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Humor, Education and Art

El humor, la educación y el arte

The history of music, literature, theater, dance, and painting reflects an interest in humor. From the Greeks, tragedy and comedy were two sides of the same coin that reflected the psychic world of the human being. The same can be said of literature, with works as magnificent as Don Quixote, in which through satire the value of books is questioned and, in this sense, of knowledge itself; or that Candide of Voltaire, in which the criticism of philosophy is mixed with the finest black humor and a particular pedagogical attitude... The list is extensive. In this third volume of the series Humor: transdisciplinary approaches, edited by Ediciones UCC, these close links are reflected, from the analysis of exaggerated stage performances of clowns to the analysis of universal and regional literary works. This volume also includes a fundamental theme: education. Can humor facilitate teaching processes? Is it possible that it works as a facilitator for teaching a second language or other school learning processes? How do humorous acts show the most important features of a culture and help transmit them from one generation to another? The reader will find a variety of topics that combine, culture, education, art and humor from a scientific perspective.

La historia de la música, de la literatura, del teatro, de la danza y de la pintura, refleja un interés por el humor. Desde los griegos, la tragedia y la comedia eran dos caras de una misma moneda que reflejaba el mundo psíquico del ser humano. Lo mismo se puede decir de la literatura, con obras tan magníficas como el Quijote, en la que a través de la sátira se pone en entredicho el valor de los libros y, en este sentido, del conocimiento mismo; o ese Cándido de Voltaire, en el que la crítica a la filosofía se mezcla con el más fino humor negro y una particular actitud pedagógica... La lista es extensa. En este tercer volumen de la serie Humor: aproximaciones transdisciplinares, editada por Ediciones UCC, se reflejan estos vínculos tan estrechos, desde el análisis de las puestas escénicas exageradas de los payasos, hasta el análisis de obras literarias universales y regionales. También este volumen recoge un tema fundamental: la educación. ¿Puede el humor facilitar los procesos de enseñanza? ¿Es posible que funcione como un facilitador para la enseñanza de una segunda lengua o de otros procesos de aprendizaje escolar? ¿De qué manera los actos humorísticos evidencian los rasgos más importantes de una cultura y ayuda a transmitirlos de una generación a otra? El lector encontrará una variedad de temas que combinan, la cultura, la educación, el arte y el humor desde una óptica científica.

Jacqueline Benadives Delgado is a psychologist from the Universidad de los Andes; she holds a master’s degree in Child Protection from the Universidad del País Vasco and a PhD degree in Psychology from the Universidad del Valle. Research leader of the Boulomai Group of the Psychology program at the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia. Director of the Human Development Research Line. Author of the Child Sexual Abuse Self-Protection Program, which won the second prize in the World Bank seed project contest in 2004. Coordinator of the Certificate Course in Childhood: Historical, Social and Psychological Perspective. Visiting Professor of the Master’s in Comprehensive Development of Children and Teenagers of the Psychology program at the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia in Santa Marta.

Jacqueline Benadives Delgado es psicóloga de la Universidad de los Andes, Máster en Protección Infantil de la Universidad del País Vasco y Doctora en Psicología de la Universidad del Valle. Líder de investigación del Grupo Boulomai del Programa de Psicología de la Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia. Directora de la Línea de Investigación de Desarrollo Humano. Autora del Programa de Auto-Protección contra el Abuso Sexual Infantil, el cual obtuvo el segundo premio en el concurso de proyectos Semilla del Banco Mundial, en el 2004. Coordinadora del Diplomado de Infancia y Niñez: Perspectiva Histórica, Social y Psicológica. Profesora invitada de la Maestría de Desarrollo Integral de Niños y Adolescentes del Programa de Psicología de la Sede de Santa Marta de la Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia.

Humor, Education and Art

El humor, la educación y el arte

Jaqueline Benavides Delgado

(Editor)

Specialist in Editorial Production (research journals), Andrés Felipe Andrade Cañón

Printed in Bogotá, Colombia. Legal deposit according to the Decreee 460 de 1995

Mira, luego piensa: microsociología, filosofía y el fenómeno del humor visual interactivo

Humor, like language, is a distinctly human characteristic, hence its relevance, transcendence and peculiarity. Linked to but different from laughter, humor seems to be an achievement of evolution. Everything suggests that, within the evolutionary process of homo sapiens, humor constituted the ability to understand the minds of others, get perspective, and join a social group. The use of humor in society involved the symbolic and cognitive development that is required to comprehend incongruity, a fundamental element in understanding humor.

