毕业论文：论英语幽默的语用分析

XX大学毕业论文论英语幽默的语用分析院系名称：专业：英语学生姓名：学号：指导老师：XX大学制年月日AcknowledgementsMy sincere gratitude is first and foremost to my supervisor, the teacher Yuli in Yantai University Wenjing College. Her academic guidance and professionalism will always be a motivation for my own study. Her patient supervision, invaluable comments and constructive criticisms paved my way to the further study of my thesis and my life.I am equally grateful to my parents whose supports have been represented in my whole writing and gave the courage to face all the challenge, I have met.Finally, I would like to thank my friend, Hanlida, who is always a good partner for collecting materials and exchanging ideas during the thesis writing.独创声明本人郑重声明：所呈交的毕业论文(设计)，是本人在指导老师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成果，成果不存在知识产权争议。

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作者签名:二〇一一年六月一日毕业论文（设计）使用授权声明本人完全了解烟台大学文经学院关于收集、保存、使用毕业论文（设计）的规定。

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（保密论文在解密后遵守此规定）论文作者（签名）：二〇一一年六月一日烟台大学文经学院毕业论文（设计）任务书系（部）：外语系Abstract: In the history of human beings, humor languages has always been frivolous, ludicrous and disrespected. However, with the development of modern civilization, people gradually began to accept humor languages and behaviors, taking into account of its significant importance to our monotonous and ordinary life.In the works of linguistics, we can appreciate the accomplishments caused by the study of humor language, including the field of psychologies, rhetorics and pragmatics and so on. However, through the history of pragmatics, papers about humor language with a pragmatic view are comparatively only a few. Besides, most of them only focus on certain aspects of pragmatics. Based on main parts of pragmatics, this paper does a comparatively detailed research on the humor language in English Conversations.Key words: English Humor; conversational implicature; cooperative principle; polite principle摘要：在人类历史上，幽默通常通过语言体现但却是一种不庄重的表现，幽默曾一度被视为滑稽，小丑似的表现。

随着社会的进步和改变，人们越来越体会到幽默为当今紧张，繁重的生活带来了一股新鲜活力。

其中以会话形式的幽默又最为常见。

在语言学众多领域，人们对幽默会话进行了一系列的研究，包括心理学、修辞学、语用学等领域。

纵观语用学历史，专门用语用学分析幽默的并不多。

本文结合语用学的几个主要方面，对英语会话中的幽默语言进行详细分析。

关键词：英语幽默；会话含义；合作原则；礼貌原则Contents1.0 Introduction (1)2.0 An introduction of Humor (1)2.1 Definitions of Humor (1)2.2 Classification of Humor (1)2.3 Functions of Humor (3)3.0 Traditional Theories on Humor (3)3.1 Superiority Theory (3)3.2 Relief Theory (4)3.3 Incongruity Theory (4)4.0 A General Review of Pragmatics (4)4.1 A Brief Introduction of Pragmatics (4)4.2 Conversational Implicature (5)4.2.1 Definition of Conversational Implicature (5)4.2.2 The Cooperative Principle (5)4.2.3 The violation of Cooperativel Principle (6)4.3 Politeness Principle (6)4.3.1 Definition and Maxims of Politeness Principle (6)4.3.2 The Violation of Politeness Principle (7)4.4 Speech Act (7)4.5 Deixis (7)4.6 Presupposition (8)5.0 The Pragmatic Analysis of English Humor (9)5.1 Conversational Implicature and the Violation of Cooperative Principle in EnglishHumor (9)5.1.1 The Violation of the Maxim of Quantity (9)5.1.2 The Violation of the Maxim of Quality (10)5.1.3 The Violation of the Maxim of Manner (11)5.1.4 The Violation of the Maxim of Relevance (12)5.2 Politeness Principle in English Humor (12)5.3 Speech Act in English Humor (13)5.4 Deixis in English Humor (13)5.5 Presupposition in English Humor (14)6.0 Conclusion (14)References (15)1.0 IntroductionDuring our social civilization and material life, humor is playing a necessary part in our daily life. Bringing lots of amusement, improving relationships, making people relaxed, humor also minimizes the threat to other’s face by expressing either discontent or sharp opinion in a smart way.In the author’s opinion, a person with a good sense of humor is both good at appreciating humor and employing humor. And with the knowledge on pragmatics, humor will make one better appreciate the humor. Thus it is a better way to improve one’s abilit y to create humor. The pragmatic analysis of humor may subconsciously enhance one’s competence to employ and appreciate humor in different occasions.Based on this target, this thesis attempts to analyze pragmatics briefly in humor. In order to make the theory of pragmatics more persuasive and vivid, many examples are presented and analyzed.