Humorous Texts in Japanese Language Pedagogy: An Intercultural Language Learning Approach

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In the approach known as Intercultural Language Learning (IcLL), language learners are encouraged to explore the target culture vis-à-vis their first culture and ultimately to find their own "third place" between the cultures (Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000; Liddicoat, 2002). For successful intercultural language learning to occur, learners need to be exposed to "culturally rich input" mediated by the teacher who makes particular elements of the input salient for the learners to notice and reflect in their existing schemes of perception and behavior (Liddicoat, 2002). In reality, however, the cultural input widely used in language classrooms (i.e., language textbooks) are not "culturally rich" in that they do not reflect complexity, dynamicity, and multiplicity of culture (Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino & Kohler, 2003; Nagata, 1995; 1998). Building on the IcLL framework, and in particular the models of intercultural competence (Byram, 1997; Liddicoat, 2002), this study considers pedagogical implementation of humorous texts as the input for intercultural learning in Japanese language classrooms. Communicating humor in a foreign language is a challenge, because humor requires holistic and highly sensitive linguistic and cultural competence. This very fact, however, indicates the strong potential of humorous texts to serve as "culturally rich input" as they are full of linguistic and pragmatic elements relevant and crucial for language learners to acquire, so long as they are introduced meaningfully and appropriately. The development of "humor competence" (Raskin, 1985) in the target culture and language may thus be considered an essential part of the process of becoming a proficient "intercultural speaker" (Byram & Zarate, 1994; Kramsch, 1998; Liddicoat, Crozet & Lo Bianco, 1999). In this study, the potential of humorous texts as a pedagogical resource for intercultural language learning will be explored using authentic samples of anime (Japanese animation), manga (Japanese comics) and manzai (Japanese stand-up comedy performance).

Stream: Literacy, Language, Multiliteracies; Languages Education and Second Language Learning

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Associate Lecturer, Asian Studies at Macquarie University. Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the Pennsylvania State University. Areas of interest are cross-cultural/intercultural communication, popular culture discourse in English and Japanese, and language pedagogy.

Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Asian Studies at Macquarie University, teaching Japanese language, literature and manga related units. PhD in Japanese classical literature, The Tale of Genji, from the University of Sydney.