格莱斯合作原则理论指导下的《生活大爆炸》言语幽默研究英语论文

本科生毕业论文（设计）册

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专业英语教育

班级XXXX级英语教育X班

学生XXX

指导教师XX

XXXX大学本科毕业论文（设计）任务书

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论文（设计）题目：格莱斯合作原则理论指导下的《生活大爆炸》言语幽默研究学院： XXX学院专业：英语教育班级： XXX级英语教X班

学生姓名： XXX 学号： XXXX 指导教师： XX职称：副教授_

论文（设计）研究目标及主要任务

本论文的研究目标是探讨《生活大爆炸》中，违背合作原则产生的幽默。

其主要任务是通过分析这些幽默产生的原因帮助观众更好的理解幽默并培养幽默感。

2、论文（设计）的主要内容

本论文分为四章，第一章介绍进行该研究的原因、合作原则和《生活大爆炸》，第二章文献综述，第三章对《生活大爆炸》中违背合作原则产生的幽默案例。最后一章是对本论文的总结。

3、论文（设计）的基础条件及研究路线

本论文的基础条件是不同的学者对《生活大爆炸》中产生的幽默从不同角度进行研究。

研究路线是对《生活大爆炸》中违背合作原则产生的幽默的目的进行阐述，并将其分别应用在日常生活中和之后幽默情景剧的台词设计中。

4、主要参考文献

Attardo, Salvatore. 1994. Linguistic Theories of Humor.

New York : Mouton de Gruyter.

Chiaro , Delia. 1992. The language of Jokes: Analyzing Verbal Play

London and New York: Routledge.

Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. New York: Academic Press.

何兆熊，1989，《语用学概要》，上海：上海外语教育出版社。

胡壮麟，2006，《语言学教程》，北京：北京大学出版社。

教师： XX 年月日

教研室主任：年月

注：一式三份，学院（系）、指导教师、学生各一份

XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）开题报告书

XXX学院英语教育专业 XXX 届

XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述

本科生毕业论文

题目:格莱斯合作原则理论指导下的《生活大爆炸》言语幽默研究

作者姓名： XXX

指导教师： XX

所在学院： XXX学院

专业：英语教育

班级： XXX级X班

完成日期 2013 年 5 月 8 日

On Verbal Humor in Big Bang Theory under the Theoretical Framework of Grice’s Cooperative Principle

BY

XXX

Prof. XX , Tutor

A Thesis Submitted to Department of English

Language and Literature in Partial

Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in English

At XXXXUniversity

May 8th, 2013

Abstract

Humor，as the obbligato means of daily communication, has attracted much attention from academia for a long time. Life without humor is tedious and boring; People without humor are rigid and unpopular. Therefore, in order to have a better communication with others, people have to build the sense of humor. In this way, he/she can improve his/her personal charisma. Humor helps us live in harmony with others. It is unavoidable to have misunderstanding and tension with others during work and study. But humor can ease these problems quicker than angry words or quarrels. With it you can always keep on good terms with others.

This paper analyzes the humor generated by violation of Cooperative Principle, using Big Bang Theory as a corpus. The aim of this paper is to discover how the humor is generated by the violation of the Cooperative Principle. The author downloaded the video and subtitle firstly, based on the background laughter, analyzed the language humors in this TV series.

This paper tests and verifies the emerging of humor by violating the Cooperative Principle. The author hopes that this discovery can help more people understand and appreciate the humor in Big Bang Theory, at the same time their personal sense of humor can also be improved.

Key Words:Cooperative Principle Humor Big Bang Theory Violation

摘要

幽默是人类日常交际中不可缺少的方法手段，长期以来受到学术界的广泛关注。人们的生活离不开幽默。没有幽默的生活是单调乏味的，没有幽默感的人们是呆板、不受欢迎的。所以，为了能更好的跟别人交流沟通，人们需要培养幽默感。这样就可以更好的使用幽默，来增加个人魅力。幽默能帮助我们与他人和谐相处。在工作和学习中，与别人产生误会是不可避免的。但是，幽默比愤怒的言语或吵架更能缓解这类问题。有了幽默，你就能更好的与他们保持良好的关系。

