A Pragmatic Analysis of English Humor 英语幽默的语用分析.doc

英语幽默的语用分析a pragmatic analysis of english humorabstracthumor, specific to human beings, is the seasoning of our daily life and an indispensable part of human speech. it not only plays an important role in the improvement of the interpersonal relationships in social activities of many kinds, but also becomes the symbol of personal wit, glamour and education. for a long time, humor has attracted the attention and interest of scholars in many fields. the researches can range from traditional fields such as psychology, physiology and philosophy to broader ones such as anthropology, pedagogy, aesthetics, sociology, etc. with the rapid development of linguistics, pragmatics provides a new perspective for humor studies. however, the researches made on the humorous language from a pragmatic point of view are comparatively limited in sum. besides, the majority of them just apply one of pragmatic theories to the humor studies, for example, cooperative principle. based on the seven main-stream pragmatic theories, this thesis makes a comparatively all-round research on the verbal humors occurring in english conversations.through the analysis of lots of examples of english humor within the framework of pragmatic theories formed by cooperative principle, politeness principle, face theory, relevance theory, deixis, presupposition and speech act theories, this thesis is much devoted to the exploration of the pragmatic apparatuses for humor production and interpretation. it is found that humorous effects might be produced when cp or pp maxims are violated, when the speakers or hearers face should be protected, when the rule of deictic egocentricity is violated and deictic projection emerges, when the presupposition is cancelled, or when speech act is misunderstood. relevance theory, on the other hand, provides a useful apparatus for the interpretation of some english humors.verbal humor can serve peoples psychological, emotional, social and communicative needs. a good understanding of the meaning and working mechanism of humors will contribute to the effective foreign language teaching. in addition, it helps a lot in the social and interpersonal communication. key words: english humor, pragmatic apparatuses, functions, application摘 要幽默是人类日常生活的调味品，也是人类言语必不可少的一部分。它不仅在多种社会交往中起着改善人际关系的作用，而且已成为个人智慧，魅力和教育的象征。一直以来，幽默引起了许多领域中的学者的关注和兴趣。对幽默的研究已经从心理学、生理学和哲学等传统研究领域扩展到人类学、教育学、美学、社会学等更加广阔的领域和新兴学科中。随着语言学在理论上突飞猛进的发展,语用学为幽默研究提供了更新的视角。然而，到目前为止，从语用学角度对幽默语言进行的研究数量有限。此外，它们大多数只是将语用学的某一个理论（如合作原则）应用于幽默研究。本文基于七个主流语用学理论，对出现在英语会话中的言语幽默进行了较为全面的研究。通过在由合作原则、礼貌原则、面子理论、关联理论、指示语、语用前提以及言语行为理论等构筑的语用学理论框架中对大量的英语幽默语料的分析，本文探讨了幽默生成和理解的语用机制。本文研究发现，当合作原则和礼貌原则的准则被违反，当说话人和听话人的面子需要保护，当指示的自我中心法则被违反并由此产生指示映射现象，当语用前提被取消，或者当言语行为被误解时，就有可能产生幽默效果。而关联理论则为部分英语幽默的阐释提供了有用的理论机制。言语幽默可以满足人们在心理、情感、社会和交际的需求。对幽默的含义及其发生机制的正确理解有助于我们进行有效的外语教学。同时对社会和人际交往也起到一定的推动作用。关键词：英语幽默；语用机制；功能；应用iiicontentsacknowledgementsiabstract in englishiiabstract in chineseivchapter 1 introduction11.1 definitions of humor11.2 classifications of humors21.3 significance of the present research31.4 framework of the thesis4chapter 2 literature review62.1 traditional theories on humor62.1.1 superiority theory62.1.2 release theory72.1.3 incongruity theory82.2 modern linguistic theories on humor92.2.1 script-based semantic theory of humor92.2.2 general theory of verbal humor102.2.3 audience-based theory of verbal humor10chapter 3 pragmatic apparatuses for humor production and interpretation113.1 cooperative principle and its violation113.1.1 cooperative principle113.1.2 humors created by flouting the cooperative principle12 flouting the quantity maxim12 flouting the quality maxim15 flouting the relation maxim15 flouting the manner maxim163.2 politeness principle and its violation193.2.1 politeness principle193.2.2 humors created by flouting the politeness principle213.3 face theory and its application233.3.1 face theory233.3.2 application of face theory in humor production24 saving the speakers face by humor25 saving the hearers face by humor273.4 relevance theory and humor interpretation293.4.1 relevance theory293.4.2 humor interpretation guided by relevance theory303.5 deictic egocentricity and deictic projection343.5.1 deictic egocentricity343.5.2 deictic projection and humor creation353.6 presupposition and its cancellation363.6.1 presupposition363.6.2 cancellation of the presupposition373.7 speech acts and their misunderstanding383.7.1 speech acts383.7.2 misunderstanding of speech acts and humor creation39chapter 4 pragmatic functions of humors424.1 psychological and affective functions424.2 social and interpersonal functions42chapter 5 practical application of humors455.1 pedagogical application455.1.1 pedagogical significance in efl teaching455.1.2 pedagogical suggestions465.2 communicative application475.2.1 amusing people and adorning life485.2.2 enhancing affection and improving interpersonal relationship485.2.3 defending self and criticizing evils48chapter 6 conclusion506.1 major findings506.2 limitations and suggestions for future researches50bibliography52appendix: published papers during study of m.a.55chapter 1 introductionit can be found that humor exists around us closely. whenever you open a newspaper or a magazine, turn on the television or the radio, surf on the internet, you are sure to be faced with humors of different kinds. these and those humors, like the seasoning of a dish, add much color to life. for years, the study of humor has remained the interest of many scholors in different fields, for example, the earliest explanations and studies of this intriguing human behavior, done from the philosophcial and psychological perspectives, can be traced back to the greeks: from plato and aristotle, through kant, to the more recent bergerson and freud. in addition, many other approaches, like anthropological and sociological ones, have been adopted to the problem. however, in view of