UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND

Philosophical Faculty

School of Humanities

Foreign Languages and Translation Studies

English Language and Translation

Jenni Kaarina Rajala

THE RECEPTION OF HUMOR IN TRANSLATED FINGERPORI COMIC STRIPS

MA Thesis

April 2018

ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND

Tiedekunta – Faculty

Philosophical Faculty

Osasto – School

School of Humanities

Tekijät – Author

Jenni Kaarina Rajala

Työn nimi – Title

The Reception of Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips

Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –

Date

Sivumäärä – Number of

pages

English Language and

Translation

Pro gradu -tutkielma x

3.4.2018

67 pages + Appendix

Sivuainetutkielma

Kandidaatin

tutkielma

Aineopintojen

tutkielma

Tiivistelmä – Abstract

This study focuses on the reception of humor in translated Fingerpori comic strips. The Fingerpori comic

strips by Pertti Jarla are vastly popular in Finland. When a collection of these comic strips was translated and

published in English in 2014, they became available for a wider audience. The aim of this study is to examine

the new readership’s reception of the humor in the translated Fingerpori comic strips. Humor is an important

part of the Fingerpori comic strips since each strip includes a humorous remark or situation. The reception

study is conducted with an online questionnaire for non-Finnish speaking respondents.

Comics are a special medium which relies on the interplay of text and pictures. Even the humor in them is

often realized through the co-operation of the two elements. The most frequently utilized humor technique in

the Fingerpori comic strips is wordplay in which the humor usually derives from the ambiguity of words or

phrases. A more detailed definition for the term has been provided by Delabastita (1996: 128). In comic strips

that employ wordplay, pictures may only support the linguistic humor or the humor may actually reveal itself

in the pictures where for instance a different meaning for a word or phrase can be realized. Other popular

humor techniques in the Fingerpori comic strips are sign-play, parody and allusions. In addition to the

reception study, the analysis includes an overview of the different humor techniques featured in the research

material. The frequencies of the humor techniques are compared to those in the Finnish Fingerpori comic

strips, which have been studied by Vilenius (2011).

The reception study examines 44 respondents’ replies to the online questionnaire which included seven comic

strips from the English collection Fingerpori from Finland (2014). Since the Fingerpori comic strips

sometimes joke on sensitive subjects, three of the chosen comic strips involve a taboo topic. The respondents

were asked to describe and evaluate the comic strips. The responses are analyzed both quantitatively and

qualitatively. The results show that the most important factor behind the understanding and appreciation of

humor in the Fingerpori comic strips is the reader’s personal background. Readers are not only consumers of

texts but also the ones who construct their meaning (Eskola 1990: 165). If they do not have the required

knowledge to understand a comic strip, they may interpret it in a different way or they may not find any

meaning in it. However, differing interpretations did not have a significant effect on the appreciation of the

humor: a respondent might have interpreted a comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing

nevertheless. Readers’ backgrounds also affect which types of humor they find amusing and how they feel

about joking on taboo topics. All in all, the Fingerpori comic strips did not receive very high ratings. The strip

with the highest average rating was also the easiest one to understand in the set of comic strips. In addition,

this comic strip was inoffensive. The three comic strips with taboo topics all received higher numbers of top

ratings. However, as a whole there was more variation in the ratings of these three comic strips.

Avainsanat – Keywords

translation, comics, humor, reception

ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND Tiedekunta – Faculty

Filosofinen tiedekunta

Osasto – School

Humanistinen osasto

Tekijät – Author

Jenni Kaarina Rajala

Työn nimi – Title

The Reception of Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips

Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –

Date

Sivumäärä – Number of

pages

Englannin kieli ja

kääntäminen

Pro gradu -tutkielma x

3.4.2018

67 sivua + Liite

Sivuainetutkielma

Kandidaatin

tutkielma

Aineopintojen

tutkielma

Tiivistelmä – Abstract

Tutkielman aiheena on käännettyjen Fingerpori-sarjakuvien huumorin vastaanotto. Pertti Jarlan luoma

Fingerpori on erittäin suosittu sarjakuva Suomessa. Vuodesta 2014 lähtien se on ollut myös laajemman

lukijakunnan tavoitettavissa, sillä tuolloin julkaistiin englanninkielinen kokoelma Fingerpori from Finland

(2014). Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tarkastella uuden lukijakunnan ajatuksia ja tulkintoja Fingerpori-

huumorista. Fingerpori on humoristinen strippisarjakuva, joten huumorin vastaanotto on tärkeässä asemassa.

Vastaanottoa tutkitaan kyselytutkimuksella, ja materiaali kerätään verkkokyselyllä, jonka vastaajat eivät osaa

suomea.

Sarjakuvan erityispiirteenä on tekstin ja kuvan vuorovaikutus. Myös huumori saadaan niissä aikaan yleensä

molempien elementtien avulla. Fingerpori-sarjakuvissa yleisin huumorin keino on sanaleikit, joiden hauskuus

perustuu tavallisesti sanojen tai fraasien monimerkityksisyyteen. Tutkimuksessa käytetään Delabastitan

(1996: 128) määritelmää termistä. Sanaleikkejä hyödyntävissä stripeissä kuvat ovat toisinaan vain tekstin

tukena, mutta toisinaan huumori paljastuu juuri kuvasta, joka osoittaa sanan tai fraasin toisen merkityksen.

Muita huumorin keinoja Fingerporissa ovat sanattomat vitsit, parodia ja alluusiot. Kyselyvastausten lisäksi

analyysissä tarkastellaan näitä englanninkielisissä Fingerpori-sarjakuvissa käytettyjä huumorin keinoja

huomioiden myös tarkemmin sanaleikkien eri kategoriat. Lisäksi näiden kategorioiden yleisyyttä verrataan

suomenkielisiin Fingerporeihin Vileniuksen (2011) tutkimustulosten avulla.

Tutkimusmateriaaliin kuuluu englanninkielisen sarjakuvakokoelman lisäksi 44 osallistujan vastaukset

verkkokyselyyn. Kysely sisälsi seitsemän strippiä sekä kysymyksiä liittyen niiden ymmärtämiseen ja

arvioimiseen. Koska Fingerporien aiheet ovat välillä arkaluonteisia, kolmessa kyselyn stripeistä oli ns.

tabuaihe. Vastauksien analysoinnissa käytetään sekä kvalitatiivisia että kvantitatiivisia metodeja. Tulokset

osoittavat, että tärkeimpänä tekijänä Fingerporin huumorin vastaanotossa on lukijan taustat. Lukijat eivät ole

vain tekstin käyttäjiä ja kuluttajia vaan myös sen merkityksen muodostajia (Eskola 1990: 165). Jos heillä ei

ole sarjakuvan ymmärtämiseen tarvittavia tietoja, he saattavat ymmärtää stripin eri tavalla tai voi olla, etteivät

he ymmärrä strippiä ollenkaan. Erilaiset tulkinnat eivät kuitenkaan vaikuttaneet mittavasti arvioihin: vastaaja

saattoi ymmärtää stripin eri lailla kuin oli tarkoitettu, mutta arvioida sen silti hauskaksi. Lukijoiden taustat

vaikuttavat myös siihen, millaisesta huumorista he pitävät ja millä aiheilla heidän mielestään saa tai ei saa

vitsailla. Kaiken kaikkiaan Fingerpori-sarjakuvat eivät saaneet erityisen korkeita arvioita kyselyvastaajilta.

Korkeimman keskiarvon arvioinnissa saanut sarjakuva oli myös kyselyn sarjakuvista helpoin ymmärtää.

Lisäksi tämä strippi ei ollut loukkaava. Tabuaiheiset sarjakuvat saivat kukin enemmän korkeimpia arvosanoja

kuin keskiarvon perusteella parhaiten menestynyt strippi. Näiden kohdalla arvosanat kuitenkin muuten

vaihtelivat enemmän.

Avainsanat – Keywords

kääntäminen, sarjakuva, huumori, vastaanotto

Contents

1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Comics ............................................................................................................................................. 3

2.1. Defining Comics...................................................................................................................... 3

2.2. Characteristics of Comics ........................................................................................................ 4

3. Humor in Comics: Wordplay and Other Techniques ...................................................................... 6

3.1. Theories of Humor .................................................................................................................. 6

3.2. Wordplay ............................................................................................................................... 10

3.2.1. Definition of Wordplay ................................................................................................. 10

3.2.2. Categories of Wordplay ................................................................................................. 11

3.3. Other Humor Techniques in Comics ..................................................................................... 14

4. Reception Theory .......................................................................................................................... 16

4.1. Reception of Humor .............................................................................................................. 16

4.2. Reception of Comics ............................................................................................................. 17

5. Comics and Reception in the Context of Translation .................................................................... 20

6. Research Material and Method ...................................................................................................... 22

6.1. Fingerpori Comic Strips ........................................................................................................ 22

6.2. Questionnaire Setting and Analysis....................................................................................... 26

6.3. Questionnaire Respondents ................................................................................................... 27

7. Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 30

7.1. Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips ...................................................................... 30

7.2. Analysis of the Questionnaire Responses .............................................................................. 36

7.2.1. Comic Strip #1: Gay Adoption ...................................................................................... 36

7.2.2. Comic Strip #2: Jesus .................................................................................................... 39

7.2.3. Comic Strip #3: Eggs .................................................................................................... 42

7.2.4. Comic Strip #4: Lotto .................................................................................................... 44

7.2.5. Comic Strip #5: Yeast ................................................................................................... 47

7.2.6. Comic Strip #6: Hitler ................................................................................................... 50

7.2.7. Comic Strip #7: Tom Cruise.......................................................................................... 52

7.2.8. Summary and Discussion .............................................................................................. 54

8. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 60

References ............................................................................................................................................. 63

Appendix: Online Questionnaire ........................................................................................................... 68

1. Introduction

Comics are a widely read medium with various genres, target groups and formats. The target

groups become even broader when the comics are translated into different languages. The

translation of comics tends to present multiple challenges for translators. These include, for

instance, the restricted space, the relation of text and picture, onomatopoetic material, and

wordplay and allusions. These features make the translation of comics a fairly popular topic in

translation research. However, here in Finland research usually focuses on comics that have

been translated from English to Finnish. In this study, the focus is on comics that have been

translated the other way around: from Finnish to English.

Of the different formats of comics, this study focuses especially on comic strips. The most

essential difference between comic strips and other formats of comics is in their length. Comic

strips usually consist of only one to five panels, while other formats can continue over multiple

pages. The research material in this study contains a translated collection of Fingerpori comic

strips, Fingerpori from Finland (2014). The Fingerpori comic strips by Pertti Jarla are

exceedingly popular in Finland. They appear in many newspapers and they are also published

in comic books. The Fingerpori comic strips are humorous in nature and involve various kinds

of jokes. As comics are multimodal texts, the humor in Fingerpori is often generated in the co-

operation of visual and verbal elements.

Wordplay is a dominant humor technique in the series, as has been discovered for instance by

Maijastiina Vilenius (2011). In wordplay, the humor usually derives from ambiguous words or

phrases. A more detailed definition by Dirk Delabastita (1996: 128) will be introduced later in

this study. Other common humor techniques in the Fingerpori comic strips are sign-play, parody

and allusions. Since each comic strip in the series features some kind of humor, readers’

understanding and appreciation of the humor are in an essential role. As Katarina Eskola (1990:

165) has mentioned, readers are not only consumers of texts but also the ones that construct

their meaning.

Elke Brems and Sara Ramos Pinto (2013: 146) mention that the responses of “real”, individual

readers have not been studied substantially and the reception research that has been conducted

is mostly about audiovisual translation. Thus, there is a need for research about the reception

of other kinds of translated texts. This study focuses on the reception of translated comic strips.

The purpose of this study is to examine non-Finnish speaking readers’ reception of translated

2

Fingerpori comic strips: how they respond to them and interpret them. The reception study is

conducted with an online questionnaire and it focuses on two stages of humor reception

presented by Jennifer Hay (2001): understanding and appreciation. In addition, the humor in

the translated Fingerpori comic strip collection will be analyzed in order to provide a better

understanding of the humor in the comic strips. Since the series sometimes joke on fairly

sensitive topics, three of the comic strips in the online questionnaire involve taboo subjects.

The results of the reception study reveal whether there are differences in the reception of these

three comic strips compared to the other comic strips.

The reception of humor can be influenced by many factors, including people’s personality,

history and cultural background. For instance, different cultures may have differing conventions

on the styles and topics of humor. The present study sheds light on the reasons behind successful

and failed humor in translated Fingerpori comic strips in an international context. The diverse

target group of the study resembles the targeted audience of the translated collection Fingerpori

from Finland (2014): it is presumably aimed at an international, English-speaking audience.

The structure of this thesis is as follows: Chapters 2–5 introduce the theoretical background of

this study. Chapter 2 focuses on the definition and characteristics of comics. Chapter 3 discusses

humor and the different humor techniques relevant to comic strips. Of the different humor

techniques, special attention is given to wordplay. Chapter 4 deals with reception theory: the

reception of both humor and comic strips, and Chapter 5 brings together the topics discussed in

the earlier chapters and explores them in relation to translation. In Chapter 6, research material

and method are presented. The humor in the translated Fingerpori comic strips and the results

of the reception study are analyzed and discussed in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes

this paper.

3

2. Comics

There are various views regarding the origins of comics but it is commonly stated that comics

in their typical form of today originated in the USA at the end of the 19th century and their

beginning is closely related to the emergence of mass-media (Kaukoranta & Kemppinen 1982:

15, Herkman 1996: 12). The first comics were indeed comic strips published in newspapers.

Juha Herkman (1996: 13) notes that this close connection to newspapers made comics a popular

and widespread form of expression right from the start. For a long time, comics were considered

as a children’s genre and a part of popular culture, far from the so-called high culture. However,

gradually their status has changed. Herkman (ibid.: 23) explains that this change happened due

to the diminishing divide between art and popular culture and the increasing number of adult

and art comics. Nowadays there is a wide array of comics, which includes comic strips, comic

books and graphic novels, and they are read by a variety of different audiences.

The following subchapters discuss different aspects of comics: first their definitions and then

the various characteristics of comics.

