1、論文編碼： h030首都師范大學本科畢業論文基于美國情景喜劇老友記中幽默語言的會話含義分析an analysis of the theory of conversational implicature reflected in english humorous utterance based on american sitcom friendsa thesissubmitted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the degree ofbachelor of arts in the english education departme

2、nt ofcollege of foreign languagescapital normal university april 2010摘要本文重點分析了英語幽默語言的會話含義。鑒于我國語言學界對英語幽默研究尚處于初級階段，缺乏對幽默產生中的語用因素研究，本文在總結已有的幽默學理論基礎上，以老友記中部分語境對話為例，從語用學視角來分析英語幽默產生的原因。重點分析了通過違反合作原則和禮貌原則而產生的幽默效果。其實用價值可指導人們認識產生幽默的語用因素，從而恰當地發揮語用能力，提高英語學習者熱情并有助于教師改善教學方法及學習策略,提高跨文化交際的效率。關鍵詞: 幽默語言；會話含義；語用學；合作原

3、則；禮貌原則；老友記abstractthis paper discusses the theory of conversational implicature reflected in english humorous utterance. due to the facts that humor researches in china conducted from the perspective of pragmatics remain scant and superficial, the research, which is based on examples from friends, v

4、entures on an attempt to analyze english humorous utterance from pragmatic perspective. there are three parts in this thesis. in the first part, a general literature review will be presented. then the current methodology will be introduced briefly in the second part. in the last part, the cases coll

5、ected from friends will be analyzed and discussed to reach a conclusion. the main part of the paper is the detailed analyses on how humorous effects are achieved by the violation of cooperative principle and politeness principle, in the hope that it will be applied to help people realize the pragmat

6、ic aspect in humor production and improve the efficiency in efl learning and cross-cultural communication.key words: humorous utterance, conversational implicature, pragmatics, cooperative principle, politeness principle, friendscontents摘要-abstract-list of abbreviations-1. introduction-1 1.1 backgro

7、und of the research-1 1.2 significance of the study-12. literature review-3 2.1 definitions of humor-3 2.2 three basic conventional humor theories-3 2.3 general theory of verbal humor-6 2.4 grices conversational implicature-6summary-93. methodology-10 3.1 materials-10 3.2 method-103.3 data collectio

8、n-114. results and discussions-12 4.1 humor and cooperative principle-12 4.2 humor and politeness principle-20 summary-225. conclusion-23 5.1 major findings-23 5.2 implications-23 5.3 limitations-24 5.4 recommends for further research-25references-26appendix-28list of abbreviationscp cooperative pri

9、nciplehu humorous utterancepp politeness principlegtvh general theory of verbal humor321. introduction1.1 background of the researchthe use of humor is a complex and intriguing aspect of human behavior, which can help people to conduct all kinds of speech acts, influence communication as well as imp

10、rove intimacy. with the development of social civilization, people have gradually realized that humor is indispensable for our monotonous and regular life. the study of humor can be traced back to the time of aristotle (384-322b.c.) and freud (1856-1939). apte (1985:175) concluded that “humor and la

11、nguage are interdependent”. raskin (1985) put forward “cooperative principle in humor”; grices cooperative principles are also used to give explanation to humorous effects. attardo (1994) criticized some attacks on humor as violation of cooperative principle and reiterated that humor violates at lea

12、st one maxim in cooperative principle. humor research in china began in 1980s, but the researches especially from pragmatic perspective remain superficial and scant. this paper ventures on the theory of conversational implicature reflected in english humorous utterance, which explores how the verbal

13、 humor can be achieved in terms of the rules and theories of pragmatics, in hopes that it will help further the study on language humor and provide some insights into cross-cultural communication.1.2 significance of the studythe research provides an adequate basis for the study of how people use ver

14、bal humor to perform communicative tasks, as it analyzes daily conversations taken from the popular american sitcom friends and lays emphasis on the cooperative principle and politeness principle. moreover, it proves the validity of the application of pragmatics in studying the sitcoms. hence, by pr

15、oviding the strategies of creating verbal humor, it could shed lights upon playwrights with the help of some basic theories of pragmatics. last but not least, it may help improve language learning and teaching because it could give insights into the mechanism of humor production, which contributes t

16、o successful intercultural communication.2. literature review2.1 definitions of humorthroughout the centuries, humor has aroused enormous curiosity of sociologists, anthropologists, linguists and philosophers. the word humor seems too common in our daily life to be defined as a theoretical concept.

