| dc.description.abstract | Language is a peculiar human faculty and functions as a tool for people's communication. The creation and expression of jokes depends on language in many cases. Gikuyu jokes are filled with strong flavour. This thesis based on the fruitful study of jokes, attempts to investigate the interpretation of Gikuyu jokes from the perspective Relevance theory and the complimentary theory of Incongruity.
The study indicates that influenced by the cognitive tendency in the first phase of appreciation of Gikuyu jokes, the audience construct an interpretation to the utterance and then the failure of communication. The punchline makes them choose a new context to construct the proper interpretation. As a result, the humour effect is realized. Incongruity is the key point of humour production.
The thesis holds that Gikuyu jokes are never produced merely for the sake of amusement but often implicitly perform some communicative functions not achievable by explicit expressions such as criticizing and exposing evil, counter-attacking or self-defending, attacking or ridiculing. From the study the glamour of Gikuyu language will be greatly valued and cherished. Moreover, the study offers some guidance for readers to appreciate Gikiyu jokes.
The thesis is presented in five chapters. Chapter One gives a general framework of the study focusing on the statement of the problem, objectives of the study, hypotheses, the theoretical framework, literature review and methodology. Chapter Two focuses on the types of jokes and their functions. Chapter Three covers the nature of Gikuyu jokes. Chapter Four looks at how the theory applies to the study. The summary of findings, conclusions and recommendations are
presented in Chapter Five. | en_US |
