Trabajo de Fin de Grado(code31099) Degree in English Studies Session2014-15 Student’s first name Juan Student’s surname Híjar Soler DNI

48627058K A look to English and Spanish Jokes. A contrastive

Títle of your TFG theory. First name and surname of Félix Rodríguez González your Tutor

Abstract (max.150words) This final paper is about how English jokes work (topics, vocabulary and use of colloquial language) and how are they able to be compared with Spanish jokes. This work comes from a general background about jokes, a brief mention about the jokes related to the field of pragmatics for a later classification of the different topics in which jokes are divided. It also contains some interviews of English native speakers and Spanish native speakers, who are telling jokes to later do an analysis of the way in which vocabulary is employed, when telling these jokes about different topics for a final comparison.

Thematic key words Joke, laugh, sense of humour, comparison

Total number of words

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4.364

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Index 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………. 2-3 1.1. Motives. 1.2. Objectives and Methodology. 1.3. Structure. 2. Bibliographic review…………………………………………………... 3-4 3. Definition of jokes. Functions and types of jokes…………………... 4-6 4. English and Spanish jokes. A look to cultural factors…………….... 6-9 5. Contrastive analysis on English and Spanish jokes vocabulary…... 9-14 6. Conclusions…………………………………………………………….. 14 7. Appendix/es…………………………………………………...……….. 16-17 8. Works Cited List…………………………………………………….…. 18

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1. Introduction. 1.1. Motives. It is a matter of fact that when you study any philology you are going to deal with literature and linguistics, from theatre to critics, from general linguistics to pragmatics or lexicology, but I would like to focus my TFG on something different, something related to a device that lives with us every day: jokes. My personal motivation when developing this final paper was to deal with something related to humour and concretely with how the language is employed in English and Spanish culture when telling jokes. 1.2.Objectives and Methodology. The main objective of this paper is to give a brief explanation about how English jokes work (topics, vocabulary and use of colloquial language) and comparing them with Spanish jokes. In order to achieve that, first we will be provided with a brief general background about jokes, a classification of the different topics in which jokes are divided and I will provide as well, some interviews of English native speakers and Spanish native speakers telling jokes to later do an analysis of the way in which vocabulary is employed when telling these jokes about different topics for a final comparison. 1.3.Structure. The structure of this paper is the following: 1) An index and an introduction explaining the objectives, the methodology and the structure of the paper. 2) Body. In this section we will locate the main part of the paper. First of all, it is going to be provided with a definition of jokes, how they work, a brief general background and a list classifying jokes in topics as an introduction for 2

the final part of this section in order to know some basis about them. Secondly, before comparing English and Spanish jokes from a point of view related to vocabulary, we will have a previous comparison inside the field of pragmatics in the sense of how jokes work when they are translated for being told in a different cultural background. Then, the final section of the body will consist of the comparison between how vocabulary is employed in English jokes and Spanish jokes. In addition, the body will be complemented with jokes compiled on interviews made to people from both nationalities comprising a different age range, encompassing different topics of jokes, such as those about jobs, races or sex, in English and Spanish, in order to elaborate a final analysis of the vocabulary used in jokes on each topic. 3) Finally, there will be a final conclusion where I will give some final comments about the topic of the paper and a list of the bibliography and the sources used for the elaboration of it.

2. Bibliographic Review. During the research for useful bibliography that helped me to complete my work, I found two articles that helped me in abundance: “De la traducibilidad del chiste: Más allá de los factores perceptibles” (Miguel Tolosa Igualada. 2005, 1079-1089) and “YO ME PARTO': ORALIDAD, HUMOR, GRAMÁTICA Y PRAGMÁTICA, UN COCTEL LÚDICO PARA EL AULA DE E/LE” (Diego Ojeda Álvarez y Olga Cruz Moya. 2004). In the first text, the author explains and exemplifies how could jokes be translated into other languages and the possibility of using them provoking the same reactions as in ones own culture. The second text analyzes almost all the contents that refer to jokes and a possible application of jokes in the classroom.

