UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Philosophical Faculty
School of Humanities
Foreign Languages and Translation Studies
English Language and Translation
Jenni Kaarina Rajala
THE RECEPTION OF HUMOR IN TRANSLATED FINGERPORI COMIC STRIPS
MA Thesis
April 2018
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Philosophical Faculty
Osasto – School
School of Humanities
Tekijät – Author
Jenni Kaarina Rajala
Työn nimi – Title
The Reception of Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date
Sivumäärä – Number of
pages
English Language and
Translation
Pro gradu -tutkielma x
3.4.2018
67 pages + Appendix
Sivuainetutkielma
Kandidaatin
tutkielma
Aineopintojen
tutkielma
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
This study focuses on the reception of humor in translated Fingerpori comic strips. The Fingerpori comic
strips by Pertti Jarla are vastly popular in Finland. When a collection of these comic strips was translated and
published in English in 2014, they became available for a wider audience. The aim of this study is to examine
the new readership’s reception of the humor in the translated Fingerpori comic strips. Humor is an important
part of the Fingerpori comic strips since each strip includes a humorous remark or situation. The reception
study is conducted with an online questionnaire for non-Finnish speaking respondents.
Comics are a special medium which relies on the interplay of text and pictures. Even the humor in them is
often realized through the co-operation of the two elements. The most frequently utilized humor technique in
the Fingerpori comic strips is wordplay in which the humor usually derives from the ambiguity of words or
phrases. A more detailed definition for the term has been provided by Delabastita (1996: 128). In comic strips
that employ wordplay, pictures may only support the linguistic humor or the humor may actually reveal itself
in the pictures where for instance a different meaning for a word or phrase can be realized. Other popular
humor techniques in the Fingerpori comic strips are sign-play, parody and allusions. In addition to the
reception study, the analysis includes an overview of the different humor techniques featured in the research
material. The frequencies of the humor techniques are compared to those in the Finnish Fingerpori comic
strips, which have been studied by Vilenius (2011).
The reception study examines 44 respondents’ replies to the online questionnaire which included seven comic
strips from the English collection Fingerpori from Finland (2014). Since the Fingerpori comic strips
sometimes joke on sensitive subjects, three of the chosen comic strips involve a taboo topic. The respondents
were asked to describe and evaluate the comic strips. The responses are analyzed both quantitatively and
qualitatively. The results show that the most important factor behind the understanding and appreciation of
humor in the Fingerpori comic strips is the reader’s personal background. Readers are not only consumers of
texts but also the ones who construct their meaning (Eskola 1990: 165). If they do not have the required
knowledge to understand a comic strip, they may interpret it in a different way or they may not find any
meaning in it. However, differing interpretations did not have a significant effect on the appreciation of the
humor: a respondent might have interpreted a comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing
nevertheless. Readers’ backgrounds also affect which types of humor they find amusing and how they feel
about joking on taboo topics. All in all, the Fingerpori comic strips did not receive very high ratings. The strip
with the highest average rating was also the easiest one to understand in the set of comic strips. In addition,
this comic strip was inoffensive. The three comic strips with taboo topics all received higher numbers of top
ratings. However, as a whole there was more variation in the ratings of these three comic strips.
Avainsanat – Keywords
translation, comics, humor, reception
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND Tiedekunta – Faculty
Filosofinen tiedekunta
Osasto – School
Humanistinen osasto
Tekijät – Author
Jenni Kaarina Rajala
Työn nimi – Title
The Reception of Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date
Sivumäärä – Number of
pages
Englannin kieli ja
kääntäminen
Pro gradu -tutkielma x
3.4.2018
67 sivua + Liite
Sivuainetutkielma
Kandidaatin
tutkielma
Aineopintojen
tutkielma
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
Tutkielman aiheena on käännettyjen Fingerpori-sarjakuvien huumorin vastaanotto. Pertti Jarlan luoma
Fingerpori on erittäin suosittu sarjakuva Suomessa. Vuodesta 2014 lähtien se on ollut myös laajemman
lukijakunnan tavoitettavissa, sillä tuolloin julkaistiin englanninkielinen kokoelma Fingerpori from Finland
(2014). Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tarkastella uuden lukijakunnan ajatuksia ja tulkintoja Fingerpori-
huumorista. Fingerpori on humoristinen strippisarjakuva, joten huumorin vastaanotto on tärkeässä asemassa.
Vastaanottoa tutkitaan kyselytutkimuksella, ja materiaali kerätään verkkokyselyllä, jonka vastaajat eivät osaa
suomea.
Sarjakuvan erityispiirteenä on tekstin ja kuvan vuorovaikutus. Myös huumori saadaan niissä aikaan yleensä
molempien elementtien avulla. Fingerpori-sarjakuvissa yleisin huumorin keino on sanaleikit, joiden hauskuus
perustuu tavallisesti sanojen tai fraasien monimerkityksisyyteen. Tutkimuksessa käytetään Delabastitan
(1996: 128) määritelmää termistä. Sanaleikkejä hyödyntävissä stripeissä kuvat ovat toisinaan vain tekstin
tukena, mutta toisinaan huumori paljastuu juuri kuvasta, joka osoittaa sanan tai fraasin toisen merkityksen.
Muita huumorin keinoja Fingerporissa ovat sanattomat vitsit, parodia ja alluusiot. Kyselyvastausten lisäksi
analyysissä tarkastellaan näitä englanninkielisissä Fingerpori-sarjakuvissa käytettyjä huumorin keinoja
huomioiden myös tarkemmin sanaleikkien eri kategoriat. Lisäksi näiden kategorioiden yleisyyttä verrataan
suomenkielisiin Fingerporeihin Vileniuksen (2011) tutkimustulosten avulla.
Tutkimusmateriaaliin kuuluu englanninkielisen sarjakuvakokoelman lisäksi 44 osallistujan vastaukset
verkkokyselyyn. Kysely sisälsi seitsemän strippiä sekä kysymyksiä liittyen niiden ymmärtämiseen ja
arvioimiseen. Koska Fingerporien aiheet ovat välillä arkaluonteisia, kolmessa kyselyn stripeistä oli ns.
tabuaihe. Vastauksien analysoinnissa käytetään sekä kvalitatiivisia että kvantitatiivisia metodeja. Tulokset
osoittavat, että tärkeimpänä tekijänä Fingerporin huumorin vastaanotossa on lukijan taustat. Lukijat eivät ole
vain tekstin käyttäjiä ja kuluttajia vaan myös sen merkityksen muodostajia (Eskola 1990: 165). Jos heillä ei
ole sarjakuvan ymmärtämiseen tarvittavia tietoja, he saattavat ymmärtää stripin eri tavalla tai voi olla, etteivät
he ymmärrä strippiä ollenkaan. Erilaiset tulkinnat eivät kuitenkaan vaikuttaneet mittavasti arvioihin: vastaaja
saattoi ymmärtää stripin eri lailla kuin oli tarkoitettu, mutta arvioida sen silti hauskaksi. Lukijoiden taustat
vaikuttavat myös siihen, millaisesta huumorista he pitävät ja millä aiheilla heidän mielestään saa tai ei saa
vitsailla. Kaiken kaikkiaan Fingerpori-sarjakuvat eivät saaneet erityisen korkeita arvioita kyselyvastaajilta.
Korkeimman keskiarvon arvioinnissa saanut sarjakuva oli myös kyselyn sarjakuvista helpoin ymmärtää.
Lisäksi tämä strippi ei ollut loukkaava. Tabuaiheiset sarjakuvat saivat kukin enemmän korkeimpia arvosanoja
kuin keskiarvon perusteella parhaiten menestynyt strippi. Näiden kohdalla arvosanat kuitenkin muuten
vaihtelivat enemmän.
Avainsanat – Keywords
kääntäminen, sarjakuva, huumori, vastaanotto
Contents
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
2. Comics ............................................................................................................................................. 3
2.1. Defining Comics...................................................................................................................... 3
2.2. Characteristics of Comics ........................................................................................................ 4
3. Humor in Comics: Wordplay and Other Techniques ...................................................................... 6
3.1. Theories of Humor .................................................................................................................. 6
3.2. Wordplay ............................................................................................................................... 10
3.2.1. Definition of Wordplay ................................................................................................. 10
3.2.2. Categories of Wordplay ................................................................................................. 11
3.3. Other Humor Techniques in Comics ..................................................................................... 14
4. Reception Theory .......................................................................................................................... 16
4.1. Reception of Humor .............................................................................................................. 16
4.2. Reception of Comics ............................................................................................................. 17
5. Comics and Reception in the Context of Translation .................................................................... 20
6. Research Material and Method ...................................................................................................... 22
6.1. Fingerpori Comic Strips ........................................................................................................ 22
6.2. Questionnaire Setting and Analysis....................................................................................... 26
6.3. Questionnaire Respondents ................................................................................................... 27
7. Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 30
7.1. Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips ...................................................................... 30
7.2. Analysis of the Questionnaire Responses .............................................................................. 36
7.2.1. Comic Strip #1: Gay Adoption ...................................................................................... 36
7.2.2. Comic Strip #2: Jesus .................................................................................................... 39
7.2.3. Comic Strip #3: Eggs .................................................................................................... 42
7.2.4. Comic Strip #4: Lotto .................................................................................................... 44
7.2.5. Comic Strip #5: Yeast ................................................................................................... 47
7.2.6. Comic Strip #6: Hitler ................................................................................................... 50
7.2.7. Comic Strip #7: Tom Cruise.......................................................................................... 52
7.2.8. Summary and Discussion .............................................................................................. 54
8. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 60
References ............................................................................................................................................. 63
Appendix: Online Questionnaire ........................................................................................................... 68
1. Introduction
Comics are a widely read medium with various genres, target groups and formats. The target
groups become even broader when the comics are translated into different languages. The
translation of comics tends to present multiple challenges for translators. These include, for
instance, the restricted space, the relation of text and picture, onomatopoetic material, and
wordplay and allusions. These features make the translation of comics a fairly popular topic in
translation research. However, here in Finland research usually focuses on comics that have
been translated from English to Finnish. In this study, the focus is on comics that have been
translated the other way around: from Finnish to English.
Of the different formats of comics, this study focuses especially on comic strips. The most
essential difference between comic strips and other formats of comics is in their length. Comic
strips usually consist of only one to five panels, while other formats can continue over multiple
pages. The research material in this study contains a translated collection of Fingerpori comic
strips, Fingerpori from Finland (2014). The Fingerpori comic strips by Pertti Jarla are
exceedingly popular in Finland. They appear in many newspapers and they are also published
in comic books. The Fingerpori comic strips are humorous in nature and involve various kinds
of jokes. As comics are multimodal texts, the humor in Fingerpori is often generated in the co-
operation of visual and verbal elements.
Wordplay is a dominant humor technique in the series, as has been discovered for instance by
Maijastiina Vilenius (2011). In wordplay, the humor usually derives from ambiguous words or
phrases. A more detailed definition by Dirk Delabastita (1996: 128) will be introduced later in
this study. Other common humor techniques in the Fingerpori comic strips are sign-play, parody
and allusions. Since each comic strip in the series features some kind of humor, readers’
understanding and appreciation of the humor are in an essential role. As Katarina Eskola (1990:
165) has mentioned, readers are not only consumers of texts but also the ones that construct
their meaning.
Elke Brems and Sara Ramos Pinto (2013: 146) mention that the responses of “real”, individual
readers have not been studied substantially and the reception research that has been conducted
is mostly about audiovisual translation. Thus, there is a need for research about the reception
of other kinds of translated texts. This study focuses on the reception of translated comic strips.
The purpose of this study is to examine non-Finnish speaking readers’ reception of translated
2
Fingerpori comic strips: how they respond to them and interpret them. The reception study is
conducted with an online questionnaire and it focuses on two stages of humor reception
presented by Jennifer Hay (2001): understanding and appreciation. In addition, the humor in
the translated Fingerpori comic strip collection will be analyzed in order to provide a better
understanding of the humor in the comic strips. Since the series sometimes joke on fairly
sensitive topics, three of the comic strips in the online questionnaire involve taboo subjects.
The results of the reception study reveal whether there are differences in the reception of these
three comic strips compared to the other comic strips.
The reception of humor can be influenced by many factors, including people’s personality,
history and cultural background. For instance, different cultures may have differing conventions
on the styles and topics of humor. The present study sheds light on the reasons behind successful
and failed humor in translated Fingerpori comic strips in an international context. The diverse
target group of the study resembles the targeted audience of the translated collection Fingerpori
from Finland (2014): it is presumably aimed at an international, English-speaking audience.
The structure of this thesis is as follows: Chapters 2–5 introduce the theoretical background of
this study. Chapter 2 focuses on the definition and characteristics of comics. Chapter 3 discusses
humor and the different humor techniques relevant to comic strips. Of the different humor
techniques, special attention is given to wordplay. Chapter 4 deals with reception theory: the
reception of both humor and comic strips, and Chapter 5 brings together the topics discussed in
the earlier chapters and explores them in relation to translation. In Chapter 6, research material
and method are presented. The humor in the translated Fingerpori comic strips and the results
of the reception study are analyzed and discussed in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes
this paper.
3
2. Comics
There are various views regarding the origins of comics but it is commonly stated that comics
in their typical form of today originated in the USA at the end of the 19th century and their
beginning is closely related to the emergence of mass-media (Kaukoranta & Kemppinen 1982:
15, Herkman 1996: 12). The first comics were indeed comic strips published in newspapers.
Juha Herkman (1996: 13) notes that this close connection to newspapers made comics a popular
and widespread form of expression right from the start. For a long time, comics were considered
as a children’s genre and a part of popular culture, far from the so-called high culture. However,
gradually their status has changed. Herkman (ibid.: 23) explains that this change happened due
to the diminishing divide between art and popular culture and the increasing number of adult
and art comics. Nowadays there is a wide array of comics, which includes comic strips, comic
books and graphic novels, and they are read by a variety of different audiences.
The following subchapters discuss different aspects of comics: first their definitions and then
the various characteristics of comics.
2.1. Defining Comics
One definition of comics has been presented by Coulton Waugh (1947: 14; as quoted in
Herkman 1998: 21). He states that comics usually contain three main characteristics: a narrative
told through a series of pictures, recurring characters, and a combination of dialog or other types
of text and pictures. However, Pekka A. Manninen (1995: 9) points out that comics do not
always follow all these criteria. For example, there are comics that do not contain any text.
