How to joke, in english

[Ex-User (9086)]

I've been reviewing my performance in different languages and what I've found out is that I tend to be more serious in english than I tend to be in my native language.
I don't think the problem lies in my ability to convey, simply put, using and thinking in english, which is currently my main language, is a different experience compared to using my native.
Examples include having different aesthetics and preferring different things when immersed in english.

It may be a question directed to foreign users, how do you experience the change or the modality of different cultures and languages in communication?
Is this some kind of on/off switch?
Is it normal that our sense of humour while present is expressed differently?
Would you consider some kind of workaround, in order to be more expressive or connect more easily?

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Sounds like compartmentalization.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Sounds like compartmentalization.

Interesting, thank you. It may provide some explanations and some ways to alter the division. As well as the related states of intellectualization, avoidance and dissociation to look into.

 

[Pyropyro]

Actually my teacher on my advance English class told us that we should have a switch in our minds when we speak another language. Basically, I have to think in English to properly speak in English. If I think with my native Filipino language (which I do naturally), I'll have a hard time translating it to English speech.

By thinking in English, I adapt certain traits that comes with my perception of USA's culture and language. I usually become more direct and formal.

 

[ddspada]

If I think with my native Filipino language (which I do naturally), I'll have a hard time translating it to English speech.

Same thing here. When I speak or write in Spanish, I have to be thinking in Spanish (I live in Mexico City) and not any other language. It gets annoying when I'm reading a book in another language and somebody asks me what it's about. I have to translate my thoughts.

I don't write significantly more formally in any one language but I do notice I approach topics a little differently. Particularly, in Spanish I naturally explain first and then go to my main point. In English, I'm more comfortable first giving an outline of what I'm going to say and then saying it (I notice it a lot more when I'm talking as opposed to writing). In German, Italian and French I'm much more linear and only give examples as I go.

When speaking, I can crack jokes in English and Spanish just about the same (now, as to whether they're funny or not, I can't say). In my experience, English lends itself more to making jokes which rely on words sounding the same, and Spanish lends itself more to jokes about a word having more than one meaning.

Of course, the references which I'm able and willing to make in informal speech vary considerably amongst languages. I think that's the single greatest difference for me, and the part where culture comes most into play as far as humour goes. YMMV.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Basically, I have to think in English to properly speak in English.

It happened sort of naturally, a few years ago for me, in that I started thinking in english when doing english related things, but it also transferred some further, so that in non-related situations I will continue to think in english, or mix english and polish/other bits in my thoughts.

By thinking in English, I adapt certain traits that comes with my perception of USA's culture and language. I usually become more direct and formal.

The kind of experience you have described is what I was getting at. Maybe it is due to the nature of this language, or the way we have been taught? It seems there are vastly different neural connections and maybe even that we have been studying english in a formal enviroment with a teacher and that way we were forced to adapt this formal mode of operation.

Same thing here. When I speak or write in Spanish, I have to be thinking in Spanish (I live in Mexico City) and not any other language. It gets annoying when I'm reading a book in another language and somebody asks me what it's about. I have to translate my thoughts.

Of course, the references which I'm able and willing to make in informal speech vary considerably amongst languages. I think that's the single greatest difference for me, and the part where culture comes most into play as far as humour goes. YMMV.

Now I am thinking that at least three factors could be important in this.
The traits of the language we use, that tend to alter our performance.
The way we have been using this language in a different enviroment and situations that led to the development of different mechanisms more that others.
Our familiarity with more than one language, as well as our sufficient ability, making us less concentrated, or making it unnoticeable to start filling the blank areas that are well developed for native speakers.

 

[Pyropyro]

The kind of experience you have described is what I was getting at. Maybe it is due to the nature of this language, or the way we have been taught? It seems there are vastly different neural connections and maybe even that we have been studying english in a formal enviroment with a teacher and that way we were forced to adapt this formal mode of operation.

I think so too. The classroom is a sterile and formal environment and during class we were more focused in constructing English sentences properly than in expressing ourselves in English. Heck, in some schools it's even forbidden to utter a single Filipino word during English class.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Here's a repost of my most recent take on this issue:

For me it's really difficult to tell such nuances in english text if I haven't interacted one on one for sufficiently long enough and/or I don't know that person's reactions from rl, I find it much easier irl, I have a tendency to take written word far more analytically and seriously, partly because I enjoy analysing and partly as a natural emotional detachment from abstract symbols, even though I can think in both english and my native, I've developed a split of roles, where my native is used daily for a multitude of purposes and english is what I do programming, translating for work, reading technical documents, studying and structuring my thoughts because english lends itself to ordering well

I'm quite open to the idea of being on the autistic spectrum given my various tendencies (superpowers actually). I plan to get myself diagnosed somewhere in the near future. Tbf, there's little to no issues irl, I'm shy or somewhat subdued in public but that's within norm I'd think.