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3. Functions of jokes. Definition and types of jokes. These days, each one of us knows what a joke is and how they work inside our society. The main purpose of a joke is to make laughter of anything that surrounds us, covering from typical situations like a child asking something to his or her parents or a man walking down the street, to matters related to death, politics, race or gender. Jokes are one of the most extended humoristic manifestations in society, maybe because it can be used in many different situations, for that reason you would be able to hear jokes during a conversation in a group of friends, during a meeting, inside a classroom or in an argument. According to a more specific definition of the term joke by Cambridge dictionary(Cambridge Essential Dictionary, Cambridge University Press), a joke is something, such as a funny story or trick, which is said or done in order to make people laugh. According to RAE (electronic version, 2012), a joke is 1. A saying or occurrence that is funny and clever; 2. A saying or a very brief story which contains a verbal game able to cause laugh. Many times it is presented by a picture and it may consist only of it. After these definitions and the different functions that I have mentioned previously, according to these characteristics, I have classified jokes in different types or topics. Making a reference to these types, I have tried to collect a great amount of jokes to then be able to classify them for the final comparison in the last part of the essay. The different types of jokes are classified into the following genres: 

Ethnic jokes: These kinds of jokes make reference to ethnic stereotypes as well as jokes referring to black people, Chinese people or people inside the same country or territory but from different areas, for example people from England about Scottish or people from Madrid about those from Andalusia. An interesting fact is the beginning of some classic jokes inside this topic; it varies the nationality if you tell them in English (‘an Englishman, an Irishman 4

and a Scotsman…’) or in Spanish (‘un inglés, un francés y un español…’).In sum, jokes that refer to racial, cultural or locative facts. 

Sexist jokes: Jokes that highlight differences in gender. The most common ones are those told by men or women that make fun of the other gender. These jokes are distinguished in Spain as ‘male chauvinist jokes’ and ‘feminist jokes’.

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Dirty Jokes: These jokes refer to taboo situations as well as sex or physiological needs. These jokes play freely with issues related to the most strict intimacy and are often told using slang in order to make them funnier.

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Religious jokes: Jokes that make reference to the church. In these jokes the most important fact, is to make fun about everything related to church.

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Professional jokes: These kinds of jokes are commonly used inside each profession; insiders tend to tell them as a way to identify with their jobs, or told by people to have fun mocking some professions.

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Dark humour jokes: These jokes are often used in order to deal with circumstances like death, war or catastrophes. These jokes could be considered as cruel, due to the fact that in most occasions they make fun of other people’s tragedies.

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Jokes using rhyme: These jokes play with rhyme, as well as slang, to provoke two reactions, laughter and surprise. They normally play with the sounds of words in order to confuse the listener.

This division of genres is not so long, but of course there will always be someone who can go deeper and state that jokes could be divided into more topics as the ones that I mentioned before. Leaving for an instance this classification, that it will be later addressed, some questions came up to my mind. Are jokes able to fit into other cultures? Do they cause the same effect if they are translated to other languages? 4. English and Spanish jokes. A look to cultural factors. 5

During the elaboration of this paper, I realized that in English as well as in Spanish, there are some jokes that cannot be well translated into other languages or, in other words, they cannot cause the same reaction for the listener (or reader), due to their cultural meaning, that pushed me to look for some data related to the field of pragmatics, that could answer the questions that I previously mentioned. The professor Miguel Tolosa Igualada, former professor at University of Alicante in the translation department, gave me some clues in order to clarify my ideas. In his article “De la traducibilidad del chiste: Más allá de los factores perceptibles”, he estates: “3.1. EL HUMOR VERBAL Y EL CHISTE El chiste parece ser una de las manifestaciones humorísticas más extendidas y «practicadas» por la sociedad (al menos occidental), tal vez por su carácter camaleónico a la hora de asumir determinadas funciones. No en vano, pueden estar presentes en contextos de lo más variopinto, contextos en los que la función que desempeña será igualmente diversa. Así, el chiste puede hacer acto de presencia en una tertulia entre amigos (para echarse unas risas), durante una clase (para ejemplificar un concepto), en una reunión de negocios (para distender a las partes), en una discusión (para quitarle hierro a un asunto), etc. En nuestra manera, sin duda mejorable, de concebir y entender la traducción, el chiste no es, tal y como se ha venido afirmado tradicionalmente (ver supra), «un dicho o historieta muy breve que contiene un juego verbal o conceptual capaz de mover a risa». No. El chiste, desde una perspectiva traductológica, es mucho más que eso. En efecto, se trata de un material textual que se origina en un tiempo, en un espacio y en una sociedad bien concretos. 6