These first traces of humor anchored in evolution multiplied with the cognitive, artistic, religious, cultural and political explosion of the progress of humanity. Humor was naturally connected with social changes, epistemological debates, philosophical thought, war, revolutions, child development, and everyday life. This impending presence of humor in the lives of people throughout history was the first motivation of this publishing project. The second one was my doctoral dissertation that dealt with humor in children. With the continuous support of the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia Press, the most nationally- and internationally-recognized authors were invited to participate in this initiative.

The response was surprising, and the result materialized in this series that we introduce today. Its title is very eloquent, Humor y perspectivas transdiciplinares [Humor and Transdisciplinary Perspectives] since it brings together many disciplines around a single theme. The aim of the series is to make visible the work of many researchers in the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities and arts whose subject matter has been humor. Very few works have gathered so many researchers from different countries and fields of knowledge around humor in the Spanish and English languages.

In this sense, this series is a very novel initiative. It is not a publication to laugh; rather, it is a compilation that shows the diversity of the theme. Humor as a political weapon, as a cathartic mechanism, as a way of understanding cognitive development, as an achievement of evolution, and as a way of expressing the change of time and culture. Thus, Humor y perspectivas transdiciplinares is enriched by the diverse views of professors and researchers from more than fifteen countries, including Israel, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, England, France, India, Iran, Chile, Denmark, Spain, the United States, and Colombia.

In order to group the texts according to clearly identifiable thematic lines, three books were compiled. The first one, Humor y política, una perspectiva transcultural [Humor and Politics, a Transcultural Perspective], is based on the idea that humor, in any of its expressions, has the power to influence social or cultural political processes, as well as individual processes at the psychological level. It also suggests that this influence is reciprocal because humor can influence the individual or society, but society and the individual can in turn influence the expressions of humor. In this sense, the book reveals the influence of humor as a political weapon and driving force of cultural and social change.

The second book, Filosofía y psicología del humor [Philosophy and Psychology of Humor], approaches the philosophical view of humor from classic studies and connects with the advances in psychology. Consequently, many of the chapters focus on children, their development, and the understanding and production of forms of humor associated with psychological processes such as understanding other minds. Humor in other social and educational spaces are also part of this in-depth analysis and its influence on learning, leadership, and community formation.

The third book, El humor, la educación y el arte [Humor, Education and Art], shows us another facet: arts and humor. Much literature and other artistic expressions have been based on human aspects of exaggeration or contrast that produce laughter. In addition, the humor reflected from satire and irony is and has been a powerful weapon of social mobilization, through verbal and non-verbal communication.

Therefore, the reader interested in humor may not find in these books reasons to laugh, but he will definitely find reasons to think about the power of humor in our lives, the history of humanity, and our societies.

Humour serves a variety of crucial social functions, from reinforcing bonds with allies to dealing with adversaries. Unfortunately, humour in a second language (L2) can be extremely challenging, even for advanced learners. There is also a lack of research in L2 humour instruction. To build humour competence, teachers must help learners in four interrelated areas: employing humour microskills, locating the point of a joke or humorous comment, dealing with masking devices that obscure the point, and applying sociocultural knowledge. Concerning the first three challenges, this chapter reports the results of a small-scale empirical study on humour competence acquisition with lower and higher proficiency English Language Learners (Ells). Ells exhibited improved humour recognition —locating the point of a joke despite masking devices—, that involved five humour microskill areas, —hyperbole, irony, misdirection, ambiguity, and banter— when provided instruction on these microskills. The instruction was straightforward, consisting of explicit teaching of the microskills.

Keywords: English as second language, Humour, Humour instruction, Language pedagogy, Second language acquisition.

