SPLIS Newsletter - December 2021 (Plain Text Version)
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ARE YOU SERIOUS? TEACHING SARCASM, JOCULARITY, AND OTHER VERBAL IRONY Caleb Prichard and John Rucynski, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan
Introduction While some teachers may think it is ridiculous to focus on sarcasm in the language classroom, verbal irony could make up around 8% of utterances in English conversations (Gibbs, 2000) and misunderstanding it can lead to serious consequences, from miscommunication to interpersonal conflict. And since sarcasm and other verbal irony are used less often or used differently in certain cultures, including some focus on it in the ELT classroom may be warranted. This article is a summary of our lessons and our research on sarcasm (Prichard & Rucynski, 2020), as was presented at the 2021 TESOL Convention (“Training Learners to Recognize Sarcasm in Conversation”). We argue that teaching about verbal irony is essential, but not so simple! Is It Worth Teaching? Recognizing the value of humor in communication and the potential for meaningful L2 instruction, Bell and Pomerantz (2019) have long called on educators and researchers to consider how they can help learners better identify, comprehend, produce, and respond to humor. Therefore, in our edited book, Bridging the humor barrier: Humor competency training in English language teaching (Rucynski & Prichard, 2020), we aimed to set guidelines for implementing explicit instruction on L2 humor, including jocular sarcasm. The first guideline is that humor instruction should have a clear objective connected to learner needs and the program’s curriculum. Since we teach Japanese English learners, we recognized that verbal irony is much less common in Japanese than in English, and we have experienced firsthand the consequences of when our jocularity was not detected by our Japanese students, colleagues, and friends! Therefore, we felt teaching learners to at least detect verbal irony was worthwhile in our oral skills classes. At the same time, we felt that teaching our students to actually use sarcasm would be too time consuming and that the risks would outweigh the benefits. (However, producing verbal irony has many functions, as noted below, and it may be worth teaching advanced language learners who are already in English speaking contexts how to effectively use verbal irony.) Exploring the Uses of Sarcasm A second guideline for implementing humor training is that instructors need to overview the potential functions, benefits, and consequences of the target humor. As for verbal irony, we stressed to our students that it can be used to amuse, bond, tease or flirt, and to either strengthen or lighten criticism. Teachers could show students sarcastic dialogues, texts, or memes, and the students could discuss the purpose. However, critical sarcasm is often dangerous, and even light-hearted jocularity can be damaging if misinterpreted. Therefore, the class should also explore the possible negative effects if the verbal irony is not detected or misinterpreted. Examples of failed humor or offensive sarcasm could be shown, and potential consequences could be discussed. Instruction microskills and examples Numerous studies have shown that explicit instruction is effective for teaching pragmatics (Taguchi, 2015), so we also recommend that humor competency training include detailed instruction. A thorough review of the research is needed beforehand, but only the most relevant microskills should be introduced: the most common aspects or those unique to the target culture. It is better to avoid making this a linguistics lecture, and there should be opportunities for student input and discussion. Along with simple terminology and clear explanation, examples are essential. Simplified examples are best to make the cues salient, but real-world (yet comprehensible) and humorous examples are also beneficial for motivation, context, and authenticity. As for verbal irony, research suggests it can be identified by an often complicated mix of contextual, vocal (e.g., prosody), and visual cues (e.g., facial expressions), so thorough instruction is needed. As for context cues, we asked learners to compare their expectations of what they expect to hear with the actual words to see if there is a gap between the two. We showed students many examples, starting with simple images and utterances in text. This provided learners the chance to carefully explore the context and the verbal message. For example, we showed an image of a messy kitchen sink, along with the text “I see you cleaned the kitchen. Everything looks sooo clean.” We also pointed out how hyperbole (“sooo clean”) is used to further hint at the gap. Understatement can also be used (e.g., “The kitchen is just a bit messy....”), so it can be complicated! Therefore, we often need to recognize other cues.... In a separate lesson, visual cues were introduced. We focused on the most salient and common markers mentioned in the research:
As for vocal cues, we introduced the following cues, which we considered the most salient:
Extensive Practice For humor competency, practice opportunities are needed along with explicit instruction. For identifying and comprehending humor, practice with simplified examples should eventually extend to authentic examples. For producing and responding to humor, structured activities should eventually lead to freer communicative activities. Classroom practice opportunities provide a safe place for learners to engage in language play and to explore the complexities that can trigger humor. Our goal was simply to get learners to detect verbal irony, but again this is not so simple! As explained above, verbal cues can range from hyperbole to understatement, and vocal cues range from exaggerated intonation to a flat tone. And the cues are made even more subtle in dry sarcasm, and even fluent speakers can be tricked or confused. Developing automaticity in cue recognition is necessary since the markers are often presented subtly and quickly in the middle of continuous fast-paced communication. For these reasons, we knew we needed extensive practice, so we practiced detecting each type of cue (context, vocal, visual) for 30 minutes each over a series of three lessons. Practice activities on detecting verbal irony can be done in groups, where the students discuss if the examples are sincere or sarcastic. They can discuss the cue they found and their response. It can also be made like a game, with points earned for each correct guess. Even if the goal is not production, communicative activities can help reinforce the cues. Students can be provided a list of sentences that often produce a strong love or hate, such as:
Does it work? While not all humor instruction has led to success, many studies have found significant results (see Bell & Pomerantz, 2019 or Rucynski & Prichard, 2020 for an overview). It seems to depend on how challenging the goal is and whether the guidelines highlighted above are followed, especially explicit instruction and extensive practice. As for our instruction, we conducted an empirical study involving a pre- and posttest, and a control group to examine if this training improved learners’ ability to detect verbal irony (Prichard & Rucynski, 2020). We found that the experimental group did significantly improve compared to the control group. However, the gains were not as large as we expected, highlighting how complicated humor competency development can be. More work needs to be done in this area, and we hope more instructors consider implementing humor and sarcasm instruction after careful research. Humor may seem like a silly focus for an ELT class, but it has a huge role in human communication and should not be ignored. References Bell, N., & Pomerantz, A. (2019). Humor in L2 pragmatics research. In N. Taguchi (ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and pragmatics (pp. 63-77), Routledge. Gibbs, R. W., (2000). Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15(1-2), 5-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2000.9678862 Prichard, C., & Rucynski, J. (2020). Humor competency training for sarcasm and jocularity, in J. Rucynski Jr. & C. Prichard (eds.), Bridging the humor barrier: Humor competency training in English language teaching (pp. 165-192). Lexington Books. Rucynski, J., & Prichard, C. (2020). Bridging the humor barrier: Humor competency training in English language teaching. Lexington Books. Taguchi, N. (2015). Instructed pragmatics at a glance: Where instructional studies were, are, and should be going. Language Teaching, 48(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444814000263
Caleb Prichard is an associate professor at Okayama University in Japan. He co-edited Bridging the Humor Barrier. His other research interests include reading strategy competence and program administration. John Rucynski is an associate professor at Okayama University. He has edited two volumes on humor in language education, New Ways in Teaching with Humor (for TESOL Press) and Bridging the Humor Barrier.
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