “tied” to the names of prominent people; jokes were sanctified by their authority, had a cognitive and moral character. In later jokes their creators ceased to care about the cognitive and educational function.

A modern joke as one of the leading genres of the prose folklore has attracted the attention of different researchers -folklorists, sociologists, literary critics. The study of the joke as a genre of an urban prose has started recently - in the 90s of the twentieth century. However, this process develops rather fast. There have been written lots of articles and monographs (Yefim Kurganov  “Joke as a genre”, Elena and Alexey Shmelevy  “Joke as a text and a speech genre ). Anthologies and collections of jokes are being compiled.

The genre of a joke came to us from Europe. As we have already mentioned the word “anecdote” is derived from the Greek and means “unpublished”. Jokes are divided into dozens of series and cycles. Their distribution is based on typology of characters, their speech masks.

A modern joke is expected to have a good taste, sense of humour, intelligence. You need to be an expert in many fields to understand a hint at a glance. The main thing in a joke is the impossibility of lies and deceit. All jokes can be classified on the basis of various criteria, for example subjects and sources. There can be distinguished domestic, political, medical, army, theatrical jokes, jokes about drunks, adulterers, about animals. There are jokes about human qualities, representatives of certain ethnic and social groups, the British, French, Russian , Ukrainian , Jewish jokes and others.

Depending on the structural organization there are following types of jokes:

• narrative type (contains the description of a situation with its characters; and characterized by the developed storyline );
•  dramatic joke (includes the exchange of replicas between its characters);
• puzzle joke (with a question and an answer to it, usually without any characters ) [wikipedia: electronic resource].

A joke may consist of a few lines, and may have more or less detailed text. The purpose of a joke is to creation a comical situation, intended for fun.

The specificity of a joke is that it is widely played in Mass Media - newspapers and magazines. A joke is a genre of folklore. And it the folklore, that reflects mentality, culture and the system of moral values of the nation.

Among the main features of a well-told joke are brevity and ease. In the center of a joke, there is an unexpected event, dropping down from the daily flow of life. A joke is interesting if there is an effect of surprise. But if a joke is predictable, then there is no effect of surprise, the ability to create a humorous situation is lost.

2.2. The ways of expressing humour in a joke

The sense of a joke is in interaction of linguistic and nonlinguistic factors. This is a pun of linguistic units, situations, and prepositional contextual information.

There are different ways of expressing humor in a joke. In our research we will consider some of them, such as puns, absurdity, the effect of dashed expectation and grammatical oddities. But it should be noted that this division is conventional, as different ways of expressing can be combined in one joke. Sometimes it is difficult to define this or that way (especially between “absurd jokes” and “dashed expectation jokes”).

One of the most common methods the British jokes are based on is the method of pun (the usage of polysemy of words) that often creates misunderstandings and comic effect. For example:

Passenger: Guard! How long will the next train be?

Guard: About six carriages, sir.

The English word “long” is used in two of its meanings: time and length. So in this joke the question “How long?” can be understood in two ways: 1) How long? 2) How soon? The misunderstanding of this question creates the comic effect.

Ambiguity or pun is one of the ways to create humorous effect. Thanks to the context a word in the phrase may express a double meaning.

As another example the following jokes can be given:

A little daughter told her father as he stepped in: “A strange man was here to see you today, Daddy”. “Did he have a bill?” asked the father. “Oh, no, Daddy,” replied the little girl, “just a plain nose as everybody else”.

In this context, the word “bill” appears in two meanings “account” and “beak”, thus it creates the humour of this joke.

A policeman pulled over a speeding motorist and asked: “Do you have any ID?” The motorist replied: “About what?”

Here the word “ID” is pronounces like “idea”.

The following joke, in our opinion is one of the most popular examples of a pun:

• Will you tell me your name?
• Will Knot.
• Why not?

In the following joke the word “bark” means the outer covering of a tree, but the boy understands it as mother’s command.

Boy: Mom, what do you call a thing that covers a tree?

Mother: Bark, John, bark!

Boy: Bow-wow!

Those who are keen on computers are sure to understand the following joke:

• Why was computer late for work?
• Because he had a hard drive.

A joke as a genre of humorous communication is often based on the absurd. Absurdity, i.e. incongruity or something ridiculous, is a sign of special situations where something is contrary to a common sense, the whole life experience, logic, but at the same time, this ridiculous can be accepted as possible or take place in reality.

As an example let us consider the following jokes, based on the absurd.

A little boy runs down into the lounge and shouts: “Daddy, daddy! Can I have other glass of water?” His father replies: “What's wrong with you, son, that's your eleventh glass of water in a row?” “I know, my bloody bedroom is on fire”.

To extinguish the fire by glasses of water is a possible but rather senseless action. So this situation brings a smile. In absurd the usual stereotypes are ruined but in general we understand what could have happened.  

