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The concept of coherence has long been introduced; however, its perspective theories have not been gathered into a collective framework. As one of the first attempts to explore the coherence features in the context of English funny stories comprehension of fourthyear mainstream students at Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU, this paper seeks to explore the difficulties and techniques made by the students in humorous discourse. The paper begins by reviewing the current literature on coherence, some foundation linguistic theories and related studies. The investigation then involved the participation of 30 students who undertook questionnaires and interviews. The analysis of the collected data demonstrated some specific perceptions about coherence and coherence role as a way to understand discourse humor by Vietnamese learners. In addition, it revealed the weaknesses of students when reading English funny stories. To overcome all these difficulties, students often (1) try to reestablish the context of the story and decode it, (2) find out the implicature of the story and the conversation, (3) try to link their background knowledge with the story content.
ABSTRACT The concept of coherence has long been introduced; however, its perspective theories have not been gathered into a collective framework. As one of the first attempts to explore the coherence features in the context of English funny stories comprehension of fourth-year mainstream students at Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU, this paper seeks to explore the difficulties and techniques made by the students in humorous discourse. The paper begins by reviewing the current literature on coherence, some foundation linguistic theories and related studies. The investigation then involved the participation of 30 students who undertook questionnaires and interviews. The analysis of the collected data demonstrated some specific perceptions about coherence and coherence role as a way to understand discourse humor by Vietnamese learners. In addition, it revealed the weaknesses of students when reading English funny stories. To overcome all these difficulties, students often (1) try to re-establish the context of the story and decode it, (2) find out the implicature of the story and the conversation, (3) try to link their background knowledge with the story content. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, CHARTS, AND ABBREVIATIONS iii INTRODUCTION 1 DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5 1. 1. Previous studies 5 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 31 2.1. Selection of subjects 31 2. 2. Data collection instruments 32 2.3. Procedures of data collection 33 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 35 CONCLUSION 49 ! REFERENCES 51 APPENDICES 55 LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, CHARTS, AND ABBREVIATIONS PAGES Charts Chart 1: Students’ approaches to coherence Chart 2: Students’ perceptions of distinction between cohesion and coherence Chart 3: Student perception of coherence types Chart 4: Students’ perception of discourse coherence Chart 5: Students’ attitudes to coherence in humorous discourses Chart 6: Students’ drawbacks when reading English funny stories Chart 7: Steps and techniques utilized by the students to understand English funny stories. 36 36 37 38 39 40 46 Figures: Figure 1: Implicature’s classification 23 Tables Table 1: Speech acts of an utterance Table 2: Some characteristics of indirect speech act Table 3: Widdowson’s example of functional coherence Table 4: Nunan’s example of functional coherence Table 5: The cooperative principle Table 6: The features of context according to Hymes Table 7: Areas of investigation in each part of the questionnaires Table 8: Areas of investigation in each part of the interviews Table 9: Substitutes Table 10: Students’ arrangements Table 11: Students’ explanations for arrangements. 17 18 19 19 21 26 32 33 42 42 43 Abbreviations FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies VNU: Vietnam National University ISA: Indirect speech act " " INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study Focusing on Discourse Analysis is a trend of linguistic research recently. In Discourse Analysis, a discourse is analyzed in the relationship with every linguistic and non-linguistic element. As it is known, funny stories contain many factors which reflect cultural, social as well as traditional values of a society, thus to access English funny stories successfully the researcher need to make use from Cognitive Discourse Analysis. The matter rests in funny stories is that there are some unreasonable and irrelevant things; however, the readers still understand and laugh at this type of discourse. For example 1 : “Birds flying south Question: Why do birds fly south in the winter? Answer: Because it's too far to walk!” If the answer is “Because the South is warm in the winter”, the readers will not smile anymore. The researcher wonders what happens to the discourse coherence and the role of coherence in two situations. Besides, “coherence” term has been extensively researched. However, most of the research has focused on formal connection of a discourse/ text’s elements. Some of the most relevant research is Topical coherence in spoken discourse by Wolfram Bublitz (1989) and Coherence in political speeches: Interpreting ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings in opening addresses by Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova (2010). Besides, research concerned with the development of coherence in funny stories is few in the current literature. This is inappropriate because funny story is a special type of discourse, which can also help the linguistic learners build and fulfill their language skills. In addition, when studying Discourse Analysis in class, the researcher found that the literature on coherence is still disjointed. Retrieved from http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/jokes/birds-flying-south Having a high personal interest in discourse coherence, the researcher has decided to conduct a study on “Coherence in English funny stories: A study of discourse analysis” to provide an in-depth understanding of coherence and the role of coherence in humorous discourse in the Vietnam educational setting. In short, the research’s aim is to make it easier for leaners of English including researcher when reading English funny stories, and then know how to apply it to make daily life works and activities more happily and more effectively than ever. 2. Research questions The first aim of the research is to find out some specific features of coherence. In another words, the study aims to find out what makes a story sounds funny in term of coherence characteristics. Besides, the researcher’s ambition is to propose some methods to promote coherence understanding. From that the study would seek to answer the following questions: 1. Are there some specific perceptions of coherence and the role of coherence as a way to understand discourse humor by Vietnamese learners? 