Contrastive Analysis: Homophonic And Homonymic Puns

For those who do not know, Vietnamese is one of the hardest languages to master. Due to the fact that it is purely phonetic and that every word in the language is one syllable. One word can mean multiple things. For example, muối,

Lutz begins the persuasive essay with a sarcastic tone. He distinguishes the use of doublespeak with quotation marks. He starts off each sentence without the use of doublespeak and ends with how doublespeak perceives the situation to be rather than the reality. Lutz states, “The Reagan Administration didn’t propose any new taxes, just “revenue enhancement” through new “user’s fees.” (Lutz line 1-3) He shows how “taxes” was changed to something different in order to mislead the public. William Lutz provided various examples to show that doublespeak can sugarcoat different situations. He then goes on to supply a definition of doublespeak through diction. William Lutz continues to classify doublespeak as a “language” and explains how it is used to mislead others. He states, “Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning.” (Lutz line10-11) This shows that it is at a whole other level that has to be deciphered to be able to understand and also suggests that can be difficult to capture. Lutz also uses repetition to give the definition. He states, “It is the incongruity between the word and referent, between seem and be, between the essential function of language…” (Lutz line 15-16) This emphasizes the length of the effect doublespeak can have. Lutz begins to structure his essay into subsections to further explain doublespeak. The first subsection focuses on “How to Spot Doublespeak.” He

Actions taken will determine the future. Caitlin, the author of Zolaria, grew up with her best friend Hanna. They went through their childhood innocence together. When high school arrived they parted ways and life changed. Through her appeal to pathos, Caitlin Horrock’s “Zolaria” establishes that people should not take life for granted; furthermore, her use of foreshadowing and connotative language stresses to readers the importance of living to the best potential.

In the novel The Compound the author writes about how Eli, the main character of the story, loses his grandma and his twin brother due to a war that broke out. He is taken to a shelter that his father has built underground. It has several bedrooms, a living room, and all the things necessary to live there for fifteen years. His father even thought to bring gifts for birthdays every year. Although this wasn’t enough for them. Eli and his sister were going through a lot and had to deal with several emotions. Especially the loss of their brother. Eli just tried to accept the fact and move on while his sister kept hope. That got him wandering, could he really still be alive? So throughout the story Eli battles with depression, worrying, and the

Vietnamese language is unique, a combination of phonetic inflection and tonal variations. Luan (2011), states that Vietnamese language “reflects contributions from many ethnic groups” and further describes it as “a singing and musical language”. China had a major influence in Vietnam’s language, having occupied Vietnam for 1,000 years. During Chinese rule, Vietnamese language assimilated many Chinese words, changing pronunciation to align with Vietnamese language structure. Even after the Chinese rule ended Vietnamese still used Chinese characters in writing until the 1900’s. Vietnam adopted many cultural ideas from China, the lunar New Year is celebrated in both countries. While keeping in common the celebration of the lunar New

Puns are also used during the conversation between Algernon and Jack in town. To accuse Algernon a liar just like dentists who lies about cavities, Jack has said,

Verbal Irony is when words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant. For example in “Night” is when

The great terrors of the world, they bring out the cruelest of people. Even in children there is the cruelness inside that can escape with the help of terror. In the book, Lord of the flies by William Golding, a group of young boys get stranded on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean and have to deal with the consequences letting fear in. Golding uses diction, symbolism, and tone to show how the boys brought out the terrors on the island out of fear.

A pun is a humorous play on words by using words that consist of two or more meanings similar sounding phrases that have contrasting definitions.

Attardo believes that "there are two kinds of jokes (…) on one side, we have referential jokes, and on the other, we have verbal jokes. The former are based exclusively on the meaning of the text and do not make any reference to the phonological realization of the lexical items (or of other units in the text), while the latter, in addition to being based on the meaning of the elements of the text, make reference to the phonological realization of the text." (1994, p.

The theme of “Birdfoot’s Grampa” is that through caring and being selfless we learn that all aspects of life are important and worth value. In stanza one, lines one through five “The old man must have stopped our car two dozen times to climb out and gather into his hands the small toads.” It was a rainy night and the old man was stopping to move the toads from the road. The speaker told the old man that he should just give up because he couldn’t save them all and he had places to go. Yet, the old man ignored the speaker’s closed minded words. The speaker was implying that his life and time was more valuable than the toads. The toads are described as small and blinded which indicates they aren’t very important to

1. Pun- a play on words; used when two words sound the same but have different meanings for humor.

What is doublespeak? Is it a useful and the language should be using? Possibly people will come up with different opinions and suggestions of doublespeak. Some people will say that doublespeak is bad and people should avoid using it; for example, in Lutz’s essay, “The World of Doublespeak,” Lutz wrote about the negative aspects of doublespeak. He defines doublespeak as, “language that pretends to communicate but really doesn’t” (Lutz/P.347). In some case he is right as doublespeak can make things sinful, virtuous; something terrible, be wonderful, and so on. However, doublespeak is a powerful communication skill; People should be familiar with it and be able to use it. It would be as dangerous as Lutz mentions in his article when people used

They don’t call other’s name without Mr. Ms. in Vietnamese. Even for younger people, they have a word for it. They have very interesting verbal communication style which is they avoid to say no in their conversation because it would be disrespectful. For instance, if someone invites you to a party and you won’t be able to go, but still you should say “yes” at the moment. Even if they said yes, they might not show up. The host won’t get mad or upset in a situation. In their culture, it’s better for them just not showing up with “yes” answer instead of saying “no” in person because they want to keep their face positively. They highly use an indirect communication method. Indirect communication method is common culture in Asia. Still, yes answer which means no would not be acceptable in Japan. Vietnamese also avoid to correct others’ mistake or praise only one person in front of others. They rely on more non-verbal communication than vernal communication. Men use handshake and bowing slightly, but women are not very comfortable to handshake with a man, but it has changed for a younger generation. It’s not necessary to have eye contact like the US. They don’t also use hand gesture much. For verbal communication, it’s very important for them to keep their tones. If a person have a loud voice, they might take it as a negative impression. They want to keep a

However, the dialect which comes to play this role is usually from a social, economic, cultural, or political group with high status in the society. For example, there are three major dialects in Vietnam: Northern (Hanoi) dialect, Central (Hue) dialect, and Southern (Saigon) dialect. Though not officially, the Northern dialect is still implicitly agreed among the citizens as the standard variety. The Northern dialect is indeed the prestige dialect because Hanoi is not only the most cultural and politically powerful city but also has been the capital of Vietnam with government headquarter offices for more than one thousand years, since the Ly dynasty in 1010. The standard grammar and vocabulary are more likely to be introduced first in written form in which grammar books and dictionaries serve as a tool to shape the correct use of the standard while pronunciation seems mainly be promoted by mass media through news program, radio shows, or movies. Thanks to this process, the nation becomes more united as its citizens can communicate more easily than if only regional dialects were available (Kerswill & Culpeper,