17、it is difficult to pin down exactly what humor is. as goldstein and mcghee (1972:37) wrote, “there is still no agreement on how humor should be defined. nor is there an agreement on how appreciation or comprehension should be defined.”the definitions from different dictionaries are not completely th

18、e same either.humor is: “the ability to be amused by something seen, heard, or thought about, sometimes causing you to smile or laugh, or the quality in something that causes such amusement.”(cambridge dictionary of american english, 2000:426)humor is: “the quality in something that makes it funny a

19、musement” or “the ability to understand and enjoy funny situations to laugh at things.”(longman dictionary of contemporary english, 2003:698) humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.(wikipedia, 2009)both dictionaries mentioned above define

20、humor as “the ability and the quality to amuse people or to enjoy the amusement” while the definition from wikipedia put emphasis upon “the tendency of particular cognitive experiences”. 2.2 three basic conventional humor theoriesaccording to the standard analysis, humor theories can be classified i

21、nto three neatly identifiable groups: incongruity, superiority, and relief theories.2.2.1 the incongruity theorythe incongruity theory focuses on the cognitive elements of humor. according to mulder (2002), the incongruity theory states that humor is perceived at the moment of realization of incongr

22、uity between a concept involved in a certain situation and the real objects thought to be in some relation to the concept. in the rhetoric (iii, 2), aristotle presents the earliest glimmer of an incongruity theory of humor, finding that the best way to get an audience to laugh is to setup an expecta

23、tion and deliver something “that gives a twist.” schopenhauer (1818) offers a more specific version of the incongruity theory, arguing that humor arises from a failure of a concept to account for an object of thought. when the particular outstrips the general, we are faced with an incongruity. schop

24、enhauer also emphasizes the element of surprise, saying that “the greater and more unexpectedthis incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter” 2.2.2 the superiority theorythe superiority theory of humor traces back to plato and aristotle, and thomas hobbes. the theory explains that a perso

25、n laughs about misfortunes of others, because these misfortunes assert the person's superiority on the background of shortcomings of others. for aristotle, we laugh at inferior or ugly individuals, because we feel a joy at being superior to them. socrates was reported by plato as saying that the

26、 ridiculous was characterized by a display of self-ignorance.thomas hobbes (1634) developed the most well known version of the superiority theory. he elaborated upon the relationship between humor and power as that “the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conce

27、ption of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others or with our own formerly.” (quoted from berger, 1992)2.2.3 the relief theoryrelief theories attempt to describe humor along the lines of a tension-release model. rather than defining humor, they discuss the essential stru

28、ctures and psychological processes that produce laughter. it has been given considerable impetus by the rise of psychoanalysis. the two most prominent relief theorists are herbert spencer and sigmund freud. spencer (1860) develops a theory of laughter “the physiology of laughter” as intimately relat

29、ed to his “hydraulic” theory of nervous energy, whereby excitement and mental agitation produces energy that “must expend itself in some way or another.” he argues that “nervous excitation always tends to beget muscular motion.” as a form of physical movement, laughter can serve as the expressive ro

30、ute of various forms of nervous energy. spencer did not see his theory as a competitor to the incongruity theory of humor; rather, he tried to explain why it is that a certain mental agitation arising from a “descending incongruity” results in this characteristically purposeless physical movement. s

31、pencer never satisfactorily answers this specific question, but he presents the basic idea that laughter serves to release pent up energy.in jokes and their relation to the unconscious, freud (1905) develops a finer grained version of the relief theory of laughter, which amounts to a restatement of

32、spencers theory with the addition of a new process. he describes three different sources of laughterjoking, the comic, and humorwhich all involve the saving of some psychic energy that is then discharged through laughter. in joking, the energy that would have been used to repress sexual and hostile

33、feelings are saved and can be released in laughter. in the comic, cognitive energy to be used to solve an intellectual challenge is left over and can be released. the humorous involves a saving of emotional energy, since what might have been an emotion provoking situation turns out to be something w

34、e should treat non-seriously. the energy building up for the serious emotional reaction can then be released.2.3 general theory of verbal humorthe general theory of verbal humor (gtvh) proposed by victor raskin (1985) (and known for some time under the name of semantic script theory of humor, ssth)

