合作原则与幽默

The Cooperative Principle and Humor Speech The Cooperative Principle, proposed by Oxford philosopher Herbert Paul Grice in 1975, is a core and basic regularity to restrict people‟s language in communication. He noticed that in daily life people seem to follow this principle so as to achieve the most effective communication. It formulates what should be said and how much should be said during communication. However, humor speech always deliberately violate this principle and its maxims in order to create humorous effect such as exaggeration, satire, criticism, comedy and other effects. The violation of this principle may be the origin of humor speech. A better understanding and appreciation can be achieved with the pragmatic analysis of concrete humor speech under the cooperative principle.

The content of the cooperative principle is as follows: “Make your conversational 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”. To specify the CP future, Grice introduced four categories of maxims:

QUANTITY

1.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 required

QUALITY

Try to make your contribution one that is true.

1.Do not say what you believe to be false.

2.Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

RELATION

Be relevant.

MANNER

Be perspicuous.

1.Avoid obscurity of expression.

2.Avoid ambiguity.

3.Be brief.

4.Be orderly.

㈠The violation of quantity maxim and the humor speech:

The quantity maxim of the cooperative principle requires speakers to offer as much information as needed, not too much or little. If speakers give too much information or too little, it will give listeners a vast space to imagine or to guess, and then arise a series of humorous effect. Take two examples to analyze.

“Now children,” a teacher said, “have anyone of you ever made someone else glad?”

“Please, teacher, I‟ve made someone glad yesterday.” said a boy.

“Well done, can you tell us who that was and how you made him or her glad?”

“OK, I went to see my grandma and stayed with her three hours. Then I

said to her that I was going to home. Then she said: …well, I am too glad!‟.”

The grandma‟s answer makes us laugh. Why? Because she does not give enough information to explain the reason why she is glad but offer readers a huge imagine space to guess and to reason. The readers may assume that the boy is too naughty, always runs here and there and makes a lot of troubles, so she is happy when the boy goes home. It violates the maxim of quantity, but it also creates a humorous effect. Another example:

A: why don‟t you study hard?

B: The more we study, the more we know. The more we know, the more we forget. The more we forget, the less we know. The less we know, the less we forget. The less we forget, the more we know. So why study hard?

In this humor speech, we know that B‟s answer is far more than what we need. All he says is just to express one idea “study is no use”. It evidently violates the maxim of quantity, but it creates exaggeration effect and makes people laugh, meanwhile build a relaxing atmosphere.

㈡The violation of quality maxim and the humor speech:

One day, John ran into his old friend Mrs. White and said: “how were you and your husband?”

Mrs. White answered sadly: “I stay at home alone and he has gone.”

John did not know that Mr. White died last week and said: “why do not you go with her?”

From this example, we know that John‟s question “why do not you go with her?”is the origin of his humorous effect. Think deeply, we can see that John said that for which he lacked adequate evidence. His assumption that Mr. White just went away from home for business or travelling is false or lacks of evidence. The humor rises from this point.

㈢The violation of relevant maxim and the humor speech: The violation of relevant maxim is widely used in humor speech. People trend to say something that seems to be irrelevant to content of communication in order to avoid troubles or to relieve tense situation or embarrassed atmosphere. Meanwhile the humor effect emerges. For instance:

I promised my girl friend a gold necklace for her birthday, but when the assistant quoted a price for one we liked, I let out a long and low whistle. “And how much are they then?” I asked, pointing to another tray. “You, sir,” replied the assistant, “about three long whistles.”

In this example, it is obvious that the assistant‟s answer is irrelevant to the price of the tray on the surface. There is no direct relation between three long whistles and the price of tray.

The assistant‟s answer in this way not only implies that the man cannot afford this tray but also relieves embarrassed tense. Furthermore, it gives arise to a humor effect. .

㈣The violation of manner maxim and the humor speech:

Grice‟s this maxim asks us not to say words or sentences which have two or more meanings. That is to say, we should avoid ambiguity when talk to others. If not, may