Analysis of the Humor Language in Garfield A Tail of Two Kitties---- the CP-Violation and Humor Effects.docVIP

analysis of the humor language in garfield: a tail of two kitties- the cp-violation and humor effectsacknowledgements i shall first present my thanks to all the teachers in the foreign language school of university of science and technology, liaoning, to whom i owe much of my knowledge in my study of english language and linguistics. then i would like to thank ms guo liping, who has given us lectures on linguistics. my heartfelt gratitude also goes to my tutor, ms zhang jingwei, whose invaluable instructions, perceptive suggestions, great patience and constant encouragement have helped greatly to shape this thesis. contentsabstract (english)iabstract (chinese)iiiintroduction1i. grices cooperative principle2a. maxim of quantity3b. maxim of quality3c. maxim of relation3d. maxim of manner3ii. violation of the cooperative principle and the humor effects4a. humor created by the violation of the maxim of quantity41.the speaker contributes less information than is required52. the speaker contribute more information than is required6b. humor created by the violation of the maxim of quality61. the speaker say something false on purpose62. using rhetoric to express conversational implicatures8c. humor created by the violation of the maxim of relation10d. humor created by the violation of the maxim of manner111. to break the brief rule by verbose expressions122. to create ambiguity123. to break the ordinance rules13iii. tips for creating humors in daily communication14a. to create suspense14b. to indulge in verbiage15c. to find the ironical phenomenon in life15d. to use rhetoric in conversation16conclusion16bibliography18 18abstractas the society develops increasingly fast in modern days, life competition and pressures for human being are more and more huge. therefore, we pay much attention on relieving stress. through observing, we find that humors have an excellent effect on relax. therefore, it is of high values to analyze humors and understand the secrets of humors in daily life. based on making clear how humors occur, we can conclude the common ways to create humors. from the perspective of pragmatics, grices cooperative principle can well explain the humor mechanism. the cooperative principle (cp for short) is a principle of conversation proposed by grice in 1975, stating, “making your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”. there are four maxims in the cp, which people often follow during their daily conversation. however, people usually violate the cp to create humor effects, and therefore conversational implicatures will arise.art is a mirror of life. language in movies is the vivid embodiment of scenes of real life. therefore, research on the movie language has important directive significance for our linguistic study. many humors in movies are the overstating or jocosity of the real life. its trenchant but mischievous attitude is a kind of bitter, sardonic laughter of the real man and thing.recently, the american series films about garfield are increasingly popular across the world. many common phenomena in the real life are reflected in these films in the form of humors from the view of animals. the whole audience doubles up at jokes in these movies. the little cute cat garfield wins instant fame over one night! having such jolly laughs day-to-day will send us carefree and joyous and doubtfully improve our life quality. this thesis will take garfield: a tail of two kitties as an example and study all the humor language in it from the perspective of the cp-violation. the study aims to find how humor effects occur in this film, conclude what we can do is to create humors and to improve interpersonal communication skills. through this thesis, we will learn about the relation between mechanisms of the humor and the violation of the cooperative principle. some tips for creating humors will be given for reference at the end of the thesis.key words: humor effects cp-violation tips for creating humors摘要 随着现代社会日新月异的发展，人类的生存竞争日益激烈，生活压力越加沉重。因此，如何减压成为备受关注的话题。观察发现，幽默对于放松精神，缓解压力具有极好的作用。所以，分析幽默，领悟日常生活中幽默产生的秘密意义重大。基于此，我们可以总结出制造幽默的基本方法。从语用学的角度来讲，格莱斯的合作原则可以很好的解释幽默的产生机制。合作原则，简称cp，是由格莱斯于1975年提出的一个关于会话的原则。它指出：使你的话语，在其所发生的阶段，符合你参与的谈话所公认的目标或方向。合作原则包含四条基本准则，人们的日常会话往往是遵循这四条准则进行的。但是，人们又常常违反合作原则，制造幽默效果，从而传达会话的言外之意。俗话说，艺术是生活的一面镜子。电影中的语言很大程度上是现实生活场景的生动体现。因此，研究电影语言对于语言学的研究有着重要的指导意义。许多电影中的幽默只是对现实生活的夸大或戏谑而已。它以犀利而调皮的目光嘲笑现实中的人，现实中的事。近几年来，美国加菲猫系列电影风靡世界，受到越来越多的人们的欢迎。许多日常生活中的现象通过电影中动物的视角以幽默的形式反映了出来。这些笑话总是使所有观众都笑得直不起腰。这只可爱的加菲猫一夜成名了！每天像这样开怀大笑会让我们轻松快活，生活质量无疑得到了提高。本文以加菲猫2之双猫记为例，从打破合作原则的角度分析该电影中所有的幽默语言。笔者试图探究这部电影中的幽默是如何被创造出来的，并总结出我们在日常交际中应如何制造幽默效果，提高交际能力。希望本文可以提示人们幽默的产生机制与合作原则的违反的关系。在文章末尾，我们也会给出一些制造幽默效果的建议供大家参考。关键词:幽默效果 合作原则的违反 制造幽默的建议analysis of the humor language in garfield: a tail of two kitties- the cp-violation and humor effectsintroduction with the rapid development of social civilization and material life, humors increasingly become the necessity of our daily life. humor not only brings us great fun but also is an essential means to solve controversies and conflicts in our daily life. therefore, humor language has been always a hot topic discussed by many academics from different subjects. up to now, lots of academics home and abroad have done various studies on the mechanism of humors from the perspective of pragmatics. the formers have done many qualitative researches from the angel of grices cooperative principle, which indicate that grices cooperative principle can well explain how humors occur. however, few researches analyze quantitatively the humor language in movies from the aspects of the violation of the cooperative principle.in recent years, the