The first characteristic in Waugh’s definition, a narrative told through a series of images, is also
central in Scott McCloud’s (1994: 9) definition. He defines comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and
other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an
aesthetic response in the viewer”. The sequence of pictures is also evident in the Finnish term
sarjakuva and Will Eisner’s (1985) English suggestion sequential art. There are, however,
comic strips that only contain one picture and thus do not have a similar sequence. McCloud
(ibid.: 20-21) argues that such single panels are not comics but cartoons. However, I am not
sure if this strict a division is necessary since single-panel strips can convey an individual story
as well and, most of all, continue the style and/or storyline of a comic strip series.
4
Robert C. Harvey (2001: 76) has argued against the definitions of comics that insist on a
sequence of pictures. He maintains that single-panel cartoons are comics just as well. In his
view, “comics consist of pictorial narratives or expositions in which words (often lettered into
the picture area within speech balloons) usually contribute to the meaning of the pictures and
vice versa” (ibid.). His definition emphasizes the interplay of text and pictures in comics but
does not exclude wordless or single-panel comics. In this definition, the variety of comics is
best described.
The perceived problems in defining comics stem from the multiplicity of their different types.
As Klaus Kaindl (2010: 36) notes, it is difficult to define comics comprehensively because there
is so much variation in terms of genres, target groups and formats. The most notable comic
formats are comic strips, comic books and graphic novels and the most essential difference
between these is their length. Comic strips are short comics usually published in newspapers.
These mostly consist of one to five panels. Comic books and graphic novels are longer comics
continuing over multiple pages. Arthur Asa Berger (1997: 101) divides comic strips into serial
strips and gag strips. In serial strips, story lines continue over many episodes. Gag strips may
have background serial stories but each strip is usually a complete episode with a new amusing
situation.
2.2. Characteristics of Comics
Regardless of differences in their genres, audiences and formats, comics may look very similar
at a glance. This is due to the devices that are at a comic artist’s disposal. Typical devices in
comics are linguistic, pictorial and typographic elements (see e.g. Kaindl 1999: 273). Linguistic
elements include the title, narrations, dialog text, onomatopoeia and inscriptions in the pictures.
The title is the name of the comic book or strip and essential for their recognition. In addition
to the main title, there is sometimes a subtitle, as Kaindl (ibid.) calls it, which provides
information about the story that is being told. Dialog texts impart what the characters say and
think, and they are usually placed in speech or thought bubbles. Narrations are included in
comics to provide information, for example, about time, location and situations. These texts can
often be found at the top or bottom of the panel, possibly within a box. Inscriptions imply any
linguistic material placed within the pictures, for example posters, labels and newspaper
headlines and lastly, onomatopoeia depicts auditive features in a written form, i.e. they illustrate
the sound effects of the comic.
5
Although onomatopoeia is essentially a linguistic element, it also incorporates the pictorial
aspect because in these sound effects the graphic layout complements the meaning of the words
(Herkman 1998: 50). Other pictorial elements are the visual representations of characters,
objects and places. Typographic elements involve fonts and pictograms. A font can express
aspects such as the volume of speech, characters’ emotions or, as Kaindl (1999: 274) notes,
even nationality. For instance, in the Asterix comics hieroglyphics are used to represent the
speech of Egyptians. Pictograms are symbols for words and ideas, such as a heart or a star.
These different devices make comics a unique form of expression. Using both text and pictures,
they represent a combination of literature and visual art.
The wide array of elements in comics illustrates an essential feature of them: the fact that they
are multimodal texts. These are “texts in which various semiotic vehicles, e.g. language, image,
sound, music etc., are used to convey meaning and to create a message” (Kaindl 2004: 173).
Comics employ a combination of text and picture. Riitta Oittinen (2008: 4) uses the term
iconotext for texts which include this type of interplay of visual and verbal elements. Her
research focuses on picture books but she notes that these have several common features with
comics (ibid.). In addition, movies and TV-shows have similarities with comics, because of the
interplay of different semiotic systems; in their case the interplay of moving pictures and sound
(for research on audiovisual translation see e.g. Gottlieb 1997).
There are different ways to categorize visual-verbal relations. For example, McCloud (1994:
153-155) has presented a classification of the different relations of pictures and text. This
classification has been further simplified by Herkman (1998: 59), who lists four categories.
First there are picture-specific combinations where emphasis lies on the pictures and words are
secondary. Secondly there are word-specific combinations where pictures only illustrate what
the text tells us. Third category is the co-operation of pictures and text where the pictures and
text complement each other, and the last category contains instances where the pictures and text
seem to have nothing to do with each other; they are incommensurate. One comic can also
include different kinds of visual-verbal relations.
The following chapter deals with humor and the different humor techniques that can be utilized
in comics.
6
3. Humor in Comics: Wordplay and Other Techniques
Humor is a central part of human life. Many media partake in the humorous genre, for instance
comics, especially gag strips, and comedy movies. People can find amusement in highly
different things but, as Victor Raskin (1985: 2) notes, it is essentially a trait shared by everyone.
Everyone appreciates some kind of humor. Salvatore Attardo (1994: 1) states that in the
simplest sense humor is a competence held by speakers. In addition, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary (2017), humor is defined as “the quality of being amusing, the capacity to
elicit laughter or amusement”. Thus, humor is both a quality and a competence. People can find
it in texts, speech and even situations, which in their mind are funny, and in addition to being a
quality of something, finding humor also means that it is a competence that the audience, in
addition the writer/speaker, has. In addition to amusement, humor can have other functions as
well. As Giselinde Kuipers (2006: 4) notes, humor “can bring people closer to each other,
embarrass, ridicule, cause to reflect, relieve tension, or put into perspective serious affairs.”
Walter Nash (1985: 7) points out that in jokes there is usually one word or phrase which is the
“center of energy” which generates the joke. This also usually occurs at the end of the joke
acting as a “punchline”. In comic strips, the humor is often realized in the last panel but they
do not employ jokes in the usual manner. As Kaindl (2004: 174) mentions, they tend to use
other devices such as wordplay and non-verbal puns, parody and allusions. In this chapter, these
techniques and especially wordplay will be described and illustrated with examples. However,
before delving into these specific types of humor, the first subchapter will briefly look into the
broader theme of humor and provide an overview of the theories of humor.
3.1. Theories of Humor
Humor has been studied in several disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, linguistics
and sociology. Even though the subject is the same in their research, each discipline studies it
from a different standpoint. Jerry Palmer (1993: 5) has listed the following questions as the core
concerns for humor research:
- When do we find something funny?
- Why do we find something funny?
- What makes us find something funny?
- What prevents us from finding something funny?
7
The first question is the main interest in sociological and anthropological studies, which look
into the circumstances, in which people find something humorous, and the conventions and
rules regarding these occasions both historically and in the present day (ibid.: 4-5).
Psychologists study humor from the point of view presented in the second question. They are
interested in what happens when we experience humor and what the function of humor is. The
third question pertains especially to linguistics, which analyzes the structure of humor to find
what exactly makes a text funny. According to Palmer (ibid.: 5), the last question is the least
researched but should receive more attention as both successful and failed humor are important
in understanding the concept of humor.
A single question does not, however, lead to a comprehensive view of humor. Thus, next will
follow a brief discussion on some of the leading theories of humor which are of interest in light
of this thesis. This does not aim for an all-encompassing survey but a starting point for
understanding humor. First the three traditional theories of humor: superiority theory, the
incongruity theory and the relief/release theory, will be explored. In addition to these standard
theories of humor, the overview will also involve linguistic and sociological theories of humor
which further illuminate the field of humor theory.
It should be noted that while some humor theorists tend to use the terms humor and laughter
interchangeably, in this study the term humor will be mainly used as it is the interest in this
study. This terminology issue has been pointed out quite often, for instance by Attardo (1994:
10) and John Morreall (1987: 5). While there is a link between humor and laughter, they do not
always occur together. Sometimes humorous remarks may not make respondents laugh and
other times we may laugh when there is no humor.
The oldest theory of humor, the superiority theory, views our laughter coming from “feelings
of superiority over other people, or over our own former position” (Morreall 1987: 5). This
concept especially points to ridicule and Schadenfreude, which means humor that is derived
from the misfortune of others. This idea was already evident in Plato’s and Aristotle’s writing.
They saw humor and laughter as malice and something harmful (Morreall 1983: 4). Thomas
Hobbes shared this view and his contribution to the humor theory is considered as the “classic
form of the superiority theory” (ibid.). He maintained that laughter arises from a “’sudden glory’
at a triumph of our own or at an indignity suffered by someone else” (Hobbes 1651, as quoted
in Ross 1998: 2). This perception of humor has received both support and criticism to this day.
While at times people do laugh at the expense of others, it is important to note that this is not
8
the case in every humorous instance. Francis Hutcheson was the first to critique Hobbes’ theory
illustrating how feelings of superiority are neither a sufficient nor required condition for humor
(Morreall 1987: 26).
The relief/release theory, in turn, considers humor and laughter from a more physiological
viewpoint describing the phenomenon as “the venting of excess nervous energy” (Morreall
1987: 6). Furthermore, these theories maintain that “humor releases one from inhibitions,
conventions and laws” (Attardo 1994: 50). Thus, they would account for bending linguistic
rules which is typical of puns. They would also explain laughing at taboo topics since humor
“liberates” one from these rules. The most notable contributors to the relief/release theory are
Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud (Morreall 1987: 6, Lynch 2002: 427).
The superiority theory and the relief theory put focus on the people experiencing amusement.
The incongruity theory approaches humor from a different perspective, aiming to recognize the
qualities of something that amuses us. Morreall (1987: 6) describes that, in this view, we find
humor in something that is incongruous; something that differs from what we have expected.
This theory has been supported by, among others, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and
Søren Kierkegaard (ibid.). Kant has originated this line of theory by defining humor as “an
affectation arising from sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing” (1952:
223, as cited in Lynch 2002: 428). However, not all incongruities are amusing and some may
evoke even opposite reactions (Morreall 2009: 12-13).
Linguistic theories of humor focus on the verbal or written text and study humor from the point
of view of linguistics; analyzing for example the morphology, syntax and semantics of
humorous texts (Taylor 2014: 455). Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) and General
Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) are the two most well-known linguistic theories. These
theories share a similar standpoint with the incongruity theory as they emphasize incongruities
as the source of humor (Chiaro 2010: 19). The SSTH, by Victor Raskin (1985: 99), introduced
the concept of script opposition which means that amusement is caused by two opposing and
overlapping scripts. Raskin (ibid.) illustrates this with the following joke:
"Is the doctor at home?" the patient asked in his bronchial whisper. "No," the
doctor's young and pretty wife whispered in reply. "Come right in."
The two opposing and overlapping scripts in this joke are doctor and lover. The last line of the
joke activates a different meaning compared to the initial interpretation: a patient seeking a
doctor turns into a lover. The GTVH is a revised version of Raskin’s theory developed by
9
Raskin and Attardo. This is ultimately a broadened version of the SSTH which retains the idea
of script opposition but also introduces other aspects to the recognition of a joke including, for
instance, the target and the situation (see e.g. Attardo 1994: 222).
Sociology sees humor most importantly as “a social phenomenon: a form of communication
that is embedded in social relationships” (Kuipers 2006: 7). Humor has a cohesive aspect which
Rose Coser (1959: 172, as cited in Kuipers 2008: 366) has explained as follows: “to laugh, or
to occasion laughter through humor and wit, is to invite those present to come closer. Laughter
and humor are indeed like an invitation, be it an invitation for dinner, or an invitation to start a
conversation: it aims at decreasing social distance.” Thus, humor is inclusive and forms
closeness in a group. However, since there is an inclusive function there is also an exclusive
function (Kuipers 2008: 366). When one does not understand a joke or becomes a target of one,
they are left out of the circle (ibid.).
Some sociologists have also interpreted humor as a specific worldview or outlook on the world
(Kuipers 2008: 376). One example of this approach is Mihail Bakhtin’s concept of the
carnivalesque (ibid.: 377). In this approach, Bakhtin (1984) looks at the popular culture of the
common people in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He sees it as the laughter culture or
the carnival, which is the opposite of any formal celebration. Formal celebrations uphold the
prevalent hierarchies, values and norms while the carnival stands for the temporary release from
these inhibitions (1984: 10). Carnival laughter is universal, shared and ambivalent (ibid. 11-
12). Literary texts partaking in the carnivalesque could be described as expressing “a joyful
subversion of social, literary, or aesthetic norms” (Bayless 2014: 111).
This overview shows that there are many sides to humor. Humor can function as a release of
tension, bringing people together or ridicule. It can liberate people from rules and conventions
and help them fight against these norms, as the incongruity theory and the carnivalesque view
maintain. This could include joking about taboo topics and humor styles such as parody and
satire where for instance political figures can be commented on in a humoristic way. In addition,
humor can arise from surprising turns of situations. Especially in verbal humor, incongruities
are quite common as the source of humor. In the next subchapter, one type of verbal humor:
wordplay, which utilizes incongruities in language, will be given more focus.
10
3.2. Wordplay
While wordplay is not always meant to be humorous and it is not a subcategory of humor
(Vandaele 2011: 180), in the context of this research they are linked together because the humor
in humorous comic series such as Fingerpori is often achieved by wordplay. The following
subchapters will provide a definition of wordplay and examine the different categories of
wordplay.
3.2.1. Definition of Wordplay
Simply put, wordplay means humor in which language is used to achieve a comical effect.
However, this is not a sufficient definition since one could argue that most jokes utilize
linguistic means. Dirk Delabastita (1996: 128, emphasis in the original, the numbers in brackets
refer to the discussion below) defines wordplay as such:
Wordplay is the general name for the various [2] textual phenomena in which [3]
structural features of the language(s) used are exploited in order to bring about a
[4] communicatively significant confrontation of two (or more) linguistic
structures with [1] more or less similar forms and more or less different meanings.
Thus, in wordplay formal similarity of words is used to create an effect that can be humorous.