35、identifies a semantic model capable of expressing incongruities between semantic scripts in verbal humor; this has been seen as an important recent development in the theory of laughter. the gtvh has become widely accepted across the various disciplines involved in humor studies as a theoretical bas

36、is for research. it has gained, despite its faults and lacks, a canonical status such that it is nearly impossible to find published humor research that does not make reference to it in some way (rutter, 1997).2.4 grices conversational implicaturegrices theory of conversational implicature (1975) is

37、 basically a theory about how we use the language.paul grice identified three types of general conversational implicature:1. the speaker deliberately flouts a conversational maxim to convey an additional meaning not expressed literally.2. the speakers desire to fulfill two conflicting maxims results

38、 in his or her flouting one maxim to invoke the other. 3. the speaker invokes a maxim as a basis for interpreting the utterance. 2.4.1 cooperative principle and its four maximsa basic underlying assumption we make when we speak to one another is that we are trying to cooperate with one another to co

39、nstruct meaningful conversation. this assumption is known as the cooperative principle. as stated in h. p. grices “logic and conversation” (1975): make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in

40、which you are engaged.grice came up with the following maxims of conversation: quantity make your contribution as informative as required. (dont say too much or too little.) make the strongest statement you can.quality do not say what you believe to be false. do not say that for which you lack adequ

41、ate evidence.relation be relevant. (stay on topic.)manner avoid obscurity of expression. avoid ambiguity. be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). be orderly. (grice, 1975)the maxims above can be violated for various reasons. the significance lies in that they provide explanations or references when

42、analyzing conversational implicature.2.4.2 politeness principle according to geoffrey leech (leech, 1983:80), there is a politeness principle with conversational maxims similar to those formulated by paul grice. leech assumes that “the pp can be seen not another principle to be added to the cp, but

43、as a necessary component, which rescues the cp from serious trouble”. he lists six maxims: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy. the first and second form a pair, as do the third and the fourth. these maxims vary from culture to culture: what may be considered polite in on

44、e culture may be strange or downright rude in another.1. tact maxim minimize cost to other, maximize benefit to other.2. generosity maxim minimize benefit to self, maximize cost to self.3. approbation maxim minimize dispraise of other, maximize praise of other.4. modesty maxim minimize praise of sel

45、f, maxim dispraise of self.5. agreement maxim minimize disagreement between self and other, maxim agreement between self and other.6. sympathy maxim minimize antipathy between self and other, maximize sympathy between self and other. (leech, 1983)the humorous effects can be achieved through violatin

46、g those maxims when taking difference cultural background into consideration.summarythe above is a quick run down of some of the key humor theories in the history of humor study and the framework theories for this thesis. it is important to review and acknowledge some of the former accounts on humor

47、 study. the following discussion will follow the step of them and try to find out how cp and pp shed light upon humor production and appreciation.3 methodologythe study of this thesis is to conduct a text-based research through a descriptive approach to a case study. 3.1 materialsfriends was an amer

48、ican sitcom created by david crane and marta kauffman, which premiered on nbc on september 22, 1994. (wiki, 2010) friends has been one of the most popular sitcoms in american television history, which gained tens of millions of fans throughout the world since its first debut. dialogues, especially t

49、he humorous utterances in the sitcom are the decisive factors that contribute to its success. the series revolves around a group of friends monica, rachael, phoebe, chandler, joey and ross, in the area of manhattan, new york city. the materials of this study are made up of the transcript of 116-hour

50、 conversational humorous utterances in colloquial american english in this sitcom that abounds in various conversational humors and thus provides rich and authentic data for this study, in hope that it may provide an audience-oriented methodology to carry out the study. friends is regarded as an exa

51、mple of how people communicate with humor.3.2 methodthe approach starts from selecting a suitable case that will serve our research data and adopt a descriptive approach. despite the fact that the raw data of hu in conversation is unmanageably large, the author narrows it down to a manageable sample

52、. all the cases in this study, which is composed of 30 episodes, are selected in a random way throughout its 10 seasons by watching the show and reading the scripts.3.3 data collection according to koestler (1993), laughter, as a reflex or response to humorous stimuli, can be an indicator of the presence of the elusive quality called humor. the data is collected by