Pun

1. A form of Word-play
– Words with Similar pronunciation/ Same sound

– Word with More than 1 Interpretation

 Pun (Cont)

2. A kind of Rhetorical devices

– Produce certain language effects, whether Humor/ serious
– Manipulates characteristics of the language(s) to
invoke two or more meanings in:
■ Words/ Sentences/ Discourse
2 Major Types of Ambiguity in
Puns
Lexical Structural
Structural
Homonymy Semantic
(Identical sound & Spelling) (Complex phrase or
sentences which can be
parsed in many ways)

Homophony Structural Syntactic

(Word/ concept with inherent
(Identical Sound but Different
Spelling) diffused meaning based on
widespread informal uses)
Where to find puns?
References

■ Gan, X. (2015). A Study of the Humor Aspect of English Puns: Views from the
Relevance Theory . Theory and Practice in Language Studies,5(6), 1211-1215.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0506.13
■ Giorgadze, M., Phd. (2014). LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PUN, ITS TYPOLOGY AND
CLASSIFICATION. European Scientific Journal,2, 271-275. Retrieved November 22,
2018, from http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/viewFile/4819/4635
■ Giorgadze, M. (2015). CATEGORIES OF VISUAL PUNS. European Scientific Journal,2,
362-371. Retrieved November 23, 2018, from
https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/6855.
 PUNS IN
NEWSPAPER
HEADLINES
 The word, force creates lexical
ambiguity
• Force – A group of people organised
& trained
• Force – Ubiquitous power (Movie
Reference

 The headlines mean that the public

should help out the force, in this
context it refers to the police
 The force has another reference, a
popular movie reference. Without the
subheading some movie geeks
probably think of the movie instead of
the real intended meaning. The Force
in Star Wars
 The word, ball creates lexical ambiguity
towards the reader
 Interpreted in two ways

• Ball – Is an object (Usually rounded

shape)
• Ball – Man’s genital part

 The intended meaning is Tiger Wood,

the golf player scores penalty
 In a humorous way, some people who
might not have any idea of who’s
Tiger and his profession might get
the wrong idea as if Tiger has sex with
someone
 It’s a catchy word because it’s
humorous and able to grasp reader’s
attention
• Ambiguity in the word hail
• Homophone

• Hail – Shower of frozen rain

 The expression Oh Hail No indicates

that a shower of frozen rain is
happening
 But it is common expression OH HELL
NO is used by the English speaker to
show something that is unacceptable
with outrage.
 Notice that the word HAIL and HELL
are pronounced in the same manner.
Reference

■ van Mulken, M., R. van Enschot-van Dijk, H. Hoeken 2005. Puns, Relevance and
Appreciation in Advertisements. Journal of Pragmatics [online] 37 (5), 707-721. (14
Nov. 2008)
Puns in Cartoon Strips

■ Puns in cartoon strips can play with lexical ambiguity

and structural ambiguity which causes different
meanings in the interpretations, creating humour.

■ For lexical ambiguity, cartoon strips focus on

homonymy and homophony (part of homonymy) as
they involve utterances between the speaker and
hearer. The sound of words spoken should be similar
but can be of same or different spellings but with
different meanings, creating ambiguity.

Lexical ambiguity:
The word ‘ online’ is ambiguous .
 It shows homonymy with words that
have same sound, same spelling but
different meanings.
 It has 2 meanings here with
predicates, online1 and online2.
 The pun from the word, online creates
lexical ambiguity by relating to
different speakers’ intuition.
• To humans, online1 means a lot in the
technology era. It means to be
connected to the Internet. It usually
refers to a person who is on the
Internet.
• To the bird, online2 is nothing
interesting because the word refers to
the action of the bird perching on top
of a telephone line or electric cable.
The bird does this almost everyday
and is used to it.
 Thus, the bird does not really
understand what online means to
humans. The bird is wondering about
the idea of being online and it is
humorous for reader.
 The word ‘order’ has 2 meanings in different
contexts.

Order1 - authoritative command (in the

court)
Order2 - request for food (in a restaurant)

• The word ‘order’ itself is lexically

ambiguous.
• The relevance of the context can help
one to identify which word is used.
• The context of the cartoon strip is in a
court. It doesn’t take readers long to
ensure what information that the judge
wants to transfer.
 However, the prisoner is designed to
misinterpret the meaning of ‘order1’ as
Lexical ambiguity: ‘order2’. Thus, the conversation
becomes a pun with great humour.
The word ‘ order’ is ambiguous. Flouting of Relevance Theory
-Hearer (criminal) misinterprets the real
 It shows homonymy with words that
meaning intentionally or unintentionally by
have same sound, same spelling but
not considering the relevance between
different meanings.
utterance and context.
Structural ambiguity:
The phrase ‘moving pictures’
is ambiguous.
Absence of article in plural and
non-count nouns makes it
ambiguous as readers confuse it
with different parts of speech.
-The noun has to be in plural form to cause
ambiguity without the indefinite article , ‘a’
in the singular form.
• ‘Moving pictures’ has 2 meanings here.
• Speaker’s meaning: Action of moving the
pictures
• Listener: Pictures that move like in
movies
• Speaker’s meaning: Action of moving the pictures
(‘moving’ is the verb in gerund form)
• Listener: Pictures that move like in movies
(‘moving’ becomes the adjective, which modifies of the noun ‘pictures’)

