Aspects of Error Analysis in some Nigerian Jokes
Fúnmi O Olúbọ̀dé-Sàwẹ̀
Department of History and Languages
Elizade University
Ilara-Mọkin, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
Jokes are funny stories or anecdotes that get passed round, often exposing the incongruous, ridiculous, or grotesque aspects of human nature. They can be useful in the ESL/EFL classroom to teach culture, grammar and vocabulary. This paper presents an analysis of some language misuse jokes from Nigeria, which seem not only to have a purpose of making people to laugh but only highlighting the errors that people make in their use of a second language. Three criteria were deemed necessary to categorise a joke as utilising error analysis: presentation of an erroneous utterance; provision of a reconstruction of the utterance or at least, an indication of the intended meaning, to enable the hearer to craft a reconstruction; and an account for the source of the error. The data comprise five ‘language misuse’ jokes sent to me by friends and harvested from my cell phone in June, 2013 A preliminary analysis showed four types of errors: phonological errors, vocabulary errors involving phonological re-interpretation, misuse of idioms and D: spelling errors. These errors were either presented plain or underscored through capitalization, punctuation or emoticons. The methods used in presenting information to aid reconstruction include translation, annotation and commentary. The sources of errors codified by the jokes include mother tongue interference manifesting in literal translation as well as phoneme substitution; and imperfect mastery of the grammar of the second language, manifesting in misanalysis, incomplete rule application, hypercorrection, overgeneralization and circumlocution. This kind of analysis can provide valuable input into a needs analysis in some classes or be used in awareness raising sessions in classes in phonology, grammar and writing.
Keywords: error analysis, jokes, annotation, commentary, MT interference, intralingual errors