Constituye además un material de enorme poder evocador que, con el fin de buscar la sorpresa o la incongruencia (base de la gracia de los chistes según la teoría de la incongruencia), es capaz emplear y explotar, hasta límites insospechados, aspectos culturales, recursos lingüísticos como pueden ser juegos de palabras, ambigüedades, polisemias, juegos fonéticos, etc.; recursos pragmáticos, ya sean latentes o patentes, como pueden ser las implicaturas, las presuposiciones, las inferencias, los sobreentendidos, la explotación de los actos ilocucionarios (según la terminología de Austin), la violación de las condiciones de adecuación de Searle, el no respeto de alguna de las máximas de Grice (cooperación, cantidad, cualidad, relación, manera) y/o la infracción de la teoría de la pertinencia propuesta por Sperber y Wilson; y los recursos semióticos basados en la concepción del chiste como signo y la trasgresión de las convenciones, del sistema de valores en el que dicho signo hunde sus raíces en función de la cultura de partida. Todo ello, sin perder de vista la función, o, skopos, según la teoría funcionalista, del chiste que, en última instancia, será la que influirá sobre el resto de factores, la que determinará la manera de llevar a cabo la traducción por parte del traductor. Ahora bien, en este proceso cognitivo que es la traducción, no debemos olvidar que hay una segunda parte: el polo de llegada. Y es que si necesario es conocer los factores que acabamos de mencionar, imprescindible resulta conocer o, al menos tener algún indicio, del destino espacial, social y temporal del chiste, 7

puesto que, muy probablemente, los recursos lingüísticos, pragmáticos y semióticos serán distintos a los de la lengua y cultura de procedencia. Además, la función del chiste de origen no necesariamente coincidirá con la función del chiste de llegada. Por ejemplo, se podría dar el caso de que un chiste en la lengua y cultura de origen tuviera una función eminentemente lúdica, mientras que en las de llegada su función fuera de distensión en una situación tirante. Por tanto, la traducción del chiste no se puede abordar en términos absolutos de dificultad o sencillez lingüística o cultural. Tampoco conviene creer a pies juntillas que la solución para traducir los chistes pasa por recrear una serie de efectos pragmáticos, llevar a cabo adaptaciones, compensaciones y otras tantas estrategias en la sempiterna búsqueda de la ya mencionada equivalencia pragmática. Nos inclinamos más bien a pensar que la traducción del chiste se puede materializar si la entendemos como un proceso cognitivo a partir del cual se desarrolla una operación comunicativo-textual basada en la búsqueda de equivalencias que, al mismo tiempo, vendrá determinada por una serie de coordenadas espaciales, temporales y sociales que constituirán los cimientos básicos sobre los que se asentará un acto comunicativo que estará siempre marcado, ya sea de manera implícita o explícita, por una función específica.”(Tolosa Igualada, Miguel, et al. "De la traducibilidad del chiste: más allá de los factores perceptibles." Interlingüística 2005: 1079-1089.). Therefore, as he mentions, jokes are not easy to incorporate to different cultures, considering that it has to be taken into account features related to the cultural background from each country, such as language, religion or tradition before trying 8

to translate a joke and expect to cause the same effect as in one’s own culture. In order to exemplify all the information before cited, I also include in the appendix three tables from the same article that may help to show what Miguel Tolosa Igualada says in his article. After this clarification, we are better informed about how jokes work before the final comparison between English and Spanish jokes. 5. Contrastive analysis on English and Spanish jokes vocabulary. In order to make the reading as comfortable as possible, I will facilitate a set of steps that will show clearly the structure and how this section will work. In this section the way to proceed will be the following: jokes are divided into seven genres (as mentioned before in section three: Definition of jokes. Functions and types of jokes). Inside each category, the reader will be given the jokes first (in English and then in Spanish), gender, nationality, mother tongue and age will be provided as well, and secondly, below each types of jokes we can observe the analysis on how vocabulary functions in English jokes and in Spanish jokes.