The term wordplay is often used interchangeably with the word pun by theorists. Delabastita
(1993: 56), for instance, states plainly that he considers these terms synonymous. This principle
will be followed in the current research.
Delabastita (1996: 128) explains thoroughly the different elements of his definition. The first
element [1] is that in wordplay linguistic structures resembling each other in form are contrasted
due to their different meanings. The formal identity can be total or partial and specified into
four categories: homonymy (same pronunciation and spelling, e.g. adhesive tape and to
tape/record), homophony (same pronunciation, different spelling, e.g. write and right),
homography (same spelling, different pronunciation, e.g. tear as in a drop of water from the
eye and to tear/rip) and paronymy (quite similar pronunciation and spelling, e.g. accept and
except). Furthermore, the two meanings can be present simultaneously in the same portion of
text (vertical wordplay) or they may be revealed by occurring in repetition, one after another
(horizontal wordplay).
The second aspect [2] Delabastita (1996: 129) focuses on is that wordplay is a textual
phenomenon. Although the potential for wordplay exists already in the language, a context,
either verbal or situational, is required for it to take effect. Verbal contexts result from people’s
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knowledge and expectations of grammatical and coherent texts. Situational contexts pertain to
dialog situations and multimedia texts, for example the visual elements in a comic strip. In
addition to existing in texts, wordplays also function within them. They can, for instance, be
meant to grab reader/listener’s attention, produce humor or lighten a discussion on taboo
themes.
Thirdly [3] Delabastita (1996: 130) distinguishes the various linguistic structures that can be
exploited in wordplays. The utilized structures can be phonological (e.g. in homophones),
graphological (homographs), lexical (polysemous words and idioms), morphological (derived
and compound words which have a contrast between the new and the literal meaning) and
syntactic (ambiguous phrases and sentences) structures. Delabastita (1996: 131) also notes that
some of these linguistic structures may not be relevant to all languages. Finnish is a good
example as the language has no words that have the same spelling but different pronunciation
and vice versa. This means that Finnish wordplay cannot utilize homography and homophony
(see examples above). Often, as Delabastita (ibid.) points out, more than one of the linguistic
structures are exploited in one wordplay and sometimes wordplays contain linguistic material
from two or more languages.
The fourth and last element [4] of the definition that Delabastita (1996: 131-132) explains more
closely is the idea of communicative significance. This points to the notion that a wordplay is
“communicatively significant if and when it is intended as such” (ibid.). Thus there should be
a distinction between wordplay and accidental ambiguities. However, as Delabastita states, it
is often difficult to make this differentiation and to determine the author’s intention. The
recognition of wordplays depends highly on the reader’s knowledge and understanding of genre
conventions and language. Language knowledge, as Chiaro (1992: 13) points out, is an
important factor because the recipient of wordplay should be proficient enough in the language
to recognize instances of broken or bent linguistic rules. This, of course, could also be applied
to the writer/speaker of the joke. They need to be proficient in the language as well to be able
to know where there are exploitable ambiquities. Lack of proficiency in the language by either
group will most likely result in the joke qualified as poor.
3.2.2. Categories of Wordplay
In his definition for the term, Delabastita (1996: 128) already names four categories of
wordplay: homonymy, homophony, homography and paronymy. In addition to these categories
12
introduced by Delabastita, some researchers, such as Delia Chiaro (1992: 37) and Thorsten
Schröter (2005: 163-164), have included a fifth type of wordplay: polysemy. Polysemy is
otherwise similar to homonymy but differs in the origins of the utilized words. In polysemy,
the lexical items have an etymological relationship while homonymous words do not have a
connection of this kind (Schröter 2005: 181). One example of polysemy is the word follow
meaning literally to go after and metaphorically to understand (ibid: 165). The semantic link
can be detected even though there is a distinction in meaning. These categories pertain to single
words. However, as Delabastita (1996: 130) mentioned in his definition, wordplay can utilize
phonological, graphological, lexical, morphological and syntactic structures. Thus, wordplay
can utilize structures that are broader than single words, for instance idioms or sentence
structures.
The language and humor of the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips have interested a few
researchers (see e.g. Hakala 2012 & Vilenius 2011) and these studies show how central
wordplay is in the comic strip series. Maijastiina Vilenius (2011) has paid attention to the humor
techniques utilized in the Fingerpori comic strips in her MA thesis. Vilenius’ study focused on
the Finnish wordplays in the Fingerpori comic strips and she found that the most frequently
exploited linguistic feature was polysemous words (ibid.: 61). She gathered her research
material in 2009 by going through all the Fingerpori comic strips that had been published thus
far and excluding from her study any comic strips that did not have wordplay. In the process of
selecting her final research material (strips based on wordplay), she found that 61% of the comic
strips at the time played with linguistic features, 34% had text in them but did not utilize
wordplay and 5% either did not have text at all or only had some referential textual elements
(ibid: 29). In addition to polysemy, other categories of wordplay used in her study were
homonymy; word-form ambiguity; compound words with non-lexical meanings; idioms,
phrases and sayings; syntactic ambiguity; and word formation, metonymy and other rarer
techniques.
Homonymy and polysemy have already been discussed in this and the previous subchapter and
hence next focus will be given to the other categories presented by Vilenius. Firstly, word-form
ambiguity occurs when it is uncertain which case of a word is meant (Vilenius 2011: 59). This
pertains especially to the Finnish language because it contains so many different grammatical
cases. For instance, the word “kahden” can be interpreted as either the genitive or instructive
case of the word “kaksi” (ibid: 60). Since most cases in English are produced with prepositions,
this form of wordplay will most likely not emerge in the research material.
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The other forms of wordplay in Vilenius’ classification do not pertain to single words but
various bundles of words. One type of multiple-word linguistic humor are compound words
that are either given a differing meaning from the customary one or created by the
speaker/writer, i.e. non-lexicalized (Kytömäki 1986: 56, as cited in Vilenius 2011: 86). Vilenius
(2011: 86) notes that most of the wordplay utilizing compound words belong to the former
category, for instance the word “kuningaspari” found in her material (ibid: 90). Kuningaspari
would traditionally mean the king and queen, but literally it could also mean two kings. Vilenius
(ibid: 96) also found many comic strips that utilized idiomatic expressions and phrases as the
source of humor. These expressions are characteristic of a language and/or a region or another
group of people, and the meanings of the expressions cannot be deduced based on the meanings
of its different parts (ibid). These expressions are usually used as the source of humor by
highlighting the differences between their traditional and literal meaning. For example, Vilenius
(ibid: 104) found the idiom “paiskia töitä” in her research material. The customary meaning for
this idiom is “to work hard” but the comic strip used the literal meaning for the verb which
would be “to throw things aggressively”.
Sometimes Fingerpori plays with sentence structure and context. This strategy is called
syntactic ambiguity in Vilenius’ study (2011: 115). This form of wordplay can be achieved with
ellipsis, i.e. the omission of unnecessary words, or ambiguous structure such as conjunctions
where the referent is unclear (ibid.). A good example for this is the sentence “Älä syö ja katso
TV:tä samalla” (Do not eat and watch TV at the same time) found in Vilenius’ study (ibid: 118).
One would assume that in the sentence TV is the object to the verb watch but instead the picture
in the comic strip reveals that it is the object to both watch and eat. Thus, the sentence features
an ellipsis: the sentence would be whole as “Älä syö TV:tä ja katso sitä samanaikaisesti” (Do
not watch TV and eat it at the same time). The other humor techniques mentioned in her study
were rarer. For instance, she found strips utilizing word formation, where for example suffixes
are used to form new words, and metonymy where something is referred to with a related
concept (for instance using only “Finland” for “the people of Finland”) (ibid: 125-127).
Wordplay is a common device for humor in the Fingerpori comic strips. However, since the
series also contain comics that do not depend on wordplay, a few other humor techniques are
introduced in the next subchapter.
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3.3. Other Humor Techniques in Comics
In addition to or instead of wordplay the Fingerpori comic strips sometimes utilize humor
techniques that do not solely depend on linguistic means. Firstly, there is the close relative of
wordplay: non-verbal puns, or sign-play as Kaindl (2004: 182) calls them. This type of humor
may utilize wordplay but it is expressed only visually. For instance, in the animated movie
Zootopia (2016) three police officers are assigned to an undercover mission. One of the officers
is a wolf who puts on a sheep costume: he becomes a literal wolf in sheep’s clothing. This
wordplay is not verbalized in the movie and thus it is an instance of sign-play. Some non-verbal
humor is not based on wordplay but just a humorous situation. These types of humor are based
on the pictures and can be reinforced with verbal elements.
Parody is also a useful device for humor. It can be an imitation or transformation of another
text as defined by Kaindl (2004: 185, following Kotthoff 1996: 264). However, here it will be
defined in broader terms. Simon Dentith (2000: 9) describes a parody as “any cultural practice
which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or
practice”. Thus, a parody can be an imitation of any original work but also of a person, subject
or phenomenon. A good example of parody is Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Great Dictator
(1940) where he impersonates Adolf Hitler for comic effect.
Allusions are fairly similar to parodies but they are references rather than imitations. According
to the Oxford English Dictionary (2017), allusion means “an implied, indirect, or passing
reference to a person or thing; (in later use more widely) any reference to someone or
something”. Ritva Leppihalme (1997a: 6) notes that allusions are very commonly defined as
references and these references are often made in order to compare different people, situations
etc. While allusions can be references to anything, they are often pieces of text from different
works in the past. The referenced text can be any recognized form of words for instance from
literature, movies or advertisement (Nash 1985: 78). For example, when the character Alfred
says to his wife “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” in the movie Corpse Bride (2005), he
alludes to the movie Gone with the Wind (1939).
As seen in the examples, often the visual element plays an important role in conveying humor
in addition to the verbal element. This is a significant aspect in comics as well. The humor can
be revealed verbally or visually or in unison within the modes. Because of their multimodal
nature, comic strips are a particularly good format for conveying humor. As Altti Kuusamo
(1990: 206) notes, there is no need for a background story in a comic strip because the necessary
15
information can be illustrated. The punchline is also amplified when the text is made as short
as possible and redundance is avoided (ibid.: 207). However, Kuusamo (ibid.: 207-208) argues
that the same does not apply for pictures: repetition in images is common and it emphasizes
small visual nuances and slight changes in gesticulation. The multimodal nature of comics is
essential in their reception. The following chapter focuses on the reception of humor and comic
strips.
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4. Reception Theory
A reception study, or a reader-response study as it is sometimes called, focuses, instead of the
text or the author, on the readers. It can examine, for instance, people’s reading habits,
consumption of books or their thoughts and evaluations of a text. Katarina Eskola (1990: 165)
draws attention to the point that reception theory acknowledges that readers are not only
consumers and users of texts but also the ones that construct a meaning to a text. This research
will focus on this aspect; on readers as interpreters of texts.
Reception is a concept that deals with the interactive relationship between the text and the
reader and with the formation of the text’s meaning (Eskola 1990: 163). Rien T. Segers (1985:
9) explains concisely that reception is the way in which a reader receives and understands a
text. Reception theory usually distinguishes two types of readers: real, concrete readers and
ideal readers. Real readers are the actual individual readers of a text and ideal readers are, as
Eskola (1990: 166) describes, the implied readers who are constructed in texts by the authors.
An ideal reader is not actually a real person but an all-encompassing interpretation of a text.
Thus, readers in this study always mean the real readers and not the ideal reader. The following
subchapters focus on the reception of the two genres central to this study: humor and comic
strips.
4.1. Reception of Humor
Louise M. Rosenblatt (1978: 12) points out that when a reader reads a text, s/he interprets it on
the basis of his/her experiences and personality. Everyone has a different and unique
background and thus there are several different interpretations of a specific text. Sense of humor
is a part of people’s personality and it is also influenced by one’s experiences. Consequently,
the sense of humor is a highly individual trait and there is variation in the types of humor that
people find amusing. Furthermore, repetition plays a role in the creation and appreciation of
jokes. A joke becomes a joke at the moment of repetition and they can be redesigned in different
interactions (Kuipers 2006: 6). Thus, people may appreciate the same jokes many times over.
However, it is possible that people stop enjoying the same joke after they have already heard it
before. As Ross (1998: 2) notes, ”humour becomes outdated as quickly as fashion”.
In addition to the individual readers and their personalities, the reception of humor depends
heavily on the conventions of the culture in question (Leppihalme 1997b: 145). Each culture
17
has their own set of (unwritten) rules on what topics you are allowed to joke about. The social
context is also an important factor because unfamiliar cultural references will immediately
stump the humorous effect. Therefore, successful humor often requires some shared factual
knowledge by the humorist and audience (Nash 1985: 4).
The reception of humor thus depends on many factors. Furthermore, there are stages in one’s
humor reception which can lead to humor support. In his article, Ken Willis (2005: 129-130)
discusses Jennifer Hay’s (2001) three-part model of humor support (shown below in Figure 1).
The model includes recognition, understanding and appreciation as the three stages of humor
reception. To understand a joke, the reader/listener also recognizes it. The appreciation of
humor is preceded by both recognition and understanding. However, understanding humor does
not automatically lead to the appreciation of it. For example, so-called taboo topics such as
politics, religion and sex are prone to divide people in their reception of humor.
Figure 1. Hay’s (2001, as illustrated in Willis, 2005:130) model of humor support.
Furthermore, Hay’s model includes a hidden fourth element: agreement, which is closely linked
with appreciation. If a person shows appreciation of a joke, s/he agrees with its message as well.
However, it is possible to be amused by a joke, but cancel any agreement by commenting for
instance: “That’s cruel.” (2001: 76, as quoted in Willis 2005: 133). As Willis (2005: 130) states,
it is difficult to evaluate how funny a text is, because just in the way that people’s social
positions differ, their humor competence does as well. However, he also notes that there are
areas of overlap in our humor competence and this is why some instances of humor will make
a large number of people laugh.
4.2. Reception of Comics
Reading comic strips differs from other reading due to their multimodal nature. The images
play an important role in comic strips as the text is usually kept short and many necessary details
are portrayed in the visuals. As opposed to movies, the visual elements are not moving and this
requires more of the reader. The stationary pictures and movements are completed in the
reader’s mind with knowledge from experience (Oittinen 1994: 7). For example, if there is a
18
dancer in the picture, the reader can imagine how they move because s/he has seen dancing
before.
