LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:7 July 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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A Study of Humour through Words and Ideas in
the Select Works of R. K. Narayan

Ms. M. Ummu Shabina, Ph.D. Research Scholar
Dr. S. Gunasekaran

Humour through Words

Language has a vast potential for comic possibilities. Humour arising out of words, or rather from the incongruity of words and speech, is probably the earliest and the most primitive form of humour conveyed in language, apart from pantomime, gesture and action. R. K. Narayan has used different techniques to produce verbal humour arising out of jokes, jests, exaggeration, under statement and also by the clever use of language in various ways.

Reciprocal Interference

Bergson observes that “repetition, inversion and reciprocal interference of series are methods of light comedy” (117). These methods can be applied to a series of words, events or actions. Repetition means repeats of certain words for its humorous effects. Inversion is the least interesting device and it means putting a subject in the place of an object. Narayan does not make use of this technique. Bergson explains how “the reciprocal interference of two sets of ideas in the same sentence is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties” (138).

There are many ways of bringing about this interference, such as bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. In pun, for example, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance: in reality there are two different sentences, made up of different words, claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. The true play upon words is different from pun. In this instance, there is only one sentence through which two different sets of ideas are expressed. Here the advantage is taken of the different meanings a word may have, especially when used figuratively instead of literally.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ms. M. Ummu Shabina, Ph.D. Research Scholar
University College of Engineering
Dindigul 624 622
Tamilnadu
India
ummushabina@gmail.com

Dr. S. Gunasekaran
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University College of Engineering
Dindigul 624 622
Tamilnadu
India
gunakundhavai@yahoo.com
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