从幽默的“不协调理论”看《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》

1、题 目On The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the Perspective of The Incongruity Theory of Humor从幽默的“不协调理论”看哈克贝利费恩历险记AcknowledgementI want to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Zhang Baolai. Without him, I can never finish my paper. At the beginning of writing this paper, I had

2、 no idea of how to arrange it. Mr. Zhang brought me great hope with his constantly encouragement and patient guidance, and finally I can have a clear arrangement to my thesis.I also want to say thank you to my dear parents and my younger sister, who companied and cared for me all the time. Its reall

3、y an uneasy journey to complete this thesis and they are the one who encouraged me to overcome the pressure and difficulties. My thanks also goes to my friends, with whom I spent my valuable and wonderful four years. I really learned a lot from them.AbstractAs a well know humorist and a prolific wri

4、ter, Mark Twain is regarded as a literary giant. He creates lots of famous short stories and novels with his talented gift, among which the most famous novel is his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This book gains its popularity in literatus, even in the world. Hence, there are so man

5、y people study this novel form different perspectives .In this paper ,the author will analyze it from the perspective of incongruity, to find out the using of incongruity theory in the novel and its humor effects. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is a general introduction to Mark t

6、wain and the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Chapter two is literature view to have a broad outline of previous study of this novel. Chapter three will help us to have a better understanding about “humor” and “humor theories”, especially incongruity theory. Chapter four is the main body o

7、f this paper. The purpose of this chapter is to unscramble the application of incongruity theory in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Chapter five will give us a whole conclusion about this paper.Key words: Mark Twain, humor, incongruity theory 摘要马克吐温作为一个著名的幽默大师和一个多产的作家，被认为是一个文学巨匠。他用他的天赋创作了很多著名的短篇

8、小说和长篇小说，其中哈克贝利费恩历险记是他在长篇小说中最著名的杰作，这本书在文学界甚至是在全世界都很受欢迎。因此，有许多人从不同角度来研究这本小说。在这篇论文中，作者将从不协调的角度研究这本小说，并找出书中应用了不协调理论的地方及其幽默效果。这篇论文由五个章节组成。第一章对马克吐温和哈克贝利费恩历险记做了简要的概括。第二章是文献综述，对前人的研究进行一个大概的介绍。第三章将会让大家对“幽默”和幽默理论有更深的认识，尤其是不协调理论。第四章是这篇论文的主体部分，目的在于对不协调理论在哈克贝利费恩历险记中的应用进行解读。第五章是对这篇论文总的概括。关键词：马克吐温，幽默，不协调理论Contents

9、AcknowledgementIVAbstractV摘要VI1. Introduction11.1. Introduction to Mark Twain11.2. Introduction to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn22. Literature Reviews32.1. International Review52.2. Domestic Review53. Theoretical Background63.1. Humor63.2. The Incongruity Theory84. Analysis of Incongruity in Th

10、e Adventures of Huckleberry Finn10 4.1. Incongruity of languages in the novel104.1.1. Vernacular Language and Standard Language104.1.2. Dramatic Language and Standard Language124.2. Incongruity of Thoughts and Actions134.3. Incongruity of Context and Peoples Act154.4. Incongruity and Humor Effects16

11、4.4.1. Satirizing164.4.2. Amusing175. Conclusion18Reference19V1. Introduction1.1. Introduction to Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens(1835-1910), well known by his pen name Mark Twain, is considered to be one of the greatest humorists and novelists in American literature. His works are full of humor

12、ous language and the purpose of his humor is to make people laugh. Mark Twain experienced both two periods , Civil War and the recovery of the nation after the war, which had an great influence on his writing style.It can be said that American Civil War was a turning point of Mark Twains life. Durin

13、g the period that Mark Twain worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, he was satisfied with his everyday life. His experience of being a steamboat pilot made him very familiar with all kinds of human nature. At least, at that time he was full of hopes and confidence towards future. But all ha

14、s been changed after the war. As a witness of the war, Mark Twain distinctly saw the great changes in this nation. After the Civil War, people were all trying to seek every opportunity to create a new life. Like most of the American people, Mark Twain joined the so called “Gold Rush” or “American Dr

15、eam”. All of these looked like a good beginning of re-construction and also a tendency to be prosperous. But gradually, Mark Twain found that there were lots of difference between what he saw and the true reality. That was abjective. The incompetent government and the growth of monopoly phenomenon m

16、ade American people became immoral and self-serving. In that money-grubbing times, material prosperity was what they only wanted to pursue and its impossible to refuse to be successful. So, they would try as possibly as they could to compete with others. However, on the other hand, they were filled

17、with stress and depression. Thus, as most of the American writers do, Mark Twain chose to write humorous works to make people laugh. In 1865, the publishing of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County made Mark Twain known by people as a humorist. Mark Twain is regarded as the father of moder

18、n American literature and enjoys great popularity. All his achievements and reputations owe to not only his unique humorous writing style, but also his wisdom to combine humor with satire. Living in a period where humorous literature was flourishing, Mark Twain developed his humorous writing skills

