Producing Verbal Play in English
Subtitle: A Contrastive Study of Advanced German Learners of English and English Native Speakers
Publisher: Verlag Dr. Kovac
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Hamburg, Germany
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 344
ISBN-13: 9783830038207
Description: Extending the conceptual and empirical scope of foreign language research towards the fields of play, creativity and humour, this qualitative study pursues a two-fold aim: (i) to provide terminological clarity of the notions regarding verbal play and verbal humour, sense of humour, communicative competence etc and (ii) to identify the constraints typical in (German) foreign language users with respect to English verbal play production. To this end, the punning powers of the non-native and native English-speaking participants are tested with a translation experiment. Complying with the task’s creative format, the individual performances are critically assessed in terms of creativity-inducing and creativity-hindering factors. The road to success appears to be the favourable conflux of a host of interrelated and interindividually differing procedural, contextual and psychological factors, the core components of which are interest, information, involvement and imagination. The English learners’ limitations include insufficient factual and procedural language knowledge, self-consciousness and risk-avoidance. PhD Thesis, University of Hamburg Germany, 2007 (Copyright Verlag Dr. Kovac, Hamburg, 2008).  A free copy of THE SUMMARY (Verbal Play Production) is available on the internet archive.
Table of contents: pagenum: 11
label: Introduction; pagenum: 17
title: Research on playful foreign language use
label: chapter 1; pagenum: 31
title: Play, creativity and humour
label: chapter 2; pagenum: 71
title: Verbal creativity, verbal play and verbal humour
label: chapter 3; pagenum: 141
title: Research design
label: chapter 4; pagenum: 167
title: Introduction to data analysis
label: chapter 5; pagenum: 169
title: Translational outcome
label: chapter 6; pagenum: 185
title: Process-related factors
label: chapter 7; pagenum: 221
title: Contextual factors
label: chapter 8; pagenum: 235
title: Psychological factors
label: chapter 9; pagenum: 263
title: Results
label: chapter 10; pagenum: 277
title: Discussion and Outlook
label: chapter 11; pagenum: 287
label: Bibliography; pagenum: 315
label: Abbreviations; pagenum: 316
label: List of figures and tables; pagenum: 317
label: Appendices; pagenum: 335
label: Author Index; pagenum: 340
label: Subject Index