Search

In recent times, the number of studies examining the use of humor in teaching English as a second language (ESL) in Asian countries has increased as researchers have acknowledged the positive effects that humor has on language teaching. This study presents a systematic review focused on the use of humor in ESL teaching within Asian countries. Its objectives are to acquire comprehensive knowledge of the current research status, research participants and methods, and research perspectives, and to examine the outcomes of incorporating humor into ESL instruction in Asian contexts in order to pinpoint research gaps for future studies. This study included the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (2020). Moreover, 35 articles relevant to the use of humor in Asian ESL teaching were identified as of the date when this study was conducted. After performing content analysis, the findings revealed that the first related articles in Asia were published in 2009, after which more and more articles emerged. These studies took place in 14 Asian countries, with most of them focusing on Turkey, Iran, and Indonesia. In addition, they involve diverse research methods and perspectives, whilst most of the participants are university students. This suggests that humor is more suitable for use when teaching high-proficiency English learners. Moreover, humor is a double-edged sword that has positive and negative impacts on ESL teaching in Asian countries. Finally, a number of recommendations for future studies have been proposed in this study.

Humor is a kind of cognitive psychology activity, and it is diverse among individuals. One of the main characteristics of talk shows is to produce humorous discourse to make the audience laugh; however, rare studies have made a deeper comparative investigation on the rhetorical strategies in different language humorous utterances. Therefore, the current study adopted a mixed method of sequential explanatory design to identify the types of rhetorical strategies in the monolog verbal humor of Chinese and English talk shows, examine their similarities and differences. Two hundred monolog samples from 2016 to 2022, which consisted of 100 monologs of Chinese talk shows (CTS) and 100 monologs of English talk shows (ETS), were downloaded from the internet as language corpus. Berger’s theory was adopted to identify the types of rhetorical strategies. Based on the obtained findings, this study found that both language talk show hosts use a variety type of rhetorical strategies to produce humorous discourse. The comparison of similarities and differences revealed that the most frequently used rhetorical strategies in both talk shows were almost similar (e.g., satire, exaggeration, facetiousness, and ridicule), but the percentage of usage of these various rhetorical strategies in both talk shows was slightly different. Interestingly, misunderstanding occurred 20 times in CTS but was not found in ETS. Meanwhile, simile and personification were used more often in ETS. Conclusively, this study contributes valuable insights on the use of different types of rhetorical strategies to create verbal humor in different language contexts.