El humor cumple una gran variedad de funciones sociales cruciales: desde reforzar los vínculos con los aliados hasta lidiar con adversarios. Desafortunadamente, entender el humor en un segundo idioma (L2) puede ser extremadamente desafiante, incluso para los estudiantes avanzados. También hay una falta de investigación en la instrucción del humor a un L2. Para desarrollar la competencia del humor, los maestros deben ayudar a los alumnos en cuatro áreas interrelacionadas: emplear microhabilidades de humor, identificar el centro de una broma o comentario humorístico, tratar con dispositivos de enmascaramiento que ocultan dicho centro y aplicar el conocimiento sociocultural. Con respecto a los tres primeros desafíos, este capítulo muestra los resultados de un estudio empírico a pequeña escala sobre la adquisición de competencias de humor con estudiantes de inglés de mayor y menor competencia. Los estudiantes mostraron un mejor reconocimiento del humor —ubicación del centro de una broma, a pesar de los dispositivos de enmascaramiento— que involucró cinco áreas de microhabilidades en este campo —hipérbole, ironía, desorientación, ambigüedad y bromas—, cuando recibieron una orientación en este sentido. La orientación fue sencilla y consistió en la enseñanza explícita de las microhabilidades.

Palabras clave: inglés como segundo idioma, humor, orientación de humor, pedagogía del idioma, aprendizaje de un segundo idioma.

Doctorate in linguistics, Masters in English, Associate Professor in the Department of English, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States.

Wulf, D. J. (2019). Developing Second-language Humour Competence. In J. Benavides Delgado. (Ed.), Humor, Education and Art (pp. 11-51). Bogotá, Colombia: Ediciones Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia.

Teaching the comprehension and use of humour in a second language (L2) can seem daunting. L2 humour is often extremely challenging for learners, even at advanced levels of proficiency. Tocalli-Beller and Swain (2007) note, “Second language humour has […] earned the reputation of being ‘unteachable’ —and even unnecessary and frivolous—, prompting second language teachers to shun its inclusion in the curriculum.” However, they add, “[…] life is imbued with humour and students are bound to encounter it” (p. 149).

However, the issue goes beyond just possibly missing out on a good laugh. Lack of L2 humour competence has the potential to put an individual at a disadvantage socially and psychologically. Hay (2000) surveys the literature on the personal and social functions that humour plays in human interactions, locating three major functions. Humour is used to wield power —such as in conflict situations—, to defend oneself and cope psychologically, and to express solidarity with others. It is therefore plausible that low L2 humour proficiency might leave an L2 speaker, relative to native speakers, less powerful, less able to defend himself/herself and cope, and less equipped to forge strong relationships. Thus, competence with humour is neither unnecessary nor frivolous, and a lack of humour competence really is no joke!

Developing L2 humour competence could also plausibly empower an L2 learner, bolstering what Guiora et al. (1972) term the language ego —sense of worth, self-esteem, and self-efficacy— and what Norton (2013) calls identity —sense of integration into one’s social world—. Because of the importance of humour in communication, Vega (1989) argues that humour competence is one component of overall communicative competence, a claim Attardo (1994) regards as “not controversial” (p. 211).

Still, to what extent can L2 humour competence, as a component of communicative competence, be taught? Does L2 humour truly deserve the reputation of being unteachable? Certainly more research is needed. Strawhorn (2014) highlights “the dearth of literature associated with explicit humour instruction in the classroom” (p. 9). However, some studies do exist, including Morain (1991), Tocalli-Beller (2005), Tocalli-Beller and Swain (2007), and Valencia Cabrera (2008). See also the survey of scholarship in Bell and Pomerantz (2015).

The teaching task for L2 humour can perhaps be roughly analysed as consisting of four closely interrelated component challenges. To begin with, it should be noted that telling scripted jokes —“canned” jokes— versus spontaneously employing conversational humour are not identical skills. Whereas the study of joke texts is extensive, comparatively less research has been done on conversational humour. Even so, an ability to converse humorously with others is plausibly of more value socially than an ability to repeat scripted jokes. That said, scripted jokes and conversational humour also seem to share certain characteristics. As discussed in Wulf (2010), there is plausibly a set of fundamental microskills that, if developed, could lead to improvement of the larger macroskill of dealing with conversational humour and joke texts. I label specific skills used to deal with conversational humour, scripted jokes, or both as humour microskills, and identify the teaching of humour microskills in the L2 as the first of the four teaching challenges.

Understanding humour crucially hinges on successfully identifying its point. An L2 learner must first realize that there exists a point to be found, and then they must find it. Needing to have the point of a joke or humorous comment explained can often dampen or destroy any real enjoyment of the humour involved. The point of a joke is often analysed as the resolution or justification of some form of incongruity. See, for example, Martin (2000) for a discussion of the incongruity theory of humour. Many humour microskills clearly involve how we encode or decode humorous points in language. Thus, the second challenge is to help L2 learners apply humour microskills to identifying the point of a joke or humorous comment.