A ninety-year old woman had broken her leg. The doctor put it in plaster and told her: “So that the injury can heal properly, you must stay in your room for at least two months”. “Won't I be able to go up and down the stairs of the house?” “Definitely not,” the doctor told her. Two months later, the doctor returned and removed the plaster. “What a relief,” she exclaimed, “Now will I be able to go up and down the stairs?” “Yes, but be careful”. “That's marvelous, doctor. I was getting tired of going out through the window and climbing down the drainpipe”. A 90-year-old woman took the doctor’s words literally and used a drainpipe to go out. This absurdity creates a funny situation.

An old snake goes to his doctor and says: “Doctor, I need something for my eyes. I can't see very well nowadays.” The doctor fixes him up with a pair of glasses and tells him to return in two weeks for a checkup. The snake comes back two weeks later. “How's your vision since I gave you the glasses?” asks the doctor.” “Great. But now I'm depressed,” the snake says. The doctor says, “Depressed? Why, didn't the glasses help you out?” “The glasses are fine, doc. But when I got home with the new glasses I realized that I'd been living with a garden hose for the last two years.”

The meaning of this joke is that the snake, being blind, had been living with a garden hose for two years, taking him for a male.

A teacher asked a little schoolboy: “If you had 27apples and a man gave you 47 pears, what would you get as a result?” “Diarrhea,” replied the medically (but not mathematically) wise boy.

A pupil had to count the fruit, but he imagined what would happen to him after the meal. Here’s a humorous effect.

A mother mouse and a baby mouse are walking along when a cat attacks them. The mother mouse goes, “Bark!” and the cat runs away. “See?” says the mother mouse to her baby. “Now do you see why it's important to learn a foreign language?”

A mouse frightened a dog as it used “a foreign” to her dog language. Here’s a fun of this joke.

The effect of dashed expectation or the effect of surprise is another widespread way of expressing humour in a joke. The breaking of predictability is the base of this effect. Consecutive, linear speech is suddenly interrupted or ends by something surprising, something that we couldn’t expect.

• Don't bother me. I'm writing a letter to my girl-friend.
• But why are you writing so slowly?
• She can't read very fast.

 In this joke the effect of unexpectedness is connected with the response of a young man. He says that he writes slowly because his girlfriend reads slowly. Although everybody knows that the speed of reading does not depend on the speed of writing. It’s assumed that the reader couldn’t predict such an answer.

Jack: I spent ten hours over my history book last night.

Mal: Ten hours!

Jack: Yes, I left it under my pillow when I went to sleep last night.

Or another example:

A new boy comes to school. The teacher asks: “What is your name?” “My name is William Hopkins,” answers the boy. “Always say 'Sir' when you speak to a teacher”. “Excuse me,” says the boy, “my name is Sir William Hopkins”.

In this joke the student has misunderstood the meaning of a statement and addressed with respect to himself.

Woman: Poor child! What a swollen cheek you have! Is it a tooth?

Child: No, it is a sweet!

We suppose that woman expected just another answer.

Most of English riddles are based on the effect of unexpectedness. The answers are often very surprising but true! In most cases (if you don’t know beforehand) it’s impossible to guess them. And such riddles, of course, are considered to be the jokes.

Here are some riddles with the answers:

At whom do all people stare with an open mouth? (a dentist)

What has two arms and for legs? (an arm-chair). These riddles can also be regarded as a pun.  

When does Thursday come before Wednesday? (in a dictionary)

What can fly without wings? (time)

What goes up and down at the same time? (a staircase)

What night is longer than a week? (a fortnight)

What word is always pronounced wrong? (wrong)

What can run all day without getting hot? (cold water)

Some of them can look like short dialogues:

Q: How do you know when a woman is about to say something clever?

A: When she starts her sentence with, “A man once told me...”

Q: Why are the Japanese so smart?

A: No blondes.

Q: How does a blonde kill a fish?

A: She drowns it.

We can innumerate even more. There are lots of them in the English language as well as in Russian. The unpredictability of answers turns these riddles into jokes.

A large number of jokes are based on grammatical curiosities.

For example:

The teacher explained to the class that "y" ("ie") was a diminutive suffix. “For example, Dad - Daddy, dog – doggie”. “Papa-puppy”, prompted a pupil.

A pupil used a diminutive suffix in a wrong way. Very often students form one or another grammatical form by analogy with examples of general rules or come up with something of their own very witty.

Another joke:

Teacher: What is the plural of` man ', Oscar?

Oscar: Men!

T: And the plural of child?

O: Twins.

Teacher: “The plural of mouse is mice. Now, what is the plural of a rat ?

Pupils: Rice

Another example:

“What is the future form of the verb to marry?” the teacher asked. “Divorce,” replied a student.

“Freddy, what's the past tense of the verb wake up?” the teacher asked. “Sleep” answered Freddy.

And also:

Henry: What word becomes shorter if you add two letters to it?

Dick: Oh, there's no answer to that question. You can't make a word shorter if you add two letters to it.

Henry: Oh, yes, you can. It's the word short. If you add er to it, it becomes shorter.

The following joke is rather popular and can be met in many textbooks:

A small schoolboy often wrote: “I have went” instead of “I have gone” At last the teacher said, “You must stay after school this afternoon and write “ I have gone” a hundred times. Then you will remember it.” When the teacher came back he found a letter from the boy on his desk. It said:

“Dear Sir,

I have wrote “I have gone” a hundred times. And now I have went.