本文以生活大爆炸为语料，对其中由于违反合作原则产生的幽默进行了分析，旨在通过这一研究来探讨剧中言语幽默的产生。作者先从网上下载视频和字幕，以观看过程中的背景笑声为依据，对剧中的言语幽默进行标注，进而对其进行分析。

本文验证了对合作原则违反会导致幽默产生。作者希望这一发现有助于人们更好的理解和欣赏《生活大爆炸》中的幽默，同时能提高自身的幽默感。

关键词：合作原则幽默《生活大爆炸》违反

Content Abstract...........................................................................................III 摘要...............................................................................................IV Content............................................................................................V 1．Introduction (1)

1.1 Rationale of the Study (1)

1.2 Cooperative Principle (2)

1.3 Big Bang Theory (3)

2．Literature Review (5)

2.1 Definition of Humor (5)

2.2 Classification of Humor (6)

2.3 Previous Studies of Humor (7)

3．Analysis of Verbal Humor in Big Bang Theory from

the Perspective of CP (9)

3.1 Humor Generated by Flouting the Maxim of Quality (10)

3.2 Humor Generated by Flouting the Maxim of Quantity (14)

3.3 Humor Generated by Flouting the Maxim of Relation (18)

3.4 Humor Generated by Flouting the Maxim of manner (21)

4．Conclusion (25)

Bibliography (26)

1．Introduction

“Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement”（Wikipedia）. It is a pervasive phenomenon, commonly embodied in newspapers, magazines, literatures, advertisements, TV series, films, etc. Not only does humor serve to close interpersonal relationships, but also to amuse the communication atmosphere. Nowadays in China, people, especially college students, are keen on Big Bang Theory. But most of them are confused about the humor in it. They can not understand the meaning of them. So it is necessary to do some research about humor in Big Bang Theory, which is helpful to both the better understanding of this series and the establishment of humor sense in our daily life. There are numerous humors in Big Bang Theory. In this paper, the author focus on the humors generated from the violation of Grice’s Cooperative Principle and its four sub-maxims. In our daily life, people technically have to obey the maxims of Cooperative Principle in order to make the conversation smoothly and continuously. But sometimes people usually violate the Cooperative Principle deliberately for some purposes, and this violation can generate humor.

1.1 Rationale of the Study

The reasons to analyze the verbal humor in American TV series Big Bang Theory from the perspective of Cooperative Principle are as follows:

Firstly, as a universal phenomenon, humor has drawn much attention of scholars from different aspects. The late 1970s witnesses a linguistic turn in humor research. At the same time, linguistics occupies an important position in the leading humor researches. With the development of pragmatic, there has been a considerable growth of pragmatic studies on humor. Grice’s Cooperative Principle is an important component of pragmatics. Ever since Cooperative Principle and its relative maxims

were formulated by Grice in 1975, many researches have tried their best to illustrate how humors are created by the violation of Cooperative Principle. And Grice’s Cooperative Principle has been an effective framework;

Secondly, compared with canned jokes, verbal joking or spontaneous humor does not draw much attention. Humor utterances feature largely in situational comedy. Big Bang Theory, as one of most popular sitcoms, contains numerous humor lines, which providing sufficient data source for the present study;

Thirdly, as we all know, a sitcom can not be acted out without dialogues or conversations, because the dialogues and conversations are the natural embodiment of humor. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with the verbal humor within linguistic fields.

1.2 Cooperative Principle

As what has been mentioned above, the intended aspect of this paper is a case study of verbal humor in American sitcom Big Bang Theory from the perspective of Cooperative Principle. In social science generally and linguistic specifically, the Cooperative Principle describes how people interact with each other. Herbert Paul Grice, Oxford philosopher, proposed Cooperative Principle and its relative theories in 1937. Listeners and speakers must speak cooperatively, in order to achieve the effective conversation in common social situations.

Grice does not, however, assume that all people should follow these maxims. Instead, he finds it is interesting when these maxims are flouted or violated. Flouting of the maxims may generate some other, hidden meaning. The importance is what was not said. For example: when the teacher says, "it is too hot here ", the hidden meaning of this sentence is, " Could you please open the door? " It is also bound to the context of this sentence. It is possible to flout a maxim intentionally or unconsciously and thereby to convey a different meaning from what has literally spoken.

