硕士论文-言语幽默的语用分析

Acknowledgements This paper, which is my graduate thesis, could not have been written without the support of a number of people. I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness and gratitude to them all. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge a special debt to my deeply respected supervisor, Professor Zheng Zhijin. He has been giving me the most valuable advice and encouragement. His rigorous attitude towards research impressed me greatly and will certainly have great influence upon my future study. Secondly, I am also greatly indebted to Professor Xi Xiaoming , Professor Ding Tingsen, Professor Xia Shangli, Professor Liang Mei, Associate Professor Ma Shuhong for having introduced me the charm of linguistics, literature, translation, second language acquisition. The benefits that I have gained from their profound knowledge, remarkable expertise and intellectual ingenuity will be of everlasting significance to my future research. Their lively and enlightening lectures have enriched my knowledge in literature, translation, cross-cultural communication. Thirdly, I also owe sincere thanks to all the teachers in the School of Foreign Languages of Guizhou Normal University, whose lectures in different fields of linguistics and literature not only gave me great enlightenment in language learning and teaching, but also led me into a new world of doing research. Finally, my thanks also go to all my fellow postgraduate students and my family who have passed on to me their kind help and regards in the process of producing the present thesis. Without the necessary help of the above-mentioned people, this paper could never have been duly completed. Contents CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION1 1.1 DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF HUMOR.1 1.2 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUMOR AND JOKES.2 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THESIS.3 1.4 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS.4 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2.1 AN OVERVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES.5 2.2 CLASSICAL THEORIES OF HUMOR RESEARCH5 2.2.1 The Superiority Theory6 2.2.2 The Release Theory .6 2.2.3 The Incongruity Theory.7 2.3 MODERN LINGUISTIC HUMOR THEORIES.8 2.3.1 The Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) 8 2.3.2 The General Theory of Verbal Humor.9 2.4 THE PRAGMATIC STUDIES OF HUMOR9 CHAPTER THREE LAUGHTER-MAKING MECHANISM.12 3.1 THE CAUSES FOR HUMOR PRODUCTION12 3.1.1 Incongruity.12 3.1.2 The Cognitive Context.15 3.1.3 Cultural Factors17 3.1.4 Gender and Age19 3.2 SUMMARY.21 CHAPTER FOUR THE PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF VERBAL HUMOR.23 4.1 HUMOR CREATED BY FLOUTING THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE.23 4.1.1 A Brief Review of Cooperative Principle23 4.1.2 Humor Created by Flouting of the Maxims.24 4.2 HUMOR CREATED BY FLOUTING THE SPEECH ACT THEORY.28 4.2.1 Theoretic Review of Speech Act Theory.28 4.2.2 Sample Analysis.28 4.3 HUMOR CREATED BY FLOUTING THE RELEVANCE THEORY.29 4.3.1 A Brief Introduction of Relevance Theory.29 4.3.2 Sample Analysis.31 4.4 HUMOR CREATED BY FLOUTING THE POLITENESS PRINCIPLE32 4.4.1 The Maxims of Politeness Principle32 4.4.2 Humor Created by Abiding the Politeness Principle.33 4.4.3 Humor Created by Violating the Politeness Principle .34 4.5 HUMOR CREATED BY FLOUTING THE PRESUPPOSITION35 4.6 HUMOR CREATED BY DELIBERATED MISINTERPRETATION AND MISUNDERSTANDING.36 4.6.1 The Difference Between Deliberated Misinterpretation and Misunderstanding37 4.6.2 Trigger Conditions for Deliberate Misinterpretation.39 4.6.3 Operational Mechanisms of Deliberate Misinterpretation.40 4.7 SUMMARY.43 CHAPTER FIVE THE PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF VERBAL HUMOR.44 5.1 ACTIVATING ATMOSPHERE.44 5.2 ALLEVIATING CONFLICT44 5.3 ATTACKING AND COUNTER-ATTACKING45 5.4 FACE-SAVING46 CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSION48 6.1 GENERAL SUMMARY.48 6.2 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY.49 BIBLIOGRAPHY51 i Abstract As a language phenomenon, humor is pervasive in literature, in the movies, on televisions, etc. Humor plays important roles in our daily communication. Appropriate humor can not only produce laughter, but also help people release tension, eliminate embarrassment and survive the predicament as well. Across history, many researchers have studied and analyzed humor from different angles, such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics, etc. By