2.1. Defining Comics

One definition of comics has been presented by Coulton Waugh (1947: 14; as quoted in

Herkman 1998: 21). He states that comics usually contain three main characteristics: a narrative

told through a series of pictures, recurring characters, and a combination of dialog or other types

of text and pictures. However, Pekka A. Manninen (1995: 9) points out that comics do not

always follow all these criteria. For example, there are comics that do not contain any text.

The first characteristic in Waugh’s definition, a narrative told through a series of images, is also

central in Scott McCloud’s (1994: 9) definition. He defines comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and

other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an

aesthetic response in the viewer”. The sequence of pictures is also evident in the Finnish term

sarjakuva and Will Eisner’s (1985) English suggestion sequential art. There are, however,

comic strips that only contain one picture and thus do not have a similar sequence. McCloud

(ibid.: 20-21) argues that such single panels are not comics but cartoons. However, I am not

sure if this strict a division is necessary since single-panel strips can convey an individual story

as well and, most of all, continue the style and/or storyline of a comic strip series.

4

Robert C. Harvey (2001: 76) has argued against the definitions of comics that insist on a

sequence of pictures. He maintains that single-panel cartoons are comics just as well. In his

view, “comics consist of pictorial narratives or expositions in which words (often lettered into

the picture area within speech balloons) usually contribute to the meaning of the pictures and

vice versa” (ibid.). His definition emphasizes the interplay of text and pictures in comics but

does not exclude wordless or single-panel comics. In this definition, the variety of comics is

best described.

The perceived problems in defining comics stem from the multiplicity of their different types.

As Klaus Kaindl (2010: 36) notes, it is difficult to define comics comprehensively because there

is so much variation in terms of genres, target groups and formats. The most notable comic

formats are comic strips, comic books and graphic novels and the most essential difference

between these is their length. Comic strips are short comics usually published in newspapers.

These mostly consist of one to five panels. Comic books and graphic novels are longer comics

continuing over multiple pages. Arthur Asa Berger (1997: 101) divides comic strips into serial

strips and gag strips. In serial strips, story lines continue over many episodes. Gag strips may

have background serial stories but each strip is usually a complete episode with a new amusing

situation.

2.2. Characteristics of Comics

Regardless of differences in their genres, audiences and formats, comics may look very similar

at a glance. This is due to the devices that are at a comic artist’s disposal. Typical devices in

comics are linguistic, pictorial and typographic elements (see e.g. Kaindl 1999: 273). Linguistic

elements include the title, narrations, dialog text, onomatopoeia and inscriptions in the pictures.

The title is the name of the comic book or strip and essential for their recognition. In addition

to the main title, there is sometimes a subtitle, as Kaindl (ibid.) calls it, which provides

information about the story that is being told. Dialog texts impart what the characters say and

think, and they are usually placed in speech or thought bubbles. Narrations are included in

comics to provide information, for example, about time, location and situations. These texts can

often be found at the top or bottom of the panel, possibly within a box. Inscriptions imply any

linguistic material placed within the pictures, for example posters, labels and newspaper

headlines and lastly, onomatopoeia depicts auditive features in a written form, i.e. they illustrate

the sound effects of the comic.

5

Although onomatopoeia is essentially a linguistic element, it also incorporates the pictorial

aspect because in these sound effects the graphic layout complements the meaning of the words

(Herkman 1998: 50). Other pictorial elements are the visual representations of characters,

objects and places. Typographic elements involve fonts and pictograms. A font can express

aspects such as the volume of speech, characters’ emotions or, as Kaindl (1999: 274) notes,

even nationality. For instance, in the Asterix comics hieroglyphics are used to represent the

speech of Egyptians. Pictograms are symbols for words and ideas, such as a heart or a star.

These different devices make comics a unique form of expression. Using both text and pictures,

they represent a combination of literature and visual art.

The wide array of elements in comics illustrates an essential feature of them: the fact that they

are multimodal texts. These are “texts in which various semiotic vehicles, e.g. language, image,

sound, music etc., are used to convey meaning and to create a message” (Kaindl 2004: 173).

Comics employ a combination of text and picture. Riitta Oittinen (2008: 4) uses the term

iconotext for texts which include this type of interplay of visual and verbal elements. Her

research focuses on picture books but she notes that these have several common features with

comics (ibid.). In addition, movies and TV-shows have similarities with comics, because of the

interplay of different semiotic systems; in their case the interplay of moving pictures and sound

(for research on audiovisual translation see e.g. Gottlieb 1997).

There are different ways to categorize visual-verbal relations. For example, McCloud (1994:

153-155) has presented a classification of the different relations of pictures and text. This

classification has been further simplified by Herkman (1998: 59), who lists four categories.

First there are picture-specific combinations where emphasis lies on the pictures and words are

secondary. Secondly there are word-specific combinations where pictures only illustrate what

the text tells us. Third category is the co-operation of pictures and text where the pictures and

text complement each other, and the last category contains instances where the pictures and text

seem to have nothing to do with each other; they are incommensurate. One comic can also

include different kinds of visual-verbal relations.

The following chapter deals with humor and the different humor techniques that can be utilized

in comics.

6

3. Humor in Comics: Wordplay and Other Techniques

Humor is a central part of human life. Many media partake in the humorous genre, for instance

comics, especially gag strips, and comedy movies. People can find amusement in highly

different things but, as Victor Raskin (1985: 2) notes, it is essentially a trait shared by everyone.

Everyone appreciates some kind of humor. Salvatore Attardo (1994: 1) states that in the

simplest sense humor is a competence held by speakers. In addition, according to the Oxford

English Dictionary (2017), humor is defined as “the quality of being amusing, the capacity to

elicit laughter or amusement”. Thus, humor is both a quality and a competence. People can find

it in texts, speech and even situations, which in their mind are funny, and in addition to being a

quality of something, finding humor also means that it is a competence that the audience, in

addition the writer/speaker, has. In addition to amusement, humor can have other functions as

well. As Giselinde Kuipers (2006: 4) notes, humor “can bring people closer to each other,

embarrass, ridicule, cause to reflect, relieve tension, or put into perspective serious affairs.”

Walter Nash (1985: 7) points out that in jokes there is usually one word or phrase which is the

“center of energy” which generates the joke. This also usually occurs at the end of the joke

acting as a “punchline”. In comic strips, the humor is often realized in the last panel but they

do not employ jokes in the usual manner. As Kaindl (2004: 174) mentions, they tend to use

other devices such as wordplay and non-verbal puns, parody and allusions. In this chapter, these

techniques and especially wordplay will be described and illustrated with examples. However,

before delving into these specific types of humor, the first subchapter will briefly look into the

broader theme of humor and provide an overview of the theories of humor.

3.1. Theories of Humor

Humor has been studied in several disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, linguistics

and sociology. Even though the subject is the same in their research, each discipline studies it

from a different standpoint. Jerry Palmer (1993: 5) has listed the following questions as the core

concerns for humor research:

- When do we find something funny?

- Why do we find something funny?

- What makes us find something funny?

- What prevents us from finding something funny?

7

The first question is the main interest in sociological and anthropological studies, which look

into the circumstances, in which people find something humorous, and the conventions and

rules regarding these occasions both historically and in the present day (ibid.: 4-5).

Psychologists study humor from the point of view presented in the second question. They are

interested in what happens when we experience humor and what the function of humor is. The

third question pertains especially to linguistics, which analyzes the structure of humor to find

what exactly makes a text funny. According to Palmer (ibid.: 5), the last question is the least

researched but should receive more attention as both successful and failed humor are important

in understanding the concept of humor.

A single question does not, however, lead to a comprehensive view of humor. Thus, next will

follow a brief discussion on some of the leading theories of humor which are of interest in light

of this thesis. This does not aim for an all-encompassing survey but a starting point for

understanding humor. First the three traditional theories of humor: superiority theory, the

incongruity theory and the relief/release theory, will be explored. In addition to these standard

theories of humor, the overview will also involve linguistic and sociological theories of humor

which further illuminate the field of humor theory.

It should be noted that while some humor theorists tend to use the terms humor and laughter

interchangeably, in this study the term humor will be mainly used as it is the interest in this

study. This terminology issue has been pointed out quite often, for instance by Attardo (1994:

10) and John Morreall (1987: 5). While there is a link between humor and laughter, they do not

always occur together. Sometimes humorous remarks may not make respondents laugh and

other times we may laugh when there is no humor.

The oldest theory of humor, the superiority theory, views our laughter coming from “feelings

of superiority over other people, or over our own former position” (Morreall 1987: 5). This

concept especially points to ridicule and Schadenfreude, which means humor that is derived

from the misfortune of others. This idea was already evident in Plato’s and Aristotle’s writing.

They saw humor and laughter as malice and something harmful (Morreall 1983: 4). Thomas

Hobbes shared this view and his contribution to the humor theory is considered as the “classic

form of the superiority theory” (ibid.). He maintained that laughter arises from a “’sudden glory’

at a triumph of our own or at an indignity suffered by someone else” (Hobbes 1651, as quoted

in Ross 1998: 2). This perception of humor has received both support and criticism to this day.

While at times people do laugh at the expense of others, it is important to note that this is not

8

the case in every humorous instance. Francis Hutcheson was the first to critique Hobbes’ theory

illustrating how feelings of superiority are neither a sufficient nor required condition for humor

(Morreall 1987: 26).

The relief/release theory, in turn, considers humor and laughter from a more physiological

viewpoint describing the phenomenon as “the venting of excess nervous energy” (Morreall

1987: 6). Furthermore, these theories maintain that “humor releases one from inhibitions,

conventions and laws” (Attardo 1994: 50). Thus, they would account for bending linguistic

rules which is typical of puns. They would also explain laughing at taboo topics since humor

“liberates” one from these rules. The most notable contributors to the relief/release theory are

Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud (Morreall 1987: 6, Lynch 2002: 427).

The superiority theory and the relief theory put focus on the people experiencing amusement.

The incongruity theory approaches humor from a different perspective, aiming to recognize the

qualities of something that amuses us. Morreall (1987: 6) describes that, in this view, we find

humor in something that is incongruous; something that differs from what we have expected.

This theory has been supported by, among others, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and

Søren Kierkegaard (ibid.). Kant has originated this line of theory by defining humor as “an

affectation arising from sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing” (1952:

223, as cited in Lynch 2002: 428). However, not all incongruities are amusing and some may

evoke even opposite reactions (Morreall 2009: 12-13).

Linguistic theories of humor focus on the verbal or written text and study humor from the point

of view of linguistics; analyzing for example the morphology, syntax and semantics of

humorous texts (Taylor 2014: 455). Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) and General

Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) are the two most well-known linguistic theories. These

theories share a similar standpoint with the incongruity theory as they emphasize incongruities

as the source of humor (Chiaro 2010: 19). The SSTH, by Victor Raskin (1985: 99), introduced

the concept of script opposition which means that amusement is caused by two opposing and

overlapping scripts. Raskin (ibid.) illustrates this with the following joke:

"Is the doctor at home?" the patient asked in his bronchial whisper. "No," the

doctor's young and pretty wife whispered in reply. "Come right in."

The two opposing and overlapping scripts in this joke are doctor and lover. The last line of the

joke activates a different meaning compared to the initial interpretation: a patient seeking a

doctor turns into a lover. The GTVH is a revised version of Raskin’s theory developed by

9

Raskin and Attardo. This is ultimately a broadened version of the SSTH which retains the idea

of script opposition but also introduces other aspects to the recognition of a joke including, for

instance, the target and the situation (see e.g. Attardo 1994: 222).

Sociology sees humor most importantly as “a social phenomenon: a form of communication

that is embedded in social relationships” (Kuipers 2006: 7). Humor has a cohesive aspect which

Rose Coser (1959: 172, as cited in Kuipers 2008: 366) has explained as follows: “to laugh, or

to occasion laughter through humor and wit, is to invite those present to come closer. Laughter

and humor are indeed like an invitation, be it an invitation for dinner, or an invitation to start a

conversation: it aims at decreasing social distance.” Thus, humor is inclusive and forms

closeness in a group. However, since there is an inclusive function there is also an exclusive

function (Kuipers 2008: 366). When one does not understand a joke or becomes a target of one,

they are left out of the circle (ibid.).

Some sociologists have also interpreted humor as a specific worldview or outlook on the world

(Kuipers 2008: 376). One example of this approach is Mihail Bakhtin’s concept of the

carnivalesque (ibid.: 377). In this approach, Bakhtin (1984) looks at the popular culture of the

common people in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He sees it as the laughter culture or

the carnival, which is the opposite of any formal celebration. Formal celebrations uphold the

prevalent hierarchies, values and norms while the carnival stands for the temporary release from

these inhibitions (1984: 10). Carnival laughter is universal, shared and ambivalent (ibid. 11-

12). Literary texts partaking in the carnivalesque could be described as expressing “a joyful

subversion of social, literary, or aesthetic norms” (Bayless 2014: 111).

This overview shows that there are many sides to humor. Humor can function as a release of

tension, bringing people together or ridicule. It can liberate people from rules and conventions

and help them fight against these norms, as the incongruity theory and the carnivalesque view

maintain. This could include joking about taboo topics and humor styles such as parody and

satire where for instance political figures can be commented on in a humoristic way. In addition,

humor can arise from surprising turns of situations. Especially in verbal humor, incongruities

are quite common as the source of humor. In the next subchapter, one type of verbal humor:

wordplay, which utilizes incongruities in language, will be given more focus.

10

3.2. Wordplay

While wordplay is not always meant to be humorous and it is not a subcategory of humor

(Vandaele 2011: 180), in the context of this research they are linked together because the humor

in humorous comic series such as Fingerpori is often achieved by wordplay. The following

subchapters will provide a definition of wordplay and examine the different categories of

wordplay.

3.2.1. Definition of Wordplay

Simply put, wordplay means humor in which language is used to achieve a comical effect.

However, this is not a sufficient definition since one could argue that most jokes utilize

linguistic means. Dirk Delabastita (1996: 128, emphasis in the original, the numbers in brackets

refer to the discussion below) defines wordplay as such:

Wordplay is the general name for the various [2] textual phenomena in which [3]

structural features of the language(s) used are exploited in order to bring about a

[4] communicatively significant confrontation of two (or more) linguistic

structures with [1] more or less similar forms and more or less different meanings.

Thus, in wordplay formal similarity of words is used to create an effect that can be humorous.