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction of humor, including definition, classification, features. Chapter 2 is about the theories of humor. Chapter 3 is about the analysis of the theories of pragmatics. Chapter 4 is the core of the thesis, in which a large quantity of examples is provided. The last chapter is a conclusion about the thesis.2.0 An introduction of Humor2.1 Definitions of HumorSo far, there are no accurate definitions of humor. Here, a review of some frequently existing definitions is presented below.In Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary, “humor” is the “quality of being amusing or comic”, or the “ability to appreci ate things, situations or people that are comic; ability to be amused”.And in Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English, it is “a) that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous; b) the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous; c) something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing.”Rick Walton is the author of more than fifty humorous books for children, who had worked on humor theory for over twenty years. He concluded, “Humor is surprise without threat or promise”. According to his theory, something occurs contrary to our consideration, there will be a surprise. But as far as I am concerned, not every surprise is humorous, but every humor has a surprise. For example, a man buys a lottery and several days later, he finds he is a 1 million RMB winner. Is it a surprise? Yes, but it’s not humorous.All in all, the first two sources emphasize humor and include laughter or amusement by linguistic or non-linguistic behavior. It also includes the competence to recognize, appreciate and create humor. The third one does deeper research on why humor occurs.2.2 Classification of HumorHumor is often used as an intellectual weapon in the fight for incr easing one’s social status, or as the preparation for intellectual combats; or as a way to realize one's own benefit so as to enhance the personal relationships. On the basis of this view, one of the present popular opinions in academic field classifies humor as four types (Cruthirds, 2006).1. Affiliative HumorBy means of relatively benign and self accepting, affiliative humor is used to amuse people and enhance people's relationships. Plenty of humor belongs to this kind.“Hey, why do you take bread and a knife whenever you go to downtown?”“Well, it’s because of the report of a traffic jam.”“Jam” here is used as a pun. The traffic jam is a special term, which is different from literal meaning of “j am”, which is usually used for bread. This kind of humor does no harm to people and make people amused.2. Self-enhancing HumorSometimes humour may be used to enhance the self in a way that is tolerant and non-detrimental to others. Self-enhancing humour is aimed to reduce an individual's stress through altering one's perception of a situation. People require a sense of superiority over someone or something in this kind of humour and they are easily amused. Look at the example.Waiter: Tea or coffee, gentlemen?1st customer: I will have tea.2nd customer: Me, too. And be sure the glass is clean!(Waiter exits, returns)Waiter: Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?We laugh because the waiter doesn't understand what is implied in his reply. The example also represents the absurdity of life.3. Aggressive HumorAggressive Humour is of sarcastic, manipulative, put-down or disparaging, which may be done at the expense and detriment of one’s relationships with others. Aggressive humor includes ironic jokes or teasing other's mistakes. The following example can exactly explain this kind of humor.Hotel Clerk: I hope you enjoyed your stay with us, sir.Departing Guest: Well, the bed was too hard, the price was too high, the food was lousy, the service was slow, there is too much noise. But anyway, I certainly enjoyed your ice water.4. Self-defeating HumorDifferent from aggressive humor, self-defeating humor is used to amuse others and enhance one’s relationships by excessive self-disparagement or ingratiation. For example, A: Did you book the ticket for the flight?B: Yes. But I should have booked 2.A: Why? Somebody else will go with you?B: I’m not sure if one seat can handle my weight.B in this example exaggerates his weight to make people laugh. This kind of humor is often heard in people's daily life.2.3 Functions of HumorHumor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.