Module 5 The Last Laugh

Step1: read passage1 and passage2 to choose a suitable title for them: what makes people laugh Laughter is the best medicine. Laugh but the whole world won’t laugh with you . The Chinese and humor. What makes a joke funny Step2: match the passages and what they refer to: 1. How people from different culture react to jokes. 2. a scale for measuring jokes. Passage1 3.three theories why we laugh 4. three common elements in jokes Passage2 5. the medical benefits of laughter. 6. how film directors use humor 7. differences between men’s and women’s humor 8. humor as a means to fight stress Step3: choose the best answers: The Sherlock Holmes joke was _____. voted the funniest one. Voted the funniest English one On the list of funniest jokes in all cultures. Ben Leung became interested in humor_____. when he went to the united states. When he returned to Hong Kong. When he went to Australia. His research showed that _____. People everywhere laugh at the same things. Different people have different senses of humor. People from different cultures do not laugh at the same things. The “incongruous” theory says we laugh when_____. Something we don’t expect happens. Two things go together really well. We don’t really understand what is happening. Laughing at the end of an emotional or stressful time is explained by the _____ theory. a. incongruous b. superior c. relief 6. Laughter is important because it _____. a. helps us relax b. reduces stress c. helps us stay healthy.Passage1_____ 1.In an online survey conducted by the University of Hertfordshire in England, more than 40.000 people sent in Sherlock Holmes jokes and nearly 2,000,000 people voted for the ones they thought funniest. The Sherlock Holmes joke was at the top of the list. The jokes were all in English, and most of the voters (although not all of them) spoke English as their first language. 2.But would the result have been different if jokes from other cultures had been included Ben Leung, who is studying for a doctorate at Monash University in Australia, thinks so. 3.Mr Leung was born in Hong Kong and studied in the United States, where he was surprised by the fact that found things funny that he didn’t. 4.When he returned to Hong Kong to teach, he was again struck by how different the Chinese sense of humor was, as shown by his students. 5.He became so interested in the topic that he decided to do some serious research into what makes us laugh. Mr Leung surveyed more than 400 people using a self-developed psychometric scale—a tool for measuring mental states—which included written jokes and cartoons. 6.Participants were asked to score the jokes on a scale ranging from 1—5, in which 1 was “not at all funny” and 5 “very funny”. 7.They also had to identify whether the main humor element in the jokes was aggression, sex or double meaning, and provide information about their gender, age and nationality. 8.He found some notable differences in appreciation of humor linked to gender and n ... ...