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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF BILINGUAL PUNS // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2019. Issue 7 (204). P. 79-87

Introduction. The article describes three main models for constructing bilingual puns – multilingual formations in which wordplay is performed on multilingual material. We also present the results of a linguistic study of bilingual puns. The purpose of the study is to establish the role of an auxiliary verbal or iconic indicator of another language or an attribute of a “foreign” culture, as well as to define the language models that describe the most understandable bilingual puns for Russian respondents. Material and methods. The study was conducted on the material of 416 bilingual puns selected on the Internet using a targeted sampling method (9gag.com – 180, Reddit – 185, “Vkontakte” – 51) from 2016 to 2019. To interpret the meanings of interlanguage puns, the descriptive method and the method of semantic analysis were used. To assess the perception of bilingual puns, a linguistic experiment was conducted that included two stages: translation and interpretation of the meanings of foreign words in 20 bilingual puns. The experiment was attended by 200 students of linguistic specialties of the Kemerovo State University and the Novokuznetsk branch of the Kemerovo State University, Siberian Federal University and Altai State Pedagogical University. Results and discussion. An explicator within a bilingual pun contributes to its correct perception. The anticipatory model turned out to be the easiest for Russian respondents to understand, with English-based bilingual puns described by this model were correctly identified in 45.2 % of cases. Puns represented by the neological model are less obvious, especially in the absence of an explicator (25 %). Puns described by the implicit model are also perceived by respondents, but in significantly fewer cases (19 %). Among Russian-based bilingual puns, the most understandable are the bilingual puns represented by the anticipation model – 51.75 %, followed by puns that can be attributed to the neological and implicit models – 50.6 and 15 % respectively. Conclusion. An iconic or verbal explicator is important, but not critical, for understanding bilingual puns. However, when borrowed elements (complete words or their fragments) are not explicitly expressed in puns, an explicator is necessary for successful perception of the pun. The anticipatory and neological model describe the most understandable interlingual puns.

Keywords: bilingual pun, wordplay, Internet-memes, polylingualism