Due to the visual element and the shortness of the strip, the reader can see the whole comic strip
in one glance before actually reading the textual elements. From the first glance, s/he forms
expectations. If s/he recognizes the comic strip series, s/he will form expectations on the basis
of his/her knowledge on the series. If the series is not already known to the reader, s/he may
form expectations based on the general outlook of the comic strip. For example, the general
style of the comic strip can tell the reader whether to expect something humorous or something
dramatic. For instance, realistic looking characters tend to feature more frequently in dramatic
stories.
Herkman (1998: 33) also points out this distinction saying that there are, roughly speaking, two
styles of comic art: one aims for realistic character appearances and the other utilizes heightened
caricatures. He explains that the first style of comics features human characters in “real”
environments and the second usually follows animal characters in a fictional world. He also
links this division to a thematic classification in the mainstream of American comics: the
adventure and drama comics (human characters), and the humoristic comics (animal characters)
(Reitberger & Fuchs 1972: 27, as quoted in Herkman 1998: 33). There are of course exceptions
to this a simple division, and even Herkman (1998: 34) considers it as too simplified, but there
is some truth to it. While humorous comics do not always include animal characters, they do
usually feature heavily caricaturized characters.
Comic characters can be often criticized for their stereotype-based appearance. For example, in
adventure comics the heroes are handsome and the villains look ugly and often foreign
(Gustavsson et al. 1980: 172, as quoted in Herkman 1998: 38). Manninen (1995: 49-50) points
out that it is a narrative advantage if the reader can easily identify the hero and the villain. While
it is not necessarily a positive element of comics to be emphasizing stereotypes in this manner,
it adds an interesting aspect to the reception of comics.
The reception of translated comic strips has not been studied to a great extent. One study was
conducted by Janne Keskisaari (2007). In his MA thesis, he studied Finnish readers’ reception
of culture-specific items in the comic strip Zits and found that the more culture-specific the
comic strips were, the harder they were to understand. However, this did not necessarily
correlate to the degree of the reader’s self-reported amusement. Sometimes the readers
interpreted the comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing nevertheless.
19
Reception is personal and people may find the same text funny even though they have differing
interpretations of it. When reading gag strips, the reader’s reception of both humor and comics
play an important role. Reception, comics and translation are discussed further in the following
chapter.
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5. Comics and Reception in the Context of Translation
As mentioned above, comics are multimodal texts and their semiotic vehicles of interest are
visual and verbal elements. Kaindl (2010: 39) points out that when one is translating comics it
is essential to find out first what kind of relation can be found between the picture and the text
(see Chapter 2.2 for visual-verbal relations). Sometimes for example verbal puns can be
supported by non-verbal signs or be dependent on them. In the translation process, the visual-
verbal relation has to be taken into account. The translator needs to find out what information
is portrayed through each mode and how they function in relation to each other.
The translation of multimodal texts is from time to time considered “constrained translation”,
which means that, for example in comics, only the linguistic elements are subject to change and
visual elements remain as they are. Thus, the visual elements are constraints for the translation
of the verbal element. However, as Federico Zanettin (2008: 21) and Nadine Celotti (2008: 34)
note, this is rather a misconception of the basics of the translation of comics. Modifying the
pictures in comics may not be an everyday convention but it is certainly not unheard-of.
Sometimes this may include only slight editing such as adjusting the shape and size of speech
bubbles, but sometimes something in the pictures may even be removed or redrawn. The
translator, however, needs to be careful with such choices. The visual and the verbal have a
dialogic relationship: the pictures shape the text and vice versa (Oittinen 1994: 6). This means
that if you change or edit either one, the whole context is changed.
In addition to the problems regarding multimodality, translating comics can include other
difficulties as well. There is, for instance, the problem of space and its limitations. The speech
bubbles in comics are rarely edited and this means that the translation has to fit in the space
assigned for it. Furthermore, the translator needs to take note of the fact that the text in speech
bubbles is exactly that: speech, and each character may have their own speech style. Gag strips
also feature the problem of translating humor, especially wordplay.
Translators are always readers of the source text at first and their reception has an important
influence on the target text. Translating wordplays can be tricky and sometimes a pun may even
be omitted altogether because no suitable translation is found. In many comic strips, however,
the translator must try to come up with a target-text pun or joke because of the humorous nature
of the series. The pun cannot be compensated in another part of the text either because of the
shortness of the comic strip. Delabastita (1996: 135) provides good advice for translators when
21
he says that sometimes “the only way to be faithful to the original text (i.e. to its verbal
playfulness) is paradoxically to be unfaithful to it (i.e. to its vocabulary and grammar)”. Saara
Hyyppä (2005: 119) has also commented that the translators of Donald Duck into Finnish are
told to distance themselves from the source text to come up with funnier translations. The aim
is not to omit or censor but to provide the target-text readers with an enjoyable reading
experience. This is often easier to achieve with domesticating translation strategies rather than
foreignizing ones. This aim permits for instance the modifying of pictures to ease the
conveyance and understanding of comic strips.
Wordplay is often deemed untranslatable due to differences in languages. Henrik Gottlieb
(1997: 226) argues, however, that wordplay is in most cases translatable. He demonstrates this
in his study on translation of wordplay in subtitles. His examples show that even if the direct
translation does not have the same sort of wordplay, there are usually alternate ways to
reproduce the wordplay in the target language. While compensation is not a viable method in
comic strips since the pun cannot be moved to another part of the short strip, the translator can
try to come up with another appropriate instance of wordplay and find words in the target
language that fit the context and resemble each other for instance in form.
The transfer from one language and culture to another makes the reception of translated material
a special and intriguing field. As Chiaro (2006: 205) notes on the reception of translated
audiovisual material, it is difficult to know whether source culture and target culture audiences
enjoy the same aspects of films and laugh at the same places. In addition, unsuccessful humor
can depend on the quality of translation as well as on culture-specific presuppositions, and it is
difficult to pinpoint which is the reason in each instance (ibid.). On the whole, reception studies
in the field of translation have been scarce and have focused on audiovisual translation (Brems
and Ramos Pinto 2013: 146). The present study will illuminate the reception of translated
material, in this case comic strips, and aim to find out reasons behind successful and failed
humor in them.
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6. Research Material and Method
The aim of this thesis is to investigate non-Finnish speaking readers’ reception of the Fingerpori
comic strips. The first English collection of the Finnish comic strip series was published in 2014
and its second edition with a few new translations was published in 2017. The Fingerpori comic
strips are humorous comic strips which commonly utilize wordplay and other humor devices
such as sign-play, parody and allusions. In this study, humor is viewed as both a quality and a
competence. It is a quality of the comic strips and the reception study will cast light on the
competence side of the concept.
Wordplay is a common humor technique in the Fingerpori comic strips and the most frequently
used strategy in the comic strips included in the questionnaire. This study uses Delabastita’s
definition for the term: wordplay functions in text and exploits language structures to generate
a confrontation between two or more formally similar structures with two or more meanings.
Finnish wordplay can utilize lexical, morphological and syntactic structures. When translating
into English, graphological and phonological structures become available as well. In addition
to the reception study, a closer inspection of the humor in the translated collection of the
Fingerpori comic strips is provided in the analysis. The reception study then shows whether the
humor is carried over to the non-Finnish speaking readers. The reception study will thus focus
on the readers’ interpretations and evaluations of the comic strips. The analysis will utilize both
quantitative and qualitative measures.
The research material consists of the English Fingerpori comic strips and the questionnaire
answers. When necessary, the original source-language comic strips are also located for
inspection. The following subchapters include more detailed descriptions of the research
material and methods. The first subchapter provides background information on the Fingerpori
comic strip series and the English collection Fingerpori from Finland (2014). Chapters 6.2. and
6.3. present details on the online questionnaire and its respondents.
6.1. Fingerpori Comic Strips
Fingerpori is a Finnish comic strip series by the comic artist Pertti Jarla. Jarla developed the
comic in 2006, then calling it Karl-Barks-Stadt. The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat
started publishing the comic strips in 2007 under the name Fingerpori and these days it can be
found in many newspapers and collections. The Fingerpori comic strip series has also been
23
brought to life on stage, most recently in the Emma theater in Naantali (Mäkinen-Önsoy, 2017),
and there has been talk about a movie project (Ahola, 2015). It is without a doubt one of the
most recognizable comic strips in Finland.
The series follows the life of the citizens of Fingerpori, a fictional small town in Finland. The
main character is Heimo Vesa, who works at the Fingerpoli research center as a scientist. Other
characters include his wife Irma and best friend Allan as well as coffee shop worker Rivo-Riitta
(Naughty Rita), mayor Aulis Homelius and well-known characters from literature, comics and
movies such as Spider-Man and Luke Skywalker and current and historical figures including
Adolf Hitler and Jesus.
The Fingerpori comic strips do not follow a storyline, i.e. they are not serial strips. Because of
their humorous nature, the strips can be defined as gag strips. Each comic strip features a joke
and they utilize various humor vehicles. However, the most common one is wordplay. Many of
the jokes in the Fingerpori comic strips are suggested by fans, who are credited on the comic
strip if their ideas end up on the series. Jarla has mentioned that a majority of these suggestions
play on double entendres (Koponen, 2017). It seems like Finns are especially easily amused by
so-called dirty humor. Especially comic strips featuring the character Rivo-Riitta usually
contain this type of humor. Sometimes the strips feature dark humor and joke at topics that are
considered taboo. For instance, religion, politics and sex are fairly frequent themes in
Fingerpori. Even though the humor is fairly innocuous, sometimes it offends people. Especially
comic strips on religious topics have angered some people (Väliranta, 2009). Because of the
featured themes and fairly high degree of difficulty, the comics are aimed predominantly for an
adult audience.
The English collection of the Fingerpori comic strips Fingerpori from Finland, translated by
Jarla himself and Vesa Kataisto, was published in 2014. It is the first official English collection
of the Fingerpori comic strips. For a little while, the comic strip series was published in
Denmark but this was stopped because the humor did not reach the readers. Jarla remarks that
in some countries the humor has to be light but in Finland readers enjoy comic strips that are
challenging (Österman, 2014). The English collection tests the waters for a wider audience. It
contains 279 comic strips, which have been chosen from all the previously published comic
strips. There were at least over 2000 strips to choose from. Kataisto (2017) comments that the
selection was made by simply trying out different comic strips and choosing those that could
be translated. Wordless strips were prioritized. Kataisto (2014: 7) also mentions in the foreword
24
of the collection that due to Fingerpori’s heavy focus on wordplays, only approximately a third
of the strips can even be translated. However, this untranslatability issue may stem from the
understanding of what can be done in translation.
The translated collection can be described as a self-translation as the comic artist Jarla and
editor Kataisto have translated the strips. Therefore, there should be no misinterpretations on
the account of the translators. They are experts in the humor and style of Fingerpori. In addition,
the language of the translations has been proofread by Stuart Allt who is of Australian origin
(Kataisto 2017). Kataisto (ibid.) notes that the English aims to resemble the rustic style and
language of the original.
As is common in comics, the text in the translated collection is mostly characters’ speech and
hence the language is colloquial and includes simple structures. The text contains several
interjections, such as “oh”, “ah”, “hmm” and “well”. These filler words are very typical in
spoken language. In addition, some words are spelled nontraditionally to add to the colloquial
sound. For instance, “alright” is spelled “awright”, “right” as “righto” and “them” as “’em”.
There are no major differences in the various characters’ speech: they all have a similar style
of speaking.
Kataisto (2017) notes that sometimes the translation needed some revision to preserve the joke.
The pictorial elements, however, were modified only once. The original and redrawn versions
of this comic strip can be found below (Figure 4 & 5).
Figure 4. Original version of the comic strip (Jarla 2015: 117).
25
Figure 5. Translated, redrawn version (Jarla 2014: 29).
The decision of redrawing the comic was made simply because the small change made the joke
work in English. The original joke would have not worked in English as “pork” or “pig” do not
have the same double meaning as “porsas” or “kana” and “chicken”. The Finnish word “porsas”
is used for both the animal and its meat whereas English does not utilize one word for both
meanings. The picture is a limiting factor in this instance but with alteration, this constraint has
been removed. The pig has been replaced with a lamb which has a similar double meaning as
“porsas”.
This subchapter has provided background information on the comic strip series and the
translated collection. The translated collection will be given more focus in Chapter 7.1, where
the humor techniques employed in the translations will be analyzed. Examples of the different
humor techniques will be provided from the research material. Wordplays will be explained
with definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and the frequencies of the
techniques will be examined and compared to Vilenius’ (2011) results on the Finnish Fingerpori
comic strips. Vilenius had a wider number of research material since she went through all the
comic strips that had been published before the start of her research in 2009. However, the
comparison of the findings sheds some light on the translation process since it can reveal if
some humor techniques are more common in the translated collection and thus, perhaps easier
to translate.
26
6.2.Questionnaire Setting and Analysis
The reception study involved an online questionnaire with seven Fingerpori comic strips
(Appendix 1). Permission to include the comic strips in this online questionnaire was granted
by the publishing company of the Fingerpori comic strip series, Arktinen Banaani. At first the
target group of the survey were international students but later the target group was broadened
to allow for a larger number of respondents. The questionnaire was advertised via an email
newsletter for international students in the University of Eastern Finland and then on Facebook.
In these posts, non-Finnish speaking respondents were invited to take part in a reception study
about comic strip translations. The survey was tested first with a pilot questionnaire from
November 2016 to December 2016. The questionnaire was not revised afterwards. The final
questionnaire was available online for three months from January 2017 to March 2017. The
respondents of both the pilot and the final questionnaire were welcomed to participate in a draw
for a €20 Amazon.co.uk gift card. The prize draw was conducted after the closing of the final
questionnaire.
Since wordplay is such a common humor technique in the Fingerpori comic strip series, it is
also heavily featured in the online questionnaire. In addition to wordplay, some of the comic
strips feature parody which tends to incorporate the visual element to a greater degree. Hence
humor in the seven selected comic strips is based on either wordplay (nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5), parody
(no. 7) or both wordplay and parody (nos. 2 and 6). The different types of wordplay featured in
the questionnaire are polysemy, syntactic ambiguity and compound words. The questionnaire
also highlights some frequent themes portrayed in the comic strips. Three of the included comic
strips (nos. 2, 5 and 6) portray taboo subjects, in this case religion, sexuality and Hitler and
World War II.