contrast, linguistics is rather a newcomer and pragmatic study of verbal humor is particularly the case. Through extensive literature review, and particularly from the perspective of pragmatics, this paper illustrates the application of various pragmatic contents to interpreting the realization of humor with examples with an aim to systematically reveal the realizations of humor and the explanations to humors realization by application of various pragmatic contents. Thus, humor can be better interpreted and used. In present study, firstly, two confused definitions, namely, humor and jokes will be distinguished. Secondly, the writer tries to explore the laughter-making mechanism. Through analysis, the writer finds that cognitive factors are also important laughter-making factors besides incongruity that has been proved to be successful to create humor. Cognitive factors include the physical environment, mutual knowledge and cognitive ability of communicators. It is useful to help us construct the laughter-making mechanisms. Thirdly, some basic pragmatic contents, such as Grices Cooperative Principle, Austins Speech Act Theory, SpeberWilsons Relevance Theory , Leechs Politeness Principle, Presupposition, and one pragmatic strategy- Deliberate Misinterpretation will be used to elaborate the realization of humor. We hope that we can find more evidence in pragmatics for the production of humor. Finally, the paper explores some important pragmatic functions of verbal humor. We discuss how humor can be used to activate atmosphere, alleviate conflict, attack and counter-attack, and save ones faces. ii The writer hopes that the study can make its own contribution to the systematic study on humor, and that increasing people can experience the glamour of humor. Key words: verbal humor; pragmatics; incongruity; cooperative principle; deliberate misinterpretation iii 摘 要 幽默，作为一种语言现象在文学 、影视和日常交际中频频出现。恰到好处 的幽默不但可以使人发笑，还具有缓解气氛、消除紧张和摆脱困境的特征。语言 学家们对幽默的研究涉及到哲学，心理学，社会学，语言学等众多领域。与这些 领域比较起来，使用语言学尤其是语用学对话语幽默的研究历史相对较短。本文 从语用学的角度出发，通过大量的文献阅读，以示例的形式全面地综述语用学内 容在解释幽默生成中的运用， 旨在系统揭示幽默的实现形式及各种语用内容对幽 默生成的解释，进而使我们能更好地理解和运用幽默。 本文首先将对幽默和笑话这两个容易混淆的概念以示例加以区别。其次，作 者将试图找出言语幽默的制笑机制。 从大量的分析看来除了不协调这一已经被证 明对言语幽默的产生具有解释力的因素外， 作者还发现认知因素的解释力也不容 忽视，它包括交流者所处的共同环境 、共同的背景知识以及自身的认知能力。 接下来作者将分别使用语用学的一些基本内容，例如合作原则，言语行为理论， 关联理论，礼貌原则，前提，及刻意曲解这一特殊的语用策略来剖析语用内容对 言语幽默的生成解释。 希望能在语用学内容里为言语幽默的生成找出更多的理论 依据。最后，本文将探讨言语幽默的语用功能。论述人们是如何利用言语幽默来 活跃气氛 、缓和矛盾 、攻击与反攻击以及挽救面子的。 作者希望本研究对幽默话语全面系统的研究能做出相应的贡献， 并能让更多 的人体会到言语幽默的魅力。 关键词关键词：言语幽默；语用学；不和谐；合作原则；刻意曲解 1 A Pragmatic Approach to the Understanding of Verbal Humor Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Definition and Classification of Humor Humor is a common phenomenon, which plays important roles in many aspects of our daily lives. Over thousands of years, humor has been extensively studied in many fields, such as psychology, physiology and philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. Until recently, it has been studied within the scope of linguistics. However, what is humor? The English term “humour” or “humor”, which derived from the Latin word for “liquid”, “fluid” or “moisture”. As times went by, the word “humor” lost its original meaning and came to be used in its present sense. As to the definition of humor, no agreement has been reached yet. Different people have different views and thus different interpretations came into being. Aristotle once defined humor as incongruity, anything ludicrous contains some defect or ugliness, which is not painful or destructive. Sigmund Frued thought that enjoyment from humor depended on the release of suppressed tendencies in humor behavior. Even some authoritative dictionaries define humor in different ways. In Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English, it is defined as: (1) capacity to cause or feel amusement (2) A persons state of mind. In Longman Dictionary of English Language Culture, it is defined as the ability to understand and enjoy what is funny and makes people laugh. Although the definitions are not completely the same, we still can find something in common: Firstly, there should be human participants in the act. The speaker and the hearer play an important role in the humorous utterance. Secondly, the occurrence of humor should refer to the ability of people who are capable of producing and receiving what is funny and laughable. Thirdly, in any case something must happen in 2 a humor act, which refers to something people have seen, heard or thought. As to the classification of humor, Pocheplsov (1981) divided humor into two kinds. One is situational humor; the other is linguistic humor or verbal humor. Situational humor is situation-oriented, such as Monkeys mimic human beings behavior, and little babies learn to walk. Both of their awkward and vivid postures are situational humor. Verbal humor refers to text-oriented humor, both written and spoken. It is realized by languages. In this paper, the writer mainly talks about the verbal humor. 