Ethnic jokes: A. Why doesn’t Mexico have an Olympic team? Because anyone that can swim, run or climb are already in the USA. (Male, UK, English native speaker, 20-30 years old) B. “Did you hear the news about the Irish water polo team?” – “They drowned”. (Male, UK, English native speaker, 40-50 years old) C. Why did Beyoncé sing “to the left, to the left”? Because black people have no rights. (Male, UK, English native speaker, 20-30 years old) D. Van dentro de un coche un negro, un moro y un gitano, ¿Quién va conduciendo? La policía. (Male, Spain, Spanish native speaker, 20-30 years old)

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E. Esto es un grupo musical muy famoso de Lepe que se llama “los leperos” que decide irse de gira a los Estados Unidos, ya que tienen mucha demanda en ese país. El avión aterriza y allí les están esperando miles de fans y cuando abren las puertas nadie sale del avión. El mánager del grupo entra al avión para ver qué pasa y pregunta: -¿Por qué coño no salís?- a lo que los leperos contestan: -¡Hasta que “Wel” no se vaya no!- Entonces el mánager mira fuera del avión y ve un cartel donde se encuentran los fans que dice:”WELcome leperos”. (Male, Spanish native speaker, 50-60 years old) F. ¿Qué es un negro con unos calzoncillos blancos? Una Oreo. (Male, Spanish native speaker, 10-20 years old) As we can observe in these kinds of jokes, the vocabulary employed is not aggressive, but we can see some colloquial language, as in the case of joke E, where is used the word “coño” (like “fuck”) or the bad usage of “welcome” meaning “WEL eats”. Referring to the sense of the joke, it is clear that every single joke is offensive causing the effect that those who use these jokes consider them superior to other races.

Sexist jokes: A. There is a wife and she is speaking to her husband and she says to him that she feels really fat, she thinks she is chubby and that she looks terrible and then she asks her husband: Could you please just give me a compliment to make me feel better? And he says: yes, you have perfect eyesight. (Male, UK, English native speaker, 40-50 years old) B. En un vuelo, el avión se va a estrellar y una mujer dice que antes de morir quiere que le hagan sentir mujer por última vez y se desnuda en mitad del pasillo del avión. La mujer pregunta: - “¿Hay alguien lo suficiente hombre que quiera?”- a esto que se levanta un hombre, se quita la camiseta y le dice: -

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¡Yo! Plánchame esto, anda. (Male, Spain, Spanish native speaker, 40-50 years old) In this case, we are in front of two “male chauvinist jokes”. Both of them are created to devaluate the figure of the woman as a mere object. The vocabulary employed is mixed with some words from the colloquial usage like “chubby”.

Dirty jokes: A. A family is at the dinner table. The son asks the father, “Dad, how many kinds of boobs are there?” The father, surprised, answers, “Well, son, a woman goes through three phases. In her 20s, a woman’s breasts are like peaches, rounded and firm. In her 30s and 40s, they are like pears, still nice, hanging a bit. After 50, they are like onions.” “Onions?” the son asks. “Yes. You see them and they make you cry.” (Male, UK, English native speaker, 4050 years old) B. Entra un hombre a un aseo público y se dispone a mear. Mientras mea, observa que el hombre de al lado está muy bien dotado y decide preguntarle: -“Disculpa, ¿Cómo ha hecho para tener semejante cosa entre las piernas?”- a lo que el otro hombre le contesta: -“Pues resulta, que soy un duende, y para conseguirlo me tuvieron que transformar pasándome los poderes de duende que ahora poseo”.- El primer hombre se asombra y le pregunta: -“¿Y me podrías convertir en duende para tenerla igual de grande que tú?”- y el duende le contesta: -“Claro que sí. Pero para pasarte los poderes te tengo que dar por culo”- El hombre asiente con la cabeza y se baja los pantalones. Mientras el duende se encuentra en plena faena a provecha para preguntarle al hombre: -“¿Cómo te llamas?”- a lo que el hombre responde:- “Manuel”. – “¿Y cuántos años tienes Manuel?”- Y Manuel responde: “Cuarenta y cinco”Y en eso que le dice el duende: -“Y teniendo cuarenta y cinco años ¿todavía crees en los duendes?”. (Male, Spain, Spanish native speaker 30- 40 years old) 11

Inside this topic, we can observe that the usage of colloquialisms is higher than in other categories. This is due to the taboo sense, that talking about issues related to sex has. Without these colloquialisms maybe these jokes were less effective.

