Humour expression at the crossroads of deaf and hearing cultures: the case of the Oral Deaf fitted with cochlear implants
VIEW FULL TEXT

Keywords

profound deafness
cochlear implant
humour
English
French

How to Cite

Vincent-Durroux, L. (2020). Humour expression at the crossroads of deaf and hearing cultures: the case of the Oral Deaf fitted with cochlear implants. The European Journal of Humour Research, 8(4), 59–81. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.4.Vincent-Durroux1

Abstract

In deaf people who use sign languages, humour expression has been looked at extensively, examining the preferred means and topics in deaf humour (Cancio-Bello 2015; Sutton-Spence & Napoli 2009). Humour expression remained to be further examined in deaf people with cochlear implants, which give access to the sounds of speech, and facilitate speech production and interaction. In this paper, we address these questions: is delayed linguistic input an obstacle on their way to using humour expression in their target spoken language? To what extent do profoundly deaf cochlear implants recipients access and share the means and topics of hearing people? How do they stand culture-wise? We analyze French and English data collected from 18 profoundly deaf cochlear implant recipients, aged two to 15, with ages at implantation varying from one to 7, and filmed in interaction with an adult. For the youngest children, the main sources of humour are the gestures they make, the objects they build, and onomatopoeia. Older children use formal speech in order to make the adult laugh, either by taking up the adult’s speech, or by speaking to / for the objects they have built. The children tend to grow out of deaf experience jokes and visual jokes. They already evidence some of the trends of humour in their respective target language (e.g. third-party target in French, discursive strategies in English), although the French participants do not use linguistic play as much as would be expected, and the English participants do not use much recipient-oriented humour. We discuss the growing ability of cochlear implant recipients to access speech-based, co-constructed humour, even though such high-level linguistic processes have been shown to be impacted in deaf children (Arfé et al. 2015; Bourdin 2015) with deafness itself and limited linguistic input as possible causes accounting for their preference for discursive strategies over play-on-words in humour expression.

https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.4.Vincent-Durroux1
VIEW FULL TEXT

References

Arfé, B., Rossi, C. & Sicoli, S. (2015). ‘The contribution of verbal working memory to deaf children’s oral and written production’. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 20 (3), pp. 203-214.

AuBuchon, A.M., Pisoni, D.B. & Kronenberger, W.G. (2015). ‘Verbal processing speed and executive functioning in long-term cochlear implant users’. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 58, pp. 151-162.

Béal, C. (2010). Les interactions quotidiennes en français et en anglais. De l’approche comparative à l’analyse des situations interculturelles. Bern: Peter Lang, Linguistics Insights, Studies in Language and Communication 99.

Béal, C. & Mullan, K. (2017). ‘The pragmatics of conversational humour in social visits: French and Australian English’. Language & Communication 55, pp. 24-40.

Béal, C. & Mullan, K. (2013). ‘Issues in conversational humour from a cross-cultural perspective: comparing French and Australian corpora’, in Peeters, B., Mullan, K. and Béal, C. (eds), Cross-culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Bienvenu, M. J. (1994). ‘Reflections of deaf culture in deaf humour’, in Erting, C., Johnson, R., Smith, D. & Snider, B. (eds), The Deaf Way, Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press, pp. 16-23.

Bourdin, B. (2015). ‘Un modèle capacitaire du traitement langagier chez l’enfant sourd : le cas de la morphosyntaxe’. ANAE 138, Approche neuropsychologique des apprentissages chez l’enfant, Surdité : évolutions technologiques, de la prise en charge et des apprentissages, pp. 469-476.

Cancio-Bello, E. (2015). The Sources of Deaf Humor. An Exploration of the Reasons Deaf Humor Differs from That of Hearing People. Bachelor thesis in the Department of Linguistics Swarthmore College Swarthmore (Pennsylvania). Advisor: Ted Fernald.

Charaudeau, P. & Maingueneau, D. (2002). Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Paris : Le Seuil.

Charaudeau, P. (2006). ‘Des catégories pour l’humour ?’. Questions de communication, Available: http://questionsdecommunication.revues.org/7688. Accessed 23 November 2020.

Charrow, V.R. (1975). ‘A psycholinguistic analysis of Deaf English’. Sign Language Studies 7, pp. 139-150.

Cunningham, J. (2006). ‘Children’s humour’, in Scarlett W. G., Al-Solaim, L., Naudeau, S., Salonius-Pasternak, D. & Ponte, I. (eds.), Children’s Play, chapter 5, SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks CA, London, New Delhi, pp. 93-109.

Del Ré, A., Dodane, C. & Morgenstern, A. (2015). ‘De l'amusement partagé à la production de l'humour chez l'enfant’, in Farhat, M. & Lacoste, F. (eds). L’Humour dans le bassin méditerranéen, Sfax: Nouha Editions, pp. 115-139.

Del Ré, A., Dodane, C., Vieira, A., Leroy-Collombel, M. & Morgenstern, A. (this volume). ‘Children’s development of humor in everyday interactions: two case-studies in French and Brazilian Portuguese’.