1.2 Differences Between Humor and Jokes Humor and jokes are two relative and distinctive concepts. The writer got the two definitions in the Oxford Illustrated English-Chinese Dictionary. Humor means the quality of being amusing or comic; the ability to perceive or express humor or take a joke, whereas jokes refer to a thing said or done to excite laughter; a ridiculous person or thing. From the definitions we can see that humor is a kind of quality. Its abstract and invisible. Laughable or amusing seems to be the essence of humor. On the contrary, jokes are kind of words in possession of humorous characteristic, which are concrete and visible. To distinguish these two definitions better, the writer takes the following two examples: (1) (After dating for some months, the girl wants the boy to make a proposal for marriage. But the boy does not want to marry at present.) “Darling, I want to dance like this forever.” the girl said. “Dont you ever want to improve?” the boy asked. (He, 2004: 166) (2) A boy goes to a pet shop to buy a parrot. There he sees a parrot with a red string tied to its left leg and a green string tied to its right leg. He asks the owner the significance of the string. “Well, this is a lightly trained parrot. If you pull the red string he speaks French, if you pull the green string he 3 speaks German,” replies the shopkeeper. “And what happens if I pull both the strings?” the curious shopper inquiries surprisedly. “I fall of my perch, you fool!” screeches the parrot. (College English, 2002: 27) Its obvious that the first example is a humorous story, while the second is a joke. Jokes can be purposely written for peoples enjoyment, which may or may not happen in reality, or be aroused unconsciously by people. By contrast, humor is often created on purpose. People deliberately adopt the humorous way to reach a certain purpose. 1.3 Research Questions and the Significance of the Thesis Since humor is an important part of a language, which exists in all kinds of human communication. There are quite a few reasons for choosing verbal humor as the objective of the present study. Firstly, studying on humor from pragmatic perspective can help us better know the production of humor. In this paper, the writer tries to study the following two questions: (1) whether are there more factors related to the production of humor besides incongruity that has been proved to be a working factor to elicit laughter? (2) can we find more evidence in pragmatics for the realization and comprehension of humor besides some major principles and theories? Through reading some papers that people wrote on humor. The writer finds that most writers analyze verbal humor from the perspective of pragmatics and semantics. From pragmatic perspective, various theories have been used to explain humor, among them, the Speech Act Theory, the Relevance Theory, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle were mostly used. In this paper, the writer concludes more humorous examples which can be interpreted by these pragmatic theories mentioned above. One objective of the thesis will concentrate on how to understand humorous utterances with those pragmatic theories. Besides these principles, the writer wants to find whether there are other pragmatic contents that can be used to analyze the production of verbal humor. Finally, the study on the functions of humor may help us further understand the importance of humor, and how humor embodies a persons 4 competence of active use of language. The research method is to apply some of the major pragmatic theories, namely, Cooperative Principle, Speech Act Theory, Relevance Theory, and Politeness Principle to the analysis of what factors have an influence on the understanding of verbal humor. 