Religious Jokes: A. What do a Christmas tree and a priest have in common? Their balls are just for decoration. (Male, UK, English native speaker, 30- 40 years old) B. ¿Qué tienen en común un árbol de Navidad y un cura? Que las bolas solo les sirven de decoración. (Woman, Spain, Spanish native speaker, 40- 50 years old) In this particular case, I wanted to focus on all the things in common that these jokes have. They are the same jokes, but adapted to each language. The vocabulary employed at both jokes, are also the same. Professional jokes: A. Photographers are dangerous people. First, they frame you. Then, they shoot you and then they hang you on the wall. B. In an interview between an employer and an applicant for a job, the employer tells the applicant that he needs a responsible person. To this, the applicant says that she is the person for the job seen as, whenever anything went wrong at the last job, she was always said to be responsible. C. –“Doctor, ¿Por qué cuando bebo café me duele un ojo?- “¿Ha probado a sacar la cucharilla del vaso?”. (Male, Spain, Spanish native speaker, 70- 80 years old) D. – ¿Nivel de inglés? - Alto. - ¿Cómo traduciría “never ever”? -Nunca unca. In this category, all the vocabulary used is about the field of professions (“applicant”, “doctor”, etc.) and these jokes tend to use metaphors as in joke A, where the verbs employed at this job are used in other sense in order to make fun of it. 12

Dark humour jokes: A. Two men go to Heaven at the same time. The first man says that he dead frozen, and the second one tells him that he died of a heart attack.-"How did that happen?" asks the first man.-"Well, I came home and thought I heard my wife with another man. But anyone else was there. I felt very bad for wrongly accusing my wife of infidelity so, I had a heart attack and I died."-"Fuck!" says the first guy. "If you'd opened the fridge, we'd both be alive!" (Male, UK, English native speaker, 20- 30 years old) B. ¿Cómo meterías a mil judíos en un SEAT panda? En el cenicero. (Male, Spain, Spanish native speaker, 20- 30 years old) As we can observe in these kinds of jokes, they talk openly about circumstances related to death and Nazism, mocking them. The use of colloquialisms or swear words is less common in this category considering that the topics treated are more serious and it is a kind of humour that looks for a direct impact in the reader.

Jokes using rhyme: A. He drove his car into the tree and he found out how the Mercedes Benz. (Male, UK, English native speaker, 20- 30 years old) B. - ¿Cuántos son tres más dos? – Cinco. – Por el culo te la hinco. (Male, Spain, Spanish native speaker, 10- 20 years old) Jokes that use rhyming or play with sounds are really interesting. They normally use colloquial language and as we can see in both examples, “Benz” instead of “bends” in example A, or “por el culo te la hinco” in the case of example B, are a clear example of the “free” use of colloquial terms in order to achieve musicality when telling them and to produce laughter.

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With all the information dealt with, I have finally realized that jokes are a universal tool, to cause laughter. True it is, that a joke cannot be interpreted equally in every culture, however nowadays many of the jokes that you hear or acquire, are perfectly understood in each culture. To conclude, one of the features that I have perceived these days is that we are losing the habits or traditions of telling jokes, due to the fact that the impact of Internet and the new technologies in society have influenced in this aspect. With the elaboration of this work, I wanted to give a brief and clear information about a topic such as jokes, which could be considered as very charismatic. 7. Appendix/es. Tolosa Igualada, Miguel, et al. "De la traducibilidad del chiste: más allá de los factores perceptibles." Interlingüística 2005: 1079-1089. “Dos ancianas, una de las cuales bastante sorda, estaban merendandouna tarde. En un momento dado, la que no estaba sorda dice: -¡Esta leche no está buena! Y la anciana sorda responde: -¡Y mañana Navidad! Tabla 1: MATERIAL TEXTUAL DE ORIGEN FACTORES DE PARTIDA U ORIGEN – Chiste nº7. TIEMPO - Atemporal (en cualquier caso,momento bastante actual). ESPACIO - Cualquier país de habla hispanay de tradición cristiana. SOCIEDAD - Cualquier sociedad de hablahispana y de tradición cristiana. ASPECTOSCULTURALES-Villancico La Marimorena, La Navidad, La merienda RECURSOSLINGÜÍSTICOS - Juego fonético debido a lasordera 14

