Context and Accidental Humour: The Import of the Sociolinguistic Situation in Linguistic Errors on Public Signage in Kenya

This paper analyses the distinctive context surrounding the erroneous signage in certain public notices in Kenya. More specifically, it seeks to determine how contextual cues go a long way in assisting the reader to comprehend the distinctive genre of humour under consideration in this paper. Ostensibly, the linguistic landscape of Kenya is ridden in plenteous of signage containing numerous translational errors, which eventually yield accidental humour. In order to achieve the above requires the application of the General Verbal Theory of Humour by Attardo and Raskin (1991) to context where language use is put into consideration. The data was collected from the field by photographing erroneous signage where ten public notices were aptly analysed for their specious nature, which eventually resulted into accidental humour. Specifically, their unique context was further scrutinised to identify the precise components within which the author operated and an attempt to recover the lost interpretation in order to understand the resultant humour. Data presentation involved use of tables to summarise and indicate relationship of crucial contextual components. The paper sheds light on the importance of context to understand humour, enriches translational linguistics and boosts pedagogy in relation to language performance. The study concluded that specific category of humour in the selected signage in this paper requires a complete understanding of the author’s situational background. The study recommended that the types of linguistic incongruities as well as how they are resolved to produce accidental humour would go a long way in understanding this category of humour.