(Shibles, 1998)Humor is estimated to comprise almost one-half of the total nature of human life. (Shibles, 1998)Here are the remarks about humor's importance nowadays, compared to the ancient times. Humor improves people's life with high quality. Humor provides us with laughter, joy, love, happiness and hope, etc. Here, some main functions are classified.1. Amusement Provision and Relationship ImprovementThe basic function of humor is to provide laughter. Humor brings laughter, smile, which also give people plenty of enjoyment. As an invisible bridge, humor connects the people on the contrary side.2. Tension RelaxationTalking with stranger, or in unfamiliar situation, people may be a little bit nervous. Then, if humor is spoken and well recognized, the talking atmosphere would become relaxed right now. As we all known, Abraham Lincoln was well-known for his sense of humor.3. Self-esteem DefenseBy self-esteem defense, one can not only prevent a potential conflict, but also defend one’s dignity.Here is a story happening between George Bernard Show and Wiston Churchill.Before the opening of his new play Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw called Winston Churchill: “Have reserved two tickets for first night. Come and bring a friend if you have one.” Churchill wired back, “Impossible to come to fi rst night. Will you come to second night, if you have one.” ( Raskin, 1985)4. Physical Health ContributionThrough plenty of experiment for years, researchers found that humor has many beneficial effects to the patients who have a physical or psychological disease. For example, dentists are trained to use humor to reduce fears of their patients.3.0 Traditional Theories on HumorLots of opinions on classification of humor theories can be explained. Several scholars have identified over 100 types of humor theories. But generally, tradition theories about humor can be classified into three groups -the congruity, relief and superiority theory.3.1 Superiority TheoryTwo forms can be given to the claims based on the superiority theory of humor: (1) the strong claim holds that all humor involves a feeling of superiority, and (2) the weak claimsuggests that feelings of superiority are frequently found in many cases of humor. By looking down someone else’s weakness,one senses a sudden superiority, then humor is produced. However, some remark that superiority is not a necessary condition of humor. For example, when a sleeping cat with its four legs widely stretched, it is not superiority but just funny. So superiority can not be felt among lots of things.3.2 Relief TheoryRelief theories may describe humor with the tension relaxed. Relief theories attempt to describe humor along with the tension release. The two most prominent relief theorists are Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Two versions of the relief theory can be considered: (1) the strong version holds that all laughter results from a release of excessive energy; (2) the weak version claims that it is often the case that humorous laughter involves a release of tension or energy.However, relief theories don't explain the difference between humorous laughter from non-humorous ones. So there will be a long way to study the relief theory.3.3 Incongruity TheoryAs the most important theory of humor, the incongruity theory focuses on the object of humor.In Rhetoric, Aristotle presents the earliest glimmer of an incongruity theory of humor, which says that the best way to make an audience laugh is to set up an expectation and deliver something “that gives a twist” (Attardo, 2001). And Herbert Spencer also supports the incongruity theory. Although Herbert Spencer is a relief theorist, he doesn’t fight off incongruity theory and brings forward that in a comical situation, people expect something big, but finally find it small. This is what is called a descending incongruity. In the opposite case, something appears small, but one suddenly discovers something large. He may get a feeling of ascending incongruity (Veale, 2004).4.0 A General Review of PragmaticsIn this chapter, different aspects of analysis of humor will be explained, which are helpful for the analysis of humor in this research.4.1 A Brief Introduction of PragmaticsAlthough pragmatics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, researches on it can be dated back to ancient Greece and Rome, where the term “pragmatics” is found in Latin and “pragmatics”in Greek, and both mean “being practical. Pragmatics developed in the late 1970s, the American philosophical doctrine of pragmatism Charles William Morris (Shen Xiaolong, 2003) , an American professor and also the author of Foundations of the Theory of Signs, who distinguished three branches of study and gave definitions to each of them.Syntactic or syntax studies the formal relations of signs to one another, or to be precise, it is interested in examining how words, phrases, clauses, and sentences are related to one another.Semantic studies the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable, which focuses on how linguistic signs are conventionally meant or related with the external world. In other words, it tries to spell out natural, static or stable meanings of words and sentences. The meanings of words in dictionaries, for instance, are semantic meanings.Pragmatic studies the relations of signs to interpreters. It deals with how language users mean by different signs in different speech events or contexts. Pragmatics is concerned about those dynamic or contextual or non-conventional meanings of words and sentences articulated by language users. In this thesis, the author chooses some important theories of them.Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others. (Crystal, 1987)This definition puts the context and language users in the important part. Pragmatics seeks to explain the deep meaning, which is not simply found by semantics.Pragmatics can be defined as the study of how utterances have meanings in situations. It distinguishes two intents or meanings in each utterance or communicative act of verbal communication. One is the informative intent or the sentence meaning, and the other the communicative intent or speaker meaning. (Leech, 1983)In this definition, Leech is trying to distinguish the difference between pragmatics and semantics. The difference is that pragmatics is bound with situation, but semantics is not. 4.2 Conversational Implicature4.2.1 Definition of Conversational ImplicatureAs one of the most important theory in pragmatics, the term of conversational implicature was first produced by English language philosophy H.P. Grice in 1967, in his teaching at Harvard University. According to Grice, conversational implicature plays an important role in our personal interactions. In conversation, people usually understand what others are saying even when they do not express their intentions straightforwardly.4.2.2 The Cooperative PrinciplePragmaticians have explored that under the successful conversation, there are principles guiding the conversation so as to sustain the conversation smoothly. Grice calls such principles “cooperative principle. They are the maxims of quantity, quality, manner and relevance .1. The Maxim of QuantitySpeaker's language should be as informative as it is required for the conversation to proceed. It should be neither too little nor too much.2. The Maxim of QualitySpeakers should be truthful. They should not say what they think is false, or make statements on which they lack adequate evidence.3. The Maxim of MannerSpeaker's contributions should be orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.4. The Maxim of RelevanceSpeakers' contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.These principles greatly help us analyze and interpret humor languages and make us deeply understand the real meaning of the speaker.4.2.3 The violation of Cooperative PrincipleIn the real world, people do not always obey the cooperative principle during the conversation for different reasons. Speakers may follow these maxims, but they may violate others in order to make the conversation smoothly. Lying, for example, violates the maxim of quality. Facing the fact, Grice explains, in many situations, under the general assumption of adhering to the cooperative principle, the speaker intentionally violates some maxim to imply un-stated information and manages to be understood by the interlocutor (Shen Xiaolong, 2003).4.3 Politeness Principle4.3.1 Definition and Maxims of Politeness PrincipleCooperative Principle deals with the conversational implicature. It represents the relationship between t e utterance and the implied meaning. But cooperative principle can't explain why people deliberately violate cooperative principle and express itself in a indirect way. With regard to the problem, Leech proposes Politeness Principle, in which he explains how politeness operates in conversations. Leech defines politeness as forms of behavior that establish and maintain comity. (He Ziran, 1997) Politeness Principle is related to face. “Face” refers to the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. It means the public self-image of a person. (Yule, 1996.) Politeness Principle maintains interlocutors behave politely to one another, since people respect each other’s face. (Michiko, 2005) According to Leech, any speech act may be face threatening, but speakers have strategies for lessening the threat. Leech calls them six maxims of Politeness Principle and each consists of two sub-maxims.1. Tact maximA. Minimize cost to other;B. Maximize benefit to other.2. Generosity maximA. Minimize benefit to self;B. Maximize cost to self.3. Approbation maximA. Minimize dispraise of other;B. Maximize praise of other.4. Modesty maximA. Minimize praise of self;B. Maximize dispraise of self.5. Agreement maximA. Minimize disagreement between self and other;B. Maximize agreement between self and other.6. Sympathy maximA. Minimize antipathy between self and other;B. Maximize sympathy between self and other.4.3.2 The Violation of Politeness PrincipleJust as Leech said, speakers utilize strategies for lessening the threat outside. Leech calls these strategies “polite principle s”.That is to say, people have the needs to maintain their faces and respect from others by polite principles. By violating polite principles on purpose, humor is employed to reveal the unpleasant fact of others by the speaker. For creating humorous effects, people may deliberately violate politeness principle to express their dissatisfaction.4.4 Speech ActA speech act is an act that a speaker performs actions when speaking an utterance. The philosopher J. L Austin claims that saying means doing. According to Austin, the speech act includes three aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts (Shen Xiaolong, 2003).