Abstract
Verbal and figurative humour characterise some of the most memorable commercial video games. Humour, in general, is also a precious strategy to enhance language learning. What happens if we embed humour in serious games for language learning? This paper will briefly cover: a) the origin of fun; b) the essence of humour; c) both the cultural dependence and the universality of humour; d) its meaningfulness to language learning. In the end, a proposal for integrating humour in serious games is formulated, along with several examples of ‘teaching humour’ extrapolated from a successful commercial video game (Day of the Tentacle).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 148-158 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Procedia Computer Science |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- culture
- fun
- humour
- language learning
- psychology of language learning
- serious games