the key role of humor in the understanding of our daily communicaiton, this thesis will make an analysis of humor from the perspective of pragmatics, with english as its object.1.1 definitions of humor although humor has been studied by different scholars from different angles for thousands of years, there is still quite a lot of controversies about what humor is. goldstein and mcghee do not even attempt to define humor “for the simple reason that there is no single definition of humor acceptable to all investigators in the area” (apte, 1985: 13). though a formidable task it appears, a feasible definition of the key term “humor” has to be presented since it is the very subject matter in this thesis. the term “humor” originates from the latin word “liquid”, “fluid”, or “moisture”. ancient physiologists tend to consider mans temperament as the balance of four kinds of humors, namely, choler, melancholy, blood and phlegm. in plato and aristotles views, laughter was regarded as the proper correction of the excessive, the ridiculous and the ludicrous. those who possess the excess of any humor are called “humorists”, i.e. objects of laughter. gradually, the four kinds of humors are respectively related to personality of four kinds. and therefore, humor comes to mean character or style, specifically, a fanciful or capricious state of mind. in modern usage, humor means the comic, the laughable, or that which is funny, witty, or in any way makes people laugh. in this period, the title of “humorists” comes to signify those who are amusing, facetious and skilled in the literary or artistic expression of humor.according to websters collegiate dictionary (11th edition), part of the definitions of humor is as follows:(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.taking a closer look at the above three definitions, it can be obviously found that they emphasize something different: (a) defines humor as something that is someones attribute; (b) equates humor as a human cognitive faculty which functions in the perception of humor; (c) refers to the thing, idea or event that is of humor. similarly, many other scholars tend to emphasize different aspects of humor depending on their different research purposes and orientations. among the many definitions, the very two ones in a general sense by two famous humor scholars are worth to be quoted here.one scholar is attardo (1994), who defines humor as a technical term, covering anything that is (or may be) perceived as funny, amusing, or laughable. another one is raskin (1985), who, in the least restricted sense, proposes to consider “humor” as an interchangeable word with “funny”. as far as this thesis is concerned, it suffices to adopt a general definition of humor, taking it as an all-inclusive term. or put it in another way, humor in this thesis covers the types of stimulation which are perceived as funny and which can elicit laughter, or which at least intends to do so. 1.2 classifications of humorsthere exists a widespread disagreement as to the taxonomy of humors. for example, freud (1960) divides jokes into verbal and conceptual ones and points out that humor can be divided into innocent humor and tendentious humor. pocheptsov (1981) divides humor into situational humor and linguistic humor. koller (1988), when studying the connection between social structure and humor, divides humor into many categories, say, religious, educational, political, military, occupational, family, medical, and sports. palmer (1994) makes a distinction between comic texts (formalized humor) and unscripted humor of everyday life. among them, pocheptsovs classification is the most widely accepted one. according to his classification, situational humor is a kind of humor by which humorous information can be transferred without using the language. the humorous meaning must depend on the context. situational humor has multifarious forms, such as pantomime, farce and cartoon. while linguistic humor is quite a different one, which expresses humor just through language. the emergence of linguistic humor is due to peoples different understanding of the surface or implied meaning of utterances conveyed, e.g. they share different knowledge of the physical world, they possess different cognitive abilities, etc. for that consideration, this thesis will make an analysis of the linguistic humor, including both written ones and spoken ones, or more exactly, linguistic humor in english communication.humorous utterances are produced by the utterer in some specific context, in this case, the task of the hearer is to find out the real intention of the utterer by means of contexts, linguistic or non-linguistic. from the pragmatic points of view, there are two kinds of linguistic humor. one is the pure amusing kind, which is intentionally produced by communicators in order to create a light atmosphere. the other is termed as sarcastic linguistic humor, which aims to function as irony, persuasion, warning or self-denigration. 1.3 significance of the present research this study is of particular significance from both theoretical and practical angles. theoretically, this study of humor functions as a specific application of pragmatics. pragmatics, a rather new field in linguistics, studies how humans interpret language and use it in real communication. it is mainly concerned with such topics as deixis, conversational implicature, presupposition, speech acts and relevance theory, etc. the previous researches have paid much attention to the relationship between humor and pragmatics and they concentrate more on the creation of humor through flouting of the cooperative principle. up till now, the specific all-round pragmatic researches of humor are quite limited in sum. for that matter, this thesis tries to analyze english humor from different aspects of pragmatics. through this analysis, a better understanding of how the humorous effects are realized