Challenges for EFL learners in understanding English humour:a pilot study

Abstract

English humour is an area with great potential benefits for EFL teachers and learners,as a source of authentic linguistic and cultural input, and as atimulus for creative output, provided that care is taken in selecting understandable materials.This paper is an attempt to examine what challenges learners face in understanding humorous texts, by describing and presenting the findings of a small-scale pilot study investigating the responses of a group of high-level EFL learners to five English jokes which display a variety of types and levels of humour. Analysis of participant responses shows that shorter jokes, which tend to be more lexically dense, were rated as funny than longer, narrative jokes. The limitations of the current are examined, and a number of potential avenues for future research are suggested.