The Role of Salience and Common Grounds in Intercultural Communication: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

Jokes are specific discourses that contain cultural, historical and region-specific references. In order to understand the salience of these discourses, the common ground of interlocutors is significantly important. The current study explores how non-natives English speakers comprehend English jokes. In addition, it aims to know the difficulties and the lexical issues encountered by Pakhtoon and Sindhi participants in interpreting English jokes. The researchers used a mixed-method approach for this study. The population of this study includes Pakhtoon and Sindhi undergraduate students.A sample of 20 students was selected and two types of tools were used to check the English jokes comprehension skills of participants. The socio-cognitive approach is used as a theoretical framework and the results of quantitative data were presented with the help of pie charts. Results of this study show that ethnic, religious, racial, and jokes having historic references are difficult to understand. Individuals' social knowledge of English culture is important for comprehending English jokes. Knowledge of semantic expressions, ample knowledge and wisdom of culture-specific words and idioms are important for identifying the salience aspects of English jokes.