The questionnaire setting resembles the one used by Janne Keskisaari (2007) in his Master’s
thesis. He studied the effects of culture-specificity in the reception of comic strips. His layout
of questions seemed fitting for the purposes of the present study as well. However, the questions
were slightly modified. The set of questions under each comic strip is the following:
1. Do you think you understood the joke of the comic strip?
2. Please explain the joke.
3. How funny did you find this comic strip?
4. Is the comic strip easy to understand? If not, what makes it difficult?
5. Any other comments?
27
Questions 2, 4 and 5 are open-ended allowing the respondents to express their interpretations
and impressions in their own words. Questions 1 and 3 are closed. The response options for
question 1 are Yes, No and I’m not sure. For question 3 there is a five-point scale with the
answer options: Not funny, A little funny, Somewhat funny, Funny, Very funny. At the end of
the survey there is a question about all the featured comic strips: What did you think about the
themes the comic strips cover? From the point of view of humor research, this study does not
limit to one traditional research question, as presented by Palmer (1993: 5, see Chapter 3.1.)
However, especially the last question: What prevents us from finding something funny? will be
given focus in this study.
The Fingerpori comic strips do not have titles. However, in the analysis I will include a name
for each of the comic strips to ease the identification of the comic strips in the later discussion.
For the analysis of the responses of the questionnaire, both quantitative and qualitative methods
will be utilized. In quantitative analysis, statistics and tables will be presented to illustrate the
degree of understanding and appreciation of each comic strip. Responses to the open-ended
questions will be analyzed qualitatively. Before analyzing answers to question 2, which asks
the reader to explain the joke in the comic strip, I will define, what the “correct” meaning for
each of the jokes is. The responses can then be compared to this intended meaning to determine
whether the respondents understood the comic strips in the same way. The analysis will focus
on the understanding and appreciation stage of humor reception (see Chapter 4.1.). The
respondents who understood each joke have of course also identified the root of the humor,
since recognition precedes understanding, but it is difficult to know whether the ones who did
not understand a joke, did or did not recognize where the stem of the humor was. Thus,
recognition as well as agreement, which is closely linked with appreciation, will be commented
on only if related responses are found in the material.
6.3. Questionnaire Respondents
The questionnaire was answered by 47 respondents: eight respondents to the pilot questionnaire
and 39 to the final questionnaire. The questionnaire was not revised in between as the pilot
questionnaire was concluded as successful and therefore both rounds of respondents could be
included in the research material. However, three of the respondents were Finnish and their
contributions will be excluded from the material as the aim of the study is to investigate the
28
reception of non-Finnish speakers. Thus, the number of filled questionnaires in the research
material is 44.
First, the respondents were asked a few background questions, which included age, gender,
mother tongue and their own estimation of their English skills. The age and gender distribution
is illustrated below in Figure 2. Since at first, the questionnaire was targeted for international
students and most of the respondents were expected to be under 30 years old, the younger age
groups have shorter gaps. Despite the broadened target group, the majority of the respondents
were 21-30 years old. They comprised approximately two thirds of respondents. The other
respondents divided quite evenly to the other age groups with, however, the exception of the
51-60 age group which only had one representative. As regards to gender, a majority, 59%, of
the respondents were female, 39% were men and 2% identified as other.
Figure 2. The age and gender distribution of questionnaire respondents.
The respondents’ linguistic backgrounds were quite diverse. There were 16 different first
languages listed. English was the most frequent mother tongue with nine speakers. Other first
languages included French (6 speakers), Dutch (4), German (4), Swedish (4), Hungarian (3),
Chinese (2), Urdu (2), Afrikaans (1), Croatian (1), Czech (1), Filipino (1), Latvian (1), Polish
(1), Romanian (1) and Russian (1). Two respondents left this question blank. The respondents’
English skills varied but tended towards proficient and advanced knowledge. In addition, there
were 11 respondents who estimated their English skills to be on first-language level. These data
are illustrated in Figure 3. The first-language estimations were expected to come solely from
those whose mother tongue was indeed English. However, a few of the respondents who
estimated their English skills as “First language” did not have English marked as their first
29
language. In addition, a couple of those whose mother tongue was English estimated their
English skills to be proficient rather than first-language level. Of course, there may be reasons
in their backgrounds for these decisions.
Figure 3. The survey respondents’ own estimate of their level of English skills.
In the analysis, I will refer to the respondents with identification numbers: E1-E9 for the
respondents whose mother tongue is English and O1-O35 for those whose mother tongue is
other than English. Otherwise, background information will be mentioned only if the survey
answers present any patterns for any specific group.
The questionnaire responses are analyzed and discussed in Chapter 7.2. Before that, the humor
in the translated Fingerpori comic strips is examined in Chapter 7.1.
30
7. Analysis
In this chapter, the humor in the translated Fingerpori comic strips and its reception are analyzed
and discussed. The first subchapter examines the humor techniques used in the translated
collection Fingerpori from Finland (2014). The different humor techniques are illustrated with
examples from the research material and their frequencies in the collection are compared to
Vilenius’ (2011) findings on the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips. The second subchapter
focuses on the reception of the humor in the comic strips: in this subchapter, the questionnaire
responses are analyzed.
7.1. Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips
Many of the Fingerpori comic strips rely on both the picture and text to convey a joke. For
instance, the comic strip in Figures 4 and 5 (see Chapter 6.1.) utilizes wordplay but the meaning
of the phrase is realized only after seeing the last panel. The pictures and text complement each
other. The Fingerpori comic strips do utilize other visual-verbal relations as well. There are
comic strips where emphasis lies on the text and pictures are secondary and vice versa.
However, the co-operation of pictures and text appear to be the most frequently used method.
This method presents an effective strategy for conveying humor in comics.
As discussed in Chapter 3.2.2., the humor in the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips has been
studied by Vilenius (2011). The English Fingerpori collection consists of 279 comic strips.
Vilenius, however, had a wider number of material to go through since she went through all the
comic strips that had been published before the start of her study in 2009. In her study on the
Finnish Fingerpori comic strips, Vilenius (2011: 29) discovered that at the time 61% of the
comic strips utilized wordplay in some form, 34% had text but did not involve any wordplay
and 5% did not include any text or only contained some referential textual elements. As for the
translated collection, 54% of the English Fingerpori comic strips utilize wordplay, 39% have
text in them but do not involve wordplay and 7% either do not have text at all or only contain
some referential textual elements. In the translated collection, the number of comic strips
without wordplay is higher since they may be easier to translate. The translated collection is
comprised of comic strips that the translators have chosen for the collection and naturally the
choices have been made by considering their translatability. The number of comics utilizing
31
wordplay is still surprisingly high considering Kataisto’s (2014) comments on only 30% of
them being translatable.
Vilenius (2011: 61) found that polysemy was the most popular type of wordplay in the Finnish
Fingerpori comic strips. In the English collection, polysemy was the second most popular type
of wordplay while the most common type was syntactic ambiguity. Out of 152 comic strips
utilizing wordplay, 64 played on syntactic ambiguity and 36 used polysemy. Compound words
(22) were fairly popular as well. Homonymy (4), idioms (14) and other humor devices (12)
were identified quite rarely. The number of comic strips using polysemy probably decreased
due to difficulties in finding suitable equivalents in English. Syntactic ambiguity however may
be easier to translate since the humor is not based on only one word but achieved through a
carefully planned sentence with more than one possible meaning (see the example in the
following paragraph). Some of the comic strips could have been classified into more than one
type of wordplay and thus the numbers are only approximate.
Syntactic ambiguity plays with sentence structures. In comic strips utilizing this strategy, one
character usually says an ambiguous phrase that could be interpreted in more than one way. In
the following example, the superhero Batman receives the name “Shithead” because of the
ambiguity of spoken language.
Hostage situation is solved…
Criminal: Wh-who are you?
Batman: Your worst nightmare, shithead.
[Batman watching TV later]
Rescued woman: I was saved by a masked hero called Shithead.
(Jarla 2014: 118)
In the written form, “Your worst nightmare, shithead” seems clear and easy to understand but
in the comic strip this is spoken and there are no commas in spoken language. This creates the
ambiguity. Batman was calling the criminal a shithead but as the last panel reveals, the rescued
hostage thought that it was Batman’s name. The reader realizes the ambiguity of the phrase at
the same time as Batman. The writing in the comic strip which does not indicate upper or lower
case letters aids in the confusion.
Polysemy and homonymy are examined next due to their similarities. In the following example,
the two workers understand the word “channel” differently. The second speaker assumes that
the first is talking about river-like channels on Mars and answers accordingly; stating that these
32
do not exist. However, the visuals in the last panel show that the first speaker had in fact
discovered Martian TV channels.
Science center Fingerpoli
Co-worker: Heimo, I can see the Martian channels!
Heimo: “Martian channels” are just optical illusions.
[The co-worker returns to a room where a TV screen shows an alien creature]
Co-worker: Bah
(Jarla 2014: 28)
The wordplay in this comic strip is an instance of polysemy since regardless of differences in
meaning, the two meanings are related, i.e. signifying either a channel of water or of television
signal.
- The hollow bed of a river, stream, or other body of running water; the course through
which a river or stream flows
- A television broadcast transmitted over a particular frequency band or (in later use
also) Internet stream. (OED, 2017)
This comic also shows how verbal humor can be supported and enforced with visual elements.
The misinterpretation does not need to be expressed verbally because it is shown visually.
Homonymy was a very rare technique among the research material. Homonymous words have
identical spelling and pronunciation but unrelated meanings. For instance, in the following
example the word “trailer” has two separate meanings.
[an old couple having coffee]
Woman: Titanic was a terrible film.
Man: I only saw Titanic’s trailer.
1912:
[a young boy astonished by the size of a trailer meant for transporting boats]
(Jarla 2014: 271)
Since the woman is talking about a movie, one would assume that the man means that he has
only seen the trailer for the movie, as in “an excerpt of a film, broadcast, etc., used as advance
publicity” (OED). However, the second panel reveals that the man had seen the trailer of the
boat, i.e. “an unpowered vehicle towed behind a car or truck” (OED).
Compound words are lexical units where two or more words are merged to form a new meaning.
The words can be written together, separately or with a hyphen. The humor arises from various
meanings of one compound. Sometimes the compound receives a whole new meaning in the
context of the comic strip and sometimes the compound may already have several meanings,
33
as in the example below. In the comic strip, a character called Dick Wolfskin is explaining his
career change.
- Our football team did not play well together.
- So nowadays I have done “adult entertainment”.
[a man without a shirt is seen in the background]
- Nice to be a part of a well-oiled team.
(Jarla 2014: 45)
Here the word “well-oiled” first generates the figurative meaning of the compound: “operating
smoothly” (OED). The amusement comes from the realization that the literal meaning
“thoroughly covered, moistened, or lubricated with oil” (OED) also functions in the context
(adult entertainment).
Idioms and other humor devices are quite rare in the
material. In the comic strips that use idiomatic expressions
as the source of humor, the expression is used with a
different meaning, usually a literal one instead of the
traditional one. In the adjacent comic strip (Figure 6), the
proverb “Curiosity killed the cat” is utilized in this way.
Traditionally the proverb means that “being inquisitive
about other people's affairs may get you into trouble”
(Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Here it generates the literal
meaning. However, instead of inquisitiveness, curiosity here
denotes an “object valued as curious, rare, or strange” (OED,
2017). The rare artefact, a curiosity, falls from its pedestal
and kills the cat that was scratching the pedestal. Hence, the
curiosity killed the cat. The category of other humor devices
consists of varied strategies that utilize language to create
humor but were very rare in the material. This category
included for example metonymy, where something is
referred to with a related concept. For instance, one comic
strip pictures an advertisement for a laser eye surgery with
the text: “Get rid of glasses!”. In addition to the literal
meaning, “glasses” usually refer to poor eyesight in this
context. Figure 6. Comic strip with
an idiom as the source of
humor (Jarla 2014: 89).
34
The humor in the comic strips without wordplay is based on the picture or situation. Some of
these are wordless while some do include text. Popular humor vehicles for these comic strips
are sign-play, parody and allusions. However, comic strips utilizing parody and allusions are
not found exclusively in this category. If these comic strips also featured wordplay, they were
included in the corresponding wordplay category, i.e. in one of the above-mentioned categories.
Parody was frequently utilized in the comic strips that did not feature any wordplay. The comics
that depend on this type of humor take something well-known and make something humorous
out of it. The comic strip below (Figure 7) showcases the popular comic book character Spider-
man creating webs, not for the usual reasons such as attacking villains, but for fishing. This is
a parodic representation of the character.
Figure 7. Parodying Spider-man. (Jarla 2014: 40)
In the research material, parody was much more popular than allusions. This probably stems
from the use of the visual element. When referencing to something in comic strips, the picture
is an important element. It can convey ideas faster and easier than text. Thus, parody which
imitates rather than merely references is an effective source of humor in comic strips. Allusions
were rarer and when one occurred, the comic strip tended to feature wordplay as well, as in the
following comic strip (Figure 8).
35
Figure 8. Comic strip utilizing an allusion. (Jarla 2014: 137)
The priest in the picture utilizes a biblical reference in the context of a curling tournament.
Instead of an actual stone, the stone here refers to the granite stones that are used in curling and
instead of throwing, the stone is slid on ice.
As can be seen, the Fingerpori comic strips feature various kinds of humor techniques.
Sometimes more than one method is used in a comic strip. The comic strips in the online
questionnaire feature different kinds of wordplay and parody since these humor techniques are
especially common in the research material. The results of the reception study are analyzed and
discussed in the following subchapter.
36
7.2. Analysis of the Questionnaire Responses
This subchapter focuses on the results of the online questionnaire. Each comic strip that was
included in the questionnaire will be presented and described. These descriptions will be
compared to the explanations provided by the survey respondents. For the purposes of this
study, my explanations will function as the “correct”, intended meanings but it is acknowledged
that there can be several working interpretations. The interpretations can be affected by for
instance, the respondents’ lack of background knowledge. The respondents will most likely be
unaware of the different characters in the series and will not be able to name them. This is taken
into consideration when analyzing the respondents’ explanations for the comic strips. The
respondents’ understanding and appreciation of each comic strip will be illustrated in tables.
