Résumé:
This work investigated the issues of interpreting humour by non-native speakers of the language.
Humour is claimed to be universal in its structures, but local in its content as it always draws on
linguistic, discourse, and cultural elements. Accordingly, it is not easy or straightforward to
comprehend for people who come from a different culture. Videlicet, this research aimed at
exploring the competencies involved and challenges faced in understanding and appreciating
English humorous texts by Algerian learners of English as a foreign language, at the Department
of Letters and English Language, University of Guelma. To this end, the research combined
qualitative and quantitative analyses. Qualitative research was required to examine the humorous
materials used in the test. The latter was conducted to explore the learners’ (non)comprehension
and (non)appreciation of authentic humour. Therefore, the second part of the test analysis
covered quantitative data on the participants’ understanding and appreciation of the test’s
materials. Additionally, the second set of quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire,
which aimed at accounting for English Language Learners’ (ELLs) self-perceived proficiency
level, cultural competences, and attitudes towards humour, in addition to self-reported challenges
in understanding English humorous texts. Next in order is probing into possible associations
between proficiency level and cultural competences, on one hand; and the ability to understand
English humour, on the other. Spearman’s correlation tests were calculated to reveal a positive
association between both independent variables, language proficiency and cultural knowledge,
and the dependent variables of humour recognition linguistically, and culturally, with (r = 0.311 )
and ( r = 0.618 ), respectively.
