Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis examines the relationship between sound, meaning, humor and culture through the lens of translation. It illustrates the relevance of sound to determining the meaning of words by analyzing textual examples in a variety of media—oral, written and visual—where the phonological aspect of words constitutes a deliberate component of the message. Sound is also presented as a cultural and linguistic factor present in the configuration of certain types of humor. Phonological jokes, or jokes that use words of one’s own language to parody the way another language sounds, are selected out of a variety of possible texts as heuristic tools for analyzing the interrelationship between sound and meaning within a humorous context. A primary classification of this type of joke is presented together with an original corpus of examples from over 30 languages. Such multilingual perspective enables us to examine the role of sound as a culturally-bound component of language, while demonstrating that sound-based humor exists in multiple cultures and is a widespread phenomenon.
Authors: Muñoz Basols, Javier Francisco
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Universidad de Zaragoza
OpenAlex ID: W2485798591