 

[Hadoblado]

While conceptually I have no investment in my culture over others, I don't think I could ever feel comfortable isolating myself from it, to the extent that I wouldn't learn another language.

This is mostly because, without lingual mastery, I'd be unable to enjoy humour, which is the majority of satisfaction I achieve from socialisation. I'd basically be limited to dad jokes (but w/ worse execution).

You might experience something similar to my catastrophised scenario? Your written English is exceptional, how fluent are you IRL? So much of humour is tonal, or grounded in the otherwise irrelevant minutia that I assume it would take the better part of a decade to be truly fluent in it.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I noticed something that hasn't been touched yet. You've given explanations on why you might be framing your thoughts in more serious contexts with English, but you have yet to demonstrate how casual and perceptive you are in other languages. Can you give examples of such and which languages?


What I meant by compartmentalization earlier was that perhaps you felt some subconscious desire to be formal when using English because it represents the academic/professional world to you, whereas you don't hold your native language and other learned languages up to the same high expectations.

Also relevant, the idea of high-low context cultures which is roughly thought to correlate with collectivist and individualist cultures. America and US English for example is low context(& high content) as in we put more emphasis on the words being said and require explicit verbal situations in our socializing. It means that misinterpreting signals and a lack of respect for unspoken rules are common motifs in the culture; the language doesn't reserve words for specific situations which ideally could impart great meaning, instead we string together the same commonplace words in different situations and hope our body language doesn't betray the idea we wish to communicate.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Blarr have you taken the MBTI in your own native language? I get different results for mine. I made a topic on it (dead now) a while back if you were wondering. The results for mine basically has one language dominating Feeling while the other dominates Thinking.

On the quoted text, yeah, I do have the same approach to English. I'm not sure whether or not it's just because of the nature of bilingualism or something else entirely- like that we're a part of the digital age; so electronic communication is something that we're much more accustomed to (chatting, texting, communicating on a forum like this one, etc).

 

[Sinny91]

The English don't joke.

All our jokes are veiled criticism.

 

[QuickTwist]

The English don't joke.

All our jokes are veiled criticism.

How delightfully unintentionally not-American of you.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Thank you all guys/gals for your input. It gives me useful ideas on what to consider and you are all very helpful.

Hado bit:

Spoiler

While conceptually I have no investment in my culture over others, I don't think I could ever feel comfortable isolating myself from it, to the extent that I wouldn't learn another language.

I don't feel alienated per se, but I feel a different "flavour" of familiarity, for lack of a better way to put it.

This is mostly because, without lingual mastery, I'd be unable to enjoy humour, which is the majority of satisfaction I achieve from socialisation. I'd basically be limited to dad jokes (but w/ worse execution).

There's certainly bits of english humor I enjoy. Also hmm...not sure how relevant that would be but one of my polish friends enjoys my english humor, because we have a tendency to switch to english randomly when a more fitting expression is available in this language or we feel like it. (A practice known as code-switching)

You might experience something similar to my catastrophised scenario? Your written English is exceptional, how fluent are you IRL?

I'm less fluent in speech due to lack of practice, I'm considering hiring a native speaker for some 1 on 1 practice when I save some more money. That's what one of my brothers had done and he thinks it helped him out. Though I speak better than him in terms of comprehension/vocab/overall, he's more relaxed and gets a better flow in the spoken conversation, a thing I'd attribute to him pretty much constantly being in a leadership position and dealing with people most of his professional time. For the sake of completeness, my eldest brother is superior in english command to us both and he lives in UK, has an english partner and most of his friends are english natives as well.

So much of humour is tonal, or grounded in the otherwise irrelevant minutia that I assume it would take the better part of a decade to be truly fluent in it.

I try not to overthink it since it is so natural. I can tell why my or else's joke was perfect, I can point to the intonation, wording and timing of the delivery, but once I'm analytic I can't simply choose to implement my understanding of what makes a perfect tone, I get tense, I get distracted or I panic. The way it works for me is when I'm feeling at ease or enjoying myself and over time I will get to be funny when I feel like doing it.

Though I noticed using far less intonation, the phatic and emphatic structures and colloquialisms with strangers. I sort of open up to people over time once I start unconsciously getting how they work and how we work together. With strangers it isn't uncommon for me to use mostly a monotone flat, quick and precise tone in a go-getting pragmatic fashion. Albeit there are exceptions.

