English Verbal Humour- A Pragmatic Analysis 英语毕业论文.docVIP

English Verbal Humour: A Pragmatic Analysis Abstract As a language phenomenon, humor is pervasive in literature, in the movies, on televisions, in our life, etc. Humor plays an important role in Chinese and American culture. In daily communication, humor ameliorates human relations, improves the communicative atmosphere, but also is endowed with the symbol of personal wit, glamour and education. Therefore, more and more scholars in all kinds of the fields are paying a good deal of attention to its nature. This paper aims at analyzing one main category of verbal humor from a pragmatic perspective, hoping to find some pragmatic guidelines that direct humor production and understanding. The research method is to apply some of the major pragmatic theories, namely, Austin and Searle’s Speech Act Theory, Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory and Leech and Levinson’s Politeness Principle to the analysis of what factors have an influence on the understanding of verbal humor. Key words: verbal humor；pragmatics；Speech Act Theory；Relevance Theory； Politeness Principle 内容摘要 幽默，作为一种语言现象在文学、影视、广告和日常交际中频频出现，给人以轻松、诙谐之感，不仅活跃气氛、缓和矛盾，而且提高人们的精神境界，因此越来越多的语言学、心理学、社会学、交际学及其他学科的学者，开始对幽默进行广泛的关注。本文试图从语用学领域的重要理论，奥斯汀和舍尔的言语行为理论、斯珀伯和威尔逊的关联理论、利奇和列文森的礼貌原则出发分析言语幽默产生和理解的制约因素。 关键词：言语幽默；语用学；言语行为理论；关联理论；礼貌原则 Contents Abstract(English)…………………………………………………………………........ i Abstract (Chinese)…………………………………………...... …………………....... ii 1. Introduction………………………………………….………………………....... 1 2. Definitions of Humor…………………………………………………………..... 1 3. Types of English Verbal Humour……………………………………………...... 2 4. The Pragmatic Analysis of English Verbal Humour…………………………..... 4 4.1 Conversational Implicature in English Verbal Humour………………...... 4 4.2 Politeness Principle in English Verbal Humour………………………...... 5 4.2.1 A Review of Politeness Principle……………………………….... 5 4.2.2 Sample Analyses of Humor Using Politeness Principle………...... 6 4.3 Relevance Theory in English Verbal Humour…………………………..... 7 4.3.1 A Review of Re