The term wordplay is often used interchangeably with the word pun by theorists. Delabastita

(1993: 56), for instance, states plainly that he considers these terms synonymous. This principle

will be followed in the current research.

Delabastita (1996: 128) explains thoroughly the different elements of his definition. The first

element [1] is that in wordplay linguistic structures resembling each other in form are contrasted

due to their different meanings. The formal identity can be total or partial and specified into

four categories: homonymy (same pronunciation and spelling, e.g. adhesive tape and to

tape/record), homophony (same pronunciation, different spelling, e.g. write and right),

homography (same spelling, different pronunciation, e.g. tear as in a drop of water from the

eye and to tear/rip) and paronymy (quite similar pronunciation and spelling, e.g. accept and

except). Furthermore, the two meanings can be present simultaneously in the same portion of

text (vertical wordplay) or they may be revealed by occurring in repetition, one after another

(horizontal wordplay).

The second aspect [2] Delabastita (1996: 129) focuses on is that wordplay is a textual

phenomenon. Although the potential for wordplay exists already in the language, a context,

either verbal or situational, is required for it to take effect. Verbal contexts result from people’s

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knowledge and expectations of grammatical and coherent texts. Situational contexts pertain to

dialog situations and multimedia texts, for example the visual elements in a comic strip. In

addition to existing in texts, wordplays also function within them. They can, for instance, be

meant to grab reader/listener’s attention, produce humor or lighten a discussion on taboo

themes.

Thirdly [3] Delabastita (1996: 130) distinguishes the various linguistic structures that can be

exploited in wordplays. The utilized structures can be phonological (e.g. in homophones),

graphological (homographs), lexical (polysemous words and idioms), morphological (derived

and compound words which have a contrast between the new and the literal meaning) and

syntactic (ambiguous phrases and sentences) structures. Delabastita (1996: 131) also notes that

some of these linguistic structures may not be relevant to all languages. Finnish is a good

example as the language has no words that have the same spelling but different pronunciation

and vice versa. This means that Finnish wordplay cannot utilize homography and homophony

(see examples above). Often, as Delabastita (ibid.) points out, more than one of the linguistic

structures are exploited in one wordplay and sometimes wordplays contain linguistic material

from two or more languages.

The fourth and last element [4] of the definition that Delabastita (1996: 131-132) explains more

closely is the idea of communicative significance. This points to the notion that a wordplay is

“communicatively significant if and when it is intended as such” (ibid.). Thus there should be

a distinction between wordplay and accidental ambiguities. However, as Delabastita states, it

is often difficult to make this differentiation and to determine the author’s intention. The

recognition of wordplays depends highly on the reader’s knowledge and understanding of genre

conventions and language. Language knowledge, as Chiaro (1992: 13) points out, is an

important factor because the recipient of wordplay should be proficient enough in the language

to recognize instances of broken or bent linguistic rules. This, of course, could also be applied

to the writer/speaker of the joke. They need to be proficient in the language as well to be able

to know where there are exploitable ambiquities. Lack of proficiency in the language by either

group will most likely result in the joke qualified as poor.

3.2.2. Categories of Wordplay

In his definition for the term, Delabastita (1996: 128) already names four categories of

wordplay: homonymy, homophony, homography and paronymy. In addition to these categories

12

introduced by Delabastita, some researchers, such as Delia Chiaro (1992: 37) and Thorsten

Schröter (2005: 163-164), have included a fifth type of wordplay: polysemy. Polysemy is

otherwise similar to homonymy but differs in the origins of the utilized words. In polysemy,

the lexical items have an etymological relationship while homonymous words do not have a

connection of this kind (Schröter 2005: 181). One example of polysemy is the word follow

meaning literally to go after and metaphorically to understand (ibid: 165). The semantic link

can be detected even though there is a distinction in meaning. These categories pertain to single

words. However, as Delabastita (1996: 130) mentioned in his definition, wordplay can utilize

phonological, graphological, lexical, morphological and syntactic structures. Thus, wordplay

can utilize structures that are broader than single words, for instance idioms or sentence

structures.

The language and humor of the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips have interested a few

researchers (see e.g. Hakala 2012 & Vilenius 2011) and these studies show how central

wordplay is in the comic strip series. Maijastiina Vilenius (2011) has paid attention to the humor

techniques utilized in the Fingerpori comic strips in her MA thesis. Vilenius’ study focused on

the Finnish wordplays in the Fingerpori comic strips and she found that the most frequently

exploited linguistic feature was polysemous words (ibid.: 61). She gathered her research

material in 2009 by going through all the Fingerpori comic strips that had been published thus

far and excluding from her study any comic strips that did not have wordplay. In the process of

selecting her final research material (strips based on wordplay), she found that 61% of the comic

strips at the time played with linguistic features, 34% had text in them but did not utilize

wordplay and 5% either did not have text at all or only had some referential textual elements

(ibid: 29). In addition to polysemy, other categories of wordplay used in her study were

homonymy; word-form ambiguity; compound words with non-lexical meanings; idioms,

phrases and sayings; syntactic ambiguity; and word formation, metonymy and other rarer

techniques.

Homonymy and polysemy have already been discussed in this and the previous subchapter and

hence next focus will be given to the other categories presented by Vilenius. Firstly, word-form

ambiguity occurs when it is uncertain which case of a word is meant (Vilenius 2011: 59). This

pertains especially to the Finnish language because it contains so many different grammatical

cases. For instance, the word “kahden” can be interpreted as either the genitive or instructive

case of the word “kaksi” (ibid: 60). Since most cases in English are produced with prepositions,

this form of wordplay will most likely not emerge in the research material.

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The other forms of wordplay in Vilenius’ classification do not pertain to single words but

various bundles of words. One type of multiple-word linguistic humor are compound words

that are either given a differing meaning from the customary one or created by the

speaker/writer, i.e. non-lexicalized (Kytömäki 1986: 56, as cited in Vilenius 2011: 86). Vilenius

(2011: 86) notes that most of the wordplay utilizing compound words belong to the former

category, for instance the word “kuningaspari” found in her material (ibid: 90). Kuningaspari

would traditionally mean the king and queen, but literally it could also mean two kings. Vilenius

(ibid: 96) also found many comic strips that utilized idiomatic expressions and phrases as the

source of humor. These expressions are characteristic of a language and/or a region or another

group of people, and the meanings of the expressions cannot be deduced based on the meanings

of its different parts (ibid). These expressions are usually used as the source of humor by

highlighting the differences between their traditional and literal meaning. For example, Vilenius

(ibid: 104) found the idiom “paiskia töitä” in her research material. The customary meaning for

this idiom is “to work hard” but the comic strip used the literal meaning for the verb which

would be “to throw things aggressively”.

Sometimes Fingerpori plays with sentence structure and context. This strategy is called

syntactic ambiguity in Vilenius’ study (2011: 115). This form of wordplay can be achieved with

ellipsis, i.e. the omission of unnecessary words, or ambiguous structure such as conjunctions

where the referent is unclear (ibid.). A good example for this is the sentence “Älä syö ja katso

TV:tä samalla” (Do not eat and watch TV at the same time) found in Vilenius’ study (ibid: 118).

One would assume that in the sentence TV is the object to the verb watch but instead the picture

in the comic strip reveals that it is the object to both watch and eat. Thus, the sentence features

an ellipsis: the sentence would be whole as “Älä syö TV:tä ja katso sitä samanaikaisesti” (Do

not watch TV and eat it at the same time). The other humor techniques mentioned in her study

were rarer. For instance, she found strips utilizing word formation, where for example suffixes

are used to form new words, and metonymy where something is referred to with a related

concept (for instance using only “Finland” for “the people of Finland”) (ibid: 125-127).

Wordplay is a common device for humor in the Fingerpori comic strips. However, since the

series also contain comics that do not depend on wordplay, a few other humor techniques are

introduced in the next subchapter.

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3.3. Other Humor Techniques in Comics

In addition to or instead of wordplay the Fingerpori comic strips sometimes utilize humor

techniques that do not solely depend on linguistic means. Firstly, there is the close relative of

wordplay: non-verbal puns, or sign-play as Kaindl (2004: 182) calls them. This type of humor

may utilize wordplay but it is expressed only visually. For instance, in the animated movie

Zootopia (2016) three police officers are assigned to an undercover mission. One of the officers

is a wolf who puts on a sheep costume: he becomes a literal wolf in sheep’s clothing. This

wordplay is not verbalized in the movie and thus it is an instance of sign-play. Some non-verbal

humor is not based on wordplay but just a humorous situation. These types of humor are based

on the pictures and can be reinforced with verbal elements.

Parody is also a useful device for humor. It can be an imitation or transformation of another

text as defined by Kaindl (2004: 185, following Kotthoff 1996: 264). However, here it will be

defined in broader terms. Simon Dentith (2000: 9) describes a parody as “any cultural practice

which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or

practice”. Thus, a parody can be an imitation of any original work but also of a person, subject

or phenomenon. A good example of parody is Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Great Dictator

(1940) where he impersonates Adolf Hitler for comic effect.

Allusions are fairly similar to parodies but they are references rather than imitations. According

to the Oxford English Dictionary (2017), allusion means “an implied, indirect, or passing

reference to a person or thing; (in later use more widely) any reference to someone or

something”. Ritva Leppihalme (1997a: 6) notes that allusions are very commonly defined as

references and these references are often made in order to compare different people, situations

etc. While allusions can be references to anything, they are often pieces of text from different

works in the past. The referenced text can be any recognized form of words for instance from

literature, movies or advertisement (Nash 1985: 78). For example, when the character Alfred

says to his wife “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” in the movie Corpse Bride (2005), he

alludes to the movie Gone with the Wind (1939).

As seen in the examples, often the visual element plays an important role in conveying humor

in addition to the verbal element. This is a significant aspect in comics as well. The humor can

be revealed verbally or visually or in unison within the modes. Because of their multimodal

nature, comic strips are a particularly good format for conveying humor. As Altti Kuusamo

(1990: 206) notes, there is no need for a background story in a comic strip because the necessary

15

information can be illustrated. The punchline is also amplified when the text is made as short

as possible and redundance is avoided (ibid.: 207). However, Kuusamo (ibid.: 207-208) argues

that the same does not apply for pictures: repetition in images is common and it emphasizes

small visual nuances and slight changes in gesticulation. The multimodal nature of comics is

essential in their reception. The following chapter focuses on the reception of humor and comic

strips.

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4. Reception Theory

A reception study, or a reader-response study as it is sometimes called, focuses, instead of the

text or the author, on the readers. It can examine, for instance, people’s reading habits,

consumption of books or their thoughts and evaluations of a text. Katarina Eskola (1990: 165)

draws attention to the point that reception theory acknowledges that readers are not only

consumers and users of texts but also the ones that construct a meaning to a text. This research

will focus on this aspect; on readers as interpreters of texts.

Reception is a concept that deals with the interactive relationship between the text and the

reader and with the formation of the text’s meaning (Eskola 1990: 163). Rien T. Segers (1985:

9) explains concisely that reception is the way in which a reader receives and understands a

text. Reception theory usually distinguishes two types of readers: real, concrete readers and

ideal readers. Real readers are the actual individual readers of a text and ideal readers are, as

Eskola (1990: 166) describes, the implied readers who are constructed in texts by the authors.

An ideal reader is not actually a real person but an all-encompassing interpretation of a text.

Thus, readers in this study always mean the real readers and not the ideal reader. The following

subchapters focus on the reception of the two genres central to this study: humor and comic

strips.

4.1. Reception of Humor

Louise M. Rosenblatt (1978: 12) points out that when a reader reads a text, s/he interprets it on

the basis of his/her experiences and personality. Everyone has a different and unique

background and thus there are several different interpretations of a specific text. Sense of humor

is a part of people’s personality and it is also influenced by one’s experiences. Consequently,

the sense of humor is a highly individual trait and there is variation in the types of humor that

people find amusing. Furthermore, repetition plays a role in the creation and appreciation of

jokes. A joke becomes a joke at the moment of repetition and they can be redesigned in different

interactions (Kuipers 2006: 6). Thus, people may appreciate the same jokes many times over.

However, it is possible that people stop enjoying the same joke after they have already heard it

before. As Ross (1998: 2) notes, ”humour becomes outdated as quickly as fashion”.

In addition to the individual readers and their personalities, the reception of humor depends

heavily on the conventions of the culture in question (Leppihalme 1997b: 145). Each culture

17

has their own set of (unwritten) rules on what topics you are allowed to joke about. The social

context is also an important factor because unfamiliar cultural references will immediately

stump the humorous effect. Therefore, successful humor often requires some shared factual

knowledge by the humorist and audience (Nash 1985: 4).

The reception of humor thus depends on many factors. Furthermore, there are stages in one’s

humor reception which can lead to humor support. In his article, Ken Willis (2005: 129-130)

discusses Jennifer Hay’s (2001) three-part model of humor support (shown below in Figure 1).

The model includes recognition, understanding and appreciation as the three stages of humor

reception. To understand a joke, the reader/listener also recognizes it. The appreciation of

humor is preceded by both recognition and understanding. However, understanding humor does

not automatically lead to the appreciation of it. For example, so-called taboo topics such as

politics, religion and sex are prone to divide people in their reception of humor.

Figure 1. Hay’s (2001, as illustrated in Willis, 2005:130) model of humor support.

Furthermore, Hay’s model includes a hidden fourth element: agreement, which is closely linked

with appreciation. If a person shows appreciation of a joke, s/he agrees with its message as well.

However, it is possible to be amused by a joke, but cancel any agreement by commenting for

instance: “That’s cruel.” (2001: 76, as quoted in Willis 2005: 133). As Willis (2005: 130) states,

it is difficult to evaluate how funny a text is, because just in the way that people’s social

positions differ, their humor competence does as well. However, he also notes that there are

areas of overlap in our humor competence and this is why some instances of humor will make

a large number of people laugh.

4.2. Reception of Comics

Reading comic strips differs from other reading due to their multimodal nature. The images

play an important role in comic strips as the text is usually kept short and many necessary details

are portrayed in the visuals. As opposed to movies, the visual elements are not moving and this

requires more of the reader. The stationary pictures and movements are completed in the

reader’s mind with knowledge from experience (Oittinen 1994: 7). For example, if there is a

18

dancer in the picture, the reader can imagine how they move because s/he has seen dancing

before.

