Natalie Lavrova

A Sense of Humour and Verbal Play: Correlation and Gauge - Based on the Humorous Passages from B. Bryson's Notes from a Big Country Natalie Lavrova

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, Moscow State Pedagogical University, language: English, comment: Moscow State Pedagogical University , abstract: A sense of humour is one of the notions that is easier described with the help of multiple circumlocutions and sinuous turns of phrases than properly, that is, comprehensively and succinctly defined. For some inexplicable reason most people, if not actually every single person, would feel offended if referred to as having no or little sense of humour. Although, there is no one explanation of this, it seems that it is basically down to the fact that a sense of humour, that is, its presence, is an indication of, allegedly, more significant characteristics that everyone wants to possess, - wit, intelligence, acumen. In other words, the ability to spot and appreciate a joke or one of the other multiple varieties of verbal play (play involving the usage of natural language) is deemed by some an indication, although an indirect one, of a person's mental abilities and even of his/her intellect.