Reflections on Telling Jokes

For this homework assignment, I picked 3 jokes from a book I bought in Taiwan, remembered them by heart, and “performed” them in front of 3 Taiwanese friends and 1 American friend of mine. To quote the ideas put forth by Bauman and Briggs (1990), I somehow entextualized the jokes from the old settings where they occurred (the book) and then reconstructed them in the interactions I shared with my friends. The jokes and the reflection are delineated as follows.

Jokes

1. The Lawyer Joke
One day, Bill went into a bar and ordered a cup of beer. After a few minutes, he grumped, “Lawyers are assholes!” Upon hearing this, a guy in the bar stood up and shouted out, “Hey, I resent that.” So, Bill questioned, “Why? Are you a lawyer?” The guy then responded, “No, I’m an ASSHOLE!”

2. The Campus Joke
“If there are any idiots in the room, will they please stand up?” said the sarcastic teacher. After a long silent, one freshman stood up. “Mister, why do you consider yourself an idiot?” inquired the teacher with contempt. The student answered, “Well, actually I don’t. But I hate to see you standing there all by yourself.”

3. The Doctor Joke
A man wasn’t feeling well, so he went to his doctor for a complete check-up. The doctor came out with the results, “I’m afraid I have some very bad news. You are dying. And you don’t have much time left.” The man said, “That’s terrible! How much more time have I got?” The doctor responded, “10.” Upon hearing this, the man said, “10? 10 what? 10 years? 10 months? 10 days?” Then, the doctor continued, “9…”

Lawyer Joke


*All of these jokes were adapted from English Jokes (笑呵呵學英文) by Jia-Shin Bao (鮑佳欣).


Reflection on Telling Jokes

As noted by Bauman and Briggs (1990), “a shift of genre evokes contrastive communicative functions, participation structures, and modes of interpretation.” (p. 64) Therefore, the genre of joke-telling, spanning a relatively sustained period of time during which the attention is focused on the joke tellers and the message-exchanging fall practically unidirectional, entail strategies different from those employed by their casual-talk counterparts. Drawing on this proposition coupled with the joke-telling experience, I noticed the following strategies/feature for this genre of verbal art.

First and foremost, the organization should be better structured for the audience to follow. Vis-à-vis casual chats whose meanings are more socially constructed, joke telling is usually characterized by the joke-teller taking care of all the talking, or alternatively, constructing the meanings for the audience. To put it another way, in casual talks, the interlocutors could toss questions around and as such negotiate the meanings of the conversation. Whereas in joke-telling where Q&As normally don’t have a place, the audience generally look to the speaker for better understanding of the show, a fact that underscores the importance of the organization of the jokes. Meanwhile, echoing what Bauman and Briggs (1990) pointed out about the content and structure of the performance being shaped by involvement and comprehension of the audience, joke-tellers should also constantly attend to the response of the audience and make adjustments accordingly. While I was telling the campus joke, my friends didn’t quite get it because the joke was somehow interrupted mid-way through the joke. What is more, I failed to make timely adjustments to the structure and content. Therefore, they found it difficult to follow what came next since the organization of the joke fell apart.


Secondly, vocal variety and body language play an even pivotal role in joke-telling. Speaking of vocal variety, jokes, more often than not, involve some conversations between the characters being talked about. So, it is crucial to apply certain skills to help the audience differentiate one from the other. When telling the jokes, I strived to vary my voice to signify to the audience who I was playing. For example, for the lawyer joke, I heightened the pitch for Bill and lower my voice for the asshole guy. But, I knew I was not always good in upholding a consistent difference, so I tried to add “so-and-so said (answered)” every time a different character took his turn. And this worked pretty well. As far as body language is concerned, it animates the joke and somehow contributes to the audience’s enjoyment and grasp of the joke. When I played the sarcastic teacher in the campus joke, I faced the audience with arms akimbo. And I pointed to one of the friends when I came to the point where the teacher questioned the mischievous student.


Additionally, pause for emphasis and for the punch line to come are all-important. I knew I am a fast speaker and could as such ruin the jokes, so I made a point to slow myself down and pause for emphasis when I told these jokes. In particular, I reminded myself of the necessary 3-second pause before I gave away the punch line. However, I still did not do well on the campus joke where I rushed through the latter part of it, leaving the audience wondering what the joke was really about. Also, for the doctor joke, I probably did not pause enough to give my friends the cue that it’s time they laughed, so they waited even after I gave the punch line, which was extremely embarrassing.


Last but not least, cultural difference is at work when it comes to jokes. It is known that people with diversified cultural backgrounds would embrace different ideas about “a funny joke.” And I have had numerous encounters in which jokes cracking Americans up did not cause a Taiwanese to move a single facial muscle. To take the lawyer joke as an example, my Taiwanese friend demanded some more explanations for the joke because we somehow look up to lawyers back in Taiwan.