2. What are the difficulties the students encounter in order to understand coherence as well as humor features of English funny stories? 3. What techniques have been utilized by the students to overcome those difficulties in English funny stories? 3. Significance of the study The research presents a firm collective framework of coherence subject to which little previous English research has done. It helps us realize the role of coherence in discourses generally and in funny stories particularly. Along with that, by gathering and defining expressive features/ characteristics of coherence, the study can help the readers easily realize whether a certain discourse is coherent or not. In addition, the readers’ comprehension of funny stories will be improved and this type of discourse is not ambiguous any more. The researcher, with this study, hopes to bring a real picture of what is going on in English funny stories comprehension and to help students improve their reading skill. 4. Scope of the study The scope of the research has been made quite clear from the research tittle “Coherence in English funny stories: a study of discourse analysis”. Firstly, the research focuses on “coherence”. To be more specific, it investigates the definition and types of coherence as well as its expressive features under Cognitive Analysis, a new branch of Discourse Analysis. Secondly, the subject of the study will be restricted to a special type of discourse - English funny stories. In addition, those stories are in form of small dialogue between two people. Lastly, questionnaires and interviews will be restricted to fourth- year students at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU. As one of the first attempts to explore the coherence features in the context of English funny stories comprehension of fourth-year mainstream students at Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU, this paper seeks to explore the difficulties and techniques utilized made by the students in humorous discourse. 5. Organization The rest of the paper includes four chapters in the development part and conclusion part as follows: Chapter 1 – Literature review – provides the background of the study, including definition of key concepts, theories, and discussions of related studies. Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes selection of subjects, data collection instruments as well as data collection procedures, data analysis methods and data analysis procedures. Chapter 3 – Results and Discussion – presents, analyzes and discusses the findings that the researcher found out in order to answer the research questions. Conclusion – summarizes the main issues in the paper. Besides, the pedagogical implications concerning the research topic as well as the limitations of the research and suggestions for further studies will be introduced in this part of paper. Following this chapter are the References and Appendices. Summary: In this chapter, the researcher has elaborated about: - The statement of the research problem and rationale for the study - Aims and objectives of the study - Scope of the study - An overview of the rest of the paper In short, these points justify the contents and structure of the study. In addition, they serve as the guidelines for the rest of the paper. DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. 1. Previous studies Research concerned with the development of coherence in funny stories is few in the current literature. Some of the most relevant researches are Topical coherence in spoken discourse by Wolfram Bublitz (1989) and Coherence in political speeches: Interpreting ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings in opening addresses by Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova (2010). Bublitz (1989) claims that topic of a discourse is the outcome of a process of ascription in which a subject linked to a complex speech act pattern. In addition, he shows that a text is not coherent in it but is understood as coherent in an actual context. In Dontcheva- Navratilova (2010)’s paper, she focuses on a certain type of discourse. She introduces some aspects of coherence in opening addresses such as 1) Coherence and persuasion: understanding and believing, 2) Management of discourse topic and rhetorical structure, 3) Strategic uses of reference, 4) Modality markers and point of view. In this paper, the study focuses on the coherence in English funny stories, which can only be understood if the theory relating to humor features is cleared. In other words, the readers of funny stories can smile only when they understand the coherence of those stories. Because little research directly related to the research topic has been carried out, the researcher will trace coherence from humor features. Some of those researches are Implicature in English cartoons: a critical discourse analysis by Phan Le Thanh Huong (2007), The language of humor in funny stories by Nguyen Thi Phuong Oanh (2007) and A pragmatic study on some factors causing laughter in English and Vietnamese funny stories by [...]... with the readers Love- Marriage, Teacher and Student, etc , which were retrieved from two main sources Teachers: Jokes, Quotes, and Anecdotes edited by Patrick Regan in 2004 and Nụ cười Việt – Anh compiled by Huong Thuy, Anh Dao in 1999 One is retrieved from website www.jokeswarehouse.com One story on interviews is from author’s data which is a real daily life conversation These stories serve as materials... devour her Remember that you are married Husband: - Oh, my honey! I always do However for a man on a diet, it doesn’t mean that he isn’t allowed to have a look at the menu in the restaurant.” (Nụ cười Việt – Anh, 1999, p 7) 1.4 Some linguistic foundation theories in the relationship with coherence In the next part of Literature review, coherence will be approached mainly through mind-based method so... read my book on this matter? All the students raise their hands Professor: - Very good That means all of us have understood the lesson already The book hasn’t been published yet, actually.” (Nụ cười Việt – Anh, 1999, p 234) 15 Following above methods to recognize the topic of this story, here are some suggested variants: - Teacher and student (the main character) - Very good (the same as the tittle)... smile to people Besides, situational humor bases on “the irrelation of an outward characteristic of an object and the fundamental nature of that object, that is the no correspondence or, to put it more strongly, the discrepancy between the two” (Pocheptsov, 1971, pp.13-14) For example: A young soldier who came home on leave was telling his folks about his military life Suddenly he stopped to look with . English cartoons: a critical discourse analysis by Phan Le Thanh Huong (2007), The language of humor in funny stories by Nguyen Thi Phuong Oanh (2007) and A pragmatic study on some factors causing. us have understood the lesson already. The book hasn’t been published yet, actually.” (Nụ cười Việt – Anh, 1999, p. 234) . object and the fundamental nature of that object, that is the no correspondence or, to put it more strongly, the discrepancy between the two” (Pocheptsov, 1971, pp.13-14). For example: A young soldier