RECURSOSPRAGMÁTICOS - Respuesta «impertinente» o«irrelevante» provocada por lasordera de una de las ancianas RECURSOSSEMIÓTICOS - Indeterminados FUNCIÓN - En una reunión entre amigos(para echarse unas risas) Tabla 2: MATERIAL TEXTUAL DE LLEGADA FACTORES DE LLEGADA - Chiste-Traducción 7 TIEMPO - Año 2003 ESPACIO - Japón SOCIEDAD - Japonesa ASPECTOS CULTURALES - No existencia de Navidad, no existencia de villancicos, no existencia de merienda. RECURSOS LINGÜÍSTICOS - Por determinar RECURSOS PRAGMÁTICOS - Por determinar RECURSOS SEMIÓTICOS - Por determinar FUNCIÓN - En la Universidad, para explicar un aspecto concreto Tabla 3: MATERIAL TEXTUAL DE LLEGADA FACTORES DE LLEGADA - Chiste-Traducción 7 TIEMPO - Año 2000 15

ESPACIO - Francia SOCIEDAD - Francesa ASPECTOS CULTURALES – Navidad, existencia de villancicos, existencia de merienda (aunque como concepto diferente al de la cultura española) RECURSOS LINGÜÍSTICOS - Por determinar RECURSOS PRAGMÁTICOS - Por determinar RECURSOS SEMIÓTICOS - Por determinar FUNCIÓN - En el inciso de una reunión Presentamos, a guisa de ejemplo, estas tablas que constituyen tres «situaciones translaticias» concretas. En la tabla 1, podemos ver el material textual de partida con los factores que lo determinan. Si dichos factores se modifican (tablas 3 y 4) el resultado de la traducción no podrá ser el mismo, puesto que ésta no es una operación mecánica de perennes soluciones. Así pues, a la hora de materializar la traducción, no será lo mismo que el material textual de llegada vaya dirigido a la sociedad, cultura y espacio japoneses que a la sociedad, cultura y espacio franceses, además de que, independientemente de las distancias culturales y espaciales obvias, no podemos perder de vista la función asignada a la traducción en cuestión que, tal y como hemos dicho anteriormente, influirá decisivamente sobre el resto de factores. Por tanto, la traducción del chiste no se puede abordar en términos absolutos de 16

dificultad o sencillez lingüística o cultural. Tampoco conviene creer a pies juntillas que la solución para traducir los chistes pasa por recrear una serie de efectos pragmáticos, llevar acabo adaptaciones, compensaciones y otras tantas estrategias en la sempiterna búsqueda de la ya mencionada equivalencia pragmática. Nos inclinamos más bien a pensar que la traducción del chiste se puede materializar si la entendemos como un proceso cognitivo a partir del cual se desarrolla una operación comunicativo-textual basada en la búsqueda de equivalencias que, al mismo tiempo, vendrá determinada por una serie de coordenadas espaciales, temporales y sociales que constituirán los cimientos básicos sobre los que se asentará un acto comunicativo que estará siempre marcado, ya sea de manera implícita o explícita, por una función específica.

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8. Works Cited List. Works cited: Tolosa Igualada, Miguel, et al. "De la traducibilidad del chiste: más allá de los factores perceptibles." Interlingüística 2005: 1079-1089. Web.

Website resources http://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/asele/pdf/15/15_0232.pdf http://dictionary.cambridge.org/es/diccionario/britanico/joke http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/joke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke http://es.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Joke http://lema.rae.es/drae/srv/search?id=2xlJVMOuPDXX2mwbEai1

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