Cultural Presupposition and Humor Interpretation
文化预设与幽默解读
摘 要：在引起对幽默的多种解读的诸种因素中，文化预设特别值得引起注意，因为它能在人们茫然无觉的情况下系统地影响对幽默原文信息的读解。本文试图捕捉文化预设与幽默解读之间的内在关系。幽默的跨文化解读中，若幽默的发、收双方文化预设趋同，一个民族的幽默则易为他民族所接受；反之，则会给幽默理解造成障碍。
关键词：文化预设；幽默解读；跨文化解读
Abstract: Of the many possible factors that may cause different understandings in humor, cultural presupposition gets the special notice because it may substantially and systematically affect people’s interpretation of the facts and events in humors without knowing it. This paper is an attempt at pointing the relationships between cultural presuppositions and humor interpretation. In the cross-cultural interpretation of humor, if cultural presuppositions of the giving and the receiving parts approach to the same, it is easy to understand a nation’s humor for another nation. Otherwise, It is hard to get the right understanding of humors.
Key Words: cultural presupposition; humor interpretation; cross-cultural interpretation
1. Introduction
To achieve the anticipated effect of humor involves the mutation of cognitive thoughts and the variable use of language (including several figures of speech) in the conversation. However, the way of cognitive thoughts and characteristics of language concern not only with a nation’s normal thinking rules and general linguistic rules, but also undoubtedly concern with the nation’s peculiar thinking rule and conventional means and forms to express thoughts, which are defined as the special rule of national language (Chen Xiaoying 1989:419). Those conventional rules of a nation’s thoughts and language connect closely to the nation’s culture.
When people interpret their own nation’s humors, there exists some specific presupposition or fixed pattern of thoughts, which makes some of the humors difficult to understand by other nations. This is because such a kind of presupposition reflects a nation’s characteristics in historical tradition, behavior mode, living ways, values and views. So in the cross-cultural interpretation of humor, if cultural presuppositions of the giving and the receiving parts approach to the same, it is easy to understand a nation’s humor for another nation. Otherwise, they hinder the right understanding of humors. This paper will then explain the points above in the perspective of cultural presupposition with the documentation of English and Chinese humors.
2. “Presupposition” and Cultural Presupposition
2.1 Various Definitions of “Presupposition”
Since the researches on “presupposition” have a long history, this paper is supposed to review some researches in philosophy, semantics and pragmatics before discussing cultural presupposition formally.
2.1.1 Philosophical Presupposition
According to Bullock&Stallybrass (1997:495), philosophical presupposition refers to “the logically necessary condition of some state of affairs which must be satisfied if the state of affairs is to obtain”, e.g. the uniformity of nature is a presupposition of the rationality of inductive reasoning; memory is a presupposition of our having a concept of the past. Kant’s ethical theory of the “categorical imperative” is an account of the presuppositions of a particularly rigorous form of Protestant morality.
2.1.2 Semantic Presupposition
In the sixtieth and seventieth of 20th century, with the development of semantics, semanticists extended their research on the definition of “presupposition” from various points of view. To give a definition of semantic presupposition, it is necessary to consider the following two groups of sentences:
(s1) the present king of France is bald.
(s2) the present king of France is not bald.
(s3) the present king of France exists.
(s4) some unicorns in the African jungle are hairless.
(s5) some unicorns in the African jungle are not hairless.
(s6) there exists at least one unicorn in the African jungle.
There are two common features for each of the above sets of sentence. First, it is clear that the two sentences in each group “imply” their fellow, the third sentence. This kind of “felt implication” relationship between these sentences needs explanation. When asked whether the first two sentences are true or false when the third sentence is not true, the respondent usually hesitates to give an answer. Either answer seems to set a trap. In logical semanticists’ views, presupposition is defined as the relationship between sentences and presuppositions
2.1.3 Pragmatic Presupposition
However, linguists realized that there were some disadvantages in the semantic perspective and presupposition should be regarded as a pragmatic reasoning instead of being considered in such a narrow range of true conditional semantics. According to one conception, a speaker’s assumptions (beliefs) about the speech context are presuppositions. A more restrictive notion is this: the presupposition of a sentence is the set of conditions that have to be satisfied in order that the intended speech can be understood. As Keenan (1971:45) writes, “Many sentences require that certain culturally defined conditions or contexts be satisfied in order for a express of a sentence to be understood… These conditions are naturally called presuppositions of the sentence… An utterance of a sentence pragmatically presupposes that its context is appropriate.”
