Humour

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Description of the Genre
To be humorous is to be funny, entertaining, to make people laugh. Humour can be witty or satirical.

Humour can also be used to draw attention to things in society that the writer is critical of. A comedian will often poke fun at his own, or other peoples, inadequacies. The situations that they use are many and varied. What makes one person laugh is quite different to another. What a person finds funny is influenced by many things: the historical period in which we live, cultural and social experiences, age, gender and their own unique personality.

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
 * Horace Walpole (1717-1797) **

Humour is a way of saying something serious.
 * T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) **

Source: [|www.jenimawter.com]

Text 2: //No place like home (except Bali)// by Danny Katz, April 15 2010
//**Exercises**// //**a) Questions**// Read the article below: //No place like home (except Bali)// and complete the questions below in your Reading Journal. Alternatively, you could make your responses more interesting by trying one of these online tools listed above.

1. Use 3 adjectives to describe the **tone** of voice of the writer of this article. Give reasons for your choices. 2. Katz uses a lot of 'slang' in his article to establish tone and help develop the humour. What comment is he making about Australian tourists in Bali? List 10 of the words and give their meanings.

Open the Word document below and use Track Changes to complete this activity by using the Highlighting and Comment tool.
 * b) Genre Features**

How many of these features appear in the story?
 * **exaggeration** or **absurdity**: used to make a point; overdrawn characters
 * **satire or parody**: send up, spoof or lampoon (**satire** – the use of wit, especially irony, sarcasm, and ridicule, to criticise faults: **parody** – a piece of writing or music that deliberately copies another work in a comic or satirical way)
 * **ridicule**: to reduce or dismiss the importance or quality of somebody or something in a contemptuous way
 * **provocative**: deliberately aimed at exciting or annoying people
 * **mimic, mock**: to make fun of somebody by imitating him or her in an exaggerated way
 * **irony**: humour based on using words to suggest the opposite of their literal meaning
 * **play on language: puns, invention of words**. A **pun** is a humorous use of words that involves a word or phrase that has more than one possible meaning

Rewrite from the perspective of the Balinese.
 * c) Creative Writing**
 * Length: 200 – 300 words**

Recommended Humour Fiction

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 * [[image:kissingneverstops.jpg width="76" height="122" caption="Where the Kissing Never Stops Ron Koertge"]] || [[image:ditchyourfairy.jpg width="59" height="121" caption="How to Ditch Your Fairy Justine Larbalestier"]] || [[image:burgerwuss.jpg width="83" height="127" caption="Burger Wuss M.T. Anderson"]] || [[image:thatdolphinthing.jpg width="72" height="125" caption="That Dolphin Thing Ian Bone"]] || [[image:boy2girl.jpg width="85" height="137" caption="Boy 2 Girl Terence Blacker"]] || [[image:theodork.png width="78" height="129" caption="Theodork Jessica Green"]] || [[image:48shades.jpg width="84" height="139" caption="48 Shades of Brown Nick Earls"]] ||  ||
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