The comic strips do not have titles but to ease the later
discussion, I have provided a short name for each of them.
7.2.1. Comic Strip #1: Gay Adoption
The first comic strip (Figure 9) depicts the main character
Heimo and his wife Irma discussing gay adoption, i.e. the
rights of same-sex couples to adopt a child. After stating her
opinion, Irma asks Heimo what his thoughts on the subject
are. However, Heimo misinterprets the phrase “gay
adoption” and thinks that Irma is suggesting that they adopt
a gay person.
This is an instance of wordplay where a compound word is
given a whole different meaning from the traditional one. 29
respondents out of 44 (66%) stated that they understood the
joke, 5 (11%) respondents were not sure of the meaning and
10 (23%) respondents did not understand it at all. The
following table (Table 1) shows the respondents’ answers to
Question 1 (Do you think you understood the joke in the
comic strip?). In addition, the table shows the answers of the
two language groups: English L1 speakers and respondents
with other first languages. Both groups encountered difficulty
in understanding this comic strip.
Figure 9. Comic strip #1:
Gay adoption (Jarla 2014:
15).
37
Table 1. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #1 (Gay
adoption).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 4 3 2
Others 25 2 8
Total 29 5 10
The respondents’ explanations for the joke revealed that many of them actually misinterpreted
the comic strip. Table 2 illustrates the understanding and appreciation of the comic strip. In
Table 2, the columns show the respondents’ evaluation of the comic strip, i.e. answers to
Question 3 (How funny did you find this comic strip?). The rows show the distribution of the
respondents in relation to their understanding of the joke. The first row is for correct
understanding: those who answered “Yes” or “I’m not sure” for Question 1 and provided an
explanation that corresponded with the intended meaning. Respondents included in the
“Different interpretation” section are people whose interpretation differed from the intended
meaning. The third row demonstrates the number of respondents whose interpretation is
unclear: respondents who did not provide any explanation or provided a vague response. The
last row shows the numbers of respondents who did not understand the joke at all: respondents
who answered “No” to Question 1.
Table 2. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #1 (Gay adoption).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
2 4 5 6 - 17
Different
interpretation
5 1 4 3 - 13
Unclear or no
explanation
2 - 2 - - 4
No
understanding
9 1 - - - 10
Total 18 6 11 9 - 44
38
The first comic strip was surprisingly difficult to understand. Out of all the misinterpretations,
two prevalent explanations were that either the couple has a gay child and Heimo wants to give
him up for adoption or that Heimo himself is gay.
I believe that the comic is stating that the parents are going to give their child up
for adoption because he is gay, rather than a gay couple adopting a child. (E3)
the woman is in favor of gays adopting children but when the guy asks her yes we
should adopt a child. It means her husband is gay too. This can be seen by
woman's shocking reaction. (O34)
The former view was shared by five respondents in total and the latter by another five
respondents. The respondents had, most likely, no prior knowledge of the comic strip series and
therefore, were unfamiliar with the characters. This comic strip features Heimo and Irma who
are a married couple with no children. This information would have been helpful for the
respondents and probably prevented the misinterpretation of Heimo wanting to give their gay
child up for adoption.
The main reason for the difficulties in understanding the joke appears to have been the
punchline “Where should we put him?” This was referred to in a few of the answers to Question
4 (Is the comic strip easy to understand? If not, what makes it difficult?). Some noted that they
did not know to whom “him” was referring. One respondent even commented that they did not
know what the whole sentence was in reference to. These comments came from both English
L1 speakers and respondents with other first languages. All in all, it was evident that a high
level of knowledge in English did not correspond to a better understanding of this comic strip.
Only approximately a half, 13 out of 25, of the respondents who marked their level of English
skills as either First language or Proficient understood the joke in the comic strip.
The appreciation is estimated on a five-point scale. It can be converted to a number scale from
1 to 5 where 1 equals “Not funny” and 5 equals “Very funny”. The overall average rating for
this comic strip was then 2.25. The average rating when excluding the respondents who did not
find any joke in the comic strip, i.e. the last row in Table 2, was 2.59.
Three respondents noted that they found this comic strip offensive. However, two of them had
misinterpreted the joke and thought that either Heimo or his child was gay. Nonetheless, the
intended meaning of the joke is not meant to be at the expense of gay people but a play on
words and furthermore, nobody in the comic strip expresses an intolerant view to different
sexualities. Irma thinks that gay adoption is all right and Heimo only worries about whether
they have enough space to have an adopted child. Since this was the first comic strip in the
39
questionnaire, the lack of background knowledge may have been especially essential here. The
respondents had, most likely, no prior knowledge of the characters and style of the comic strip
series. If they had known some information of the characters and the series’ heavy focus on
wordplays, they might have viewed this comic strip differently. However, this is a very common
way to acquaint oneself with a new comic strip series: by reading them one by one. In
newspapers, they do not usually have an introduction to the comics either.
7.2.2. Comic Strip #2: Jesus
In the second comic strip (Figure 10), Heimo is having a conversation with Jesus, who is
pondering Judas’ betrayal. This is a parodic representation of Jesus and the history regarding
him. This comic strip also uses a play on a compound word, in this case “crosstrainer” [sic].
There is a slight error in the comic strip since the correct
spelling for the word is “cross trainer”.
Traditionally, a cross trainer means an exercise machine. In
English, the more common word for this would be an
elliptical trainer which can be seen for instance in a Google
search: “cross trainer” provides 385 000 results whereas
“elliptical trainer” receives almost eight million results
(search date: December 20th, 2017). In addition, the OED
does not include the word “cross trainer” in this sense. A
couple of respondents’ answers indicate that they mistook
the word for “cross-trainer” which according to the OED is
“a training shoe suitable for a range of sporting activities”
(2017). These respondents may be more familiar with
British English in which “trainer” for a shoe is more
common than in American English. This meaning is
somewhat strange in the context as the word is in singular:
Jesus would have received only one shoe. However, this
should not hinder the understanding of the wordplay. Since
Jesus was crucified after Judas betrayed him, the cross
trainer as a present from Judas is a hint that he should start Figure 10. Comic strip #2:
Jesus (Jarla 2014: 136).
40
preparing and training for the imminent crucifixion, the “cross”. This joke alludes to Jesus’
crucifixion without explicitly mentioning it.
28 out of 44 respondents (64%) stated that they understood the joke, 6 respondents (14%) were
not sure of the meaning and 10 (23%) respondents did not understand the comic strip. As can
be seen in Table 3, this comic strip was noticeably more difficult to the respondents whose first
language was not English. There may be more variation in these respondents’ religious
backgrounds and thus some of them may not be as familiar with the context of this comic strip
as others.
Table 3. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #2 (Jesus).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 8 - 1
Others 20 6 9
Total 28 6 10
In the respondents’ explanations for the joke, I looked for understanding of the link to Jesus’
crucifixion. The explanations included mentions of his fate but there were also explanations
that did not state this explicitly and only noted “cross trainer” as the source of wordplay. These
answers are included in the unclear explanations because, as a later example demonstrates,
“cross trainer” can be interpreted as a different wordplay as well. The distribution of
understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #2 can be found below in Table 2.
Table 4. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #2 (Jesus).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
3 7 9 4 1 24
Different
interpretation
1 1 - - - 2
Unclear or no
explanation
- 2 2 2 2 8
No
understanding
10 - - - - 10
Total 14 10 11 6 3 44
41
This comic strip produced fewer interpretations than the first strip; the comic strip was perhaps
easier to understand. One reason for this may be that the joke is more straight-forward with a
clear punchline. The wordplay is also in the punchline and with a careful reading the reader
should be able to find the link between the word “cross trainer” and the historical characters
quite easily. However, lack of Christian knowledge would make the strip difficult to understand.
This was noted by some of the respondents who did not get the joke.
I don't get the joke. I think it's because this story is about a certain event in the
bible story that I don't know, or there's another context I should place it in. (O5)
Cultural background is an important factor in understanding this joke. People with different
cultural backgrounds have different levels of knowledge about Christian mythology.
I classified two explanations as different interpretations. The first of these was somewhat
difficult to classify because their explanation could be understood in a couple of ways.
Is it because Judas doublecrossed him? (O9)
The respondent sounds uncertain in this explanation but because they later claim that the joke
is easy to understand it can be presumed that they are sure enough of their interpretation. The
respondent’s explanation acknowledges the Christian history between Jesus and Judas but it is
uncertain whether they linked the word cross trainer to crucifixion and the noun “cross” or the
verb “to doublecross”. The respondent’s explanation suggests that they linked it to the latter. It
is possible, however, that I am misguided by their choice of words. The assumed interpretation
of the joke would also be a working instance of wordplay but not the one intended in the comic
strip. The second different interpretation was as follows:
I think the joke is about Jesus never expecting to receive a gift from Judas. (O32)
This respondent did not find any wordplay in the strip. For this respondent, the humor was in
the surprise of Judas giving Jesus a present.
Furthermore, there was another interesting alternative explanation for the joke.
The association of exercise machines and torture devices, as well as a pun on
"cross". (O23)
In addition to the wordplay, this respondent finds the association of exercise machines as torture
devices part of the humor in the comic strip. This is an interesting addition to the joke and a
good example of the significance of an individual reader’s own background and personal views.
42
The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.41 and the average rating when excluding
those who did not find any humor in the comic strip was 2.82. The latter average is close to
Somewhat funny. The comic strip received a fairly high average rating even though in Finland
religious strips are the ones that, according to Jarla, have received most critique (Väliranta,
2009). However, there were no comments on offensiveness regarding this strip in particular in
the survey answers while some comic strips, such as the first one, received comments on this.
In addition, only three people of those whose explanation corresponded the intended meaning
did not find it funny at all. This would imply that the survey respondents do not regard religious
topics that offensive or the chosen comic strip may also feature humor that is innocuous enough.
7.2.3. Comic Strip #3: Eggs
There are very few verbal elements in the third comic strip
(Figure 11). The last panel shows Irma picking up “free
range eggs” [sic]. Free-range eggs are produced by a chicken
that is “kept or raised in conditions where it may move
around freely” (OED, 2017). The first two panels show what
the compound word would literally mean: eggs from
chickens that truly have free range living in the nature. It is
a funny juxtaposition with the literal meaning and the
traditional meaning of the phrase. In the Finnish version, this
wordplay is even clearer: “vapaan kanan munia”, which
means literally eggs from free chickens.
According to the answers to Question 1, this comic strip was
the most difficult to understand out of the seven strips. As
can be seen in Table 5, only 19 out of 44 respondents (43%)
said that they understood this comic strip while the rest either
did not understand it at all (23%) or were not sure of the
meaning (34%).
Figure 11. Comic strip #3: Eggs (Jarla 2014: 11).
43
Table 5. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #3 (Eggs).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 3 5 1
Others 16 10 9
Total 19 15 10
19 respondents found the intended meaning for this comic strip. However, these were not
exclusively the 19 respondents who stated that they understood this comic strip in Question 1:
nine of these respondents either had a different interpretation or gave a vague reply or no
explanation. The understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #3 is presented in Table 6. One
of the respondents who stated that they did not understand the comic strip, provided the intended
meaning when asked the explanation for the comic strip. Hence, nine respondents did not
understand this comic strip at all.
Table 6. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic Strip #3 (Eggs).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
5 6 6 2 - 19
Different
interpretation
3 2 2 1 - 8
Unclear or no
explanation
5 - 2 1 - 8
No
understanding
6 2 1 - - 9
Total 19 10 11 4 - 44
There was some variation in the answers for the meaning of the comic strip. While many
recognized the wordplay in the term “free-range” and the contrasting of wild hens with farm
chickens that have enough space, there were also many different interpretations. A couple of
respondents thought that the wordplay was on the word “free”.
The chicken lays the egg for free in the range. The farmer picks it up for free.
Charges the customer money for what should be free. Pun on the word free. (E6)
This interpretation is plausible in the context as well. Other interpretations did not rely on a
pun. Two respondents explained that the joke is the woman stealing eggs from the chicken.
44
While there is someone stealing an egg and it is important to recognize, it is not the main point
of the joke. Furthermore, the character in the second and last panel is not the same one.
One respondent found irony in the comic strip in a comparison of human life and the fate of the
chicken and their eggs.
Chicken is appreciating the freedom of a nice view, and lays an egg, which is
hastily gathered and sold. I would call this irony, as most people dreaming of
freedom want to secure it for their children as well. (E4)
This is a rather complex but interesting interpretation. It is possible that the difficulties in
understanding the comic strip led to longer times in contemplating on the meaning which then
resulted in many different interpretations, some of them more complex than others. A couple
of respondents explained that this comic strip was difficult to understand because of the small
amount of text. Two other respondents explained that it was
difficult because they could not find the relation between the
first two pictures and the last one. This comic strip relied
heavily on both pictures and text and if the respondents could
not connect the two, the intended meaning remained lost on
the respondents.
The problems in understanding this comic strip appeared to
have carried over to the evaluations. Judging by the
respondents’ evaluations, this comic strip was the least funny
of the seven strips. As can be seen in Table 6, the comic strip
was mostly evaluated as either “Not funny”, “A little funny”
or “Somewhat funny”. Four respondents rated it as “Funny”
and no one found it “Very funny”. On a scale from 1 to 5, the
average rating for this comic strip was 2 and the average
rating among those who found some meaning, intended or
not, in the comic strip was 2.14. Thus, on an average this
comic strip was regarded only a little funny.
7.2.4. Comic Strip #4: Lotto
In the fourth comic strip (Figure 12), Heimo comes home and
asks how he did in the lotto, i.e. the lottery. Irma has checked
Figure 12. Comic strip #4:
Lotto (Jarla 2014: 76).
45
the numbers and answers that he only got one number right. However, her answer, “You got
seven right”, could be also interpreted as “You got all seven numbers right” which would mean
that he won the lottery.
