Table of contentsSummaryIntroductionMethodologyResults and discussionAnalysis of jokesMain findings:SummaryThis study attempts to investigate the age at which children interpret verbal jokes. A sample of 60 children aged 6 to 12 years from 5 schools in Mumbai was used. 10 jokes of increasing complexity were told to the children. Their laughter, their lack of response, and their responses were noted. The results indicate that 39.5% of children understand verbal jokes at the age of 6-7 and this understanding increases by 21% as we advance towards the age of 8-9. This figure increases by a further 13% among children aged 10 to 12. A reverse pattern of non-response was observed. Demonstration of unresponsiveness was inversely proportional to age. The lowest age group had the highest non-response rate at 45%, while the highest age group had the lowest non-response rate at 11.34%. The results suggest that there is an increase in cognitive development and emotional intelligence with age. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIntroductionJokes are short anecdotes that present a specific situation that opposes, through the establishment of incongruity, a another alternative situation, all creating a humorous atmosphere. effect (Attardo, 2005; Attardo & Chabanne, 1992; Martin, 2007). Although there are many ways to organize a text into a joke (see e.g. Davies, 2004 and Raskin, 1985), most authors agree that prototypical jokes consist of three elements: the setting, the dialogue and the punchline (Attardo & Chabanne, 1992; Chafé, 2007; Martin, 2007). The setting is the first part of the joke and serves to create certain expectations for how the situation should be interpreted. The dialogue is short, usually between two characters, and occurs just before the punchline. The punchline comes at the end of the joke and will be the element that suddenly changes its meaning, leading the individual to a second reading due to the perceived incongruity. This study focuses its attention on verbal jokes based on ambiguity. Verbal jokes are jokes that feature a lexical marker (usually a word or syntactic structure) that involves at least two readings. According to Attardo et al. (1994), verbal jokes based on ambiguity can be classified into two types: lexical (93%) and syntactic (5%). Lexical jokes are based on a semantic ambiguity of a word or linguistic expression. See Example 1: Ek aurat dusri aurat ko bolti hai' « mera beta bohot tez English bolta hai « Dusri aurat uske bete ko bolti hai, "bolke bata" To wo ladka bolta hai, "English English English English" (a lady says to another lady: "my son speaks English quickly" The other lady tells her son to speak in English so the son replies: "English English English English") In this joke, the word "tez" in Hindi in this context has two readings: quickly and fluently. To adequately interpret the joke, it is necessary to consider the word quick as a lexical marker for both meanings. In syntactic jokes, on the contrary, the ambiguity is based on the syntactic structure of a linguistic expression. See example 2A woman walks into an elegant store and asks: Do you have any crocodile bags? It depends, ma'am. Tell me how your crocodile likes them?E-JournALL 3(2) (2016), pp. 3-21Simply put, humor is the ability to appreciate the unexpected. The mainNecessary element for humor to evolve in children is socialization. Children must understand that they are sharing an experience with another person before they can begin to develop their sense of humor. We usually do this by laughing and sharing our reactions together – a process that actually begins as soon as a newborn can make eye contact and smile. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed that humorous social interactions of this type actually facilitated a child's development of the basic cognitive skills for communicating jokes in the first place. The most important are imagination, the ability to adopt a different perspective and language. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions and those of others. Many studies show a positive correlation between humor and intelligence, which was also found in our research where some children performed better than other children their age, likely due to higher intelligence. In addition, the identification of emotions in verbal jokes is important for causing the humor effect. According to the previous hypotheses, the aim of this study was to analyze at what age children begin to interpret verbal jokes and their responses to different verbal jokes. This study hypothesizes: There will be differences between age groups in the ability to think about verbal jokes. Lexical verbal jokes will be easier to interpret and think about than syntactic verbal jokes, because they are more frequent and less complex jokes. Previous research data on a similar topic show the following results: 42 children and adolescents in second, fifth, and eighth grades from Querétaro, Mexico, received four verbal jokes and four non-jokes. Participants had to determine whether each text was a joke or not and explain their reasoning. Results revealed