However, as Attardo et al. (2002) indicate, the point is often hidden through masking devices. For example, Raskin (1985) notes that the most pervasive masking device is deliberate verbal ambiguity. Additionally, humour can be made less obvious through figurative language, such as hyperbole and irony, perhaps best regarded as comedic devices. In addition, humour can be seen to fall into various recurring patterns, including conversational patterns, such as teasing, verbal retorts, and banter. Masking devices, comedic devices, and humour patterns can all potentially be treated as separate humour microskills to be taught explicitly. Taxonomies of masking devices and the like have been advanced in the literature, including Hay (2000), Attardo et al. (2002), and Wulf (2010). Such taxonomies could guide L2 humour microskill instruction. Although masking devices make humorous points less obvious, the humour is still retrievable by those with humour competence. The third challenge is therefore to help L2 learners develop proficiency in dealing with masking devices and related phenomena. Of course, even the most humorously competent of native speakers sometimes fail to get a joke, so we would not expect L2 learners to achieve some theoretically perfect humour competence either.

Lastly, identifying the point is often made more difficult due to allusions in humour to detailed sociocultural knowledge, such as politics or popular culture, which can perhaps be unfamiliar to an L2 learner. In order to comprehend and employ humour that relies on sociocultural information, L2 learners would need to be made more aware of the L2 society and culture, and also how that society and culture laughs at itself. In addition, sense of humour not only differs from individual to individual, but also from language to language, culture to culture, and society to society. Applying sociocultural information in humour is the fourth teaching challenge.

Raskin (1985) indicates that a speaker and hearer have a finite number of scripts —depictions of some sort— available to them to use as a foundation for the construction of humour. For example, the DOCTOR script would be an understanding of what kinds of things typically happen when a person visits the doctor. A speaker can generate humour by introducing an incongruous element into an established script. Concerning scripts, Raskin notes, “These are determined by their individual experiences and especially their shared experience … and are selected from the larger set available again to their society” (p. 129). Since some scripts are not universal but are instead socioculturally specific —scripts associated with politics in that society—, an L2 speaker will inevitably have fewer scripts in common with native speakers than native speakers have in common with each other, putting the L2 speaker at a disadvantage whenever humour employs scripts that are socioculturally specific.

Despite this, just as it is a language teacher’s task to teach the L2 irrespective of a student’s L1, the teacher can also teach the specific sociocultural knowledge associated with the L2. Along with this, the sense of humour associated with that L2 would also be a valid and useful subject for instruction. Even if the sense of humour of the L2 society and culture is not to the liking of an L2 learner, this humour is what the learner will encounter in the L2, so it is necessary to be able to recognize it and respond to it in an effective way.

Although teaching sociocultural knowledge is thus quite relevant, this study focuses instead on L2 humour microskill instruction and how this relates to locating humorous points despite the use of masking/comedic devices. To this end, I conducted a small-scale study of the L2 humour competence of English language learners (Ells) in comparison with that of native speakers for five humour microskills. The five microskills investigated were hyperbole —saying something that is basically correct, but exaggerating it to make it ridiculous—, irony —using the opposite expression, usually with hyperbole—, misdirection —deliberately leading others astray—, ambiguity —where there are two possible meanings, and one is ridiculous—, and banter —having a humorous conversation in which one person says something silly, and the other says another silly comment related to the first—.

The study found that Ells exhibit lower humour proficiency in English relative to native speakers of English in terms of recognizing the points in humorous items whose interpretation relies on the use of these five microskills. However, it was also discovered that their humour proficiency was amenable to positive change via brief, straightforward instruction that taught these microskills both deductively —providing explanations— and inductively —presenting further examples of the patterns and challenging L2 learners to identify the humour—. Thus, there is evidence that at least some aspects of L2 humour are indeed teachable through very ordinary pedagogical approaches.

Humour is a vastly diverse and complicated phenomenon, so it is not feasible to investigate how L2 learners deal with humour comprehensively via a single study. Any study must necessarily be limited, such as by examining only verbal humour and not non-verbal —visual— humour. Nonetheless, looking at a specific subset of humour can still be informative. This study considers just five specific humour microskills and measures proficiency with them. Then, after those microskills are explicitly taught, the proficiency of study participants with them is again measured. Any positive result would help dispel the notion that L2 humour cannot be taught.

