[00:05.59]Reading
[00:08.33]NONVERBAL HUMOUR
[00:11.49]Do you find it funny to see someone sliding on a banana skin,
[00:17.76]bumping into someone else round a corner,or faling down a hole in the road?
[00:25.03]If you do,you are not alone.
[00:29.47]Some humour can be cruel but some people seem to enjoy seeing other people's bad luck at times.
[00:38.53]Perhaps it makes us feel more content with our life
[00:44.54]because we feel there is someone else worse off than ourselves.
[00:50.91]However,some actors can astonish us with the deep feelings
[00:57.76]they can inspire in us for a character they are playing.
[01:03.03]Charlie Chaplin was just such an actor.
[01:08.00]He was born in poverty in 1889 and at that time films were silent.
[01:15.65]He became famous for using a particular form of acting,including mime and farce.
[01:24.09]His entertaining silent movies are still popular today.
[01:29.73]His charming character The Little Tramp is well known throughout the world.
[01:36.39]He played a poor and homeless person,who wore large trousers,
[01:42.74]worn-out shoes and a small round black hat and carried a walking stick.
[01:50.11]This character was a social failure
[01:54.36]but he was loved by all who watched the films for his determination
[02:00.61]in overcoming difficulties and being kind even when people were unkind to him.
[02:08.55]So how did he make a sad situation entertaining?
[02:15.31]Imagine you are hungry and all there is to eat is a boiled shoe.
[02:21.98]How would you make eating a boiled shoe funny?
[02:26.83]That was the problem facing Charlie Chaplin in one of his most famous films
[02:33.70]The Gold Rush.
[02:36.66]He solved it by using nonverbal humour and this is how it was done.
[02:44.81]The film is set in California in the middle of the nineteenth century
[02:51.57]when gold was discovered and thousands of people rushed there in search of it.
[02:58.65]In the film,Chaplin and his friend are in California,too.
[03:04.71]Their job is"panning for gold".
[03:09.07]They wash sand from the river in a pan of water,and expect to pick up gold,
[03:16.05]but they have beeen not fortunate enough to find any.
[03:21.09]Instead they are caught on the edge of a mountain in a snowstorm in a small wooden house,
[03:28.95]where they have nothing to eat.
[03:32.43]They are so hungry that they have to boil a pair of leather shoes in a pan and eat it.
[03:39.79]Chaplin sits down at the table with his plate and drinking cup.
[03:45.85]First he picks out the laces and eats them as if they were spaghetti.
[03:52.20]Then he cuts off the leather top of the shoe,
[03:57.35]treating it as if it were the finest meat.
[04:01.89]Finally he tries cutting and eating the bottom of the shoe.
[04:07.22]You can imagine how difficult it is to chew,
[04:12.08]but he seems to eat every mouthful with great enjoyment.
[04:17.25]He makes it seem as if it were one of the best meals he has ever had!
[04:23.60]How hungry would you have to be to eat a shoe?
[04:28.17]Chaplin produced,directed,and wrote the movies he starred in.
[04:34.52]In 1972 he was given a special Oscar for his lifetime outstanding work.
[04:42.17]He lived the last years of his life in Switzerland,where he was buried in 1977.
[04:49.75]Using Language
[04:59.78]Reading
[05:02.65]ENGLISH JOKES
[05:06.00]1 There are thousands of jokes in English,which use a"play on words"to be funny.
[05:15.53]They are funny because one person does not understand the other.
[05:22.01]Try and think of jokes in Chinese that use a "play on words".
[05:28.49]Now read some of these customer and waiter jokes.
[05:34.24]Can you match the joke with the explanation?
[05:39.41]What's that fly doing in my soup?
[05:45.65]Swimming,I think!
[05:49.20]What's that?
[05:53.88]It's bean soup.
[05:57.12]I don't want to know what it's been.I want to know what it is now.
[06:03.36]Waiter.Will the pancakes be long?
[06:10.23]No,sir.Round.
[06:14.49]Explanation
[06:17.65]A The first person is asking for information about time
[06:25.41]The second person treats it as a question about shape.
[06:31.16]B The first person is angry about something and wants to say"Why is this here?"
[06:41.03]The second person treats it as a request for information,
[06:47.28]and gives an answer to the question.
[06:51.22]The answer to the question contains a word which,
[06:58.59]when spoken,can have two meanings.
[07:03.84]2 Some jokes are longer and tell a short,funny story.
[07:15.77]The following is one of those jokes about the famous detective Sherlock Holmes
[07:23.14]and his friend Doctor Watson.
[07:27.58]Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson went camping in a mountainous area.
[07:34.53]They were lying in the open air under the stars.
[07:39.81]Sherlock Holmes looked up at the stars and whispered,
[07:45.37]"Watson,when you look at that beautiful sky,what do you think of?"
[07:52.84]Watson replied,"
[07:55.90]"I think of how short life is and how long the universe has lasted."
[08:02.66]"No,no,Watson!"Holmes said,"What do you really think of?"
[08:10.42]So Watson tried again,"I think of how small I am and how vast the sky is."
[08:20.56]"Try again,Watson!"said Holmes.
[08:25.39]Watson tried a third time.
[08:29.15]"I think of how cold the universe is
[08:33.59]and how warm people can be in their beds."Holmes said,
[08:40.67]"Watson,you fool!You should be thinking that someone has stolen our tent!"
[08:48.22]Listening |