This is an instance of syntactic ambiguity, more precisely ellipsis. The full version of the
sentence would be “You got the number seven right” but Irma says it in a more concise form
which allows the misinterpretation. As can be seen in the following table (Table 7), this comic
strip was clearly the easiest to understand among the seven strips: only three out of 44
respondents (7%) stated that they did not understand it. 41 respondents (93%) said that they
understood the strip.
Table 7. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #4 (Lotto).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 9 - -
Others 32 - 3
Total 41 - 3
36 out of the 41 respondents who answered that they understood the comic strip found the
intended meaning in the strip. 5 respondents either did not explain the comic strip at all or
provided an unclear answer. Table 8 demonstrates the understanding of the comic strip in
relation to the ratings it receiced.
Table 8. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #4 (Lotto).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
5 6 10 14 1 36
Different
interpretation
- - - - - -
Unclear or no
explanation
1 1 - 2 1 5
No
understanding
3 - - - - 3
Total 9 7 10 16 2 44
46
This comic strip also received a high appreciation rate as the most frequent evaluations were
“Somewhat funny” and “Funny”. One respondent even commented that the comic strips in
general should be more like this one. There were, however, also comment on this being too
basic and predictable. The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.89 and the average
rating when excluding the respondents who did not find any joke in this comic strip was 3.02.
According to this average, this was the most amusing comic strip in the questionnaire.
Only one of the respondents who did not understand the comic strip, gave an explanation for
why it was difficult to understand. This respondent (O34) explained that they are not familiar
with lotto and do not know how it functions. Lotto is a game where people have chosen numbers
and a certain amount of numbers is drawn to find a winner. In Finland, seven numbers are
drawn. Getting seven numbers right means that one wins it but getting only one number right
means losing. The understanding of the comic definitely requires some knowledge on lotto.
Furthermore, the respondents’ level of English skills may have affected the replies as well since
the respondents who did not understand the joke came from the group who did not have English
as their first language.
In addition, one respondent commented on the formulation of the comic strip.
The "other numbers were wrong" speech bubble is completely unnecessary. The
image is enough as a punchline in and of itself. (O16)
Although comic strips usually aim for avoiding redundance, here the verbal and visual elements
provide the same information. The important detail is repeated in both modes and hence, the
joke is spelled out for the reader.
47
7.2.5. Comic Strip #5: Yeast
The fifth comic strip (Figure 13) features Heimo in the café
with Rivo-Riitta, the coffee shop worker. The character of
Rivo-Riitta is known for rather vulgar humor, mostly of
sexual nature. In the comic strip, she and Heimo listen to the
TV where someone says that very hot water should not be
used when baking because yeast dies in a temperature of 40
degrees Celsius and over. Rivo-Riitta’s comment on going
to the sauna more often implies that she has candidiasis, a
vaginal yeast infection. She presumes that this will also “die”
in hot temperatures.
In the comic strip, the word “yeast” is polysemous: meaning
both the ingredient “used in the manufacture of beer and to
leaven bread” and “a fungus” (OED, 2017). The topic in this
comic strip also falls into the theme of sexuality which is
traditionally regarded as a taboo subject. Understanding
yeast as an infection is most likely the main challenge with
this joke, as one respondent noted as well.
it' not that easy, maybe not everyone knows about
candida being a yeast? (O28)
31 out of 44 respondents (70%) claimed that they understood the joke in the comic strip, 9
respondents (20%) were not sure of the meaning and 4 respondents (9%) stated that they did
not understand the joke. The answers to Question 1 are presented in Table 9.
Figure 13. Comic strip #5:
Yeast (Jarla 2014: 18).
48
Table 9. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #5 (Yeast).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 7 1 1
Others 24 8 3
Total 31 9 4
Almost half of the respondents, 21, found the intended meaning. These respondents’ answers
showed that they found the wordplay in “yeast”. Only four respondents had no understanding
of the joke. The appreciation varied greatly regarding this comic strip, as can be seen in the
following Table 10.
Table 10. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #5 (Yeast).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
3 6 3 7 2 21
Different
interpretation
3 3 1 2 1 10
Unclear or no
explanation
2 2 2 2 1 9
No
understanding
3 1 - - - 4
Total 11 12 6 11 4 44
The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.66 and the average rating for the
respondents who found a joke in the comic strip was 2.8. This comic strip was one of those
which divided people in the appreciation of the joke: there were high numbers of both low and
high ratings. This was seen in the comments as well: the comic was regarded both as “disgusting
and not humorous” (E3) and “funny and gross” (O23).
The ten respondents who interpreted the comic strip in a different way all stated that Rivo-Riitta
wanted to go to the sauna to lose weight.
The yeast is what make the cakes grow bigger. The man is fat so he thinks that
going to the sauna will make him not being fatter. (O1)
burning yeast is confused here with burning fat, which can be done in the sauna
(E8)
49
The first respondent has interpreted the comic this way on the basis of yeast’s function as a
leaven in baking. Thus, the similar ingredient in people will vanish in the sauna’s heat. Some
people thought that yeast was just confused with fat in the comic strip, as the latter example
shows. However, this interpretation of Rivo-Riitta wanting to lose weight was also regarded as
problematic.
I don't really understand how the yeast dying can help him (O26)
[It was difficult to understand] because yeast in german has nothing to do with
getting fat. (O27)
Furthermore, it was clearly difficult for the respondents to identify whether Rivo-Riitta is a
male or a female. The picture does show her name tag but understandably the Finnish name
Riitta may not have been of help to the respondents. Eight respondents mistook the character
Rivo-Riitta for a man. Another seven respondents referred to her in a somewhat vague manner,
for instance as a “person” or “baker”. One respondent expressed the confusion more plainly:
The barman inadvertently reveals that he (she?) has a yeast infection. (O19)
The outlook of the character is not very feminine and this fits the character. However, for the
new readers this may hinder their understanding of the comic strip and the joke may be less
successful. In fact, one respondent commented that the comic strip “would have been funnier
if the baker was a woman” (E6). The collection does, however, have an introduction to the
characters in the beginning which could have prevented this confusion.
One respondent noted that the understanding of this comic requires some culturally specific
information.
[The comic is] Easy [to understand], but with a proviso. I am an American living
in Finland, and I have had to learn to think in metric and Celsius, instead of
imperial units and Fahrenheit. Knowing which scale the degrees pertain to is
important to understanding this comic, as is knowing the basic temperature range
of a sauna. (E4)
The “degrees” in this comic strip pertain to Celsius and therefore, people unfamiliar with the
unit may find it difficult to understand the degrees. Furthermore, saunas are less common
outside of Finland and some people may not be that familiar with them.
50
7.2.6. Comic Strip #6: Hitler
The sixth comic strip (Figure 14) is a one-panel comic which portrays Adolf Hitler in an art
class.
Figure 14. Comic strip #6: Hitler (Jarla 2014: 181).
The presumed teacher of the class is mixing colors in a palette. Hitler cannot stand this because
he thinks that white should not be mixed with other colors. This alludes to his views on race
and white supremacy. It is known that Hitler pursued art before going to politics. This comic
strip presents a parodic view of the end of his career in arts. This comic is a parody but there is
also a wordplay with the word “white” which refers to both paint and race. It is an instance of
polysemy.
A high number of respondents stated that they understood this joke: 39 out of 44 (89%). Only
1 respondent (2%) was not sure of the meaning and 4 (9%) did not understand the joke. This
data is distributed to the two language groups in Table 11. All respondents with English as their
first language said that they understood the comic strip.
Table 11. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #6 (Hitler).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 9 - -
Others 30 1 4
Total 39 1 4
This comic strip provided no alternative interpretations, as can be seen in Table 12. As regards
appreciation, this comic strip received variation in ratings which are distributed quite evenly on
51
the scale from “Not funny” to “Very funny”. The overall average rating for this comic strip was
2.75 and the average rating when excluding those with no understanding of the joke in the
comic strip was 2.93.
Table 12. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #6 (Hitler).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
6 5 9 8 6 34
Different
interpretation
- - - - - -
Unclear or no
explanation
2 3 - 1 - 6
No
understanding
4 - - - - 4
Total 12 8 9 9 6 44
Distribution in appreciation most likely stems from the controversial nature of the topic. Adolf
Hitler and his politics are often deemed inappropriate material for humor; it is a taboo subject.
Five respondents noted that they found the joke to be in bad taste.
It isn't funny, but it is clever. I appreciate a sharp double meaning, but I have a
hard time laughing over the use of Hitler to further the concepts of white
supremacy, even as a joke. (E4)
There were also many respondents who did find this comic strip funny. In fact, it received the
highest number of “Very funny” ratings of all the comic strips. Thus, it is another topic that
divides people in a great degree.
Four respondents did not understand the comic strip. One wrote that it was difficult to
understand because of “backgrounds” (O2). Maybe these respondents were not as familiar with
Hitler and the history regarding him. One respondent commented that “Nein, nein” was difficult
to understand (O31). “Nein” is German and means no. It is assumed that readers have this basic
knowledge of German but understandably not everyone does. This also hinders the
understanding of the comic strip.
52
7.2.7. Comic Strip #7: Tom Cruise
The seventh and last comic strip (Figure 15) shows Heimo
reading a newspaper and talking to Irma. In the comic strip,
Heimo misinterprets that the headline “Tom Cruise is chased
by aliens” refers to a movie when it is actually a news article.
This alludes to the scientologist beliefs and strange
statements of the actor. The headline in the comic strip is
false but believable because of the mentioned actor. Tom
Cruise has also been in sci-fi movies and therefore the
headline could plausibly be talking about a movie as well. It
is difficult to distinguish whether this is an instance of parody
or allusion. It is not a similar imitation as the parodic comic
strip about Hitler (see Chapter 7.2.6.). It is not merely a
reference as the biblical reference in the example of an
allusion in Chapter 7.1. The comic strip refers to Tom Cruise
and creates a scenario which makes fun of him. In a sense, it
imitates news about the actor and therefore, I would
categorize it as a parody. It could, however, be a sort of
hybrid as well: a parodic allusion.
As can be seen in the following table (Table 13), 31 out of 44
respondents (70%) stated that they understood the comic
strip. 6 respondents (14%) were not sure of the meaning and
7 (16%) did not understand the comic strip.
Table 13. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #7 (Tom
Cruise).
Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?
Yes I’m not sure No
English L1 speakers 7 1 1
Others 24 5 6
Total 31 6 7
Figure 15. Comic strip #7:
Tom Cruise (Jarla 2014: 31).
53
The respondents whose first language was not English had more difficulty with understanding
this comic strip. This resulted most likely from the topic which revolves around the English-
speaking culture.
Table 14 illustrates the understanding in relation to appreciation. 36 respondents found some
meaning in the comic strip. Out of these respondents 18 explained the comic according to the
intended meaning, 10 found a different meaning in it and 8 gave either an unclear or no
explanation.
Table 14. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #7 (Tom Cruise).
Appreciation /
Understanding
Not funny A little
funny
Somewhat
funny
Funny Very funny Total
Intended
meaning
3 4 3 6 2 18
Different
interpretation
- 3 4 3 - 10
Unclear or no
explanation
3 4 1 1 - 9
No
understanding
5 1 1 - - 7
Total 11 12 9 10 2 44
The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.55 and the average rating when excluding
the respondents who had no understanding of this comic strip was 2.76.
Explanations categorized as the intended meaning were those that mentioned Tom Cruise and
his participation in Scientology as the main point of the joke. Some respondents interpreted the
comic strip as a satirical view on newspapers commenting on the level of absurdity of some
headlines and the reliability of media.
satire on newspapers today (E5)
Absurd news resembles more the sci-fi movie than the actual truth. (O21)
Commentary on media could well be an additional meaning to the joke. Some respondents who
mentioned Scientology also mentioned commentary on media in some form.
Tom Cruise is a Scientologist; the teachings of the Church of Scientology involves
belief in alien beings. Could also be referring to state of media reliability in
general, I suppose. (O24)
The explanations which included both interpretations were categorized in the “Intended
meaning” section. Because I found Cruise and his beliefs to be the principal reason behind the
54
joke, the explanations involving only media commentary were categorized as different
explanations. This was the prominent interpretation in the category.
This comic strip required some previous knowledge on Tom Cruise and his participation in
Scientology. Although he is a famous actor, not everyone knows him or the relevant information
to understand this joke. One respondent commented the following:
it's easy [to understand].. if you know all about scientology, xenu, and tom cruise.
Is that a lot? (O28)
This can definitely be a lot of required prior knowledge. Since media in some cultures are less
involved with news about American entertainment industry, people from these cultures may
not be familiar with Tom Cruise and especially his personal life. Reasons behind difficulties in
understanding the joke were not commented on much but I would assume the lack of knowledge
on the actor to be the main reason for not understanding this joke. One respondent noted as
follows:
I think the main difficulty to understand this comic strip are cultural differences
and norms. Each culture has its own style of humour. (O12)
As Jarla has mentioned in an interview, Finnish people enjoy humor that provides a challenge
(Österman, 2014). This could be an element of the style of humor that the Finnish enjoy but
people from some other cultures do not.
7.2.8. Summary and Discussion
This subchapter focuses on the overall reception of the Fingerpori comic strips: sum up the
main points regarding the reception of the set of comic strips and analyze the answers to the
last question in the survey (What did you think about the themes the comic strips cover?).
The understanding of the Fingerpori comic strips varied greatly. Some of the comic strips were
much easier to understand than others and this showed in the questionnaire responses. The
easiest joke was in the fourth comic strip (Lotto) which relied on a semantic ambiguity. Only
three respondents did not understand the joke, the remaining 41 respondents stated that they did
understand it. Conversely, the third comic strip (Eggs) proved the most difficult: 19 respondents
claimed that they understood the joke, 15 were not sure of the meaning and 10 did not find any
joke in the comic strip. However, after inspecting the respondents’ explanations for the jokes,
another challenging joke was found in the first comic strip (Gay adoption). While 29
respondents claimed to have understood the joke, only 17 respondents explained it according
55
to the intended meaning. 19 respondents found the intended meaning in the third comic strip
(Eggs).
Problems in understanding the humor in the Fingerpori comic strips often stemmed from the
respondents’ lack of background knowledge which was caused by their different cultural
backgrounds. For instance, the second comic strip (Jesus) was challenging for the respondents
who were not familiar with Christian mythology. This was discovered in Keskisaari’s (2007)
research as well: the more culture-specific the comics were the harder they were to understand.