While there are many understandings of pragmatic presupposition，. There is one point in common, which means pragmatic presupposition is shared background information. So it can also be understood as mutual knowledge and common ground. Only under such circumstances, can two parties of a conversation get the access to realizing the actual points of the other.
2.2. Cultural Presupposition
2.2.1 The Definition of Cultural Presupposition
To fully understand humors of other countries, culture has always been a key factor. The term “cultural presupposition” refers to the underlying assumptions, beliefs, and ideas that are culturally rooted and generally shared by persons, but rarely described or defined, simply because they seem so basic and obvious as not to require verbal formulation.
Edward. C. Stewart and Milton. J. Bennett (2000:16) holds the view that cultural presupposition is defined as “those abstract, general and systematic views permeated in an individual’s world views and behaviors” .More exactly, it is a systematical point of views of cultural features which is accumulated, developed and semantically formulated by members of the pragmatic community. Both of members of the same nature community and of the different nature community use the cultural presuppositional in order to be successful in verbal communication and cultural communication.
2.2.2 Forms of Cultural Presupposition
It can be understood from the points that have been discussed in the above that cultural presupposition plays an important role in humor’s interpretation because it may affect receivers’ and appreciators’ interpretation of the facts and events in source humors without knowing it. Meng Zhaoquan (1993:102) explains in his book that from a broad perspective culture can be divided into two parts: the East and the West. Then there are western humors and eastern humors. The eastern culture is represented by China, while the western culture is mainly of Europe and America. He also points out that the characteristic of Chinese culture is mediate, normal, symmetric and quiet. However, being extrovert, unilateral, changeable and initiative belongs to western culture. The differences of eastern and western culture cause difficulty in understanding humors, which results from different cultural presupposition. In the meantime, the communication of eastern and western culture makes humors develop much, so the common points in them have increased. People can interpret some of other nations’ humors, which is accounted for the convergent cultural presupposition of the giving and receiving parts of humors.
3. The Impact of Cultural Presupposition on Humor Interpretation
3.1 The Definition and Characteristics of “Humor”
Nowadays, we are familiar with the word “humor”, as its features of unique optimism and wisdom, wit and fun, implicit and profoundness are accepted and favored by more and more people. According to Oxford Dictionary, it is defined as “quality of being amusing or comic” and as “ability to appreciate things, situations or people that are comic; ability to be amused”. Therefore, in a broad sense, humor may be a writing style, which is mainly featured by humor, or a particular expression effect of langue. Humor reflected in langue connects closely with the practice of words and figures of speech. On one hand, to make good use of some words and figures of speech (e.g. metaphor, exaggeration or ironic) can create humors. On the other hand, humor is also a reflection of delicate usage of those words and figures of speech. The early researches on humor always begin with its practice of words or figures of speech. However, the existence of humor does not depend on any specific linguistic form. According to Mahadev Apte’s anthropological approach to humour and laughter, “humour is an integral part of culture and it can be “a major conceptual and methodological tool for gaining insights into cultural systems” (Apte, 1985: 16). Without cultural presupposition, there is no humor. Still, as the more recent study of Genelle Morain suggests, humour is one of the neglected areas in the foreign language curriculum. This is because a foreign culture’s humour is usually very difficult to understand. “My students know that people in other cultures eat different foods, speak different languages, and get married, harried, and buried in different ways. But one of the hardest things for them to grasp is that people in other cultures laugh in the special ways their cultures have taught them to laugh” (Morain, 1991: 397).Therefore, we can see humor is intimately linked with cultural presupposition. The following parts will focus on the relationship between cultural presupposition and humor interpretation.