19、rapidly. He learned all other kinds of humorous writing skills from other humorists, the characters or the themes of Mark Twains novels mainly came from the “life”. Due to the darkness of the American society and the tortuosity of personality, Mark Twain were not only get pleasure, but also we can f

20、eel the satire of the American society, especially the corruption and injustice. And this is why he made himself as a social critic and satirist. Mark Twain had a great influence on American literature. Lots of writers, such as Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner were affected by him. All in all, Ma

21、rk Twain should be regarded as a literary giant in American literary history. 1.2. Introduction to The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnAs Mark Twains representative works, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( Huckleberry Finn for short hereafter) has a deep influence on American literature. Earnest He

22、mingway once said that all modern American literature comes from Mark Twains masterpiece：Huckleberry Finn. Why dose Hemingway praise this literary works so highly is because that the language style, the characters and the theme of this novel reveal a new high level in Mark Twains writing ability and

23、 his thought. Huckleberry Finn combines the reality of realism and the lyricism of romanticism perfectly. For many years, this novel has been favored by people around the world. This book takes childrens colorful adventures as clues, exploring the decadent life style of capitalist class and the detr

24、iment of slavery. This book contains Mark Twains careful thinking and criticism to the American society. Its unique writing style and deep meaning make it become one of the most famous book in the world. Huckleberry Finn reflects that the humanity finally will defeat the immoral forces of his educat

25、ion. Huck, a piteous child living with his drunkard father, is adopted by a warmhearted widow who tries to educate and moralize him. She forces him to behave properly and to live a so called civilized life. He also has to go to school. All of these make Huck uncomfortable and insufferable. His fathe

26、r takes him back to their home, and Huck would rather stay at the poor area with freedom then the rich area surrounded by genteel constraint. But all these come to an end when Hucks father nearly kills him after drinking a lot. Huck determines to escape and meets the slave Jim by accident on his run

27、away journey. They accompany each other and begin their adventures. At the beginning, effected deeply by the traditional view towards slave, Huck treats Jim unfairly and he even wants to betray Jim. When Huck protects Jim, he thinks that he will go to hell certainly. At the same time, Jim was sincer

28、e and kind. He will try all his best to protect and care for Huck. Finally, Jim is saved with the help of Tom and Tom tells Jim that he is free now. The story at least ends in a happy ending.Mark Twains unusual writing ability putting humor into every corner of this book is one of the reasons why Hu

29、ckleberry Finn is so famous and popular around the world. In this novel, Mark Twain uses a large number of slang and dialects, which form the humor effects perfectly. The colloquial language reveals the characteristics of the characters. Meanwhile, this unique expression brings us lots of humorous i

30、mpacts. With the publishing of Huckleberry Finn, American literature exists some different attitudes towards it, which makes it controversial. But as time goes by, Huckleberry Finn was proved to be a classic in American literature even in the world.2. Literature ReviewsHumor has been studied for mor

31、e than 2,000 years and it can be traced back to the times of Plato and Aristotle. Most of the scholars studied humor from the fields of philosophy, sociology, psychology. Linguistics also did some research on humor, but until the late 1970s linguistics became the dominant research on humor. Linguist

32、ic scholars try to use some pragmatic theories to explain humor, such as mention theory and relevance theory.3. 2.1. International ReviewHumor as a flavoring agent in the human language is a product of incongruity. All along, foreign scholars of the study of humor never stopped. Such as "Humor

33、and Humanit" by Stephen Leacock, "The Philosophy of Language and Humor" by John Morreall, Humor: Its Origin and Development by PE McGhee, "The Semantic Foundation of Cognitive Theories of Humor" by S. Attardo, and "Linguistic Theories of Humor", RL Latta, "The

34、 Basic Humor Process: a Cognitive-shift Theory and the Case against Incongruity", Geoffrey N. Leech, "Principles of Pragmatic" and W. Nash, "The Language of Humor "And so on were carried out on the different aspects of humor. The theories related to humor in foreign countrie

35、s are Koestler's theory of heterogeneous association, Raskin's humorous semantic script theory, Attardo and Raskin's general theory of verbal humor, Veatch's theory of violation and Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual integration theory.2.2. Domestic ReviewDomestic research on hum

36、or and the adventures of Huckleberry Finn is mainly in the form of papers and periodicals. For example, the study of humor mainly includes "Pragmatic Analysis of English Humor" by Lu Guangdan, "English Humor and its Linguistic Expression" by Luo Saiqun, Zhang Ninjiao's "

37、Analysis of English Humor from the Perspective of Pragmatics" "Zhou Lei 's" Discourse Analysis of Conversational Humor "and Wang Yibin' s" Study of English Humorous Discourse ". The study of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" includes Lin Ling's

38、"A Pragmatic Study of Verbal Humor", Wang Wannuan's "Pragmatic Analysis of the Humor of Language in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" A Study of Humor in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "by Wei Pengcheng, Guo Wentao's Humor in the Perspective of Cooperative Prin

