Role of Metalinguistic Awareness in Ambiguity-Based Humor Comprehension in a Second Language

Abstract

The research investigates the possible correlation between metalinguistic knowledge and ambiguity-based humor comprehension in a foreign language. What is referred by metalinguistic knowledge is learners‘ ability to describe grammatical rules of a language. The aspects of metalinguistic knowledge addressed in this research are the explicit morphological and syntactic knowledge. The study attempted to find out whether the higher metalinguistic knowledge (morphological and syntactic) causes the better performance in ambiguity-based humorous expressions (syntactic/structural ambiguities). To explore the relationship, two subsequent tests were implemented – Metalinguistic Knowledge Test and Ambiguity Resolution Test. The statistical correlation analysis was conducted using Pearson‘s Correlation Coefficient. The research was carried out among non-major English learners in Azerbaijan. As the result of examination and the statistical analysis of the test results, low positive correlation was revealed between the two phenomena.