3.2 The Negative Impact of Different Cultural Presupposition on Humor Interpretation
3.2.1 The Negative Impact of Religious Culture on Humor Interepretation
Religion, as a deep part of culture, reflects features of a nation’s culture. Therefore, some conversational humors are also a mirror of religious culture. English humors contain a great deal of information about religious culture, especially Christianity culture and the Bible culture. While, Chinese humors contain Buddhism and Taoism culture as a result of the influence of Buddhism and Taoism. Take the following humors as examples:
1) “Why don’t you go to church?” asked the minister of the non church goer.
“Well, I will tell you. The first time I went to church they threw water in my face, and the second time they tied me to a woman I have had to keep ever since.”
“Yes,” said the minister, “and the next time you go they will dirt on you.”
2) When a young apprentice was cutting hair for a guest, he had scraped the guest’s scalp for several times due to his poor skill. Then the apprentice had to continually press the bleeding wound with his hand. Finally he complained, “Only Guan Yin can do this job well!”
The key to understand Example 1) is to get three necessary religious cultures. First of all, “they threw water in my face” refers to: when newly-born babies after one week are baptized in the church, a clergyman will spray some water in babies’ faces so as to pray for their safety. Besides, “they tied me to a woman” means to get married in the church. Thirdly, “they will throw dirt on you” has such a meaning that after one passes away, a clergyman will throw some sand onto his or her coffin. So when we have had this information before, we certainly can realize their connotative senses and cannot help laughing out. As regard to Example 2), It must be difficult to appreciate it if one do not know who Guan Yin is. As we Chinese are deeply influenced by Buddhism culture,we all know, Guan Yin is a holy goodness and she can successfully help ordinary people get over all difficulties .It is said that Guan Yin may have a thousand hands. The reason why the target receivers feel unclear or confused about the source humors is that the formers are lack of necessary cultural knowledge, that is, cultural presupposition. More examples are as follows:
3) Adam returned home late one night, and Eve confronted him at the door.
“You are seeing another woman, aren’t you?”
“Do not be silly,” he replied. “You are the only woman on earth.”
Later, while half-asleep, Adam felt a tickle on his chest.
“What are you doing?” he asked Eve.
“Counting your ribs.”
4) A brick layer, a carpenter and an electrician argued who was on the earth first. “We built the pyramids of Giza,”said the brick layer, “so we must have been first.”
“No,” said the carpenter, shaking his head. “We built Noah’s Ark long before that.”
The electrician chuckled himself. “What’s so funny?” asked the carpenter. “On the first day of creation, God said ‘let there be light, ’”explained the electrician, “And we’d already laid the cables.”
Cultural presuppositions for 6) are: “Noah’s Ark” and “Let there be light” both come from Genesis. When the sky first separated from the earth, the whole world was a mess and filled with darkness. Then God said, “Let there be light!” Who else was the first on the earth other than those electricians? After creation of the world, human beings began to increase gradually in number. On the contrary, God was not satisfied with human’s vices and made the huge flood disaster. Only Noah and some animals in his ark were survived. The pyramids of Giza naturally happened later than that of the carpenter.If we know this cultural presupposition, it is possible for us to understand this humor.
According to those examples, it is obvious that religious culture is a important part of culture.. Access to the shared background information of the source humor is indispensable for the target receiver to understand and interpret successfully.
3.2.2 The Negative Impact of Social Knowledge on Humor Interpretation
Edward Sapir once said, “Language is the guide to social reality.” (1929: 207)Humor is a kind of language and exactly a mirror of social reality. Therefore, to know about some social background reflected in humors, such as politics, literature and science, aids to appreciate the source humors.
For example:
1) You wind up the elephant doll and it pins everything on the donkey.
In example 1), dolls and donkeys are symbols of Democratic and Republican parties respectively in America, which is well known for Americans and which we may not familiar with. As a result, especially for those who don’t know about American politics, it is difficult to apprehend this humor.
