Thursday, March 29, 2007
Intercultural Humor
Youtube can provide videos of L2 comedy that can be the starting point for an intercultural class discussion about products, practices and perspectives.
I think comedy is a very important product of a culture. Most comedy relies on stereotypes; it uses exaggerated depiction of cultural practices and perspectives. The video I linked is a fake commercial within a comedy movie that promotes a "true" German restaurant by ridiculing other cuisines like Italian, Greek and Turkish. The joke here, however, is not on the ethnic minorities but on the narrow-minded, nationalistic Germans whose "Gastfreundlichkeit" (hospitality) does not apply for everything south of the border.
Instructors could use such instances of L2 comedy to foster intercultural discussion with NS. Why do Germans think this is funny? (If they think it is funny at all). Do American students consider this funny, too? What is the difference to American comedy which also heavily relies on ethnic stereotypes? I think such an intercultural understanding of humor is a major step in gaining pragmatic proficiency in the target language.
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3 comments:
comparing humor is always fun, and the discussion of stereotypes to gain intercultural understanding in this setting would more than likely also be very fruitful.
Richard,
Humor will keep your students interested. ee cummings said something to the effect that a day without laughter is a wasted day.
I agree that discussing the ambiguity behind humor helps uncover both stereotypes and things about the culture you might not be able to encounter in other learning situations.
But in paractice I have also found that sometimes after discussing and elaborating on the elements of humor,it is rather difficult to keep the "funny" element funny. I have had situations where my less proficient students became more annoyed than amused by the joke simply because the road to getting it was way to slow.
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