Due to the visual element and the shortness of the strip, the reader can see the whole comic strip

in one glance before actually reading the textual elements. From the first glance, s/he forms

expectations. If s/he recognizes the comic strip series, s/he will form expectations on the basis

of his/her knowledge on the series. If the series is not already known to the reader, s/he may

form expectations based on the general outlook of the comic strip. For example, the general

style of the comic strip can tell the reader whether to expect something humorous or something

dramatic. For instance, realistic looking characters tend to feature more frequently in dramatic

stories.

Herkman (1998: 33) also points out this distinction saying that there are, roughly speaking, two

styles of comic art: one aims for realistic character appearances and the other utilizes heightened

caricatures. He explains that the first style of comics features human characters in “real”

environments and the second usually follows animal characters in a fictional world. He also

links this division to a thematic classification in the mainstream of American comics: the

adventure and drama comics (human characters), and the humoristic comics (animal characters)

(Reitberger & Fuchs 1972: 27, as quoted in Herkman 1998: 33). There are of course exceptions

to this a simple division, and even Herkman (1998: 34) considers it as too simplified, but there

is some truth to it. While humorous comics do not always include animal characters, they do

usually feature heavily caricaturized characters.

Comic characters can be often criticized for their stereotype-based appearance. For example, in

adventure comics the heroes are handsome and the villains look ugly and often foreign

(Gustavsson et al. 1980: 172, as quoted in Herkman 1998: 38). Manninen (1995: 49-50) points

out that it is a narrative advantage if the reader can easily identify the hero and the villain. While

it is not necessarily a positive element of comics to be emphasizing stereotypes in this manner,

it adds an interesting aspect to the reception of comics.

The reception of translated comic strips has not been studied to a great extent. One study was

conducted by Janne Keskisaari (2007). In his MA thesis, he studied Finnish readers’ reception

of culture-specific items in the comic strip Zits and found that the more culture-specific the

comic strips were, the harder they were to understand. However, this did not necessarily

correlate to the degree of the reader’s self-reported amusement. Sometimes the readers

interpreted the comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing nevertheless.

19

Reception is personal and people may find the same text funny even though they have differing

interpretations of it. When reading gag strips, the reader’s reception of both humor and comics

play an important role. Reception, comics and translation are discussed further in the following

chapter.

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5. Comics and Reception in the Context of Translation

As mentioned above, comics are multimodal texts and their semiotic vehicles of interest are

visual and verbal elements. Kaindl (2010: 39) points out that when one is translating comics it

is essential to find out first what kind of relation can be found between the picture and the text

(see Chapter 2.2 for visual-verbal relations). Sometimes for example verbal puns can be

supported by non-verbal signs or be dependent on them. In the translation process, the visual-

verbal relation has to be taken into account. The translator needs to find out what information

is portrayed through each mode and how they function in relation to each other.

The translation of multimodal texts is from time to time considered “constrained translation”,

which means that, for example in comics, only the linguistic elements are subject to change and

visual elements remain as they are. Thus, the visual elements are constraints for the translation

of the verbal element. However, as Federico Zanettin (2008: 21) and Nadine Celotti (2008: 34)

note, this is rather a misconception of the basics of the translation of comics. Modifying the

pictures in comics may not be an everyday convention but it is certainly not unheard-of.

Sometimes this may include only slight editing such as adjusting the shape and size of speech

bubbles, but sometimes something in the pictures may even be removed or redrawn. The

translator, however, needs to be careful with such choices. The visual and the verbal have a

dialogic relationship: the pictures shape the text and vice versa (Oittinen 1994: 6). This means

that if you change or edit either one, the whole context is changed.

In addition to the problems regarding multimodality, translating comics can include other

difficulties as well. There is, for instance, the problem of space and its limitations. The speech

bubbles in comics are rarely edited and this means that the translation has to fit in the space

assigned for it. Furthermore, the translator needs to take note of the fact that the text in speech

bubbles is exactly that: speech, and each character may have their own speech style. Gag strips

also feature the problem of translating humor, especially wordplay.

Translators are always readers of the source text at first and their reception has an important

influence on the target text. Translating wordplays can be tricky and sometimes a pun may even

be omitted altogether because no suitable translation is found. In many comic strips, however,

the translator must try to come up with a target-text pun or joke because of the humorous nature

of the series. The pun cannot be compensated in another part of the text either because of the

shortness of the comic strip. Delabastita (1996: 135) provides good advice for translators when

21

he says that sometimes “the only way to be faithful to the original text (i.e. to its verbal

playfulness) is paradoxically to be unfaithful to it (i.e. to its vocabulary and grammar)”. Saara

Hyyppä (2005: 119) has also commented that the translators of Donald Duck into Finnish are

told to distance themselves from the source text to come up with funnier translations. The aim

is not to omit or censor but to provide the target-text readers with an enjoyable reading

experience. This is often easier to achieve with domesticating translation strategies rather than

foreignizing ones. This aim permits for instance the modifying of pictures to ease the

conveyance and understanding of comic strips.

Wordplay is often deemed untranslatable due to differences in languages. Henrik Gottlieb

(1997: 226) argues, however, that wordplay is in most cases translatable. He demonstrates this

in his study on translation of wordplay in subtitles. His examples show that even if the direct

translation does not have the same sort of wordplay, there are usually alternate ways to

reproduce the wordplay in the target language. While compensation is not a viable method in

comic strips since the pun cannot be moved to another part of the short strip, the translator can

try to come up with another appropriate instance of wordplay and find words in the target

language that fit the context and resemble each other for instance in form.

The transfer from one language and culture to another makes the reception of translated material

a special and intriguing field. As Chiaro (2006: 205) notes on the reception of translated

audiovisual material, it is difficult to know whether source culture and target culture audiences

enjoy the same aspects of films and laugh at the same places. In addition, unsuccessful humor

can depend on the quality of translation as well as on culture-specific presuppositions, and it is

difficult to pinpoint which is the reason in each instance (ibid.). On the whole, reception studies

in the field of translation have been scarce and have focused on audiovisual translation (Brems

and Ramos Pinto 2013: 146). The present study will illuminate the reception of translated

material, in this case comic strips, and aim to find out reasons behind successful and failed

humor in them.

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6. Research Material and Method

The aim of this thesis is to investigate non-Finnish speaking readers’ reception of the Fingerpori

comic strips. The first English collection of the Finnish comic strip series was published in 2014

and its second edition with a few new translations was published in 2017. The Fingerpori comic

strips are humorous comic strips which commonly utilize wordplay and other humor devices

such as sign-play, parody and allusions. In this study, humor is viewed as both a quality and a

competence. It is a quality of the comic strips and the reception study will cast light on the

competence side of the concept.

Wordplay is a common humor technique in the Fingerpori comic strips and the most frequently

used strategy in the comic strips included in the questionnaire. This study uses Delabastita’s

definition for the term: wordplay functions in text and exploits language structures to generate

a confrontation between two or more formally similar structures with two or more meanings.

Finnish wordplay can utilize lexical, morphological and syntactic structures. When translating

into English, graphological and phonological structures become available as well. In addition

to the reception study, a closer inspection of the humor in the translated collection of the

Fingerpori comic strips is provided in the analysis. The reception study then shows whether the

humor is carried over to the non-Finnish speaking readers. The reception study will thus focus

on the readers’ interpretations and evaluations of the comic strips. The analysis will utilize both

quantitative and qualitative measures.

The research material consists of the English Fingerpori comic strips and the questionnaire

answers. When necessary, the original source-language comic strips are also located for

inspection. The following subchapters include more detailed descriptions of the research

material and methods. The first subchapter provides background information on the Fingerpori

comic strip series and the English collection Fingerpori from Finland (2014). Chapters 6.2. and

6.3. present details on the online questionnaire and its respondents.

6.1. Fingerpori Comic Strips

Fingerpori is a Finnish comic strip series by the comic artist Pertti Jarla. Jarla developed the

comic in 2006, then calling it Karl-Barks-Stadt. The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat

started publishing the comic strips in 2007 under the name Fingerpori and these days it can be

found in many newspapers and collections. The Fingerpori comic strip series has also been

23

brought to life on stage, most recently in the Emma theater in Naantali (Mäkinen-Önsoy, 2017),

and there has been talk about a movie project (Ahola, 2015). It is without a doubt one of the

most recognizable comic strips in Finland.

The series follows the life of the citizens of Fingerpori, a fictional small town in Finland. The

main character is Heimo Vesa, who works at the Fingerpoli research center as a scientist. Other

characters include his wife Irma and best friend Allan as well as coffee shop worker Rivo-Riitta

(Naughty Rita), mayor Aulis Homelius and well-known characters from literature, comics and

movies such as Spider-Man and Luke Skywalker and current and historical figures including

Adolf Hitler and Jesus.

The Fingerpori comic strips do not follow a storyline, i.e. they are not serial strips. Because of

their humorous nature, the strips can be defined as gag strips. Each comic strip features a joke

and they utilize various humor vehicles. However, the most common one is wordplay. Many of

the jokes in the Fingerpori comic strips are suggested by fans, who are credited on the comic

strip if their ideas end up on the series. Jarla has mentioned that a majority of these suggestions

play on double entendres (Koponen, 2017). It seems like Finns are especially easily amused by

so-called dirty humor. Especially comic strips featuring the character Rivo-Riitta usually

contain this type of humor. Sometimes the strips feature dark humor and joke at topics that are

considered taboo. For instance, religion, politics and sex are fairly frequent themes in

Fingerpori. Even though the humor is fairly innocuous, sometimes it offends people. Especially

comic strips on religious topics have angered some people (Väliranta, 2009). Because of the

featured themes and fairly high degree of difficulty, the comics are aimed predominantly for an

adult audience.

The English collection of the Fingerpori comic strips Fingerpori from Finland, translated by

Jarla himself and Vesa Kataisto, was published in 2014. It is the first official English collection

of the Fingerpori comic strips. For a little while, the comic strip series was published in

Denmark but this was stopped because the humor did not reach the readers. Jarla remarks that

in some countries the humor has to be light but in Finland readers enjoy comic strips that are

challenging (Österman, 2014). The English collection tests the waters for a wider audience. It

contains 279 comic strips, which have been chosen from all the previously published comic

strips. There were at least over 2000 strips to choose from. Kataisto (2017) comments that the

selection was made by simply trying out different comic strips and choosing those that could

be translated. Wordless strips were prioritized. Kataisto (2014: 7) also mentions in the foreword

24

of the collection that due to Fingerpori’s heavy focus on wordplays, only approximately a third

of the strips can even be translated. However, this untranslatability issue may stem from the

understanding of what can be done in translation.

The translated collection can be described as a self-translation as the comic artist Jarla and

editor Kataisto have translated the strips. Therefore, there should be no misinterpretations on

the account of the translators. They are experts in the humor and style of Fingerpori. In addition,

the language of the translations has been proofread by Stuart Allt who is of Australian origin

(Kataisto 2017). Kataisto (ibid.) notes that the English aims to resemble the rustic style and

language of the original.

As is common in comics, the text in the translated collection is mostly characters’ speech and

hence the language is colloquial and includes simple structures. The text contains several

interjections, such as “oh”, “ah”, “hmm” and “well”. These filler words are very typical in

spoken language. In addition, some words are spelled nontraditionally to add to the colloquial

sound. For instance, “alright” is spelled “awright”, “right” as “righto” and “them” as “’em”.

There are no major differences in the various characters’ speech: they all have a similar style

of speaking.

Kataisto (2017) notes that sometimes the translation needed some revision to preserve the joke.

The pictorial elements, however, were modified only once. The original and redrawn versions

of this comic strip can be found below (Figure 4 & 5).

Figure 4. Original version of the comic strip (Jarla 2015: 117).

25

Figure 5. Translated, redrawn version (Jarla 2014: 29).

The decision of redrawing the comic was made simply because the small change made the joke

work in English. The original joke would have not worked in English as “pork” or “pig” do not

have the same double meaning as “porsas” or “kana” and “chicken”. The Finnish word “porsas”

is used for both the animal and its meat whereas English does not utilize one word for both

meanings. The picture is a limiting factor in this instance but with alteration, this constraint has

been removed. The pig has been replaced with a lamb which has a similar double meaning as

“porsas”.

This subchapter has provided background information on the comic strip series and the

translated collection. The translated collection will be given more focus in Chapter 7.1, where

the humor techniques employed in the translations will be analyzed. Examples of the different

humor techniques will be provided from the research material. Wordplays will be explained

with definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and the frequencies of the

techniques will be examined and compared to Vilenius’ (2011) results on the Finnish Fingerpori

comic strips. Vilenius had a wider number of research material since she went through all the

comic strips that had been published before the start of her research in 2009. However, the

comparison of the findings sheds some light on the translation process since it can reveal if

some humor techniques are more common in the translated collection and thus, perhaps easier

to translate.

26

6.2.Questionnaire Setting and Analysis

The reception study involved an online questionnaire with seven Fingerpori comic strips

(Appendix 1). Permission to include the comic strips in this online questionnaire was granted

by the publishing company of the Fingerpori comic strip series, Arktinen Banaani. At first the

target group of the survey were international students but later the target group was broadened

to allow for a larger number of respondents. The questionnaire was advertised via an email

newsletter for international students in the University of Eastern Finland and then on Facebook.

In these posts, non-Finnish speaking respondents were invited to take part in a reception study

about comic strip translations. The survey was tested first with a pilot questionnaire from

November 2016 to December 2016. The questionnaire was not revised afterwards. The final

questionnaire was available online for three months from January 2017 to March 2017. The

respondents of both the pilot and the final questionnaire were welcomed to participate in a draw

for a €20 Amazon.co.uk gift card. The prize draw was conducted after the closing of the final

questionnaire.

Since wordplay is such a common humor technique in the Fingerpori comic strip series, it is

also heavily featured in the online questionnaire. In addition to wordplay, some of the comic

strips feature parody which tends to incorporate the visual element to a greater degree. Hence

humor in the seven selected comic strips is based on either wordplay (nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5), parody

(no. 7) or both wordplay and parody (nos. 2 and 6). The different types of wordplay featured in

the questionnaire are polysemy, syntactic ambiguity and compound words. The questionnaire

also highlights some frequent themes portrayed in the comic strips. Three of the included comic

strips (nos. 2, 5 and 6) portray taboo subjects, in this case religion, sexuality and Hitler and

World War II.