To a great extent, humour microskills must be examined separately even when, in actual use, humour often combines them. To illustrate, consider the humorous headline Politicians Need A Vaccine That Prevents ‘Foot-In-Mouth Disease’ (Miller, 2015). A great deal of diverse information must be integrated to fully appreciate this headline. First, there is the universal understanding that making an embarrassing gaffe can damage a politician’s career. Second, it could be important to be aware of particular politicians who have notably made gaffes recently. Finally, it is necessary to be familiar with the expressions put your foot in your mouth and foot-in-mouth disease and see how the two expressions have been merged with linguistic creativity. A gaffe can damage a politician’s career as badly as a serious illness can damage someone physically. Thus, although Schmitz (2002) categorizes jokes into those that are reality-based —universal—, culture-based, and linguistic, it is possible for a joke to combine all three.

In his categorization of humour, Schmitz (2002) is primarily concerned with scripted —“canned”— jokes, rather than conversational humour. An example of a canned joke is “A Roman walks into a bar, sticks two fingers up making a V, and says, ‘Five beers please!’” The conversational context for stating a canned joke might be to preface it with “I heard a good joke the other day […]” However, reciting canned jokes does not necessarily build proficiency in adding humorous comments within a conversation. Admittedly, canned jokes can sometimes be delivered in a more conversational way. For example, in ordering five drinks, someone could say, “Of course, if I were a Roman, I would order five drinks this way” holding up two fingers in a V, thus combining verbal and visual humour conversationally.

There are therefore indeed elements common to canned jokes and conversational humour. Whereas scripted jokes involve reciting a prepared joke text that contains a humorous point, conversational humour involves kidding around, teasing, being witty, being silly, and other conversational patterns that also contain humorous points. As far as prepared narratives go, instead of learning how to recount joke texts, it would probably be more socially valuable for L2 learners to practice recounting humorous personal anecdotes, the kind that can be introduced with, for example, “There was a ridiculous misunderstanding at the office the other day […]”.

As we know, the central feature of a joke or humorous comment is its point. In producing humour, the speaker is making a humorous point, and in comprehending humour, the goal is to get the point. As noted, in many analyses of humour, the point is the resolution or justification of some sort of incongruity. Raskin (1985) describes the point of a joke as involving overlapping scripts —depictions of some sort— that are in opposition. For example, the script of holding up a number of fingers to indicate a specific number can be put in opposition with the script of what the Roman numeral five looks like visually. This joke thus depicts an incongruous situation. In addition, most typically, the point of verbal humour is deliberately made obscure in some way. As Attardo et al. (2002) note, “Most jokes employ a masking or justification […] of the incongruity” (p. 4). Producing verbal humour can thus be compared to crafting small linguistic puzzles, and getting the point of the humour involves solving those puzzles.

As incongruity theory indicates, humour arises from the juxtaposition of the expected and the unexpected. In a sense, to understand humour in the L2, learners must be able to expect the unexpected, so to speak. That is, they must expect to encounter incongruities serving as the points of jokes or humorous comments. Further, learners must be able to locate these unexpected elements even if hidden via deliberate masking devices, such as intentional misdirection. Much more can obviously be said about this and other theories underlying the production and perception of humour, but my purpose is not to explore humour theory deeply. Rather, I aim to investigate whether and to what extent it may be possible to teach Ells to get the point of humour by giving them practice with specific humour microskills involved in unmasking and understanding humour.

Thus, as a first step in studying L2 humour competence, it is valuable to investigate the proficiency of L2 learners at getting the point. Although we are also interested in teaching the production of humour in the L2, the receptive ability seems even more fundamental. Concerning masking devices used in humour, there are many. For example, Attardo et al. (2002) list 27 logical mechanisms used as masking devices, but this would be too many to investigate at one time. In the end, five humour microskills were selected for this study: hyperbole, irony, misdirection, ambiguity, and banter.

Do Ells exhibit lower L2 humour competence with humour involving five specific humour microskills —hyperbole, irony, misdirection, ambiguity, and banter— in comparison with native speakers of English? (Hypothesis: Affirmative.)

Do lower proficiency Ells exhibit lower L2 humour competence with humour involving these five humour microskills in comparison with higher proficiency Ells? (Hypothesis: Affirmative.)

Will both higher and lower proficiency Ells show significant evidence of improved L2 humour competence with humour involving these five humour microskills after being provided with deductive and inductive instruction on these five microskills? (Hypothesis: Affirmative.)