1.4 The Organization of the Thesis Chapter One is an introductory chapter, which offers an overview of humor, its definition and classification. Two vague definitions will be distinguished. They are jokes and humor. Chapter Two is the literature review which reviews the three classical theories of humor including superiority, release, and incongruity and two modern linguistic studies of humor. Chapter Three illustrates the laugh-making mechanism from those aspects, including incongruity, cognitive and cultural factors, etc. Chapter Four and Five form the body of the thesis which analyze the production and comprehension of verbal humor by employing the pragmatic theories, and discuss some functions of verbal humor. The last chapter is conclusion, which summarizes the key ideas discussed in the thesis, and offers some suggestions for further study. 5 Chapter Two Literature Review 2.1 An Overview of Related Studies Humor has attracted attention from psychologists, philosophers and literal critics for thousands of years. There are a lot of research works on humor which are conducted from them. With the development of social science, scholars deal with such a language phenomenon from anthropology, sociology, linguistics and even aesthetics, etc. Compared with the other member of this multidisciplinary subject of humor, linguistics is rather a new comer, especially from the pragmatic perspective. However, we have witnessed a steady increase of interest and numerous participants in the linguistic study of verbal humor during the past two decades. Meanwhile, the past twenty years also experienced the prosperity of pragmatics as an independent branch of linguistics. In the field of linguistics, some linguists concentrate on the perspective of semantics, pragmatics, rhetoric, psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics to study humorous utterances. Some western linguists such as Raskin, Attardo, and Pocheptsov have made great contributions to such fields. The pragmatic study of humor has been new and rather challenging, not only for its comparatively short history, but also for its lack of appropriate system for scientific analysis combing both pragmatic methodologies and the verbal humor as the subject. In spite of this, many pragmatic principles can be used to analyze humorous utterances, among them, Cooperative Principle, the Speech Act Theory, the Relevance Theory, and the Politeness Principle were applied most. Talking about the study of humor, we should mention several theories. The writer divides them into classical and modern linguistic humor theories. 2.2 Classical Theories of Humor Research The study of humor has a long history. It is originally extensively by famous 6 philosophers, such as Plato, Aristotle, etc, subsequently, by literary critics, and recently by psychologists, sociologists and linguists from various perspectives. Theories on humor are also abundant. A commonly accepted classification divides traditional theories of humor into three groups: the superiority theory, the release theory, and the incongruity theory. 2.2.1 The Superiority Theory The Superiority Theory is characterized by ones cognitive comparison of self against others on the basis of intelligence, beauty, strength, wealth and in a subsequent personally-experienced elation, triumph, or victory as a result of such self-others comparisons. It is considered to follow the ideas of the British philosophy Thomas Hobbes (1651) which stresses the relationship between the speaker and the audience and their attitudes towards one another. As Plato points out that humor is some kind of malice towards people that are being considered relatively powerless. Hobbes (1651) further explains that humans are in a constant competition with each other, looking for the shortcomings of other people. He considers laughter as an expression of a sudden realization that we are better than others, an expression of “sudden glory”. By this theory, researchers mean that we laugh at other peoples infirmities, particularly our enemies .This approach emphasizes the social-affective aspect of humor. 2.2.2 The Release Theory The Release Theory is primarily a psychological theory of humor. It maintains that humor provides relief for people by releasing tensions, psychic pressure, and that humor releases one from inhibition, conventions and laws. The most influential proponent of the theory is Freud. Freud (1928) spoke of humor as a means by which the superego can be fooled to allow the id to release unconscious, sexual and aggressive drives. According to Raskin (1985), the basic principle of it is that laughter provides relief for mental, nervous, and psychic energy and thus ensures homeostasis 7 after a struggle, tension, strain, etc. And according to Weisenberg, humor allows for the release of psychic energy that is accumulated in repression whose release produces pleasure. 2.2.3 The Incongruity Theory The Incongruity Theory is the most widely accepted theory of humor to