Verbal humor and language play are two similar and complementary concepts.
Language play, as mentioned in Crystal (1996), refers to the ability to manipulate
certain elements of a language, while verbal humor has been psychologically theorized
in three ways, as a form of aggression and superiority, as a way of enabling the release
of inhibition, and as a response to incongruity (Forman, 2011). In contrast to verbal
play, the definition of language play is much broader. Generally, language play itself
can be viewed in two ways, individual (non-social) practice of language, or fun and
amusement (Forman, 2011). The current study focuses on the function of fun and
entertainment rather than individual language practice. In the following, a review of
language play is addressed.
Language play occurs as people manipulate the forms and the functions of
language in order to make fun for themselves or for others (Crystal, 1996). Elements
and components of language (e.g., a sound, a word, a phrase) are directly employed for
an unusual function or meaning. There have been several studies examining language
play in written forms, such as in advertisements (Crystal, 1998) and in playful online
communication (e.g., Werry, 1996; Su, 2003, 2009). Language play, also, is especially important to children’s language development. The ability to manipulate language
randomly has a crucial relation to children’s language development and metalinguistic
awareness (Crystal, 1996).
By far, many studies have been documenting the characteristics of children’s
language play (Clark, 1978; Dunn, 1988; Ely & McCabe, 1994; Hudson & Nelson,
1984; Kuczaj, 1982; Winner, 1988). At the early stage of children’s language
development, children are primarily engaged in sound play even though some syntactic
manipulation can still be observed (Kuczaj, 1982). During their process of language
acquisition, the playful manipulation is gradually inspected in the metaphors (Winner,
1988), overextensions (Hudson & Nelson, 1984) and lexical inventions (Clark, 1978).
Despite various types of linguistic manipulation, sound play is still the major resource
for children at different ages (Dunn, 1988). Besides, children’s speech play is more
likely to be social (Ely & McCabe, 1994). It becomes common to observe wordplay,
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verbalized fantasy, nonsense, and play with pragmatic conventions (Dunn, 1988).
Despite a number of studies working on language play, few of them were
conducted in the naturalistic settings. To make up the insufficiency of authentic data,
Ely & McCabe (1994) provided the functions and types of spontaneous language play
used by kindergarteners. Unlike previous studies distinguishing between language play
and verbal humor2, Ely and McCabe defined language play in a broad way by bringing
verbal humor into discussion. They suggested that language play appear in a variety of
forms more than typical sound and word play. For example, they observed that
children’s humor had a derisive and sarcastic tone. Much teasing occurred on the sound
and the meaning of children’s names. As the frequency of teases got higher, it turned to
represent an institutional classroom insult. Alongside a great number of typical
language play and teases, an exceptional case of the use of taboo words or obscene
behavior was found. It showed that the diversity of children’s language play correlates
with measures of literacy and metalinguistic development (Ely & McCabe, 1994).
From a developmental perspective, Crystal (1996) summarized different studies
2 The significant difference between language play and verbal humor is the pragmatic appropriateness.
In general, verbal humor is established through violating the maxims of discourse intentionally or unintentionally (Raskin, 1985). On the contrary, the utterances of language play are pragmatically appropriate. Ely & McCabe (1994), however, took these two as the same since verbal play relies on many of the same linguistic features of language play. Verbal humor was considered a form of word play.
and provided an overview of the developmental process of language play. It was found
that sound play is developed the earliest (from age one). Around two, children play with
syllable structures via reduplication, sound swapping and addition of pause within a
word. They recognize and produce rhyme with ease. Then, there might be
morphological play by five. By six, verbal play exists in many forms and rapidly
increases in sophistication over the next few years (Crystal, 1996, p. 333). After the age
of seven, verbal games become prevalent and riddle comprehension keeps growing
while the type of riddle increases in complexity. Finally, around ten, children play
pseudo-intellectual games that continues into the early years of high school.
After a general idea about children’s development of language play, the focus is
switched to the features of language play. Cook (2000) viewed the features from three
perspectives, linguistic forms, semantics, and pragmatics. Each linguistic level is
introduced in Table 2. In this study, language play can be recognized through the
presence of these features (e.g., repetition, emphasis, reference to an alternative reality,
and so on), even though some of them are not evident.
To focus on the children’s language play in Mandarin Chinese, Hadley (2003)
investigated word play in a Taiwanese kindergarten classroom. She found the
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centered wordplay was common. Children played with syllables in words or created
new words to manipulate names of their teacher, class, and peers. Besides, she observed
that some insulting phrases were transformed into funny punch lines (e.g., the second
syllable in ZhuBaJiè ‘Pig Eight’ was replaced with different numbers). She argued that
word play helps children to enact, explore and resist their teachers’ socialization goals.
Table 2. Features of language play (Cook, 2000, p. 123)
Linguistic forms
A. Repetition (of parts or of the whole texts)
B. Patterning of forms (rhythms, phonological, and grammatical parallels)
C. Emphasis on exact wording.
Semantics
A. Undetermined meaning (foreign or archaic language, ambiguities or obscure words)
B. Vital or essential subject matter (e.g., birth, death, sexual relations, health, etc.)
C. Reference to an alternative reality D. Inversion of language/reality relation.
Pragmatics
A. Focus on performance and on the speaker/writer B. Use in intimate interaction
C. Creation of solidarity and/or aggression and competition D. No direct usefulness
E. Preservation or inversion of the social order F. Enjoyment and/or value