Meaning And Humor Comprehension of Chinese-English Pseudo Words Among Chinese EFL Speakers: A Conceptual Blending Perspective

Assuming that Chinese–English pseudo words (CEPWs) are humorous and have multiple meanings, this study, based on the conceptual blending theory (CBT), investigates the comprehension of meaning and humor in CEPWs for Chinese speakers learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Specifically, it aimed to answer the following questions: 1) What is the humorous effect of CEPWs as perceived by Chinese EFL speakers? 2) What is the comprehensive understanding of CEPWs among Chinese EFL speakers according to CBT? and 3) How are Chinese EFL speakers’ understanding of CEPWs and their perception of the humorous effect related? This study adopted a mixed method of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interview) approaches. It surveyed 114 native Chinese EFL speakers and interviewed 12 of them. Quantitative data were collected via a questionnaire disseminated on the online questionnaire platform wenjuan.com, gathering 114 valid responses. After collection, the quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics 20 software. The findings revealed that CEPWs are more humorous than their Chinese originals. A conceptual blending model of Chinese EFL speakers’ comprehension of CEPWs was proposed, which allows these speakers to generate numerous interpretations of CEPWs. The humor in CEPWs comes from homophony, bilingual speech, and conceptual blending, facilitated by the meaning correspondence of English words in the CEPW and context. This suggests that the incongruity between input spaces and the emergent structure of conceptual blending is involved in creating humor. CEPWs meet the criteria for puns, providing a new perspective on this phenomenon. The findings provided empirical data, based on which a model of Chinese EFL speakers’ comprehension process of CEPWs was devised, providing insights into the cognitive process behind the use of Internet language.