Post on 02-Jun-2018
transcript
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Measuring Various
Cultural Limits of Humorin Language Classes
John Rucynski Ayako Namba ScottGardner
Okayama Universi ty, Japan
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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
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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.”
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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!
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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?
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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.-