HUMOUR COMPETENCE: CHALLENGES FOR SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Abstract

Abstract Humor competence encompasses the ability to comprehend, generate, and adeptly employ humor in communication, acknowledging cultural and linguistic subtleties. It is a pivotal skill in language acquisition, facilitating social integration, comprehension, and cultural immersion. Mastering humor competence enables learners to not only grasp jokes and linguistic nuances but also utilize humor as a means to convey thoughts, foster relationships, and gain insight into language and culture. Comprehending and creating humour in a second or foreign language is intrinsically challenging, even for highly proficient learners (Bell, 2007; Vega, 1990). The spontaneous conversation is characterized by its intricate structure, which includes a combination of different sorts of humour that have overlapping meanings or purposes and are indicated by both verbal and non-verbal signals. English language learners must comprehend various aspects, including grammar, vocabulary, implications, social background, and proper circumstances for humour in English speech. Nevertheless, humor in natural interaction is vital for socialization, negotiations, and even workplace success. Not many English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) textbooks and programs, however, offer systematic training in this area of pragmatics (Claire, 1984). Thus, a growing number of ESL/EFL teachers and researchers are beginning to investigate and document ways to teach humor competence in cross-cultural communication (Lucas, 2005; Rucynski, 2017; Rucynski & Prichard, 2020). Thereafter, this paper attempts to investigate the perceptions of humor language with special reference to English as a second language among graduate students of Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. The researcher developed a set of well-defined questionnaires and distributed them among the graduate students from various departments to have their genuine responses on humour language. Through this, the study tries to understand the theoretical underpinnings which lay the groundwork for English as a second/foreign language learner to accommodate humour competence in their respective classrooms.