The questionnaire setting resembles the one used by Janne Keskisaari (2007) in his Master’s

thesis. He studied the effects of culture-specificity in the reception of comic strips. His layout

of questions seemed fitting for the purposes of the present study as well. However, the questions

were slightly modified. The set of questions under each comic strip is the following:

1. Do you think you understood the joke of the comic strip?

2. Please explain the joke.

3. How funny did you find this comic strip?

4. Is the comic strip easy to understand? If not, what makes it difficult?

5. Any other comments?

27

Questions 2, 4 and 5 are open-ended allowing the respondents to express their interpretations

and impressions in their own words. Questions 1 and 3 are closed. The response options for

question 1 are Yes, No and I’m not sure. For question 3 there is a five-point scale with the

answer options: Not funny, A little funny, Somewhat funny, Funny, Very funny. At the end of

the survey there is a question about all the featured comic strips: What did you think about the

themes the comic strips cover? From the point of view of humor research, this study does not

limit to one traditional research question, as presented by Palmer (1993: 5, see Chapter 3.1.)

However, especially the last question: What prevents us from finding something funny? will be

given focus in this study.

The Fingerpori comic strips do not have titles. However, in the analysis I will include a name

for each of the comic strips to ease the identification of the comic strips in the later discussion.

For the analysis of the responses of the questionnaire, both quantitative and qualitative methods

will be utilized. In quantitative analysis, statistics and tables will be presented to illustrate the

degree of understanding and appreciation of each comic strip. Responses to the open-ended

questions will be analyzed qualitatively. Before analyzing answers to question 2, which asks

the reader to explain the joke in the comic strip, I will define, what the “correct” meaning for

each of the jokes is. The responses can then be compared to this intended meaning to determine

whether the respondents understood the comic strips in the same way. The analysis will focus

on the understanding and appreciation stage of humor reception (see Chapter 4.1.). The

respondents who understood each joke have of course also identified the root of the humor,

since recognition precedes understanding, but it is difficult to know whether the ones who did

not understand a joke, did or did not recognize where the stem of the humor was. Thus,

recognition as well as agreement, which is closely linked with appreciation, will be commented

on only if related responses are found in the material.

6.3. Questionnaire Respondents

The questionnaire was answered by 47 respondents: eight respondents to the pilot questionnaire

and 39 to the final questionnaire. The questionnaire was not revised in between as the pilot

questionnaire was concluded as successful and therefore both rounds of respondents could be

included in the research material. However, three of the respondents were Finnish and their

contributions will be excluded from the material as the aim of the study is to investigate the

28

reception of non-Finnish speakers. Thus, the number of filled questionnaires in the research

material is 44.

First, the respondents were asked a few background questions, which included age, gender,

mother tongue and their own estimation of their English skills. The age and gender distribution

is illustrated below in Figure 2. Since at first, the questionnaire was targeted for international

students and most of the respondents were expected to be under 30 years old, the younger age

groups have shorter gaps. Despite the broadened target group, the majority of the respondents

were 21-30 years old. They comprised approximately two thirds of respondents. The other

respondents divided quite evenly to the other age groups with, however, the exception of the

51-60 age group which only had one representative. As regards to gender, a majority, 59%, of

the respondents were female, 39% were men and 2% identified as other.

Figure 2. The age and gender distribution of questionnaire respondents.

The respondents’ linguistic backgrounds were quite diverse. There were 16 different first

languages listed. English was the most frequent mother tongue with nine speakers. Other first

languages included French (6 speakers), Dutch (4), German (4), Swedish (4), Hungarian (3),

Chinese (2), Urdu (2), Afrikaans (1), Croatian (1), Czech (1), Filipino (1), Latvian (1), Polish

(1), Romanian (1) and Russian (1). Two respondents left this question blank. The respondents’

English skills varied but tended towards proficient and advanced knowledge. In addition, there

were 11 respondents who estimated their English skills to be on first-language level. These data

are illustrated in Figure 3. The first-language estimations were expected to come solely from

those whose mother tongue was indeed English. However, a few of the respondents who

estimated their English skills as “First language” did not have English marked as their first

29

language. In addition, a couple of those whose mother tongue was English estimated their

English skills to be proficient rather than first-language level. Of course, there may be reasons

in their backgrounds for these decisions.

Figure 3. The survey respondents’ own estimate of their level of English skills.

In the analysis, I will refer to the respondents with identification numbers: E1-E9 for the

respondents whose mother tongue is English and O1-O35 for those whose mother tongue is

other than English. Otherwise, background information will be mentioned only if the survey

answers present any patterns for any specific group.

The questionnaire responses are analyzed and discussed in Chapter 7.2. Before that, the humor

in the translated Fingerpori comic strips is examined in Chapter 7.1.

30

7. Analysis

In this chapter, the humor in the translated Fingerpori comic strips and its reception are analyzed

and discussed. The first subchapter examines the humor techniques used in the translated

collection Fingerpori from Finland (2014). The different humor techniques are illustrated with

examples from the research material and their frequencies in the collection are compared to

Vilenius’ (2011) findings on the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips. The second subchapter

focuses on the reception of the humor in the comic strips: in this subchapter, the questionnaire

responses are analyzed.

7.1. Humor in Translated Fingerpori Comic Strips

Many of the Fingerpori comic strips rely on both the picture and text to convey a joke. For

instance, the comic strip in Figures 4 and 5 (see Chapter 6.1.) utilizes wordplay but the meaning

of the phrase is realized only after seeing the last panel. The pictures and text complement each

other. The Fingerpori comic strips do utilize other visual-verbal relations as well. There are

comic strips where emphasis lies on the text and pictures are secondary and vice versa.

However, the co-operation of pictures and text appear to be the most frequently used method.

This method presents an effective strategy for conveying humor in comics.

As discussed in Chapter 3.2.2., the humor in the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips has been

studied by Vilenius (2011). The English Fingerpori collection consists of 279 comic strips.

Vilenius, however, had a wider number of material to go through since she went through all the

comic strips that had been published before the start of her study in 2009. In her study on the

Finnish Fingerpori comic strips, Vilenius (2011: 29) discovered that at the time 61% of the

comic strips utilized wordplay in some form, 34% had text but did not involve any wordplay

and 5% did not include any text or only contained some referential textual elements. As for the

translated collection, 54% of the English Fingerpori comic strips utilize wordplay, 39% have

text in them but do not involve wordplay and 7% either do not have text at all or only contain

some referential textual elements. In the translated collection, the number of comic strips

without wordplay is higher since they may be easier to translate. The translated collection is

comprised of comic strips that the translators have chosen for the collection and naturally the

choices have been made by considering their translatability. The number of comics utilizing

31

wordplay is still surprisingly high considering Kataisto’s (2014) comments on only 30% of

them being translatable.

Vilenius (2011: 61) found that polysemy was the most popular type of wordplay in the Finnish

Fingerpori comic strips. In the English collection, polysemy was the second most popular type

of wordplay while the most common type was syntactic ambiguity. Out of 152 comic strips

utilizing wordplay, 64 played on syntactic ambiguity and 36 used polysemy. Compound words

(22) were fairly popular as well. Homonymy (4), idioms (14) and other humor devices (12)

were identified quite rarely. The number of comic strips using polysemy probably decreased

due to difficulties in finding suitable equivalents in English. Syntactic ambiguity however may

be easier to translate since the humor is not based on only one word but achieved through a

carefully planned sentence with more than one possible meaning (see the example in the

following paragraph). Some of the comic strips could have been classified into more than one

type of wordplay and thus the numbers are only approximate.

Syntactic ambiguity plays with sentence structures. In comic strips utilizing this strategy, one

character usually says an ambiguous phrase that could be interpreted in more than one way. In

the following example, the superhero Batman receives the name “Shithead” because of the

ambiguity of spoken language.

Hostage situation is solved…

Criminal: Wh-who are you?

Batman: Your worst nightmare, shithead.

[Batman watching TV later]

Rescued woman: I was saved by a masked hero called Shithead.

(Jarla 2014: 118)

In the written form, “Your worst nightmare, shithead” seems clear and easy to understand but

in the comic strip this is spoken and there are no commas in spoken language. This creates the

ambiguity. Batman was calling the criminal a shithead but as the last panel reveals, the rescued

hostage thought that it was Batman’s name. The reader realizes the ambiguity of the phrase at

the same time as Batman. The writing in the comic strip which does not indicate upper or lower

case letters aids in the confusion.

Polysemy and homonymy are examined next due to their similarities. In the following example,

the two workers understand the word “channel” differently. The second speaker assumes that

the first is talking about river-like channels on Mars and answers accordingly; stating that these

32

do not exist. However, the visuals in the last panel show that the first speaker had in fact

discovered Martian TV channels.

Science center Fingerpoli

Co-worker: Heimo, I can see the Martian channels!

Heimo: “Martian channels” are just optical illusions.

[The co-worker returns to a room where a TV screen shows an alien creature]

Co-worker: Bah

(Jarla 2014: 28)

The wordplay in this comic strip is an instance of polysemy since regardless of differences in

meaning, the two meanings are related, i.e. signifying either a channel of water or of television

signal.

- The hollow bed of a river, stream, or other body of running water; the course through

which a river or stream flows

- A television broadcast transmitted over a particular frequency band or (in later use

also) Internet stream. (OED, 2017)

This comic also shows how verbal humor can be supported and enforced with visual elements.

The misinterpretation does not need to be expressed verbally because it is shown visually.

Homonymy was a very rare technique among the research material. Homonymous words have

identical spelling and pronunciation but unrelated meanings. For instance, in the following

example the word “trailer” has two separate meanings.

[an old couple having coffee]

Woman: Titanic was a terrible film.

Man: I only saw Titanic’s trailer.

1912:

[a young boy astonished by the size of a trailer meant for transporting boats]

(Jarla 2014: 271)

Since the woman is talking about a movie, one would assume that the man means that he has

only seen the trailer for the movie, as in “an excerpt of a film, broadcast, etc., used as advance

publicity” (OED). However, the second panel reveals that the man had seen the trailer of the

boat, i.e. “an unpowered vehicle towed behind a car or truck” (OED).

Compound words are lexical units where two or more words are merged to form a new meaning.

The words can be written together, separately or with a hyphen. The humor arises from various

meanings of one compound. Sometimes the compound receives a whole new meaning in the

context of the comic strip and sometimes the compound may already have several meanings,

33

as in the example below. In the comic strip, a character called Dick Wolfskin is explaining his

career change.

- Our football team did not play well together.

- So nowadays I have done “adult entertainment”.

[a man without a shirt is seen in the background]

- Nice to be a part of a well-oiled team.

(Jarla 2014: 45)

Here the word “well-oiled” first generates the figurative meaning of the compound: “operating

smoothly” (OED). The amusement comes from the realization that the literal meaning

“thoroughly covered, moistened, or lubricated with oil” (OED) also functions in the context

(adult entertainment).

Idioms and other humor devices are quite rare in the

material. In the comic strips that use idiomatic expressions

as the source of humor, the expression is used with a

different meaning, usually a literal one instead of the

traditional one. In the adjacent comic strip (Figure 6), the

proverb “Curiosity killed the cat” is utilized in this way.

Traditionally the proverb means that “being inquisitive

about other people's affairs may get you into trouble”

(Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Here it generates the literal

meaning. However, instead of inquisitiveness, curiosity here

denotes an “object valued as curious, rare, or strange” (OED,

2017). The rare artefact, a curiosity, falls from its pedestal

and kills the cat that was scratching the pedestal. Hence, the

curiosity killed the cat. The category of other humor devices

consists of varied strategies that utilize language to create

humor but were very rare in the material. This category

included for example metonymy, where something is

referred to with a related concept. For instance, one comic

strip pictures an advertisement for a laser eye surgery with

the text: “Get rid of glasses!”. In addition to the literal

meaning, “glasses” usually refer to poor eyesight in this

context. Figure 6. Comic strip with

an idiom as the source of

humor (Jarla 2014: 89).

34

The humor in the comic strips without wordplay is based on the picture or situation. Some of

these are wordless while some do include text. Popular humor vehicles for these comic strips

are sign-play, parody and allusions. However, comic strips utilizing parody and allusions are

not found exclusively in this category. If these comic strips also featured wordplay, they were

included in the corresponding wordplay category, i.e. in one of the above-mentioned categories.

Parody was frequently utilized in the comic strips that did not feature any wordplay. The comics

that depend on this type of humor take something well-known and make something humorous

out of it. The comic strip below (Figure 7) showcases the popular comic book character Spider-

man creating webs, not for the usual reasons such as attacking villains, but for fishing. This is

a parodic representation of the character.

Figure 7. Parodying Spider-man. (Jarla 2014: 40)

In the research material, parody was much more popular than allusions. This probably stems

from the use of the visual element. When referencing to something in comic strips, the picture

is an important element. It can convey ideas faster and easier than text. Thus, parody which

imitates rather than merely references is an effective source of humor in comic strips. Allusions

were rarer and when one occurred, the comic strip tended to feature wordplay as well, as in the

following comic strip (Figure 8).

35

Figure 8. Comic strip utilizing an allusion. (Jarla 2014: 137)

The priest in the picture utilizes a biblical reference in the context of a curling tournament.

Instead of an actual stone, the stone here refers to the granite stones that are used in curling and

instead of throwing, the stone is slid on ice.

As can be seen, the Fingerpori comic strips feature various kinds of humor techniques.

Sometimes more than one method is used in a comic strip. The comic strips in the online

questionnaire feature different kinds of wordplay and parody since these humor techniques are

especially common in the research material. The results of the reception study are analyzed and

discussed in the following subchapter.

36

7.2. Analysis of the Questionnaire Responses

This subchapter focuses on the results of the online questionnaire. Each comic strip that was

included in the questionnaire will be presented and described. These descriptions will be

compared to the explanations provided by the survey respondents. For the purposes of this

study, my explanations will function as the “correct”, intended meanings but it is acknowledged

that there can be several working interpretations. The interpretations can be affected by for

instance, the respondents’ lack of background knowledge. The respondents will most likely be

unaware of the different characters in the series and will not be able to name them. This is taken

into consideration when analyzing the respondents’ explanations for the comic strips. The

respondents’ understanding and appreciation of each comic strip will be illustrated in tables.

