Producing Verbal Play in English

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.