1.3 Big Bang Theory

Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. It premiered on CBS on September 24, 2007. There are main five characters in this show.

Leonard Hofstadter, PHD, is an experimental physicist with an IQ of 173. He received his PHD at the age of 24. His hometown is New Jersey. In this serious, he is a straight man and shares an apartment with his friend Sheldon Cooper. The relationship between Leonard and Penny is one part of the main plots. They fell in love and then separated and then got together again.

Sheldon Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., PHD, SCD, is a very funny man. He came from Galveston, Texas. He was a child with an eidetic memory who began college at the age of 11. He is a genius and received many degrees. His IQ is 187. Sheldon, without understanding of irony and sarcasm, has exhibition of a strict adherence to routine. He is very egotistical and often boasts his own intelligence.

Penny, who comes from a small town outside of Omaha, Nebraska, works as a waitress and an occasional bartender She is pursuing an acting career but was not very successful so far.

Howard Wolowitz works as an aerospace engineer. He is Jewish and lives with his mother. As the only one in the four who has no PHD, he often defends this by pointing out that he has a master’s degree in engineering from MIT. He finally married Bernadette who is one of the best friends of Penny.

Raj Koothrappali, also has PHD. As a particle astrophysicist at Calteth he is very shy especially facing women because he is physically unable to talk to them unless he drinks alcohol.

These actors were first credited as guest stars and later promoted to main cast. Also there are many other actors who also made great contribution to this sitcom, such as, Amy Farrah Fowler, Bernadette Rostenkowshi-Wolowitz, both of whom were becoming Penny’s best friend. Much of the show focuses on science, particularly physics. The four main male characters are employed at Caltech and have

science-related occupations. The characters frequently banter about scientific theories or news (notably around the start of the show), and make science-related jokes.

2．Literature Review

Studies on verbal communication have been lasted for a long history, because many researchers have approached this subject from various fields and different perspectives. This chapter reviews the literature related to the point of this study. We begin with the definition of the humor, the key word of this study. For better understanding of humor, the classification of humor will follow. Then there will be a review of the previous studies on humor.

2.1 Definition of Humor

Humor, as a pervasive phenomenon, does not have a satisfying definition. It is often desired and enjoyed in many aspects of our daily life. It brings us happiness. It helps to set up good self image and establish good social relationship. And also, it can deal with some embarrassing situations. Humor can be defined variously due to the different perspectives from which it studied.

Etymologically speaking, humor is a Latin word meaning liquid，fluid or moisture. It means body fluids in medical language, and people are believed to be comprised of four specific fluids. They are called blood，phlegm, choler and melancholy. It gets into Middle English through French then. And it still remains primarily a technical term related to the humor theory of temperament and humeral pathology. Nowadays, humor has evolved into a kind of philosophical life attitude and become a useful tool to positively handle weakness and flaws of human nature and the world as well. Physiologically, humor is defined as " a way of communication in which a intricate mental stimulus illuminates, amuses, or come to a stereotyped predictable response: the laugher reflection ". Spontaneous laughter is generated by

the contraction of fifteen facial muscles in a stereotyped pattern and accompanied by altered breathing. All in all, there has no fixed definition of humor but it is ubiquitous that people can not ignore it and it is also a way of communication either.

2.2 Classification of Humor

Humor is too common to be classified. Viewed from different angles, it falls into different groups. Humor can be divided into adults’ and children's based on different recipients. It can also be divided, seen from its content, into political humor, ethic humor, religious humor, organizational humor, family humor, sex humor and so on. From the rhetorical perspective, humor can be divided into satire，anecdote, irony, parody，farce, comedy, cartoon, joke, pun, etc. Although the classification of humor is hard, many a researchers take pains to classify it. There are verbal, visual and physical humor, with verbal humor plays on words, visual humor on images and physical humor on actions. Pocheptsov divides humor into two major types, that is, situational humor and language humor. The language humor has the same meaning with verbal humor. Yang group humor into red, gray and black with red humor begs justice, gray humor embodies cheap laughter and black humor, which also brings about laughter, causes one to recall to himself his worst fears viewed from a humorous angle and then feel painful, distressed and miserable.

