Text 4 Eva Ullmann took her master's degree in 2002 0n the part that humour has to play in psychotherapy,and became hooked on the subject.In 2005 she founded the German Insiitute for Humour in Leipzig.It is dedicated to"the combination of seriousness and humour".She offers lectures,seminars and personal coaching to managers,from small firms to such corporate giants as Deutsche Bank and Telekom.Her latest project is to help train medical studenis and doctors.There is nothing peculiarly German about humour training.It was John Morreall,an American,who showed that humour is a market segment in the ever-expanding American genre of self-help.In the past two decades,humour has gone global.An Intemational Humour Congress was held in Amsterdam in 2000.And yet Cermans know that the rest of the world considers them to be at a particular disadvantage.The issue is not comedy.of which Germany has plenty.The late Vicco von Biilow,alias Loriot,delighied the elite wiLh his mockery of German senousness and stiffness.Rhenish,Swabian and other regional flavours thrive-Gerhard Polt,a bad-tempered Bavarian,now 72,is a Shakespeare among Lhem.There is lowbrow talent ioo,including OLto Waalkes,a Frisian buffoon.Most of this,however,is as foreigners always suspected:more embanassing Lhan funny.Germans can often be observed laughing,loudly.And they try hard."They cannot produce good humour,but they can consume it,"says James Parsons,an English man teaching business English in Leipzig.He once rented a theatre and got students,including Mrs Ullmann,to act out Monty Python skits,which they did wiLh enthusiasm.The trouble,he says,is that whereas the English wait deadpan for the penny to drop,Germans invariably explain their punchline.At a deeper level,the problem has nothing to do with jokes.What is missing is the series of irony,overstatement and understatement in workaday conversations.Immigrants in Germany share soul-crushing stories of atlempting a non-literal turn of phrase,to evoke a hoffified expression in their Gennan friends and a detailed explanaiion of the literal meaning,followed by a retreat into awkward politeness.Irony is not on the curriculum in Mrs Ullmann's classes.Instead she focuses mostly on the bas-ics of humorous spontaneiLy and surprise.Demand is strong,she says.It is a typical German answer to a shortcoming:work harder at it.

lt can be learned from Paragraph 2 that Cermans are considered______

• A.unsmiling and hostile
• B.humorous but impolite
• C.smileless and humorless
• D.polite but uncommunicative