AHSN Slideshow 2014-02-05a My Part

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Measuring Various

Cultural Limits of Humorin Language Classes

John Rucynski Ayako Namba ScottGardner

Okayama Universi ty, Japan



Here Aristotle sees the tendency to laughter as a force for

good, which can also have an instructive value: through witty

riddles and unexpected metaphors, though it tells us things

differently from the way they are, as if it were lying, it actually

obliges us to examine them more closely, and it makes us say:

Ah, this is just how things are, and I didn’t know it.

—William of Baskerville,The Name of the Rose (Eco, 1980)

It may be that human play...performs an educational role by

increasing general flexibility, thereby allowing humans todevelop, both as individuals and societies, a greater

understanding of their environment, and more creative

responses to it.

—Cook, 2000



Medgyes (2002), on humor in language teaching:

“[H]umor is possibly the best source of authentic cultural

information about other peoples.”

Schmitz (2002), on humor in language teaching:

“[T]he teacher, in addition to introducing cultural jokes, can make

use of the opportunity to have students reflect critically about the

target culture.”

Martin (2007), on humor in teaching (in general):

“Humor may be used by teachers in potentially beneficial ways to

illustrate pedagogical points, to make lessons more vivid and

memorable, and to make the learning environment generally

more enjoyable and interesting for students. On the other hand, it

may be used in more negative ways that are coercive or

demeaning to students, and it can distract students’ attention

away from more important points or distort their understanding of

the information.”



Ford (1997), on stereotypes in TV programs:

“...disparagement of social groups through humor (e.g., comical

stereotypical portrayals of social out-groups) may indeed create aclimate of tolerance of discrimination by providing cues that

discrimination is not serious or is not to be examined critically.”

Billig (2005), on stereotyping jokes:

“[I]nsiders may distrust the laughter of outsiders, even thoughthey might laugh at the same joke.”

Billig (2005) again:

“[T]he context in which a joke is told can influence how the joke is

understood.”

Teacher: Billy, can you name two pronouns?

Student: Who, me?

Teacher: Very good!



Teacher Humor

Inappropriate uses

Disparaging students(s)

Offensive

Disparaging others

Self-disparaging

(Wanzer et al., 2006)

Appropriate uses

Related to study situation

Unrelated to study situation

Self-disparaging

Unintentional

??

?

???

What about intercultural humor

with intercultural groups?



REFERENCES

Billig, M. (2005). Laughter and ridicule: Towards a social critique of

laughter . London: Sage.

Cook, G. (2000). Language play, Language learning . (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Eco, U. (1980). The name of the rose (William Weaver, Trans.). San

Diego: Harvest.

Ford, T. E. (1997). Effects of stereotypical portrayals of African-

Americans on person perception. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60 (3),

266-278.

Martin, R. A. (2007). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach.

Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Medgyes, P. (2002). Laughing matters: Humour in the languageclassroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schmitz, J. R. (2002). Humor as a pedagogical tool in foreign language

and translation courses. Humor, 15 (1), 89-113.

Wanzer, M. B., Frymier, A. B., Wojtaszczyk, A. M., & Smith, T. (2006).

Appropriate and inappropriate uses of humor by teachers.-

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AHSN Slideshow 2014-02-05a My Part