The comic strips do not have titles but to ease the later

discussion, I have provided a short name for each of them.

7.2.1. Comic Strip #1: Gay Adoption

The first comic strip (Figure 9) depicts the main character

Heimo and his wife Irma discussing gay adoption, i.e. the

rights of same-sex couples to adopt a child. After stating her

opinion, Irma asks Heimo what his thoughts on the subject

are. However, Heimo misinterprets the phrase “gay

adoption” and thinks that Irma is suggesting that they adopt

a gay person.

This is an instance of wordplay where a compound word is

given a whole different meaning from the traditional one. 29

respondents out of 44 (66%) stated that they understood the

joke, 5 (11%) respondents were not sure of the meaning and

10 (23%) respondents did not understand it at all. The

following table (Table 1) shows the respondents’ answers to

Question 1 (Do you think you understood the joke in the

comic strip?). In addition, the table shows the answers of the

two language groups: English L1 speakers and respondents

with other first languages. Both groups encountered difficulty

in understanding this comic strip.

Figure 9. Comic strip #1:

Gay adoption (Jarla 2014:

15).

37

Table 1. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #1 (Gay

adoption).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 4 3 2

Others 25 2 8

Total 29 5 10

The respondents’ explanations for the joke revealed that many of them actually misinterpreted

the comic strip. Table 2 illustrates the understanding and appreciation of the comic strip. In

Table 2, the columns show the respondents’ evaluation of the comic strip, i.e. answers to

Question 3 (How funny did you find this comic strip?). The rows show the distribution of the

respondents in relation to their understanding of the joke. The first row is for correct

understanding: those who answered “Yes” or “I’m not sure” for Question 1 and provided an

explanation that corresponded with the intended meaning. Respondents included in the

“Different interpretation” section are people whose interpretation differed from the intended

meaning. The third row demonstrates the number of respondents whose interpretation is

unclear: respondents who did not provide any explanation or provided a vague response. The

last row shows the numbers of respondents who did not understand the joke at all: respondents

who answered “No” to Question 1.

Table 2. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #1 (Gay adoption).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

2 4 5 6 - 17

Different

interpretation

5 1 4 3 - 13

Unclear or no

explanation

2 - 2 - - 4

No

understanding

9 1 - - - 10

Total 18 6 11 9 - 44

38

The first comic strip was surprisingly difficult to understand. Out of all the misinterpretations,

two prevalent explanations were that either the couple has a gay child and Heimo wants to give

him up for adoption or that Heimo himself is gay.

I believe that the comic is stating that the parents are going to give their child up

for adoption because he is gay, rather than a gay couple adopting a child. (E3)

the woman is in favor of gays adopting children but when the guy asks her yes we

should adopt a child. It means her husband is gay too. This can be seen by

woman's shocking reaction. (O34)

The former view was shared by five respondents in total and the latter by another five

respondents. The respondents had, most likely, no prior knowledge of the comic strip series and

therefore, were unfamiliar with the characters. This comic strip features Heimo and Irma who

are a married couple with no children. This information would have been helpful for the

respondents and probably prevented the misinterpretation of Heimo wanting to give their gay

child up for adoption.

The main reason for the difficulties in understanding the joke appears to have been the

punchline “Where should we put him?” This was referred to in a few of the answers to Question

4 (Is the comic strip easy to understand? If not, what makes it difficult?). Some noted that they

did not know to whom “him” was referring. One respondent even commented that they did not

know what the whole sentence was in reference to. These comments came from both English

L1 speakers and respondents with other first languages. All in all, it was evident that a high

level of knowledge in English did not correspond to a better understanding of this comic strip.

Only approximately a half, 13 out of 25, of the respondents who marked their level of English

skills as either First language or Proficient understood the joke in the comic strip.

The appreciation is estimated on a five-point scale. It can be converted to a number scale from

1 to 5 where 1 equals “Not funny” and 5 equals “Very funny”. The overall average rating for

this comic strip was then 2.25. The average rating when excluding the respondents who did not

find any joke in the comic strip, i.e. the last row in Table 2, was 2.59.

Three respondents noted that they found this comic strip offensive. However, two of them had

misinterpreted the joke and thought that either Heimo or his child was gay. Nonetheless, the

intended meaning of the joke is not meant to be at the expense of gay people but a play on

words and furthermore, nobody in the comic strip expresses an intolerant view to different

sexualities. Irma thinks that gay adoption is all right and Heimo only worries about whether

they have enough space to have an adopted child. Since this was the first comic strip in the

39

questionnaire, the lack of background knowledge may have been especially essential here. The

respondents had, most likely, no prior knowledge of the characters and style of the comic strip

series. If they had known some information of the characters and the series’ heavy focus on

wordplays, they might have viewed this comic strip differently. However, this is a very common

way to acquaint oneself with a new comic strip series: by reading them one by one. In

newspapers, they do not usually have an introduction to the comics either.

7.2.2. Comic Strip #2: Jesus

In the second comic strip (Figure 10), Heimo is having a conversation with Jesus, who is

pondering Judas’ betrayal. This is a parodic representation of Jesus and the history regarding

him. This comic strip also uses a play on a compound word, in this case “crosstrainer” [sic].

There is a slight error in the comic strip since the correct

spelling for the word is “cross trainer”.

Traditionally, a cross trainer means an exercise machine. In

English, the more common word for this would be an

elliptical trainer which can be seen for instance in a Google

search: “cross trainer” provides 385 000 results whereas

“elliptical trainer” receives almost eight million results

(search date: December 20th, 2017). In addition, the OED

does not include the word “cross trainer” in this sense. A

couple of respondents’ answers indicate that they mistook

the word for “cross-trainer” which according to the OED is

“a training shoe suitable for a range of sporting activities”

(2017). These respondents may be more familiar with

British English in which “trainer” for a shoe is more

common than in American English. This meaning is

somewhat strange in the context as the word is in singular:

Jesus would have received only one shoe. However, this

should not hinder the understanding of the wordplay. Since

Jesus was crucified after Judas betrayed him, the cross

trainer as a present from Judas is a hint that he should start Figure 10. Comic strip #2:

Jesus (Jarla 2014: 136).

40

preparing and training for the imminent crucifixion, the “cross”. This joke alludes to Jesus’

crucifixion without explicitly mentioning it.

28 out of 44 respondents (64%) stated that they understood the joke, 6 respondents (14%) were

not sure of the meaning and 10 (23%) respondents did not understand the comic strip. As can

be seen in Table 3, this comic strip was noticeably more difficult to the respondents whose first

language was not English. There may be more variation in these respondents’ religious

backgrounds and thus some of them may not be as familiar with the context of this comic strip

as others.

Table 3. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #2 (Jesus).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 8 - 1

Others 20 6 9

Total 28 6 10

In the respondents’ explanations for the joke, I looked for understanding of the link to Jesus’

crucifixion. The explanations included mentions of his fate but there were also explanations

that did not state this explicitly and only noted “cross trainer” as the source of wordplay. These

answers are included in the unclear explanations because, as a later example demonstrates,

“cross trainer” can be interpreted as a different wordplay as well. The distribution of

understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #2 can be found below in Table 2.

Table 4. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #2 (Jesus).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

3 7 9 4 1 24

Different

interpretation

1 1 - - - 2

Unclear or no

explanation

- 2 2 2 2 8

No

understanding

10 - - - - 10

Total 14 10 11 6 3 44

41

This comic strip produced fewer interpretations than the first strip; the comic strip was perhaps

easier to understand. One reason for this may be that the joke is more straight-forward with a

clear punchline. The wordplay is also in the punchline and with a careful reading the reader

should be able to find the link between the word “cross trainer” and the historical characters

quite easily. However, lack of Christian knowledge would make the strip difficult to understand.

This was noted by some of the respondents who did not get the joke.

I don't get the joke. I think it's because this story is about a certain event in the

bible story that I don't know, or there's another context I should place it in. (O5)

Cultural background is an important factor in understanding this joke. People with different

cultural backgrounds have different levels of knowledge about Christian mythology.

I classified two explanations as different interpretations. The first of these was somewhat

difficult to classify because their explanation could be understood in a couple of ways.

Is it because Judas doublecrossed him? (O9)

The respondent sounds uncertain in this explanation but because they later claim that the joke

is easy to understand it can be presumed that they are sure enough of their interpretation. The

respondent’s explanation acknowledges the Christian history between Jesus and Judas but it is

uncertain whether they linked the word cross trainer to crucifixion and the noun “cross” or the

verb “to doublecross”. The respondent’s explanation suggests that they linked it to the latter. It

is possible, however, that I am misguided by their choice of words. The assumed interpretation

of the joke would also be a working instance of wordplay but not the one intended in the comic

strip. The second different interpretation was as follows:

I think the joke is about Jesus never expecting to receive a gift from Judas. (O32)

This respondent did not find any wordplay in the strip. For this respondent, the humor was in

the surprise of Judas giving Jesus a present.

Furthermore, there was another interesting alternative explanation for the joke.

The association of exercise machines and torture devices, as well as a pun on

"cross". (O23)

In addition to the wordplay, this respondent finds the association of exercise machines as torture

devices part of the humor in the comic strip. This is an interesting addition to the joke and a

good example of the significance of an individual reader’s own background and personal views.

42

The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.41 and the average rating when excluding

those who did not find any humor in the comic strip was 2.82. The latter average is close to

Somewhat funny. The comic strip received a fairly high average rating even though in Finland

religious strips are the ones that, according to Jarla, have received most critique (Väliranta,

2009). However, there were no comments on offensiveness regarding this strip in particular in

the survey answers while some comic strips, such as the first one, received comments on this.

In addition, only three people of those whose explanation corresponded the intended meaning

did not find it funny at all. This would imply that the survey respondents do not regard religious

topics that offensive or the chosen comic strip may also feature humor that is innocuous enough.

7.2.3. Comic Strip #3: Eggs

There are very few verbal elements in the third comic strip

(Figure 11). The last panel shows Irma picking up “free

range eggs” [sic]. Free-range eggs are produced by a chicken

that is “kept or raised in conditions where it may move

around freely” (OED, 2017). The first two panels show what

the compound word would literally mean: eggs from

chickens that truly have free range living in the nature. It is

a funny juxtaposition with the literal meaning and the

traditional meaning of the phrase. In the Finnish version, this

wordplay is even clearer: “vapaan kanan munia”, which

means literally eggs from free chickens.

According to the answers to Question 1, this comic strip was

the most difficult to understand out of the seven strips. As

can be seen in Table 5, only 19 out of 44 respondents (43%)

said that they understood this comic strip while the rest either

did not understand it at all (23%) or were not sure of the

meaning (34%).

Figure 11. Comic strip #3: Eggs (Jarla 2014: 11).

43

Table 5. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #3 (Eggs).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 3 5 1

Others 16 10 9

Total 19 15 10

19 respondents found the intended meaning for this comic strip. However, these were not

exclusively the 19 respondents who stated that they understood this comic strip in Question 1:

nine of these respondents either had a different interpretation or gave a vague reply or no

explanation. The understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #3 is presented in Table 6. One

of the respondents who stated that they did not understand the comic strip, provided the intended

meaning when asked the explanation for the comic strip. Hence, nine respondents did not

understand this comic strip at all.

Table 6. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic Strip #3 (Eggs).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

5 6 6 2 - 19

Different

interpretation

3 2 2 1 - 8

Unclear or no

explanation

5 - 2 1 - 8

No

understanding

6 2 1 - - 9

Total 19 10 11 4 - 44

There was some variation in the answers for the meaning of the comic strip. While many

recognized the wordplay in the term “free-range” and the contrasting of wild hens with farm

chickens that have enough space, there were also many different interpretations. A couple of

respondents thought that the wordplay was on the word “free”.

The chicken lays the egg for free in the range. The farmer picks it up for free.

Charges the customer money for what should be free. Pun on the word free. (E6)

This interpretation is plausible in the context as well. Other interpretations did not rely on a

pun. Two respondents explained that the joke is the woman stealing eggs from the chicken.

44

While there is someone stealing an egg and it is important to recognize, it is not the main point

of the joke. Furthermore, the character in the second and last panel is not the same one.

One respondent found irony in the comic strip in a comparison of human life and the fate of the

chicken and their eggs.

Chicken is appreciating the freedom of a nice view, and lays an egg, which is

hastily gathered and sold. I would call this irony, as most people dreaming of

freedom want to secure it for their children as well. (E4)

This is a rather complex but interesting interpretation. It is possible that the difficulties in

understanding the comic strip led to longer times in contemplating on the meaning which then

resulted in many different interpretations, some of them more complex than others. A couple

of respondents explained that this comic strip was difficult to understand because of the small

amount of text. Two other respondents explained that it was

difficult because they could not find the relation between the

first two pictures and the last one. This comic strip relied

heavily on both pictures and text and if the respondents could

not connect the two, the intended meaning remained lost on

the respondents.

The problems in understanding this comic strip appeared to

have carried over to the evaluations. Judging by the

respondents’ evaluations, this comic strip was the least funny

of the seven strips. As can be seen in Table 6, the comic strip

was mostly evaluated as either “Not funny”, “A little funny”

or “Somewhat funny”. Four respondents rated it as “Funny”

and no one found it “Very funny”. On a scale from 1 to 5, the

average rating for this comic strip was 2 and the average

rating among those who found some meaning, intended or

not, in the comic strip was 2.14. Thus, on an average this

comic strip was regarded only a little funny.

7.2.4. Comic Strip #4: Lotto

In the fourth comic strip (Figure 12), Heimo comes home and

asks how he did in the lotto, i.e. the lottery. Irma has checked

Figure 12. Comic strip #4:

Lotto (Jarla 2014: 76).

45

the numbers and answers that he only got one number right. However, her answer, “You got

seven right”, could be also interpreted as “You got all seven numbers right” which would mean

that he won the lottery.

This is an instance of syntactic ambiguity, more precisely ellipsis. The full version of the

sentence would be “You got the number seven right” but Irma says it in a more concise form

which allows the misinterpretation. As can be seen in the following table (Table 7), this comic

strip was clearly the easiest to understand among the seven strips: only three out of 44

respondents (7%) stated that they did not understand it. 41 respondents (93%) said that they

understood the strip.