(1) Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place, or the acts of saying something.(2) Illocutionary acts are the real actions that are performed by the utterance, where saying equals doing, existing in demanding, making promises, welcoming, warning and so on. For example, by saying “I will repay you this money next week”, one typically performs the illocutionary act of making a promise(3) Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the demand or the promise. For example, if the speaker says: “C ould you open the window?” The listener gets the intention of the speaker and thereby opens the window and that is a perlocutionary act. Some other scholars like J. Lyons and S.C. Levinson divided the speech act theory into two parts as direct and indirect speech acts (Shen Xiaolong, 2003). A direct speech act means that speaker’s intention is conveyed the utterance’s literal meaning.For example, “ W hat day is it today?”“Today is Saturday.” It is the direct speech act. Take this for e xample,“W ould you like to meet me for coffee?”And another replies, “I have class.”The speaker used an indirect speech to reject a proposal. The indirect speech acts can perform by implied meanings, not by literal meanings.4.5 DeixisThe term “deixis”means “the ability to show” or “to indicate”. According to StephenLevinson, deixis is the reference by means of an expression whose interpretation is relative to the extra-linguistic context of the utterance, such as who is speaking, the time or place of speaking, or the current location in the discourse. And the linguistic forms of deixis is deictic expressions. Deictic expression falls into the following three categories.1. Personal DeixisPersonal Deixis involves participants in the conversation. By using personal pronouns, these participants may be represented. Generally, personal deixis consists of the followings constituents: first person, second person and third person. The first person “I” refer s to the speaker or the writer and the second person “you”refers to person addressed. The third person“he, she, it” refers to people or entities that are either the speaker, writer or addressee in the conversation. To appreciating humor, we should pay attention to the person shifting.2. Spatial DeixisSpatial Deixis indicates the location of the speaker or narrator. Examples of words are as follows:This, that, these, thoseHere, there, whereLeft, rightUp, down, above, below, in front, behindCome, go, bring, and takeFrom a speaker’s standpoint, the location is settled mentally as well as physically. Some scholars even think, the true pragmatic basis of spatial deixis is the psychological distance (Yule,1996). From his statement, there are a physical distance and psychological distance. And they are not always consistent with each other on some occasions. Just as the word “this”, is close to us, but the word “that” is far from us.3. Temporal DeixisTemporal Deixis demonstrates time related to a conversation, and time is quite important to the understanding of the utterance. Here are some expressions of temporal deixis.This, last, next, MondayHour, week, month, yearNow, then, ago, laterYesterday, today, tomorrow, tonight4.6 PresuppositionIn 1892, the German philosopher G.Frege, proposed the term presupposition. A presupposition is a necessary condition for either the true or the false statement that presupposes it (He Ziran, 1997). For example, “My little nephew is a smart girl”. Whether she is smart or not, at least the statement presupposes “I have a nephew”.Two types of presupposition are semantic presupposition and pragmatic presupposition. Pragmaticpresupposition involves not only the mutual knowledge or common ground of the addresser and the addressee, but also social traditions, culture, values, expectations or the emphasis of the speaker.So far according to the author's research, although there have been a few studies of humor theories since a long time ago, in fact it had not been given special importance until this century. Especially the linguistic study of humor has only developed no more than 20 