39、ciple - Taking the Adventures of Huckleberry as an Example, Wang Li And the application of humor theory in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the Perspective of Relevance Theory. As humor involves a wide range of domestic theory of humor on a lot of theory, b

40、ut summed up roughly three categories: from the communication point of view; from the perspective of rhetorical aesthetics as a satire, pun, exaggeration and other dramatic expression of ideas, From the perspective of cognitive pragmatics.3. Theoretical Background3.1. HumorActually, the original mea

41、ning of “ humor” is not what we think today. It was a medical word in ancient time, which means “fluid” or “moisture”, determining peoples mental and physical health. At that time, humor can be divided into four fluids in ones body, which controlled the disposition, health, physical appearance and p

42、ersonality.But as time went by, humor was applied into literature. At the end of 16th century, the British dramatist Ben Johnson related “humor” with his two dramas, Every Man in His Humor and Every Man out of His Humor, and it indicated that humor found its way into literature. So what is humor? Th

43、e meaning of humor varied from different fields. Some schools think that humor is something related to funniness. For example, when you say someone is humorous, you mean he is funny. And this is most acceptable meaning in modern society. Nash regards humor as a derivation of culture, institution, at

44、titudes, beliefs, typical practices and characteristic. From McGhee point of view, the nature of humor is complicated and multifaceted and it is something not real.Humor is a unique character of human beings, which exists in all nations and areas in the world. In modern society, humor can not only b

45、ring you happiness, but also may bring you some opportunities. Nowadays, we live in a world full of tensions, indifference, competitions and lack of satisfaction and happiness. Humor leads us into a relaxing, comfortable and pleasant environment and it also helps us solve many problems easily. Follo

46、wing are three functions of humor. First, humor makes us happy. This is the most basic function of humor. There are lots of humorous people, humorous stories and activities around us. Our life must be very boring without the company of humor. Second, humor can make us relaxed. Living in modern socie

47、ty, you have to meet different pressure all the time, so the sense of humor reminds us of smiling and gives us a sense of happiness. When you meet something difficult, humor will bring you lots of courage. Third, having a sense of humor has a big influence on your interpersonal interaction. People a

48、re inclined to make friends with someone who has a sense of humor, because talking with this kind of people makes you feel how beautiful life is.3.2. The Incongruity TheoryThere are plenty of humor theories, but among all of them three of them are most famous. They are Superiority Theory, Relief The

49、ory and Incongruity Theory. Besides, the Incongruity Theory is the dominant one among them. The author will mainly focus on the introduction of incongruity theory in this paper.For a long time, many people try to use their own way to explain the incongruity theory. It can be said that Aristotle is t

50、he first one to give the explanation. He thinks that laughter comes from the incongruity between expectation and the results. In Rhetoric, Aristotle presents this method to make people laugh. At the beginning of the play, he gave audience an expectation, and at last the audience got something unexpe

51、cted, which made them feel surprised. In Aristotles view, incongruity theory means that humor will be created at the moment of recognization of incongruity between the expectation and the facts.The philosophy Plato is considered to be the first who made great contributions to the study of incongruit

52、y theory. He asserts that a man who lacks of correct self-assessment seems to be funny. These people always think themselves better than what they really are in reality and so they think highly of themselves with over confidence. From the view of us, they are too ridiculous which makes us laugh. We

53、can see that Plato thinks that the occurrence of humor is because the incongruity between the individuals subjective points and the objective facts, while Aristotle holds that humor results from the incongruity between the common expectation and the unexpected truth.With the influence of Plato and A

54、ristotles view of incongruity theory, lots of famous person also give their thoughts about it. Thomas Hobbes developed Platos view. He believed that human being is going through a constant struggle, and the winner must come to the person who laughs. He thinks that people will feel happy and have a s

55、ense of superiority when he finds someone at a lower social status or inferior to him. So, we can know that he maintains that the humor is the incongruity between glory and ordinariness. Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer hold nearly the same opinion about incongruity. They all think that incongr

56、uity between expectations and results is a method to cause laughter. People are inclined to have wrong judgement with what will happen. The surprising results always amuse people and the more unexpected the more funny the thing is. The philosopher Henry Bergson also contributes to the study of humor

57、. From his point of view, he thinks that “Every comic effect, it is said, implies contradiction in some of its aspects. What makes us laugh is alleged to be the absurd realized in concrete shape, a palpable absurdity; or. Again, an apparent absurdity, which we swallow for the moment only to rectify

58、it immediately afterwards;or, better still, something absurd from one point of view though capable of a natural explanation from another, etc.” And after Bergson, Sigmund Freud still contributes a lot to the study of humor. He concludes that if we are in a tendency to call for painful, despaired fee

59、lings, we will reduce our expectations to further development of our feelings. That is to say, the pleasure of humor will be produced when our affect being decreased. So, Freuds definition of the origin of the pleasure of humor is also based on incongruity: the incongruity between expectations and results.All above are about different views on humor. Although, they analyze humor from different perspectives, they are all at the basis of incongruity mechanism. All in all, the essence of