grade-level differences in students' ability to distinguish jokes from non-jokes as well as the type and quantity of their thoughts. (Karina Hess Zimmermann,2016- Autonomous University of Querétaro)An experimental study carried out with children aged 6 to 11 showed that young children can also appreciate the incongruities contained in the first part of the story. Older children focus their attention on detecting the incongruity located in the ending. However, their understanding is not always complete. The progressive adjustment between understanding and appreciation can be explained, at least in part, by the internalization of the narrative structure specific to jokes to the extent that this internalization determines the child's strategy of understanding and then his appreciation of the joke. history. (Bernard Lefort, 1992.) This study examined whether young children could demonstrate earlier comprehension when ironic utterances are performed in familiar communication situations, and investigated the relationships between irony comprehension, language and theory of mind abilities. A group of 100 children aged 3.0 to 6.5 years were presented with four types of puppet scenarios depicting different communicative interactions: control, joke, contingent irony, and background irony stories. The results suggest that (a) even the youngest children easily understand jokes and can sometimes understand ironies; (b) children's understanding of irony continues to develop throughout early childhood; and (c) receptive vocabulary scores had simultaneous effects on irony comprehension and ToM performance. (Romina Angeleri and GabriellaAirenti - Center for Cognitive Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Turin (Italy) examine two verbal forms of teasing and deception; jokes and lies aim to show how children's understanding of lying relates to their developing understanding. People's intentions and beliefs focus primarily on the child's understanding of jokes and lies, because the distinction between these two acts seems to rely on the distinction of higher-order intentions and beliefs (i.e. -say what A wants B to believe (Susan R Leekam (1988). )-Cardiff University School of Psychology)MethodologyParticipants- 70 participants, 32 boys and 38 girls aged 6 to 12, took part in the study. They came from 5 different schools in Mumbai, from 1st to 7th grade. Five children were chosen from each year. All the children came from middle-class schools. 10 jokes of increasing complexity were selected based on their popularity among children of the same age group, other than the sampled population. Procedure -Data were collected from participants individually by the investigator. The interviewer sat individually with each student for approximately 15 minutes, of which 3 to 4 minutes was spent putting the participant at ease. Responses were assessed by asking the student whether or not they understood the joke and why. Participants’ responses were analyzed in two ways. The first correct interpretations of the joke were noted. Second, their response was scored in three categories: smile, laugh, and no response. Results and discussion Analysis of the joke Joke 1 - the plot is complex but it is an easy joke that the majority of young children aged 6 to 9 have not understood. The tricky part is when the husband yells at his wife for her mistake. Joke 2 - The plot of the joke was simple and easy to understand across groups and the climax is the man applying shampoo to his shoulder because the name suggests so. Head and shoulders.Joke 3- This is a student-teacher joke with a simple plot. The tricky part is that the child asks the teacher to wash his hands because he misinterprets the Hindi word “khana” which in this context meant to eat. Joke 4- This joke has a complex plot but it is easy to understand where in one the child calls his mistress hen because she always gave him zeros. The word used is “anda” which has two meanings; one egg and zero.Joke 5- This joke has the most complex plot but is simple to understand. When a kindergarten student is asked where is GOD? He responds by saying that he was in his bathroom when he heard his father say as he knocked on the bathroom door, “Oh my God! You are always inside” (translated from Hindi) Joke 6- This joke has a simple plot but is difficult to understand in which when a father told his son that his face looks like a donkey, the son replied that her mother said her face looked like hers. father.Joke 7 – This joke has a complex plot but is easy to understand. The tricky part is when the doctor tells the relative that he should have brought the patient in an hour ago, but the relative responds by saying that the accident only happened half an hour ago. Joke 8 – It’s easy to understand with a simple plot. The funniest part of the joke is when a child asks the shopkeeper what is fair and beautiful and when the shopkeeper expects the child to buy it, he tells the shopkeeper to apply it to him. -even because of his skin color. Joke 9 – This is a simple joke with a simple plot where when a teacher asks if an apple comes from A or B, the child responds..