ESC bit:

Spoiler

I noticed something that hasn't been touched yet. You've given explanations on why you might be framing your thoughts in more serious contexts with English, but you have yet to demonstrate how casual and perceptive you are in other languages. Can you give examples of such and which languages?

Good question. Now I'm pretty sure I have to keep myself from falling into a cognitive bias of recollecting only such examples that side with either angle of the "formal behavior" theory I'm considering at that moment.

It would be fair to say that there is a handful of people that I know of with whom I have an easy time establishing a playful banter or cracking each other up. I have to say that the pool of such relations is restricted only to my natives as I haven't created equally strong relations with other nationalities.

As to the nature or style of those contacts they tend to be more intellectual, learned and scholarly by the virtue of our interests and backgrounds. In fact all of the people that I'd now consider my "long-term" friends, about whom I'm sure that they enjoy my jokes and we have a playful banter, have at least earned a master's (engineers) degree and are relatively highly cultured or established in that way. And I'm not saying it with any feeling of superiority, it is something that I hadn't considered until you've asked this question.

I'll try to break down one of the most recent quips that got us both laughing:
Essentially they went on a tangent about "Marian" and "Maria" names and the way the male form was feminine. Notably, phonetically "Ma ria" is equivalent to "ma ryja" which means they have a "face/snout" or "my snout" which is funny in and of itself. I said in polish "nothing wrong in derailing as long as you wake up in the morning with a blissful smile on twaryi, or there's a Twaryja lying next to you with the same blissful smile." "Twa ryi" here is used to mean "your snout" and Twaryja is capitalised to denote lying next to a girl/lover named Twaryja.
Anyway, I'm not sure if it's the kind of examples or explanations you're looking for. It's basic abstract wordplay with an innuendo, it forms a part of my jokes, but there are many other styles and forms of jokes I'm relying on.

What I meant by compartmentalization earlier was that perhaps you felt some subconscious desire to be formal when using English because it represents the academic/professional world to you, whereas you don't hold your native language and other learned languages up to the same high expectations.

Perhaps, I can make burp or fart jokes with one of my friends and it's no issue at all. Maybe I should find similar people in different languages to grow a sample and compare.

Also relevant, the idea of high-low context cultures which is roughly thought to correlate with collectivist and individualist cultures. America and US English for example is low context(& high content) as in we put more emphasis on the words being said and require explicit verbal situations in our socializing. It means that misinterpreting signals and a lack of respect for unspoken rules are common motifs in the culture; the language doesn't reserve words for specific situations which ideally could impart great meaning, instead we string together the same commonplace words in different situations and hope our body language doesn't betray the idea we wish to communicate.

Thanks, I'll consider it, I don't have a meaningful answer at the moment.

Blarr have you taken the MBTI in your own native language? I get different results for mine. I made a topic on it (dead now) a while back if you were wondering. The results for mine basically has one language dominating Feeling while the other dominates Thinking.

I haven't actually. It's worthwhile to check how my subjective observation biases play out in different languages to produce different views of the kind of person I am.

On the quoted text, yeah, I do have the same approach to English. I'm not sure whether or not it's just because of the nature of bilingualism or something else entirely- like that we're a part of the digital age; so electronic communication is something that we're much more accustomed to (chatting, texting, communicating on a forum like this one, etc).

I sometimes find it frustrating like a hollow place in my brain. I want to conquer and more fully master english, but it's that critical step that's holding me back.

The English don't joke.

All our jokes are veiled criticism.

Then I must've been misplaced right after birth .

How delightfully unintentionally not-American of you.

I like it when Sinny highlights being a Brit.


As a way of summary I can conclude that:
My practical command of language is low and may be holding me back (need more practice and more skill).
I'm sort of posh and I don't mesh with all kinds of people the way I'd hope or expect to (it could be natural and I shouldn't expect to be able to get along with everyone).
I need to expand on the familiarity, verbosity and common registers as well as staying relaxed during interactions outside of my area of comfort (need to improve my psychological comfort, or more precisely the consistency establishing thereof).
I may be worried over a tiny sample size that's in no way representative of my true predispositions or potentials have I had more practice or have I lived in close contact to foreign speakers for sufficiently long enough.

 

[Absurdity]

Do you watch or ingest any English-language humor? Like standup comedy or comedy movies? Might be a place to start if you want to broaden your horizons.

I think the 1980 movie Airplane might be a good place to start. It's got a mix of slapstick and word play that seems to cover a lot of bases.