2.3 Previous Studies of Humor

The Chinese name of Humor was first seen in Lin Yutang’s On the Translation of Humor. It is a transliteration from the English world Humor, usually thought to contain humor, ridicule, interesting and funny significance. Theory of humor has become an independent status disciplines. Researching for humor can date back to the time of Aristotle, ancient Greek, and then constantly developed by the disciplines of mutual collaboration. Here is the study of English humor in China during recent years.

In the earlier years, researches of humor are from the point of view of

psychology, rhetoric, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, aesthetic. Till the 1970s did the study from the linguistic point of view began. The study of humor has the nature of complexity and multidiscipline. That is why humor has no satisfying definition so far, and also there is no uniform classification. It is undeniable that study of humor in China has made a great progress in recent years, whether it is in the line-up of the research team or the depth and breadth. In recent years, most of the study are made from the point of the cognitive model, the psychological mechanism etc. What’s more, the corpuses of the selected language are various, such as Russian, Japanese, English etc.

2.3.1 Semantic Perspective

Raskin(1985)’s theory and Attardo & Raskin’s general theory of verbal humor are two important theories of the study of humor from the perspective of semantic theory. Shi Jing(2000) analyzed the ambiguity humor combined with striking examples from the perspective of voice, lexical, syntactic, and pointed out that ambiguity is a common means of humor. The pun is the use of the voice and the words ambiguity.

2.3.2 Pragmatic Perspective

With the brace of pragmatic theory, scholars analyze more in pragmatics than semantics. For example, Zhang Shujing (1998), Yan Weihua (2002), Zuo Ziming (2003), Zhao Ying (2006) quoted a large number of fresh and interesting examples demonstrated the generation of looks like a violation of the principle of cooperation but in reality or the opposite, can lead to humor. Tu Jing (2003) points out that the association has a very strong explanatory power of the theory of humor discourse. Wang Yong (2001) uses Relevance Theory to explain the humor as verbal communication, taking into account the system of humor laugh mechanism and communicative intent. In addition to an example of relevance theory to analyze humor, this theory in recent years has also been used to study

2.3.3 Functional Perspective

Fan Xiaotian analyzes the humor discourse and discourse structure trend, finding out the underlying causes of the humor. Humor discourse register include three elements language field, tenor and mode. From the perspective of discourse function, humor chapter has a unique linguistic feature, such as convergence and coherence.

3．Ways to Generate Humor in Big Bang Theory from the Perspective of Cooperative Principle

As is known in chapter one, verbal humor in Big Bang Theory is the corpus of this study. The four maxims of Cooperative Principle are the premise of conversation and the principles that people should follow during communication. In the ideal case, speakers strictly abide by these four criteria, so their conversations are very effective and reasonable. But, in our real life, not everyone in any case will strictly adhere to these guidelines. On the contrary, sometimes the speaker would deliberately violate some of the principles to achieve their communicative purpose, which could produce some unexpected and extraordinary expression, such as ambiguity, irrelevant answer. It caused many humors in English. The session is a common form of oral language and also a successful means of communication to exchange information and express ideas. A successful session is the fruit of joint efforts of participants in the conversation. Participants must have a common communicative purpose, through the session they want to reach a goal. This goal or direction in the session is often very clear forehead. To achieve this goal, the conversation must follow some principles. The most fundamental one is the Cooperative Principle of Grice who is a philosopher in United States. In order to analyze the video carefully, the author can download the transcripts and videos from the internet. After months of hard work, the author located every single humorous utterances in these in these episodes with the help of the background laughter, which means the appearance of the humors. By analyzing of the transcripts and videos, there are almost 120 humor utterances in conversations between characters. The author then classified these items according to the four maxims. As is shown in the video, verbal humor in Big Bang Theory is largely achieved by violating the maxims of CP, especially the maxim of quantity. Humorous utterances that can not be grouped into one of the four maxims accounts for a very small amount. Flouting the maxim of quality is the second best used technique to create humor, followed by the technique of flouting the maxim of manner. Violating