Product Description

This accessible textbook is unique in offering students hands-on, practical experience of textual analysis focused on the language of humour. It combines practical activities with texts, commentaries and further activity suggestions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #156529 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
'Entertaining and informative. It succeeds in the difficult task of explaining very clearly and succinctly how humour and jokes work. Particularly clear and useful for students on English language courses are the author's explanations and illustrations of ambiguity, semantics, pragmatics, discourse and register.' - John Shuttleworth, Principal Examiner, A-Level English Language

'Drawing on a wide range of examples, it clearly describes how language is central to the construction and interpretation of a range of humorous texts ... will increase students' knowledge of linguistic structures and develop their awareness of an important social use of language ... attractive to students and teachers at A-Level and foundation undergraduate courses.' - Joanna Thornborrow, Cardiff University, UK

From the Back Cover
The Language of Humour:
* examines the importance of the social context for humour
* explores the issue of gender and humour in areas such as the New Lad culture in comedy and stand-up comedy
* includes comic transcripts from TV sketches such as Clive Anderson and Peter Cook

Customer Reviews

Overall, very good in parts
This book is very good if you are taking part in researching into language of humour or comparing different types of humour. It gives a very detailed account of different aspects of humour and is quite scientific as it gives you all the technical terms of 'humour-techniques' you need to know for the subject. It is very easy to understand and provides lots of examples which you can refer to if writing coursework or essays. Overall, it is informative but you wouldn't read it for fun.

Helpful A Level text
Alison Ross is a very experienced teacher and examiner and presents a readable book here. However, it is superficial at times and all the white space and design features feel like it is spun out. The examples are beginning to date and many students don't really engage with Monty Python like they did in the good old days. A helpful starter text.