american series films of garfield are very much popular among audience. the main reason is that there are many humorous scenarios with witty dialogues. language materials from these movies, however, have not yet been widely used by linguistics researchers. although animals in these movies are personalized and added sound by computer design, we cannot deny that the language they say in the films is that of human kind. this thesis will take the movie garfield: a tail of two kitties as an example, which describes a story about a fat american cat, named garfield. garfield goes to the united kingdom with odie to surprise his master, jon arbuckle, who is in london to propose to his girlfriend, veterinarian dr. liz wilson. nevertheless, accidentally, garfield switches places with prince, a royal cat who has just inherited a castle. in the grand estate, garfield receives the royal treatment, including a butler and an international array of four-legged servants and followers. lord dargis, who is next in line to inherit the estate, wants prince and garfield out of the picture. the castle animals must keep garfield safe and keep him thinking hes royal to save their lives. meanwhile, prince, thrown away by lord dargis, managed to come back with odies help. after prince came back, garfield helps prince and the castle animals fight against lord dargis. in the end, garfield successfully comes back to jon, his master, and prince successfully comes back his castle with other animals.this thesis will analyze all the humor language in this film from the aspect of the violation of the cooperative principle. the research will be from both qualitative and quantitative angles. the qualitative analysis is to find out how the humor happens through violating the cooperative principle; the quantitative analysis is to make clear the existence of the violation of each maxim and its account for the total, and then to conclude the humors characteristics and techniques. the significance of this study lies in that it will help us to understand the humor mechanism and master the most common manner to create humor in daily life.i. grices cooperative principle the cooperative principle（cp for short ） is a principle of conversation that was proposed by grice 1975, stating that “making your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”. in social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people interact with one another.put more simply, people who obey the cooperative principle will make sure that what they say in a conversation furthers the purpose of that conversation. obviously, the requirements of different types of conversations will be different.the cooperative principle goes two ways: speakers (generally) observe the cooperative principle, and listeners (generally) assume that speakers are observing it. this allows for the possibility of conversational implicatures, which are meanings that are not explicitly conveyed in what is said, but that can nonetheless be inferred. for example, if alice points out that bill is not present, and carol replies that bill has a cold, then there is an implicative that the cold is the reason, or at least a possible reason, for bills absence. this is because carols comment is not cooperative does not contribute to the conversation unless her point is that bills cold is or might be the reason for his absence.the cp can be divided into four maxims called the grices maxims, describing specific rational principles observed by people who obey the cooperative principle; these principles enable effective communications.a. maxim of quantity1. make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange)2. do not make your contribution more informative than is requiredb. maxim of qualitytry to make your contribution true.1. do not say what you believe to be false2. do not say that which you lack adequate evidencec. maxim of relationbe relevant.d. maxim of mannerbe perspicuous.1. avoid obscurity of expression2. avoid ambiguity3. be brief4. be orderlythese maxims may be better understood as describing the assumptions listeners normally make about the way speakers will talk, rather than prescriptions for how one ought to talk. philosopher kent bach writes:“. we need first to get clear on the character of grices maxims. they are not sociological generalizations about speech, nor are they moral prescriptions or proscriptions on what to say or communicate. although grice presented them in the form of guidelines for how to communicate successfully, i think they are better construed as presumptions about utterances, presumptions that we as listeners rely on and as speakers exploit.” (bach, 2005, p.5-6)gricean maxims generate implicatures. if the overt and surface meaning of a sentence does not seem to be consistent with the gricean maxims, and yet the circumstances lead us to think that the speaker is nonetheless obeying the cooperative principle, we tend to look for other meanings that could be implicated by the sentence.grice, however, did not assume that all people should constantly follow these maxims. instead, he found it interesting when these were not respected, namely either flouted (with the listener being expected to be able to understand the message) or violated (with the listener being expected to not note this). flouting would imply some other, hidden meaning. the importance was in what was not said. frequently, the humor effects occur when these maxims are flouted or violated. for example: garfields asking “sheba, did you remember to wash your hooves?” to the animal who was helping cook the lasagna only disrespects the maxim of relation on the surface, the reasoning behind this fragment sentence is normally clear to the interlocutor (the maxim is just flouted). he means sheba should have washed his hooves first to keep the food clean. we will burst into laughter only when we understand the hidden meaning.ii. violation of the cooperative principle and the humor effects when we speak, we generally have something like the cp and its maxims in our mind to guide us. we will try to say things that are true, relevant, as well as informative enough, and in a clear manner. grice found that, however, in practical communications, people do not follow these maxims all the time. people do violate the cp on purpose when necessary. conversational implicatures can be worked out by the violation of the cp. moreover, humor effect usually shows itself in this case. however, humor language is very different with dull dialogues; its a kind of wisdom. in the following part of this thesis, it will analyze all the humor language taken from the movie garfield: a tail of two kitties on the base of these four maxims.a. humor created by the violation of the maxim of quantity in our daily conversations, we usually contribute information more or less than is required. that is the violation of the maxim of quantity. lets analyze this with examples from the following two aspects:1. the speaker contributes less information than is required if the speaker contributes insufficient information in the conversation, we will be lost in the dialogue. as the conversation goes on, however, the real meaning or the speakers purpose will appear, or we can gradually get it. then the humor falls on.example (1) - the rest of my worldly possessions, my castle and surrounding grounds, i leave to the love of my life, somebody who was like a son to me. - thank you, aunt eleanor. oh, thank you. - please let me finish, mr. dargis. - im sorry. i always get a little ahead of myself. - i leave all my worldly possessions to my beloved kitty, prince the 12th. - thats incredible. - oh, my word. - entirely without precedent. - this is what it says. - but im her nephew, her only heir. she cant have left it all to a cat. in this dialogue, the solicitor just read that lady eleanor carlyle would leave her possessions to “somebody who was like a son to me” when hearing this mr. dargis stood up and thanked his aunt in a seemingly grateful look. however, he didnt realize that he wasnt her heir until the solicitor read to “my beloved kitty, prince the 12th.” obviously, mr. dargis didnt get enough information at first, so that he misunderstood the solicitor and brought shame on himself. this violates the maxim of quantity and creates humor effects. it reflects mr. dargiss greedy and eager to take up the carlyle castle. this sort of hypocritical man is ridiculous, especially when he unscrupulously wants get some benefits from others.example (2)- odie, call a cop. i mean, bobby or jimmy. when garfield was caught by smithee, the caretaker of the castle, he was calling help to odie. you may be confused by his words. what his mean by “jimmy”? what did he want to do with a jimmy? he didnt tell us sufficient information, violating the maxim of quantity. maybe he wanted to use it to break the window of the car and escape from the danger. from this we can see how clever garfield is!2. the speaker contribute more information than is required oppositely the speaker may contribute more informatively in the conversation. this is also abrupt to the listener. usually we are just waiting for a short and simple answer, but we get much more. the speaker may say something beyond our expectation. humors often happen when we are suddenly aware what he/she is talking about.example (3)- your highness.- you talking to me, froggy? - its me, your trusty servant, - winston.-hey. warning: i dont fight fair. i scratch, and i bite. we all know garfield was a cat who was afraid of dogs except odie. when first meeting the dog winston, he was so nervous. in this situation, he should have simply said “hey” or “ok” to reply winston, but he added a “warning”. maybe he wanted to bold himself with these words. he violated the maxim of quantity by contributing more than is required in the conversation. however, this warning just reflected his timid as well as cute characteristic, which made us laugh.b. humor created by the violation of the maxim of qualityaccording to the maxim of quality, the speaker should contribute true information, namely do not say what you believe to be false, or you lack adequate evidence. once that false or lacking evidence are seen through, the listener may suddenly realize the truth and burst into laughter. lets analyze this from the following two aspects:1. the speaker say something false on purpose fawning on or jeering at a person usually need to say something false and omit the truth. the speaker even will regard the counterparts weak points as strong points- it is a fawn. alternatively, the speaker will talk the counterparts merit as his demerit- this is a jeer. if the adulation or derision is exposed or not suitable to the conversation stage, the humor will come into being. example (1) - does this castle make my butt look a little too big? - fits you like a glove. (farts) - ooh! blimey. - pardon. -well struck, sire. good tone, smooth finish. here winston was flattering garfield. garfield was a little bit sensitive about his figure. therefore, he asked winston whether his butt looked too big in the castle. winston said the castle fitted him “like a glove”. the truth is that garfield was extremely fat and hardly walked through the playhouse door. when garfield farts, winston didnt hate or scoff at him. on the contrary, he praised it as a “well struck”, and a “good tone”, which were “smooth finished.” winston said what was false, violating the ma