Duchesne, L., Sutton, A. & Bergeron, F. (2009). ‘Language achievement in children who received cochlear implants between 1 and 2 years of age: Group trends and individual patterns’. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14 (4), pp. 465-485.

Dutilleul-Guerroudj, E. (2005). Catégorisation linguistique et surdité de l'enfant. Comment l'enfant sourd construit du sens dans le langage oral. Ph.D. dissertation in linguistics, University Montpellier 3.

Hallé, F. & Duchesne, L. (2015). ‘Habiletés morpho-syntaxiques des enfants sourds porteurs d’implants cochléaires : une revue systématique’. Revue canadienne d’orthophonie et d’audiologie 39 (3), pp. 260-297.

Holmes, J. & Marra, M. (2002). ‘Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 15 (1), pp. 65-87.

Horejes, T. D. (2012). Social Constructions of Deafness: Examining Deaf Languacultures in Education. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Lacerte, L. (1988). La langue des signes québécoise (L.S.Q.) et le français : difficultés à l'écrit chez la personne sourde. MA thesis. Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal.

Leigh, I. W., Andrews, J. F., Harris, R. L. (2018). Deaf Culture: Exploring Deaf Communities in the United States. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing.

McGhee, P. E. (1979). Humor: Its Origin and Development. San Francisco, CA: Freeman.

McGhee, P. E. (2002). Understanding and Promoting the Development of Children's Humor. Kendall/Hunt.

Makagon, M. M., Sumie Funayama, E. & Owren M. J. (2008). ‘An acoustic analysis of laughter produced by congenitally deaf and normally hearing college students’. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 124 (1), pp. 472-483.

Marschark, M., Spencer, L., Durkin, A., Borgna, G., Convertino, C., Machmer, E., Kronenberger, W. G. & Trani, A. (2015). ‘Understanding language, hearing status, and visual-spatial skills’. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 20 (4), pp. 310-330.

Marschark, M., Duchesne, L. & Pisoni, D. (to appear). ‘Effects of age of cochlear implantation on learning and cognition: a critical assessment’.

Morgenstern, A & Parisse, C. (eds.) (2017). Le Langage de l’Enfant. De l’Eclosion à l’Explosion. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. Available: http://psn.univ-paris3.fr/ouvrage/le-langage-de-lenfant-de-leclosion-lexplosion. Accessed 23 November 2020.

Mullan, K. & Béal, C. (2018). ‘Conversational humour in French and Australian English: What makes an utterance (un)funny?’. Special Issue: Conversational humor: Forms, functions and practices across cultures. Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (4), pp. 457-485.

Nwokah E. E., Burnette S. E. & Graves K. N. (2013). ‘Joke telling, humor creation, and humor recall in children with and without hearing loss’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 26 (1), pp. 69-96.

Partington, A. (2006). The Linguistics of Laughter: A Corpus-assisted Study of Laughter-talk. New York: Routledge.

Pontonx, S. de, Leroy-Collombel, M., Masson, C. & Morgenstern, A. (2017). ‘Transmission et élaboration du langage dans le dialogue’, in

Morgenstern, A. & Parisse, C. (eds.). Le langage de l'enfant. De l’éclosion à l’explosion, Paris : Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, pp. 27-40.

Provine, R.R. & Fischer, K.R. (1989). ‘Laughing, smiling and talking: Relation to sleeping and social context in humans’. Ethology 83, pp. 295-305.

Sanders, D. M. (1986). ‘Sign language in the production & appreciation of humor by deaf children’. Sign Language Studies 50, pp. 59-72.

Sutton-Spence, R. & Napoli, D. J. (2009). Humor in Sign Languages: The Linguistic Underpinnings. Dublin: Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College Dublin.

Sutton-Spence, R. & Napoli, D. J. (2012). ‘Deaf jokes and sign language humor’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 25 (3), pp. 311-337.

Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language. A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge Mass. & London: Harvard University Press.

Vincent-Durroux, L. (1992). La langue orale des sourds profonds oralistes. Etude comparative (anglais / français). Ph.D. dissertation in linguistics. Paris : Université de la Sorbonne.

Vincent-Durroux, L. (2009a). ‘Deaf languages: does the hypothesis still apply?’. Corela (Cognition, représentation, langage) 7 (2). Available: http://edel.univ-poitiers.fr/corela/document.php?id=2244. Accessed 15 May 2019.

Vincent-Durroux, L. (2009b). ‘Modalités des euphémismes dans le discours oral de locuteurs sourds profonds anglophones et francophones’, in Jamet, D. & Jobert, M. (eds.). Empreintes de l'euphémisme. Tours et détours, Paris : L'Harmattan, pp. 69-82

Vincent-Durroux, L. (2014). La langue orale des jeunes sourds profonds. Paris: De Boeck-Solal, collection Voix Parole Langage.

Vrticka, P., Black, J. M. & Reiss, A. L. (2015). ‘The neural basis of humour processing’. Nature reviews. Neuroscience. MacMillan Publishers Ltd, pp. 1-9.

All authors agree to an Attribution Non-Commercial Non Derivative Creative Commons License on their work.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.