The study’s implementation was modified from its original design in two important ways. First, the study was initially intended as a means to also investigate the impact of teaching sociocultural knowledge on L2 humour competence. Test items, instructional guidance, and instructional examples for humour involving specific sociocultural knowledge were generated but not used in the study. The primary reason was the realization that the sociocultural factor is sufficiently complicated to merit investigation in a completely separate study. Indeed, there was concern that including this factor within this study could risk making study results harder to interpret. Therefore, the sociocultural component was removed, though retained for later research.

Secondly, the study was originally designed to involve two steps of humour comprehension. First, participants were to determine if an item was intended to be humorous. Then, if judged humorous, it would be necessary to locate the point. However, again, this design ran the risk of producing unclear results. For example, in cases where participants comprehend the humour but do not personally find it funny, they might tend to indicate that there is no humour. That is, the separate issues of humour recognition and humour appreciation might be blurred. In addition, there are phenomena such as anti-humour, in which a deliberately unfunny statement becomes funny due to the inherent irony of being unfunny. An example is Question: Why did the chicken cross the road? Answer: I don’t care. Stott (2014, p. 119) discusses how alternative comedy sometimes mocks the joke form itself as a vehicle of humour. Although useful to investigate, the ability to judge a statement as being humorous is a separate skill from the ability to comprehend humour once located. It was thus decided that discriminating the presence of humour would be a skill more clearly addressed via a separate study.

Demographics for study participants are presented visually in Appendix 1 Figure 1. There were three groups of participants: an experimental group of higher proficiency Ells, an experimental group of lower proficiency Ells, and a control group of native speakers of English. The two experimental groups were formed from 40 Ells (20 male and 20 female) enrolled in ‘English as a second language’ (esl) classes at George Mason University. They ranged in age from 18 to 33, with an average age of 23.4 years old. They were from the following countries: The People’s Republic of China (18 participants), Saudi Arabia (12 participants), South Korea (3 participants), Taiwan (3 participants), Iraq (1 participant), Qatar (1 participant), Thailand (1 participant), and United Arab Emirates (1 participant). Two Ells were born in the United States but grew up in Saudi Arabia. I had never met any of these participants previous to the study.

These participants had been placed into classes based on their English proficiency. The language proficiency of participants was therefore just determined on the basis of their class level. Class proficiency levels ranged from Level 4 —at the low end— to Level 8 —at the advanced end—. Of these Ells, 20 were enrolled in courses designated for proficiency Levels 7 or 8. These 20 thus formed the higher proficiency group. In this group, there were 8 males and 12 females. Their native languages were Chinese (8 speakers), Arabic (8 speakers), Korean (3 speakers), and Thai (1 speaker). The average age of the higher proficiency group was 23.5 years old. The remaining 20 Ells were enrolled in courses designated for proficiency Levels 4, 5, or 6. These Ells formed the lower proficiency group. In this group, there were 12 males and 8 females. Their native languages were Chinese (13 speakers) and Arabic (7 speakers). The average age of the lower proficiency group was 23.7 years old. Participants did not consistently indicate which dialects of Chinese or Arabic they spoke as their L1, so such distinctions are not noted.

The control group consisted of 20 native speakers of English. When the average age of the initial set of control participants was calculated, it was found to be somewhat higher than that of the two experimental groups. In an effort to keep the groups as comparable as possible, data from control group participants older than 34 years old was excluded, and additional control group participants in their late teens and early twenties were recruited, resulting in an average age for the control group of 23.1 years old. There were 10 male and 10 female participants in the control group. Participants were recruited at George Mason University. Control group participants were born in the following locations: 7 in Virginia, 2 in Georgia, 2 in New York, and 1 each in Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah, with one participant born overseas in Japan, though this individual had grown up in the United States and considered himself a native English and Japanese bilingual. Of the 20 control group participants, I was acquainted with 2 of them previous to the study, but I had not met the others previous to the study.

Two multiple-choice tests on humour were used: Test A and Test B —see Appendices 2 and 3—. Each test had 15 multiple-choice items, each with four possible responses, only one of which was intended to be the humorous response. For each copy of each test, the order of the items was randomized and the order of possible responses for each item was likewise randomized. In this way, any bias involving the presentation order of items or of responses was negated. Humorous items were based on my own recollection of jokes or were drawn from anonymously authored jokes and humorous comments. Although impossible to guard against any possible offense, every effort was made to avoid offensive humour by steering clear of obviously problematic areas such as religion, politics, and social taboos. For each of the three 20-participant groups, half —10 from each group— received Test A as a pretest and Test B as a posttest. The other half received Test B as a pretest and Test A as a posttest. This was done to ensure that the tests were of approximately comparable difficulty. In Appendices 1 and 2, I have highlighted the intended humorous response for each item in bold.