years. To review the study of this issue, there are some papers that intend to analyze humor with pragmatic effects or humor with pragmatic characteristics. However, these analysis mainly focus on the flouting of cooperative principle in humor. Through lots of examples of English verbal humor, this paper is based on the research of the pragmatic characteristics reflected in humor. It involves more aspects of pragmatics, adds rhetoric devices, successfully connects them with the violation of maxims of cooperative principle, and explains how humorous effects are created through these devices.5.0 The Pragmatic Analysis of English HumorChapter 4 will analyze the pragmatic effects in English humor by means of plenty of examples to make a comprehensive understanding of English humor.5.1 Conversational Implicature and the Violation of CP in English HumorAs mentioned in chapter 3, conversational implicature can't reflected by the hearer from the literal meaning of the utterance. It relies on the special situation and context.(1) Judge: “You are lying so clumsily, that I would advise you to get a lawyer.”(Zhou Daokun, Wang Yinan, 1992) The example indicates that the lawyers are often distrustful in European Countries and they have the ability to make the false or unreal statements become true and trustful. Then humorous effects may be well represented by the violation of the four maxims of cooperative principle-the violation of the maxim of quantity, quality, manner and relevance.5.1.1 The Violation of the Maxim of QuantityAccording to the statement of the violation of quality, one should offer information as is required for the conversation. However, people don't always obey the maxims and it leads to the misunderstanding of the speaker, then humorous effect appears.(1) Kid: I et seven biscuits for breakfast this morning.Mom: Ate.Kid: Ok, maybe it was eight.In the conversation, the mother tries to correct the false pronunciation made by the kid through the correct pronunciation “ate”. But the kid thought that his mom knew he was lying to her about the number of biscuits.(2) Man: do you have a family?Woman: Yes, I have one son.Man: Oh, really? Does he smoke?Woman: No, he’s never touched a cigarette.Man: That’s good. I don’t smoke either. Tobacco is very bad for one’s health. And does your son drink wine?Woman: Oh, no. He’s never drunk a drop of it.Man: Then I congratulate you, Ma’am. And does he ever come home late at night?Woman: No, never. He goes to bed immediately after dinner every night.Man: Well, he is a wise young man. How old is he?Woman: He’s six month old. (Zhang Bo, Li Yunkai, 2005)In example (2), humorous effects are represented through the lack of necessary information from women. It is a conversation between a man and a woman for the first time.The man briefly focuses on the boy’s behavior and the woman doesn't tell the man her son is just a child. Then humorous effects are created.(3) Possible Employer: H’m! So you want a job, e h? Do you ever tell lies?Office Boy: No, sir, but I can learn.Obviously, young applicants without much experience also tend to answer the question “I can learn”to show one’s competence for the job he needs. So it is easy to imagine that the office boy is so nervous and barely thinks about the question and thus blurts out the answer. The extra information about the question makes all of us burst into laughter.5.1.2 The Violation of the Maxim of QualityIt is well known that rhetoric like irony, exaggeration, metaphor and so on can create humorous effects. Generally, hearers misunderstand the meaning by the means of literal meaning of the rhetoric, which can be used to create the humorous effects.1.IronyIrony is one of the leading elements in humor. It uses words to express something other than, especially the opposite of the literal meaning. The most common form of irony is the expression by which a person says the opposite of what he really means and the listener believes the opposite of what is said. Irony may be civil mockery, ingenious derision or a verbal sneer. Irony is different from lying. Irony refers to something true but actually means other aspects. Here is the example used to analyze irony.(1) The tired store clerk had pulled down blanket after blanket until only one was left on the shelf. Then the customer remarked, “I do not really want to buy today, I am only looking for a friend.”“Well, Madam,” said the clerk, “I will take down the last one if you think he’s in it.” (Wang Fuzhen, 2000)The clerk is quite angry with the customer since he was no intension to buy anything. In order to avoid impoliteness, the clerk chooses to say something by an ironic way.2. HyperboleHyperbole is a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect. It。