 The listener misinterprets the phrase differently, agreeing to it and ends

up with extra work to do. This becomes a pun, which is funny to readers.
Structural ambiguity:  The auxiliary ‘is’ is inverted to
form a question and is being
separated from the main verb in
The phrase ‘trying’ is ambiguous. the progressive form ‘trying’.

Progressive verb construction  Thus, progressive verb ‘trying’ is

is confused with the SVC (predicate confused with the adjective
‘trying’.
adjective) construction.
The phrase trying has 2 meanings in two different
constructions of sentence structures.
Mother – (verb) making an effort to do something
Teacher – (adjective) hard to endure, annoying
• Mother asks innocently and hopefully on
whether her son is making his effort to learn in
class.
• The exhausted teacher misinterprets her
meaning and thinks that the question is asked
on whether the son is difficult or annoying to be
taught or not.
• This is a sarcastic pun, poking fun
at the conversation between the
innocent and hopeful mother and
the annoyed teacher.
• This makes the cartoon strip
funny to readers through
ambiguity in sentence structure
formations.
References
■ Ahmed, M.F. ( 2012). A Taxonomy of Structural Ambiguity in Humour with Reference to
Translation. Iraqi Academic Scientific Journals, 6(13), 15-40. Retrieved from:
https://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=68242
■ Chao,G. & Xinghua, R. (2013). A Pragmatic Study of Ambiguity and Puns in English
Humour. Atlantis Press, 5(1), 666-669. doi:10.2991/msie-13.2013.148
■ Shekin, E. (2018). An analysis of Ambiguity in Cartoon Strips. Retrieved from:
https://www.academia.edu/6308410/An_analysis_of_Ambiguity_in_Cartoon_Strips?aut
o=download
 Ambiguity in idioms

- Idioms can have more than one meaning.

- Literal meaning: Words are in strict accordance to their meaning.
- Idiomatic meaning: Express different meaning from the words
used in the sentence.
 Examples

“Spill the tea”

- Literal meaning: To actually spill the tea from the teacup.

- Idiomatic meaning: To share gossip or disclose details.
- - A semantic ambiguity.
 Examples

“Low hanging fruit”

-Literal meaning: Fruit that is hanging closely to the ground.

-Idiomatic meaning: People who aren’t very bright.
- A syntactic ambiguity
 Examples

“Turn over a new leaf”

-Literal meaning: turning over a leaf to the other side.

-Idiomatic meaning: Turning to a fresh start.
- A semantic ambiguity.
 Ambiguity in song lyric

•Wijay(2013:17) said “Song lyric is abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in

such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and
symmetry of expression. Song lyric is the set of words that make up a song,
usually consisting of verses and choruses.”
 Example
•Song title “We know the way” (Moana movie)

[Hook 2: Chorus, Lin manuel Miranda]

Aue, aue
We set a course to find
A brand new island everywhere we roam
Aue,aue
We keep our island in our mind
And when it’s time to find home
We know the way
 “A brand new island everywhere we roam”
•Structural ambiguity the new name from the island or new know the name
of the island
•Lexical ambiguity Brand= mark something or name of product
•Literal meaning =The polynesian tribe find some new islands or new
locations when they are roam
•“Aue, aue We keep our island in our mind ”
•Structural ambiguity they save their island in their mind or take care their
island
•Lexical ambiguity Keep= save something or take care something
•Mind=about remembrance or brain
•Literal meaning =The polynesian tribe always remember their island
(polynesian)
 Conclusion

Ambiguity can occur only in certain contexts with relevant choice or words
or with certain syntactic orders (by also considering the syntactic
requirements). Thus, the contexts play an important function to make it
possible for the sentences to be interpreted in different ways.
 References
-https://www.coursera.org/lecture/logical-fallacies/semantic-
and-syntactic-ambiguity-M4BHs

-Yastanti, U., & Setiawati, A. D. (n.d.). AMBIGUITY IN

SOUNDTRACK SONGS LYRIC OF MOANA MOVIE. Retrieved from
http://ejournal.bsi.ac.id/ejurnal/index.php/wanastra/article/v
iew/3862