Résumé:
The present work attempts to investigate EFL students' difficulties in the reading
comprehension of homographic puns. This study was conducted at the department of English
at Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia University. It focuses on identifying the difficulties EFL
learners face in the reading comprehension of homographic puns. The research hypothesis
assumes that homographic puns are only accessible to advanced learners. To test the validity
of this hypothesis, a students test that encompasses 10 homographic puns was designed and
submitted with the request to explain the expressions. The sample consisted of 30 first-year
stuents and 30 third-year students. The results confirmed the hypothesis, with third-year
students whom we judged to be advanced learners, performing better than less experienced
first-year students. The results also revealed that EFL learners' difficulties in the reading
comprehension of homographic puns are caused by lack of vocabulary, cultural and
contextual obstacles, and linguistic and pragmatic competence limitations