will be attained. as such, a comprehensive knowledge as to how to create humor and how to appreciate humor is obtained. practically, the exploration of english humor and its application can shed some light on pedagogy. it is known that nowadays in china, more and more attention has been put on creating a positive environment for students language learning, and people have realized that humor is an effective means in efl, however, the implementation of integrating humor with the whole of teaching effectively is far from satisfactory. however, this thesis will, more or less, serve to be a great help in the realization of the good mixing of humor and english teaching with resort to its in-depth pragmatic analysis of english humor, and therefore, is of great practical significance.in a word, no matter whether it is seen from the theoretical angle or the practical one, it can be seen that the study on humor from the pragmatic perspective is quite important and necessary. 1.4 framework of the thesisthis thesis is composed of six parts. chapter one gives a brief introduction of humor, including the definitions of humor, the classifications of humor, the significance of the present research, as well as the framework of the whole thesis. chapter two presents the previous researches on humor, done from traditional theories and modern linguistic theories. chapter three serves as the key of this thesis. based on the previous research findings of humor, this chapter provides the pragmatic apparatuses for humor production and interpretation through a large number of examples based on cooperative principle, politeness principle, face theory, relevance theory, deixis, presupposition, and speech act theories respectively. chapter four is devoted to the study of pragmatic functions of humors. chapter five discusses two practical application of the humors: pedagogical and communicative. chapter six makes a summary of the major findings of this thesis and offers some limitations and suggestions for future research.chapter 2 literature reviewdifferent researches of humor appear in different periods. traditionally, there exist three dominant theories: superiority theory, release theory and incongruity theory. currently, the script-based semantic theory, general theory, and audience-based theory have held peoples attention. in the following, this chapter will make a detailed account of the six theories mentioned above.2.1 traditional theories on humor2.1.1 superiority theorysuperiority theory, which is also called degradation, disparagement and derision theory, has a long history. it derives from aristotles (384-322 bc) view that comedy is based on an imitation of men worse than the average, of people who are ridiculous, which accounts for the pleasure one feels when the less fortunate and less desirable figures are laughed at. though it deals with the nature of comedy, it can also be applied to humor, because in the broad sense the two are interchangeable though comedy is, technically speaking, a literary form (berger, 1993). plato (427-347bc) suggests that all humor can be explained by this theory. people laugh whenever someone or something is degraded, so they can feel themselves superior. later, thomas hobbes develops their views in that laughter bears on ones social status and superiority over ones peers. he (1651) explains that humans are in constant competitions with each other, and looking for shortcomings of other persons. laughing at the inferior builds our self-confidence and makes us feel superior. because of their emphasis on the interpersonal and social aspect of humor, superiority theories are of considerable interest to the sociolinguists of humor.however, this theory is not so popular now as it was in ancient times, because not any humor can display a superior-inferior relationship and the feelings of superiority is not enough to explain why people laugh. whats more, sometimes instead of being amused, we would rather pity those who are inferior and suffering. 2.1.2 release theorythis theory is primarily a psychological one about humor, closely associated with freud. in his book, jokes and their relation to unconscious (1960), freud states that there is a strong link between the unconscious and both jokes and dreams, and that the latter two employ similar techniques (condensation, displacement) to carry out their “joke-work” and “dream-work”. as for the material that causes amusement, he distinguishes between jokes (wits), the comic, and humor. each of them involves a saving or economizing of energy which, having become unnecessary for its normal purposes, is dissipated in the form of laughter: jokes allow economies in expenditure on inhibition and suppression, the comic on ideation (thinking), and humor on emotion. freud explains that the “psychic energy” in our body is built as an aid for suppressing feelings in taboo areas, like sex or death. when this energy is released, laughter can be experienced, not only because this energy is released, but also these taboo thoughts are being entertained. a more conventional version of this theory is that a pleasant sensation is experienced when humor replaces negative feelings like pains or sadness.freud (1960) comments that the feeling of propriety that prevents us from insulting someone directly can be overcome if the insult is expressed in the form of a joke. lippitt (1995) argues that this is not always the case. under some circumstances, even when the butt of the joke feels obliged to join in the pleasure, rather than be seen as lacking a sense of humor, he can be left looking foolish while the joker superior. that is, such an insult joking can be even more wounding than a direct insult, in which the insulters behavior may be socially censored and the insulted person receives sympathy.herbert spencer (1977) also discusses release in relation to laughter, but his is chiefly a physiological explanation, w