Humour in elementary age children: double meanings and non-sequiturs

• The development of humour in children occurs in stages and largely mirrors (and supports) their cognitive, linguistic and social development. When they enter elementary school, and beginning around age 5, children begin to recognize that words can have multiple meanings, a big step towards the development of adult humour – and the stepping stone towards more complex forms of verbal play. That’s why children in this age range enjoy riddles and knock-knock jokes.

• At the same time, children’s thinking becomes more abstract and they are mentally able to manipulate more than two categories at once, detect logical contradictions, recognize patterns in cause-and-effect relationships, and predict the logical consequences of actions. These cognitive capacities enable them to play with ideas and concepts at a more abstract level – and find humour in jokes that involve word-play, logical flaws and juxtapositions.

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Learning objectives

• Develop a better understanding of language structure by explaining in simple terms the basic mechanisms underpinning knock-knock jokes and riddles.

• Develop the ability to detect and describe logical flaws and inconsistencies in common riddles and absurdist humour (e.g., elephant jokes).

• Develop a better understanding and appreciation for polysemy (multiple meanings) by looking at common riddles and build confidence in basic pun making by re-creating the sound resemblances (homophony) at the heart of knock-knock jokes.

• Develop confidence in humour making ability, stimulate creativity and foster relationship building in a fun, play-oriented environment.

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Typical exercises and activities

• Writing original knock-knock jokes by playing on the phonemic characteristics of the first names of peers.

• Using simple, easy-to-learn formulas to write original, absurdist riddles.

• Finding and explaining double meanings in key word lists and from sample riddles.

 

Did you know?

• Research shows that once children have mastered particular cognitive abilities, they soon begin to create humour by playing with these abilities in incongruous ways. As Paul McGhee, one of the pioneers in the developmental psychology of humour, wrote, “once a child becomes confident of the normal relationship between stimulus elements or achieves a new level of understanding through acquisition of new cognitive skills, they enjoy distorting that knowledge or understanding in the guise of a joke.” And humour is nothing if not distortion!