Tom Smith.”

So a joke as a genre of speech is the most common way of social assessment of values. In this sense, the analysis of jokes has a particular significance for linguistics. A joke affects practically all the spheres of social life; it reflects the current trends of development of the national spoken language. As for the joke in the text, humorous effect occurs through such means as: pun, absurdity of the situation, the effect of dashed expectition, as well as curious grammatical errors.

2.3 Reasons for misunderstanding of English humour

The island culture of the British is whimsical and self-sufficient. And the jokes they have are often extremely clever. Sometimes it is almost impossible to catch the meaning of such a joke [Майол 2001].

Misunderstanding of English humor is a consequence of insufficient competence in intercultural communication and can be divided into several types:

 1) lack of understanding of domestic humor connected with the absence of similar realities in their culture;

2) lack of understanding of certain rules adopted by etiquette;

3) lack of understanding of the underlying values ​​of the culture.

Misunderstanding of humour based on ignorance of the realities can be easily avoided if there are comments. The exception is a pun. A representative of another culture understands that, probably in another language the coincidence of homonymous units may be funny, but in his native language, these words are not homonyms so the comic effect is absent. Explanation connected with the form of words eliminates the unexpected effect of a joke. So a joke stops being a joke.

We do not understand English humor just because we are the representatives of two different countries and nationalities. We each have our own habits, lifestyle, history, traditions and customs, government, preferences, etc. Therefore, we cannot understand what is so funny in some jokes. But the Englishman may find these jokes incredibly funny. The same rule works in reverse: translating our jokes into English the meaning can be unclear to an Englishman, as he does not know our reality [Про английский юмор: электронный ресурс].

There’s another important factor for understanding English humour - good knowledge of the language. If your level is advanced you are sure to understand most of the puns, for example.

We carried out a survey among the students of the 9th and 10th grades (60 people in total).  To be more exact we devoted the whole lesson the topic of English humour. The aim of the survey was to find out if our students understand English humor. We also wanted to know whether they find English joke funny (appendix 1).

The survey included 2 steps. First, we offered our schoolmates some English jokes. We divided our jokes into four groups according to the way of their expressing: a pun, absurdity of the situation, the effect of unexpectedness, grammatical curiosities. This was explained to the student, so students worked with twelve jokes. At the first step they were to answer whether they understood the jokes or not.

The results of our survey you can see in diagrams (appendix 2).

Students had difficulties with jokes due to the lack of vocabulary, ignorance of some grammatical rules. As they explained later they just couldn’t translate this or that word which led to misunderstanding. The difference in answers between the 9th and the 10th forms was not great. The most difficult for understanding were the jokes based on a pun and dashed expectations. Jokes based on absurd were understood by a large number of pupils.

At the second step we worked with the jokes, analyzed and translated them and then asked our schoolmates to mark the jokes which they consider to be funny. The results can be seen in a diagram (appendix 3).

Although now all the jokes were clear, not all the pupils considered them to be funny. Several students even said that the jokes were stupid. The clearest and funniest jokes were jokes based on absurdity of a situation. Dashed expectation jokes and jokes based on a pun were not very funny in our student opinion.

In this situation the lack of vocabulary is not the reason for misunderstanding.  Students don’t find some jokes funny as they are the representatives of other culture, they may not be acquainted with some foreign realities, they have different mind.

In our work we enclose a small booklet with the most common and ridiculous, in our opinion British jokes (appendix4). As we do believe that if you are constantly immersed in a “humorous environment”, study, learn English jokes in due course you can develop a real English sense of humour.

Conclusion

Our work is devoted to the peculiarities of English humour, which is one of the most important components of English culture. Humour affects all the spheres of life and has extraordinary value for the Englishmen.

We have studied the notion of “humour” and saw that there exist different definitions which have been changing during the centuries. Nowadays humour is perceived as a funny and witty mentality, good-natured attitude towards something, the ability to present the events in a comic way. Depending on the emotional tone and cultural level humour can be good-natured, cruel, friendly, rude or sad.

We have also considered the phenomenon “joke” the aim of which is to create a comical situation, a situation intended for fun. An English joke, can rightly be considered to be the national symbol. Its main feature is imperturbability in global accidents and astonishment at small details. Englishmen laugh at their shortcomings with great pleasure.

As for the consideration of humour in the text, a joke to be more exact, the humorous effect occurs due to such means such as: a pun, absurdity of the situation, the effect of dashed expectation and funny grammatical errors.

We came to a conclusion that misunderstanding of English humour is a consequence of insufficient expertise in intercultural communication. We do not understand English humour well enough because we are the representatives of two different countries and nationalities. We each have our own habits, lifestyle, history, traditions and customs, our own government, own preferences. And such an important t factor as good knowledge of the language, make it much easier to understand English humour.

You can imagine a society that knows no tears and sadness, but it is difficult to imagine a society with no joke, laughter or humor. Humor is the way of thinking. Humour is life!

Let's get acquainted with English humor and culture on the example of authentic English jokes. In this case, you will definitely see that the Englishmen do have a really good sense of humour!

SOURCES

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