I met with the groups of Ells participants either during their classes or during breaks between classes. The total time to complete the study with experimental participants was roughly 45 minutes. After obtaining informed consent, I had participants provide basic demographics and then take the pretest —Test A or Test B—. Because the study was intended to measure competence with humour skills and not to evaluate an Ells command of vocabulary, I told participants that if there was a word or expression in the test that they did not understand, I would define it for them. For example, two participants asked me the meaning of the word inconspicuous, so I informed them that this describes something you would not notice. However, as it turned out, only a very few requested clarification on the test. I therefore consider this to have had negligible impact.

After collecting the completed pretests, I then spent roughly 30 minutes teaching the five humour microskills. This was the crucial instructional phase, and the possible impact of this instruction would then be evaluated via the posttest. All instructional materials are provided in Appendix 4. I taught each microskill deductively by providing explicit explanations as described in the handout “Some Common Humour Patterns.” I also taught each microskill inductively by providing 30 additional examples using the same microskills —6 examples of each—. These were provided on the multi-page handout titled “Humour Examples.”

In Appendix 4, the intended response for each item is again indicated in bold, but this was not done on the copies given to participants. In fact, participants were challenged to locate each intended humorous response, using relevant humour microskills to do so. For example, for hyperbole, participants were asked to find a response from among possible responses that expressed some sort of humorous exaggeration. If participants could not determine the intended response, I would eventually reveal it and provide clarification. Once the explanations and additional examples had been covered, participants completed the posttest —Test B or Test A—. Once the study was completed, half the higher level participants and half the lower level participants had taken the pretest-posttest sequence in AB order, with the other half taking the tests in BA order.

Control group participants were recruited by visiting a classroom —a composition course— held at George Mason University, as well as simply by approaching individuals and groups on campus and asking them to participate. For control group participants, after I obtained informed consent, they provided basic demographic data and then took the pretest —either Test A or Test B—. Control group participants were not given any of the instructional materials. They were then just immediately given the posttest —either Test B or Test A— with no intervening instruction. The time for control group participants to complete the study was roughly 10 minutes. Again, once the study was completed, half the control group participants had taken the pretest-posttest sequence in AB order and half in BA order.

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration. As Attardo et al. (2002) indicate, hyperbole can be employed as a logical mechanism in humour. Jokes involving hyperbole can often use reference —or indirect allusion— to a scalar adjective, which is an adjective that can express gradations of degree, as in older, very old, or less old. An example of humorous hyperbole is He is so old that his social security number is 1. This is an example of a one-liner joke, but hyperbole is also used in conversational humour, as in I would really appreciate some scalding hot coffee poured into my lap so I might thaw out —a complaint about being cold—. Thus, although items involving hyperbole in the study were formulated as one-liner jokes with scalar adjectives, it might be hoped that practice with such jokes could assist L2 learners to recognize and employ hyperbole as a comedic device in the L2 more generally. The instructional phase of the study provided the following brief explanation for hyperbole: Saying something that is basically correct, but exaggerating it to make it ridiculous.

Irony is another extremely common comedic device. With irony, language that would normally indicate one thing is instead used to indicate its opposite. When irony is used for humorous effect, it is often accompanied by hyperbole. Burgers et al. (2013) examined 180 ironic statements found in Dutch newspapers along with a variety of co-textual markers. Of all such markers —understatement, metaphor, rhetorical questions—, they found that hyperbole was the most frequent co-textual marker with irony. Although, when examining texts in Dutch, it is clear that irony and hyperbole also frequently appear together in English and in other languages. Therefore, the examples of humorous irony used for the study also employed hyperbole. Whereas an example of a humorous statement with hyperbole alone is He is as stupid as a box of rocks, an ironic variation would be He is as brilliant as a box of rocks. The ironic version is perhaps funnier than its non-ironic counterpart because the statement runs opposite to how we typically use scalar adjectives. The instructional phase of the study provided the following explanation for irony: Using the opposite expression, usually with hyperbole.