Table 7. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #4 (Lotto).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 9 - -

Others 32 - 3

Total 41 - 3

36 out of the 41 respondents who answered that they understood the comic strip found the

intended meaning in the strip. 5 respondents either did not explain the comic strip at all or

provided an unclear answer. Table 8 demonstrates the understanding of the comic strip in

relation to the ratings it receiced.

Table 8. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #4 (Lotto).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

5 6 10 14 1 36

Different

interpretation

- - - - - -

Unclear or no

explanation

1 1 - 2 1 5

No

understanding

3 - - - - 3

Total 9 7 10 16 2 44

46

This comic strip also received a high appreciation rate as the most frequent evaluations were

“Somewhat funny” and “Funny”. One respondent even commented that the comic strips in

general should be more like this one. There were, however, also comment on this being too

basic and predictable. The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.89 and the average

rating when excluding the respondents who did not find any joke in this comic strip was 3.02.

According to this average, this was the most amusing comic strip in the questionnaire.

Only one of the respondents who did not understand the comic strip, gave an explanation for

why it was difficult to understand. This respondent (O34) explained that they are not familiar

with lotto and do not know how it functions. Lotto is a game where people have chosen numbers

and a certain amount of numbers is drawn to find a winner. In Finland, seven numbers are

drawn. Getting seven numbers right means that one wins it but getting only one number right

means losing. The understanding of the comic definitely requires some knowledge on lotto.

Furthermore, the respondents’ level of English skills may have affected the replies as well since

the respondents who did not understand the joke came from the group who did not have English

as their first language.

In addition, one respondent commented on the formulation of the comic strip.

The "other numbers were wrong" speech bubble is completely unnecessary. The

image is enough as a punchline in and of itself. (O16)

Although comic strips usually aim for avoiding redundance, here the verbal and visual elements

provide the same information. The important detail is repeated in both modes and hence, the

joke is spelled out for the reader.

47

7.2.5. Comic Strip #5: Yeast

The fifth comic strip (Figure 13) features Heimo in the café

with Rivo-Riitta, the coffee shop worker. The character of

Rivo-Riitta is known for rather vulgar humor, mostly of

sexual nature. In the comic strip, she and Heimo listen to the

TV where someone says that very hot water should not be

used when baking because yeast dies in a temperature of 40

degrees Celsius and over. Rivo-Riitta’s comment on going

to the sauna more often implies that she has candidiasis, a

vaginal yeast infection. She presumes that this will also “die”

in hot temperatures.

In the comic strip, the word “yeast” is polysemous: meaning

both the ingredient “used in the manufacture of beer and to

leaven bread” and “a fungus” (OED, 2017). The topic in this

comic strip also falls into the theme of sexuality which is

traditionally regarded as a taboo subject. Understanding

yeast as an infection is most likely the main challenge with

this joke, as one respondent noted as well.

it' not that easy, maybe not everyone knows about

candida being a yeast? (O28)

31 out of 44 respondents (70%) claimed that they understood the joke in the comic strip, 9

respondents (20%) were not sure of the meaning and 4 respondents (9%) stated that they did

not understand the joke. The answers to Question 1 are presented in Table 9.

Figure 13. Comic strip #5:

Yeast (Jarla 2014: 18).

48

Table 9. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #5 (Yeast).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 7 1 1

Others 24 8 3

Total 31 9 4

Almost half of the respondents, 21, found the intended meaning. These respondents’ answers

showed that they found the wordplay in “yeast”. Only four respondents had no understanding

of the joke. The appreciation varied greatly regarding this comic strip, as can be seen in the

following Table 10.

Table 10. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #5 (Yeast).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

3 6 3 7 2 21

Different

interpretation

3 3 1 2 1 10

Unclear or no

explanation

2 2 2 2 1 9

No

understanding

3 1 - - - 4

Total 11 12 6 11 4 44

The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.66 and the average rating for the

respondents who found a joke in the comic strip was 2.8. This comic strip was one of those

which divided people in the appreciation of the joke: there were high numbers of both low and

high ratings. This was seen in the comments as well: the comic was regarded both as “disgusting

and not humorous” (E3) and “funny and gross” (O23).

The ten respondents who interpreted the comic strip in a different way all stated that Rivo-Riitta

wanted to go to the sauna to lose weight.

The yeast is what make the cakes grow bigger. The man is fat so he thinks that

going to the sauna will make him not being fatter. (O1)

burning yeast is confused here with burning fat, which can be done in the sauna

(E8)

49

The first respondent has interpreted the comic this way on the basis of yeast’s function as a

leaven in baking. Thus, the similar ingredient in people will vanish in the sauna’s heat. Some

people thought that yeast was just confused with fat in the comic strip, as the latter example

shows. However, this interpretation of Rivo-Riitta wanting to lose weight was also regarded as

problematic.

I don't really understand how the yeast dying can help him (O26)

[It was difficult to understand] because yeast in german has nothing to do with

getting fat. (O27)

Furthermore, it was clearly difficult for the respondents to identify whether Rivo-Riitta is a

male or a female. The picture does show her name tag but understandably the Finnish name

Riitta may not have been of help to the respondents. Eight respondents mistook the character

Rivo-Riitta for a man. Another seven respondents referred to her in a somewhat vague manner,

for instance as a “person” or “baker”. One respondent expressed the confusion more plainly:

The barman inadvertently reveals that he (she?) has a yeast infection. (O19)

The outlook of the character is not very feminine and this fits the character. However, for the

new readers this may hinder their understanding of the comic strip and the joke may be less

successful. In fact, one respondent commented that the comic strip “would have been funnier

if the baker was a woman” (E6). The collection does, however, have an introduction to the

characters in the beginning which could have prevented this confusion.

One respondent noted that the understanding of this comic requires some culturally specific

information.

[The comic is] Easy [to understand], but with a proviso. I am an American living

in Finland, and I have had to learn to think in metric and Celsius, instead of

imperial units and Fahrenheit. Knowing which scale the degrees pertain to is

important to understanding this comic, as is knowing the basic temperature range

of a sauna. (E4)

The “degrees” in this comic strip pertain to Celsius and therefore, people unfamiliar with the

unit may find it difficult to understand the degrees. Furthermore, saunas are less common

outside of Finland and some people may not be that familiar with them.

50

7.2.6. Comic Strip #6: Hitler

The sixth comic strip (Figure 14) is a one-panel comic which portrays Adolf Hitler in an art

class.

Figure 14. Comic strip #6: Hitler (Jarla 2014: 181).

The presumed teacher of the class is mixing colors in a palette. Hitler cannot stand this because

he thinks that white should not be mixed with other colors. This alludes to his views on race

and white supremacy. It is known that Hitler pursued art before going to politics. This comic

strip presents a parodic view of the end of his career in arts. This comic is a parody but there is

also a wordplay with the word “white” which refers to both paint and race. It is an instance of

polysemy.

A high number of respondents stated that they understood this joke: 39 out of 44 (89%). Only

1 respondent (2%) was not sure of the meaning and 4 (9%) did not understand the joke. This

data is distributed to the two language groups in Table 11. All respondents with English as their

first language said that they understood the comic strip.

Table 11. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #6 (Hitler).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 9 - -

Others 30 1 4

Total 39 1 4

This comic strip provided no alternative interpretations, as can be seen in Table 12. As regards

appreciation, this comic strip received variation in ratings which are distributed quite evenly on

51

the scale from “Not funny” to “Very funny”. The overall average rating for this comic strip was

2.75 and the average rating when excluding those with no understanding of the joke in the

comic strip was 2.93.

Table 12. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #6 (Hitler).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

6 5 9 8 6 34

Different

interpretation

- - - - - -

Unclear or no

explanation

2 3 - 1 - 6

No

understanding

4 - - - - 4

Total 12 8 9 9 6 44

Distribution in appreciation most likely stems from the controversial nature of the topic. Adolf

Hitler and his politics are often deemed inappropriate material for humor; it is a taboo subject.

Five respondents noted that they found the joke to be in bad taste.

It isn't funny, but it is clever. I appreciate a sharp double meaning, but I have a

hard time laughing over the use of Hitler to further the concepts of white

supremacy, even as a joke. (E4)

There were also many respondents who did find this comic strip funny. In fact, it received the

highest number of “Very funny” ratings of all the comic strips. Thus, it is another topic that

divides people in a great degree.

Four respondents did not understand the comic strip. One wrote that it was difficult to

understand because of “backgrounds” (O2). Maybe these respondents were not as familiar with

Hitler and the history regarding him. One respondent commented that “Nein, nein” was difficult

to understand (O31). “Nein” is German and means no. It is assumed that readers have this basic

knowledge of German but understandably not everyone does. This also hinders the

understanding of the comic strip.

52

7.2.7. Comic Strip #7: Tom Cruise

The seventh and last comic strip (Figure 15) shows Heimo

reading a newspaper and talking to Irma. In the comic strip,

Heimo misinterprets that the headline “Tom Cruise is chased

by aliens” refers to a movie when it is actually a news article.

This alludes to the scientologist beliefs and strange

statements of the actor. The headline in the comic strip is

false but believable because of the mentioned actor. Tom

Cruise has also been in sci-fi movies and therefore the

headline could plausibly be talking about a movie as well. It

is difficult to distinguish whether this is an instance of parody

or allusion. It is not a similar imitation as the parodic comic

strip about Hitler (see Chapter 7.2.6.). It is not merely a

reference as the biblical reference in the example of an

allusion in Chapter 7.1. The comic strip refers to Tom Cruise

and creates a scenario which makes fun of him. In a sense, it

imitates news about the actor and therefore, I would

categorize it as a parody. It could, however, be a sort of

hybrid as well: a parodic allusion.

As can be seen in the following table (Table 13), 31 out of 44

respondents (70%) stated that they understood the comic

strip. 6 respondents (14%) were not sure of the meaning and

7 (16%) did not understand the comic strip.

Table 13. The respondents’ (n=44) estimation of their understanding of Comic strip #7 (Tom

Cruise).

Do you think you understood the joke in the comic strip?

Yes I’m not sure No

English L1 speakers 7 1 1

Others 24 5 6

Total 31 6 7

Figure 15. Comic strip #7:

Tom Cruise (Jarla 2014: 31).

53

The respondents whose first language was not English had more difficulty with understanding

this comic strip. This resulted most likely from the topic which revolves around the English-

speaking culture.

Table 14 illustrates the understanding in relation to appreciation. 36 respondents found some

meaning in the comic strip. Out of these respondents 18 explained the comic according to the

intended meaning, 10 found a different meaning in it and 8 gave either an unclear or no

explanation.

Table 14. The respondents’ understanding and appreciation of Comic strip #7 (Tom Cruise).

Appreciation /

Understanding

Not funny A little

funny

Somewhat

funny

Funny Very funny Total

Intended

meaning

3 4 3 6 2 18

Different

interpretation

- 3 4 3 - 10

Unclear or no

explanation

3 4 1 1 - 9

No

understanding

5 1 1 - - 7

Total 11 12 9 10 2 44

The overall average rating for this comic strip was 2.55 and the average rating when excluding

the respondents who had no understanding of this comic strip was 2.76.

Explanations categorized as the intended meaning were those that mentioned Tom Cruise and

his participation in Scientology as the main point of the joke. Some respondents interpreted the

comic strip as a satirical view on newspapers commenting on the level of absurdity of some

headlines and the reliability of media.

satire on newspapers today (E5)

Absurd news resembles more the sci-fi movie than the actual truth. (O21)

Commentary on media could well be an additional meaning to the joke. Some respondents who

mentioned Scientology also mentioned commentary on media in some form.

Tom Cruise is a Scientologist; the teachings of the Church of Scientology involves

belief in alien beings. Could also be referring to state of media reliability in

general, I suppose. (O24)

The explanations which included both interpretations were categorized in the “Intended

meaning” section. Because I found Cruise and his beliefs to be the principal reason behind the

54

joke, the explanations involving only media commentary were categorized as different

explanations. This was the prominent interpretation in the category.

This comic strip required some previous knowledge on Tom Cruise and his participation in

Scientology. Although he is a famous actor, not everyone knows him or the relevant information

to understand this joke. One respondent commented the following:

it's easy [to understand].. if you know all about scientology, xenu, and tom cruise.

Is that a lot? (O28)

This can definitely be a lot of required prior knowledge. Since media in some cultures are less

involved with news about American entertainment industry, people from these cultures may

not be familiar with Tom Cruise and especially his personal life. Reasons behind difficulties in

understanding the joke were not commented on much but I would assume the lack of knowledge

on the actor to be the main reason for not understanding this joke. One respondent noted as

follows:

I think the main difficulty to understand this comic strip are cultural differences

and norms. Each culture has its own style of humour. (O12)

As Jarla has mentioned in an interview, Finnish people enjoy humor that provides a challenge

(Österman, 2014). This could be an element of the style of humor that the Finnish enjoy but

people from some other cultures do not.

7.2.8. Summary and Discussion

This subchapter focuses on the overall reception of the Fingerpori comic strips: sum up the

main points regarding the reception of the set of comic strips and analyze the answers to the

last question in the survey (What did you think about the themes the comic strips cover?).

The understanding of the Fingerpori comic strips varied greatly. Some of the comic strips were

much easier to understand than others and this showed in the questionnaire responses. The

easiest joke was in the fourth comic strip (Lotto) which relied on a semantic ambiguity. Only

three respondents did not understand the joke, the remaining 41 respondents stated that they did

understand it. Conversely, the third comic strip (Eggs) proved the most difficult: 19 respondents

claimed that they understood the joke, 15 were not sure of the meaning and 10 did not find any

joke in the comic strip. However, after inspecting the respondents’ explanations for the jokes,

another challenging joke was found in the first comic strip (Gay adoption). While 29

respondents claimed to have understood the joke, only 17 respondents explained it according

55

to the intended meaning. 19 respondents found the intended meaning in the third comic strip

(Eggs).

Problems in understanding the humor in the Fingerpori comic strips often stemmed from the

respondents’ lack of background knowledge which was caused by their different cultural

backgrounds. For instance, the second comic strip (Jesus) was challenging for the respondents

who were not familiar with Christian mythology. This was discovered in Keskisaari’s (2007)

research as well: the more culture-specific the comics were the harder they were to understand.

