I find the essay "Are there any individuals who just can't tell a joke?" very interesting. Indeed, there is no real reason that that engineer can't tell a joke, he just doesn't understand the context. Jokes like those need context, to understand that you kind of need the origin. And since the engineers seem to have constructed a code that only they understand, he was doomed for failure since the beginning. As a speech community, he is already breaking the rules by not knowing the jokes, and if someone doesn't actually bother to tell him the jokes (which I don't think they will, they are a lot after all) and if they did, I certainly don't think he would be able to memorize them all so quickly, then he won't actually get in on the inside joke. In fact, since he shouted out a random number, I don't think that the engineers will ever really let him in, they will always see him as the one who doesn't get the jokes. Which is awful.
I find the essay "Are there any individuals who just can't tell a joke?" very interesting. Indeed, there is no real reason that that engineer can't tell a joke, he just doesn't understand the context. Jokes like those need context, to understand that you kind of need the origin. And since the engineers seem to have constructed a code that only they understand, he was doomed for failure since the beginning. As a speech community, he is already breaking the rules by not knowing the jokes, and if someone doesn't actually bother to tell him the jokes (which I don't think they will, they are a lot after all) and if they did, I certainly don't think he would be able to memorize them all so quickly, then he won't actually get in on the inside joke. In fact, since he shouted out a random number, I don't think that the engineers will ever really let him in, they will always see him as the one who doesn't get the jokes. Which is awful.
ReplyDelete