Certainly, social culture is diversified. Let’s take more examples for comparison:
2) There is such a humor as among foreign delegates sent to the European Economic Community:
Recently, a new arrival at Market Headquarters in Brussels introduced himself as Minister for the Swiss Navy. Everyone laughed. The Swiss delegate retorted, “Well, why not? Italy has a Minister of Finance.”
If we know little about contemporary social background, we hardly understand why everyone laughed after the Swiss Navy Minister’s self-introduction, and still fail to understand why he then retorted that “Italy has a Minister of Finance”. Actually, Swiss was an inland country without coastlines, and only had a navy of small quantity patrolling on some lakes, while then Italy had financial problems. With such cultural presuppositions, we can easily get the essences of humors.
3) “What did the reinforced concrete say when the iron beam asked him how he felt after the earthquake?”
“Fine, after all, I wasn’t there.”
It is one of many earthquake humors after the earthquake in Italy in the winter of 1908. Even people from English-speaking countries or people proficient in English may find it hard to appreciate, unless they have this information in head: at that time, Italy’s social atmosphere was in a bad condition and many projects were qualified.
As times change, there are more humors whose themes are concerned about current issues or things of our daily life. Every historical time once needed and also produced its own unique humors. Compared to traditional humors, those developing ones are more popular among people. For example:
7) “A physician went to heaven and met God, Who granted him one question.
So the physician asked: “Will health care reform ever occur?”
“I have good new s and bad new s,” God replied, “The answer is yes, but not in my lifetime.”
Actually, in 1993 and in 1994, a heat discussion on health care reform was carrying on in America. But the debate was first dynamic, then gradually declined and last just turned out to be a failure. This humor shows gradually changeable feelings of Americans. Though only having several words, it is indeed an expression of that social reality.
3.2.3 The Hindrance of Values and Customs in Humor Interpretation
Different cultures may cherish different presuppositions in terms of values and customs. While western culture prizes the individual, for example, traditional Chinese culture lays great stress on the group. As the basis of political and economic system and a major shaping force of modern society, ideology (values and attitudes) has been the cause of many cultural presuppositions that effected misreading or misunderstanding of one kind or another. It is not accidental that some people feel confused in the following illustration of a Chinese joke:
1) Two persons were arguing about something. Suddenly, one of them became very angry and shouted, “You really think you are such a great man? Do you have the courage to eat me?”
“No, I am afraid I don’t. My nationality is Hui.”
Undoubtedly, one who doesn’t know about customs of Hui Nationality cannot appreciate humorous effects in 1) whatever. Here, readers’ necessary shared knowledge is that the Hui don’t eat pork. The second man actually is criticizing the first man is a pig.
2) A humor from an American broadcasting program about the dinner on Thanksgiving Day: a housewife had invited some friends to her dinner. But because of her carelessness, she made the procedure disorderly. At last, the turkey had to be taken out in a bowl. After hearing this, many Americans could not help laughing, whereas Chinese people were confused. As a matter of fact, Americans are used to putting turkeys in plates instead of bowls. What’s more, it is a special day: Thanksgiving Day. Obviously, different customs hinder understandings.
Obviously, cultural presuppositions are diversified, Such limited examples may not enough to show divergent cultural presuppositions’ influence on humors. However, they all prove that divergent cultural presupposition will hinder successful interpretation of the source humors for the target readers or receivers. So if we pay enough attention to this and take advantage of humors into our practice to learn English, it will not only trigger learners’ interests but also cultivate their cross-cultural competences.
3.3 The Positive Impact of Convergent Cultural Presupposition on Humor Interpretation
With the exchange of western culture and eastern culture, humors are fully developing, so some commons also increase. One part of the commons shows that people from different cultures, originally or after cultural exchange, can understand other nations’ jokes or humors, which is the impact of convergent cultural presupposition. For examples:
1) a fashionable wife of a rich man, visiting a well-known writer, told him that she wanted to be a writer too. What she desired to know was what was the best way to begin with writing. The writer answered even without turning his head back, “from left to right.” (Meng Zhaoquan, 1993:125).