Other reasons behind the problems in understanding the Fingerpori comic strips included the
lack of background knowledge on the comic strip series and its characters as well as linguistic
challenges, for example finding the different meanings for “yeast” in the fifth comic strip
(Yeast).
In addition to the text, the visual elements are an important aspect in the comic strips. The
pictures were central in understanding the context and situation of each comic strip. Mostly the
pictures themselves appeared to have been quite easy to understand and the problems arose
from the respondents’ lack of background knowledge. However, many respondents thought that
the character Rivo-Riitta, who is featured in the fifth comic strip (Yeast), was a man when the
character is actually a woman. In this case, the misinterpretation of the picture affected the
respondents’ understanding and appreciation of the humor in the comic strip. One respondent
even commented that the joke would work better if the character was a woman. More
frequently, however, the lack of background or linguistic knowledge made the understanding
of the comic strips difficult. All of these problems sometimes led to various interpretations of
one comic strip.
The first comic strip (Gay adoption) developed the highest number of differing interpretations.
13 respondents’ explanations differed from the intended meaning. The fifth (Yeast) and seventh
comic strip (Tom Cruise) were both interpreted in a different way as opposed to the intended
meaning by ten respondents, the third comic strip (Eggs) in turn by eight respondents. However,
instead of many unique views on the jokes, there were usually one or two prevalent alternative
interpretations. The third comic strip (Eggs) was the only one that did not develop a prevalent
alternative interpretation but several differing views. The differing interpretations received
varied ratings as did the comic strips in general. Thus, the different interpretations did not affect
the appreciation of the comic strips to a great degree. Again, this effect was noticed by
Keskisaari (2007) as well: the different interpretations received varying ratings too. Sometimes
56
the respondent may have interpreted a comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing
nevertheless.
On average, the Fingerpori comic strips did not receive very high ratings. As can be seen in
Table 15, the average ratings for the comic strips concentrated between 2 and 3, “A little funny”
and “Somewhat funny”. Two average ratings are presented for each comic strip: the overall
average rating and the average rating when excluding the respondents who did not find any
joke, intended or not, in the comic strip. In the following discussion, I will refer to the overall
average ratings of the comic strips. However, the second average ratings in the table illustrate
the appreciation of the humor in Fingerpori comic strips when some meaning was found in
them. The respondents who found no meaning in a comic strip tended to rate it “Not funny”
and thus their ratings lower the overall average rating.
Table 15. The average ratings for all seven comic strips.
Rating
Comic strip
Overall
average
rating
Average
rating 2*
1. Gay adoption 2.25 2.59
2. Jesus 2.41 2.82
3. Eggs 2 2.14
4. Lotto 2.89 3.02
5. Yeast 2.66 2.8
6. Hitler 2.75 2.93
7. Tom Cruise 2.55 2.76
*Excluding respondents who did not find any joke in the comic strip
The fourth comic strip (Lotto) received the highest average rating of all the comic strips, 2.89,
and the third comic strip (Eggs) received the lowest average rating, 2. The ease or difficulty in
understanding the humor was clearly an important factor since the easiest strip received the
highest appreciation rate and the most difficult one received the lowest. The fourth comic strip
(Lotto) did well in the questionnaire because it was easy to understand and it did not offend
anyone. The third comic strip (Eggs) was also inoffensive. However, this comic strip was found
challenging and respondents had trouble understanding the joke which was a play on the word
“free-range”.
57
Although the fourth comic strip (Lotto) received the highest average rating, only two
respondents evaluated the comic strip as very funny. The comic strip with the highest number
of “Very funny” ratings, six in total, was the sixth comic strip (Hitler). The topic of this comic
strip, Adolf Hitler, is a controversial one in humor and this showed in the ratings it received as
they distributed quite evenly on the scale. In addition to a high number of “Very funny” ratings,
it received quite many “Not funny” ratings, 12 in total. “Very funny” ratings were scarce in the
questionnaire answers and in this sample of respondents, women were more likely to give the
top rating. For instance, four out of the six respondents who rated the sixth comic strip (Hitler)
as “Very funny” were female. Otherwise the responses hardly presented any patterns for any
specific group. A few of the comic strips were easier to understand for the respondents who had
English as their first language but this was most likely due to their higher level of English
knowledge compared to the other respondents as well as their cultural background. They may
have had more background information for some of the comic strips, for instance the seventh
strip which involved the American actor Tom Cruise.
After the questions on the seven comic strips, the respondents were asked for their thoughts on
the themes featured in the comic strips. The questionnaire included comics with varied topics:
some required more cultural knowledge than others and some featured themes that can be
controversial in a humorous context. 19 respondents gave a very evaluative answer to this
question. Nine of these respondents expressed enjoyment of the humor and themes, such as in
the following comment:
Lovely word jokes and joking on sensitive topics on an acceptable way. (O14)
Six respondents were more neutral; they commented that they enjoyed some of the jokes while
some others they did not. Four respondents clearly did not like the comic strips. Only one of
these respondents disliked them on the account of offensiveness, two found the comic strips too
bland and one did not specify a reason.
Mixed bag. I liked some, and some did nothing for me. (E4)
They were offensive, in bad taste, and just not funny. (E3)
Other comments were less evaluative and more descriptive of the themes. The topics were
described, amongst other things, as “more or less sensitive” (O6), “general and universal” (O8)
and “common for Internet comics” (O16). The respondents also found that some of the themes
required some knowledge on, for instance, pop culture and religion.
One respondent noted the importance of the context of a joke.
58
I think these (LGBT+, religion, occasional dirty joke, modern culture) are the
themes I usually joke around with my friends. The funny thing is that even though
I would definitely make a "yeast" joke among friends, it's hard to stomach for me
in the cartoon, while some of the jokes for me feel like too old and well known to
bother with (number 7, "where would we put the gay man"). (O20)
For this respondent, a dirty joke is not as funny in a comic strip as it is among friends. This is
an interesting notion and it is difficult to point out the exact reason behind this: is it the visual
element of the comic strip that affects the appreciation of the joke, or maybe the familiarity of
the friend group makes the topic of the joke acceptable. Nevertheless, this shows the importance
of context in the reception of a joke.
One respondent (O15) did not note the themes in any way but commented on the English of the
comic strips, claiming that it could be better. The respondents were aware of the comic strips
being translations since it was mentioned in the survey invitation. There were a few comments
on the translations in the earlier questions as well. Because the main aim of this analysis was
not necessarily to evaluate the translations, these comments were analyzed only if the content
seemed substantial to the understanding of the comic strip.
The three Fingerpori comic strips that had taboo topics received varied ratings. Especially the
ratings for the fifth comic strip (Yeast), which had a joke about yeast infection, and the sixth
comic strip (Hitler), which parodied Adolf Hitler, distributed quite evenly towards both ends of
the scale. The themes of these comic strips were also commented on: some respondents found
them gross or offensive. The second comic strip (Jesus), which parodied Jesus, did not receive
any comments on offensiveness and was then perhaps found less offensive. However, the first
comic strip (Gay adoption), whose theme had not been categorized as a taboo in this study, did
receive comments on offensiveness. It does mention a controversial topic, sexual minorities,
and some respondents probably interpreted it to be joking on the account of gay people. The
comments on these themes and the varied ratings indicate that the topics, with the exception of
religion, continue to be controversial. The status of religion as a taboo topic may have started
to disappear. However, since this is such a small sample of respondents and comic strips, it
cannot be known for certain. A wider reception study could illuminate the situation more.
The appreciation of jokes on these sensitive topics and humor as a whole depends heavily on
people’s personal backgrounds and preferences. Sense of humor is a highly individual trait and
this was one of the most important factors behind the differences in the appreciation of the jokes
in the Fingerpori comic strips. It could be presumed that some humor devices in comic strips
may be more effective than others and with a set of comic strips that feature more humor
59
techniques, the appreciation of the various devices could be studied. The present reception study
focused on the understanding and appreciation of the humor in the Fingerpori comic strips more
generally and thus the questionnaire utilized here could be modified for various more specific
research questions.
60
8. Conclusion
Comics are multimodal texts, which rely on the interplay of text and pictures. Even the humor
in this medium is often realized through the co-operation of these two elements. The Fingerpori
comic strips are a good example of a humorous comic strip that utilizes the two elements in this
manner. However, the relations of these two elements vary. Sometimes they can complement
each other and sometimes one of them is the primary mode with the other one supporting the
message of the other. The reader is in an important role as they interpret the relation of the two
elements.
The recognition of humor in comic strips depends on the reader. This also means that the
success of humor depends on the reader. The Fingerpori comic strips are read by a wide
audience in Finland and they are vastly popular. In 2014 a collection of the comic strips was
translated and published in English which means that the comics became available for a much
wider audience. The aim of this study was to examine the new readership’s understanding and
appreciation of the Fingerpori comic strips. For this purpose, a reception study was conducted
which involved an online questionnaire for non-Finnish speaking respondents. In addition to
the reception study, the humor techniques in the translated collection of Fingerpori comic strips,
Fingerpori from Finland (2014) were analyzed to provide a better understanding of the humor
in the comic strip series.
Wordplay is the most frequently utilized humor technique in the Fingerpori comic strips. The
wordplays tend to derive from an incongruity: a word or phrase is assigned a meaning that
differs from the conventional one, for instance a literal instead of a metaphorical meaning. Often
the pictures reveal the true meaning of a character’s line and this revelation produces the humor.
The number of comic strips that utilize wordplay is slightly lower in the translated collection
than in the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips (54% vs. 61%). This was found by comparing the
frequencies of humor techniques in the translated collection to Vilenius’ (2011) findings on the
Finnish Fingerpori comic strips. However, while polysemy was the most popular type of
wordplay in the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips, in the translated collection it was second to
syntactic ambiguity which plays with sentence structures instead of single words. This probably
resulted from the translatability of the different humor techniques. Wordplay utilizing syntactic
ambiguity may have been easier to translate than wordplay based on polysemous words. The
Fingerpori comic strips feature other humor devices as well. Sometimes the comic strips do not
include any text in which case the humor may derive from the situation or sign-play. A popular
device was especially parody which often utilizes both verbal and visual elements. However,
61
this humor technique benefits especially from the visual element of comic strips which makes
it easier for the reader to recognize the subject of parody.
In addition to the translated collection of Fingerpori comic strips, the research material included
44 respondents’ answers to the online questionnaire. The questionnaire included seven comic
strips which produced varying results in understanding and appreciation. The biggest reason
behind the ease and difficulty in understanding the Fingerpori comic strips and the differences
in the appreciation of the jokes was most likely the various backgrounds of the respondents.
Some may have lacked some cultural information essential for understanding a joke and some
respondents’ knowledge of English may have not sufficed. In addition, the respondents have
different personal backgrounds and most likely appreciate different kinds of humor. Some may
not enjoy the humor typical of Fingerpori.
All in all, the comic strips did not receive very high ratings: on the scale from 1 to 5, the average
appreciation rates concentrated between the ratings 2 and 3, “A little funny” and “Somewhat
funny”. The fourth comic strip (Lotto) received the highest average rating, 2.89. This comic
strip was also the easiest to understand and as opposed to some of the comic strips, it was
inoffensive. The third comic strip (Eggs) received the lowest average rating, 2, and conversely
with the fourth comic strip this was clearly the most difficult one to understand. This comic
strip was also inoffensive but the difficulties in understanding the humor made it the least
successful one out of the set. The reception study thus showed a distinct link between the
understanding and appreciation of the comic strips.
The comic strips were sometimes interpreted differently than intended but as with the intended
meaning these interpretations received varying ratings as well. This same result was also
previously found by Keskisaari (2007) in his MA thesis. For instance, a respondent might have
interpreted a comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing nevertheless.
The appreciation rates varied especially for some of the more sensitive topics. The taboo topics
divided the respondents. However, the second comic strip (Jesus) which involved a religious
joke appeared to have been found less offensive out of the three comic strips with taboo topics.
It received no comments on offensiveness and did not receive noticeably low ratings. Hence,
the status of religion as a taboo topic may be disappearing but it cannot be known for sure from
this a small sample of respondents. The other two comic strips with taboo topics received
comments on offensiveness or grossness and their ratings tended to concentrate to both ends of
the appreciation scale. The comic strips with taboo topics received more top ratings than the
62
comic strip with the best average rating. The sixth comic strip (Hitler), which parodied Adolf
Hitler, was the one that received the highest number of “Very funny” ratings out of the seven
comic strips. However, these comic strips were also disliked by many respondents and this
lowered their average rating. In addition to the three comic strips with taboo topics, the first
comic strip (Gay adoption) also received comments on offensiveness even though it had not
been classified as a taboo topic. This comic strip did mention sexual minorities and it may have
been interpreted to be joking at their expense by some respondents.
Comic strips can be described as short and simple but still the interpretations of them can be
increasingly varied. Readers have different ideas of the world and different strengths and
weaknesses in knowledge. As Chiaro (2006: 205) has noted, unsuccessful humor (and naturally
successful humor as well) can depend on the quality of translation as well as on culture-specific
presuppositions. The latter factor was especially evident in this reception study. It may also
affect the translation process since translators need to take the readers of the translation into
consideration. The readers of the English Fingerpori collection are most likely diverse, as were
the respondents in this reception study. This means that sometimes the references in the comic
strips may be too culture-specific for some of the readers to understand especially since some
of the topics revolve around the Western culture, for instance Christianity. These topics may
not be as well-known to readers from other parts of the world. Thus, the status of English as
such a wide spread language and a lingua franca causes a challenge for translators and they may
need to leave out some culture-specific references as well as opt for words and phrases that are
easy to understand for a wide audience. In the translation of the Fingerpori comic strips, there
seems to have been a pursuit for relatively simple language. However, this does partly originate
from the style of the original as well.
The results of this study illustrate the field of humor reception. Because of the wide target group,
the findings cannot be all-encompassing. However, they already show how varied the
interpretations and evaluations of the humor in the short gag strips can be. The multiplicity of
the medium and the humor in it would definitely merit further research. A wider sample of
respondents as well as a more focused research question could allow for new and interesting
findings.
63
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