Other reasons behind the problems in understanding the Fingerpori comic strips included the

lack of background knowledge on the comic strip series and its characters as well as linguistic

challenges, for example finding the different meanings for “yeast” in the fifth comic strip

(Yeast).

In addition to the text, the visual elements are an important aspect in the comic strips. The

pictures were central in understanding the context and situation of each comic strip. Mostly the

pictures themselves appeared to have been quite easy to understand and the problems arose

from the respondents’ lack of background knowledge. However, many respondents thought that

the character Rivo-Riitta, who is featured in the fifth comic strip (Yeast), was a man when the

character is actually a woman. In this case, the misinterpretation of the picture affected the

respondents’ understanding and appreciation of the humor in the comic strip. One respondent

even commented that the joke would work better if the character was a woman. More

frequently, however, the lack of background or linguistic knowledge made the understanding

of the comic strips difficult. All of these problems sometimes led to various interpretations of

one comic strip.

The first comic strip (Gay adoption) developed the highest number of differing interpretations.

13 respondents’ explanations differed from the intended meaning. The fifth (Yeast) and seventh

comic strip (Tom Cruise) were both interpreted in a different way as opposed to the intended

meaning by ten respondents, the third comic strip (Eggs) in turn by eight respondents. However,

instead of many unique views on the jokes, there were usually one or two prevalent alternative

interpretations. The third comic strip (Eggs) was the only one that did not develop a prevalent

alternative interpretation but several differing views. The differing interpretations received

varied ratings as did the comic strips in general. Thus, the different interpretations did not affect

the appreciation of the comic strips to a great degree. Again, this effect was noticed by

Keskisaari (2007) as well: the different interpretations received varying ratings too. Sometimes

56

the respondent may have interpreted a comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing

nevertheless.

On average, the Fingerpori comic strips did not receive very high ratings. As can be seen in

Table 15, the average ratings for the comic strips concentrated between 2 and 3, “A little funny”

and “Somewhat funny”. Two average ratings are presented for each comic strip: the overall

average rating and the average rating when excluding the respondents who did not find any

joke, intended or not, in the comic strip. In the following discussion, I will refer to the overall

average ratings of the comic strips. However, the second average ratings in the table illustrate

the appreciation of the humor in Fingerpori comic strips when some meaning was found in

them. The respondents who found no meaning in a comic strip tended to rate it “Not funny”

and thus their ratings lower the overall average rating.

Table 15. The average ratings for all seven comic strips.

Rating

Comic strip

Overall

average

rating

Average

rating 2*

1. Gay adoption 2.25 2.59

2. Jesus 2.41 2.82

3. Eggs 2 2.14

4. Lotto 2.89 3.02

5. Yeast 2.66 2.8

6. Hitler 2.75 2.93

7. Tom Cruise 2.55 2.76

*Excluding respondents who did not find any joke in the comic strip

The fourth comic strip (Lotto) received the highest average rating of all the comic strips, 2.89,

and the third comic strip (Eggs) received the lowest average rating, 2. The ease or difficulty in

understanding the humor was clearly an important factor since the easiest strip received the

highest appreciation rate and the most difficult one received the lowest. The fourth comic strip

(Lotto) did well in the questionnaire because it was easy to understand and it did not offend

anyone. The third comic strip (Eggs) was also inoffensive. However, this comic strip was found

challenging and respondents had trouble understanding the joke which was a play on the word

“free-range”.

57

Although the fourth comic strip (Lotto) received the highest average rating, only two

respondents evaluated the comic strip as very funny. The comic strip with the highest number

of “Very funny” ratings, six in total, was the sixth comic strip (Hitler). The topic of this comic

strip, Adolf Hitler, is a controversial one in humor and this showed in the ratings it received as

they distributed quite evenly on the scale. In addition to a high number of “Very funny” ratings,

it received quite many “Not funny” ratings, 12 in total. “Very funny” ratings were scarce in the

questionnaire answers and in this sample of respondents, women were more likely to give the

top rating. For instance, four out of the six respondents who rated the sixth comic strip (Hitler)

as “Very funny” were female. Otherwise the responses hardly presented any patterns for any

specific group. A few of the comic strips were easier to understand for the respondents who had

English as their first language but this was most likely due to their higher level of English

knowledge compared to the other respondents as well as their cultural background. They may

have had more background information for some of the comic strips, for instance the seventh

strip which involved the American actor Tom Cruise.

After the questions on the seven comic strips, the respondents were asked for their thoughts on

the themes featured in the comic strips. The questionnaire included comics with varied topics:

some required more cultural knowledge than others and some featured themes that can be

controversial in a humorous context. 19 respondents gave a very evaluative answer to this

question. Nine of these respondents expressed enjoyment of the humor and themes, such as in

the following comment:

Lovely word jokes and joking on sensitive topics on an acceptable way. (O14)

Six respondents were more neutral; they commented that they enjoyed some of the jokes while

some others they did not. Four respondents clearly did not like the comic strips. Only one of

these respondents disliked them on the account of offensiveness, two found the comic strips too

bland and one did not specify a reason.

Mixed bag. I liked some, and some did nothing for me. (E4)

They were offensive, in bad taste, and just not funny. (E3)

Other comments were less evaluative and more descriptive of the themes. The topics were

described, amongst other things, as “more or less sensitive” (O6), “general and universal” (O8)

and “common for Internet comics” (O16). The respondents also found that some of the themes

required some knowledge on, for instance, pop culture and religion.

One respondent noted the importance of the context of a joke.

58

I think these (LGBT+, religion, occasional dirty joke, modern culture) are the

themes I usually joke around with my friends. The funny thing is that even though

I would definitely make a "yeast" joke among friends, it's hard to stomach for me

in the cartoon, while some of the jokes for me feel like too old and well known to

bother with (number 7, "where would we put the gay man"). (O20)

For this respondent, a dirty joke is not as funny in a comic strip as it is among friends. This is

an interesting notion and it is difficult to point out the exact reason behind this: is it the visual

element of the comic strip that affects the appreciation of the joke, or maybe the familiarity of

the friend group makes the topic of the joke acceptable. Nevertheless, this shows the importance

of context in the reception of a joke.

One respondent (O15) did not note the themes in any way but commented on the English of the

comic strips, claiming that it could be better. The respondents were aware of the comic strips

being translations since it was mentioned in the survey invitation. There were a few comments

on the translations in the earlier questions as well. Because the main aim of this analysis was

not necessarily to evaluate the translations, these comments were analyzed only if the content

seemed substantial to the understanding of the comic strip.

The three Fingerpori comic strips that had taboo topics received varied ratings. Especially the

ratings for the fifth comic strip (Yeast), which had a joke about yeast infection, and the sixth

comic strip (Hitler), which parodied Adolf Hitler, distributed quite evenly towards both ends of

the scale. The themes of these comic strips were also commented on: some respondents found

them gross or offensive. The second comic strip (Jesus), which parodied Jesus, did not receive

any comments on offensiveness and was then perhaps found less offensive. However, the first

comic strip (Gay adoption), whose theme had not been categorized as a taboo in this study, did

receive comments on offensiveness. It does mention a controversial topic, sexual minorities,

and some respondents probably interpreted it to be joking on the account of gay people. The

comments on these themes and the varied ratings indicate that the topics, with the exception of

religion, continue to be controversial. The status of religion as a taboo topic may have started

to disappear. However, since this is such a small sample of respondents and comic strips, it

cannot be known for certain. A wider reception study could illuminate the situation more.

The appreciation of jokes on these sensitive topics and humor as a whole depends heavily on

people’s personal backgrounds and preferences. Sense of humor is a highly individual trait and

this was one of the most important factors behind the differences in the appreciation of the jokes

in the Fingerpori comic strips. It could be presumed that some humor devices in comic strips

may be more effective than others and with a set of comic strips that feature more humor

59

techniques, the appreciation of the various devices could be studied. The present reception study

focused on the understanding and appreciation of the humor in the Fingerpori comic strips more

generally and thus the questionnaire utilized here could be modified for various more specific

research questions.

60

8. Conclusion

Comics are multimodal texts, which rely on the interplay of text and pictures. Even the humor

in this medium is often realized through the co-operation of these two elements. The Fingerpori

comic strips are a good example of a humorous comic strip that utilizes the two elements in this

manner. However, the relations of these two elements vary. Sometimes they can complement

each other and sometimes one of them is the primary mode with the other one supporting the

message of the other. The reader is in an important role as they interpret the relation of the two

elements.

The recognition of humor in comic strips depends on the reader. This also means that the

success of humor depends on the reader. The Fingerpori comic strips are read by a wide

audience in Finland and they are vastly popular. In 2014 a collection of the comic strips was

translated and published in English which means that the comics became available for a much

wider audience. The aim of this study was to examine the new readership’s understanding and

appreciation of the Fingerpori comic strips. For this purpose, a reception study was conducted

which involved an online questionnaire for non-Finnish speaking respondents. In addition to

the reception study, the humor techniques in the translated collection of Fingerpori comic strips,

Fingerpori from Finland (2014) were analyzed to provide a better understanding of the humor

in the comic strip series.

Wordplay is the most frequently utilized humor technique in the Fingerpori comic strips. The

wordplays tend to derive from an incongruity: a word or phrase is assigned a meaning that

differs from the conventional one, for instance a literal instead of a metaphorical meaning. Often

the pictures reveal the true meaning of a character’s line and this revelation produces the humor.

The number of comic strips that utilize wordplay is slightly lower in the translated collection

than in the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips (54% vs. 61%). This was found by comparing the

frequencies of humor techniques in the translated collection to Vilenius’ (2011) findings on the

Finnish Fingerpori comic strips. However, while polysemy was the most popular type of

wordplay in the Finnish Fingerpori comic strips, in the translated collection it was second to

syntactic ambiguity which plays with sentence structures instead of single words. This probably

resulted from the translatability of the different humor techniques. Wordplay utilizing syntactic

ambiguity may have been easier to translate than wordplay based on polysemous words. The

Fingerpori comic strips feature other humor devices as well. Sometimes the comic strips do not

include any text in which case the humor may derive from the situation or sign-play. A popular

device was especially parody which often utilizes both verbal and visual elements. However,

61

this humor technique benefits especially from the visual element of comic strips which makes

it easier for the reader to recognize the subject of parody.

In addition to the translated collection of Fingerpori comic strips, the research material included

44 respondents’ answers to the online questionnaire. The questionnaire included seven comic

strips which produced varying results in understanding and appreciation. The biggest reason

behind the ease and difficulty in understanding the Fingerpori comic strips and the differences

in the appreciation of the jokes was most likely the various backgrounds of the respondents.

Some may have lacked some cultural information essential for understanding a joke and some

respondents’ knowledge of English may have not sufficed. In addition, the respondents have

different personal backgrounds and most likely appreciate different kinds of humor. Some may

not enjoy the humor typical of Fingerpori.

All in all, the comic strips did not receive very high ratings: on the scale from 1 to 5, the average

appreciation rates concentrated between the ratings 2 and 3, “A little funny” and “Somewhat

funny”. The fourth comic strip (Lotto) received the highest average rating, 2.89. This comic

strip was also the easiest to understand and as opposed to some of the comic strips, it was

inoffensive. The third comic strip (Eggs) received the lowest average rating, 2, and conversely

with the fourth comic strip this was clearly the most difficult one to understand. This comic

strip was also inoffensive but the difficulties in understanding the humor made it the least

successful one out of the set. The reception study thus showed a distinct link between the

understanding and appreciation of the comic strips.

The comic strips were sometimes interpreted differently than intended but as with the intended

meaning these interpretations received varying ratings as well. This same result was also

previously found by Keskisaari (2007) in his MA thesis. For instance, a respondent might have

interpreted a comic strip differently than intended but found it amusing nevertheless.

The appreciation rates varied especially for some of the more sensitive topics. The taboo topics

divided the respondents. However, the second comic strip (Jesus) which involved a religious

joke appeared to have been found less offensive out of the three comic strips with taboo topics.

It received no comments on offensiveness and did not receive noticeably low ratings. Hence,

the status of religion as a taboo topic may be disappearing but it cannot be known for sure from

this a small sample of respondents. The other two comic strips with taboo topics received

comments on offensiveness or grossness and their ratings tended to concentrate to both ends of

the appreciation scale. The comic strips with taboo topics received more top ratings than the

62

comic strip with the best average rating. The sixth comic strip (Hitler), which parodied Adolf

Hitler, was the one that received the highest number of “Very funny” ratings out of the seven

comic strips. However, these comic strips were also disliked by many respondents and this

lowered their average rating. In addition to the three comic strips with taboo topics, the first

comic strip (Gay adoption) also received comments on offensiveness even though it had not

been classified as a taboo topic. This comic strip did mention sexual minorities and it may have

been interpreted to be joking at their expense by some respondents.

Comic strips can be described as short and simple but still the interpretations of them can be

increasingly varied. Readers have different ideas of the world and different strengths and

weaknesses in knowledge. As Chiaro (2006: 205) has noted, unsuccessful humor (and naturally

successful humor as well) can depend on the quality of translation as well as on culture-specific

presuppositions. The latter factor was especially evident in this reception study. It may also

affect the translation process since translators need to take the readers of the translation into

consideration. The readers of the English Fingerpori collection are most likely diverse, as were

the respondents in this reception study. This means that sometimes the references in the comic

strips may be too culture-specific for some of the readers to understand especially since some

of the topics revolve around the Western culture, for instance Christianity. These topics may

not be as well-known to readers from other parts of the world. Thus, the status of English as

such a wide spread language and a lingua franca causes a challenge for translators and they may

need to leave out some culture-specific references as well as opt for words and phrases that are

easy to understand for a wide audience. In the translation of the Fingerpori comic strips, there

seems to have been a pursuit for relatively simple language. However, this does partly originate

from the style of the original as well.

The results of this study illustrate the field of humor reception. Because of the wide target group,

the findings cannot be all-encompassing. However, they already show how varied the

interpretations and evaluations of the humor in the short gag strips can be. The multiplicity of

the medium and the humor in it would definitely merit further research. A wider sample of

respondents as well as a more focused research question could allow for new and interesting

findings.

63

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Appendix: Online Questionnaire

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