From present people’s points of view, this humor has a high index that makes readers laugh. But in the ancient time of China, Chinese were used to writing form up to down and from right to left. While communication of culture gradually increases, we then form the habit of writing form left to right. In this way, this humor then has something in common with western culture, which means that presuppositions of western and eastern cultures are convergent, so it is also our Chinese humor.
We may feel a sense of humor in the Parishioner’ answers of Examples 2) and 3). The reason is based on the fact that different cultural communication makes convergences of different nations increase more. With the frequent exchange of various religions, we know that believers go to church on Sundays. During that process, it takes some time for priests to give sermons, which some people think is dull and like a torture. So there are some persons who show disgusted with that process but don’t dare to speak out directly due to the religious creeds. Under such circumstance, they have to express their feelings indirectly and wittily.
4) “How late do you usually sleep on Sunday morning?”
“It all depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“The length of the sermon.”
5) New curate: “what do you think of the sermon on Sunday, Mrs. Jones?”
Parishioner: “very good indeed, sir. So instructive. We really didn’t know what sin was till you came here.”
4 The Importance of Cultural Presupposition in Appreciation of Humor
In this paper, presupposition is a must in the appreciation process of humors .For example, when someone is watching Zhao Benshan’s shows, he or she at least has to have some knowledge of Chinese culture, Chinese psychology and customs in the northeast part of China. Otherwise, one cannot realize what the fun is. The cultural barrier or lack of cultural background knowledge not only affects the fulfillment of routine communication, but also affects our understanding of reading materials. In New Concept English 3(L.G.Alexander, 1999:138), there is a paragraph worthy to be mentioned, “Whether we find a joke funny or not largely depends on where we have been brought up. The sense of humor is bound up with national characteristics. A Frenchman, for instance, might find it hard to laugh at a Russian joke. In the same way, a Russian might fail to see anything amusing in a joke which would make an Englishman laugh to tears.”
Cultural presupposition should be brought to the full awareness of readers or receivers of foreign languages for two reasons.
First, a correct interpretation of the source message may rest upon a due understanding of the relevant facts of features of the source culture. In many cases, however, the presuppositions a receiver harbors about the source culture may be based upon the realities of his or her own culture. If the source and target cultures differ significantly in relevant aspects, the source message may be wrongly understood. Form examples and analyses of the divergent cultural presupposition reflected in humor, this is especially true. We all know that the true senses intended by the authors of source humors can only be determined by a reference to humors’ cultural contexts.
The second reason that cultural presupposition should draw sufficient attention is that communicative errors caused by cultural differences are usually covert and hard to be detected, and hence may cause serious misunderstanding on the part of the target receiver. For instance, a westerner who is met in the street by a Chinese acquaintance who has only a superficial knowledge of English and is greeted by him or her with a Chinese greeting “where are you going?” may feel puzzled or even uncomfortable, thinking that the inquirer is prying into his or her privacy. The same is true with situations in humor interpretations.
5. Conclusion
Nida and Reyburn (1981:2) rightly points out: “in fact, difficulties arising out of differences of culture have produces the most far-reaching misunderstandings among readers.” Culture presupposition influences people’s interpretation of humors. Divergent cultural presupposition will hinder humor interpretation; convergent cultural presupposition will otherwise aid to understanding of humors. Therefore, in the interpreting process of humor language, we should pay special attention to cultural presupposition, as it may substantially and systematically affect their interpretation of the facts and events in source texts without their knowing it,it is also necessary to use cultural presuppositional system in order to interpret and spread cultural messages in humors and finally to realize the purpose of communication. Today, when the human race is going into a new century where different nations and cultures cannot but learn to live peacefully on a planet which is becoming increasingly small and crowed, and when developments in science and information technology are offering us more and more opportunities to know each other better, mutual understanding and more mutual appreciation are needed for interpretation of humors and other kinds of culture.
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