A Pragmatic Analysis of the Humor in American Sitcom Friends---开题报告

The researches about humor are from different perspectives, such as pragmatic analysis of the humor in a comedy, the features of humor, or use a theory to analyze the humor... According to the limited resources, I will give a brief introduction of the papers and some of my opinions in the following text.

2.1 Use pragmatic theories to analyze the humor

The conversition needs the cooperation from both sides to make it possible to continue. But as we all know that kind of principle may be a little boring. Then what will become the difference between a boring is to break the so called principles. Grice’s Cooperative Principle is one of the substantial elements of the modem pragmatics. “This thesis analyzes that the conversational implication caused by violating the Cooperative Principle and its maxims(maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relevance and maxim of manner)is the important source of English humor” (杨洪利 2009). According to the maxim of quantity, more information than is required is also uncooperative as ‘‘such over-informativeness may be confusing in that it is liable to raise side issues；and there may also be an indirect effect，in that the hearers may be misled as a result of thinking that there is some particular point in the provision of the excess of information'’(Grice 2002：3 3)．Sometimes if a speaker provides too much information to a question or statement，namely, he or she violates the second maxim of quantity, this might lead to humorous effect” (张金英 2001). In this way, the author tries to trace the development of the humor in the United States through the comedy FRIENDS. According to Wang Shouyuan(2000)，violations of the maxims are frequently found in literary texts．These are intended to portray characters and their relationships and to indicate the relation between the reader and the author.

To complete Grice’s Cooperative Principles, the British famous linguist Leech sums up six aspects in UK-US culture in politeness principle:

 1). Tact maxim. (Minimize cost to other, Maximize benefit to other) 

 2). Generosity maxim (Minimize benefit to self, Maximize cost to self) 

3). Approbation maxim (Minimize dispraise of other,       

 Maximize praise of other.)  

4). Modest maxim( Minimize praise of self, Maximize dispraise of self ) 

5).Agreement maxim (Minimize disagreement between self and other,

Maximize agreement between self and other)                               

6). Sympathy maxim (Minimize antipathy between self and other,

Maximize sympathy between self and other) (Leech,1983:1).According to Yang Hongli(2009), humor can be produced in two following ways. ①by Observing the Politeness Principle . The politeness principle is a series of maxims，which Geoff Leech has proposed as a way of explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchanges．Leech defines politeness as forms of behavior that establish and maintain comity．That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony．②by Violating the Politeness Principle. In real life，there is some humor created by deprecating others．In this case the PP is violated by the impolite，uncourteous and even insulting utterance．In friends, the actors and actresses often breach the PP．Consequently, the audiences are amused by their self-appreciation and belittlement on others．

Another important theory they use to analyze the humor is the Speech Act Theory, which advocated by the Oxford philosopher John.L.Austin.

1)Locutionary act (surface structure)：referring to the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference.

2)Illocutionary act：the making of a statement，offer, promise, etc. in uttering a sentence, by virture of the conventional forcr associated with it.

3)Perlocutionary act：the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the sentence.(杨信彰 2005).  Among these three，the Illocutionary Acts are the center that the pragrnatics pays attention to because the sanle Locution could have a different. Illocutionary forces in different contexts(杨洪利 2009)．For example : “ What time is it?”could，depending on the context，mean that

The speaker wants the listener to tell him the time；

The speaker is annoyed that the listener is late；

The speaker thinks it’s time the listener went home．

“Humorous utterance Can not only complete general illocutionary acts but actualize the function of amusement as well．The author attempts to explore the illocutionary acts in humorous utterances，aiming at the improvement of the perception of humorous words in American sitcom and also in daily conversations.” (杨洪利 2009). According to him, humor can be created by the Speech Act in five ways: Representatives, Directives, Commissives, Expressives, Declarations. “Illocutionary act essentially include something humor, which make people burst into laughter. What’s more, some listeners may misunderstand the speaker’s meaning, adding the humor elements. For example, Scene：Chandler office．He and Phoebe are there when the phone starts ringing．

Chandler：Can you hear that?

Phoebe：(plays with a thumbtack remover)Yeah?

Chandler：See that will stop when you pick up the phone.”(Liao,2009)

2. From the context to analysis humor

Context analysis competence asks one to catch on the situation in which the conversation takes place，According to Brown and Yule，Hymes(1964) sets about specifying the features of context．

(1)He abstracts the roles addressor and addressee．The addressor is the speaker or writer who produces the utterance．The addressee is the hearer or reader who is the recipient of the utterance．Knowledge of the addressor in a given communicative event makes it possible for the analyst to imagine what that particular person is likely to say．Knowledge of his addressee constrains the analyst’s expectations even further.

(2) If you know, further, what is being talked about，Hymes’ category of topic，your expectations will be further constrained。

(3) If then you have information about the setting，both in terms of where the event is situated in place and time，and in terms of the physical relations of the interactants with respect to posture and gesture and facial expression，your expectations will be still further limited．

(4) Channel--how is contact between the participants in the event being

maintained, by speech，writing，signing，smoke signals．

(5) Code---what language，or dialect，or style of language is being used．

(6) Message-form--what from is intended：chat，debate，sermon，fairy-tale，sonnet，love—letter, etc．

(7) Event--the nature of the communicative event within which a genre may be embedded：thus a sermon or prayer may be part of the larger event，a church service．

(8) Key, which involves evaluation，was it a good sermon，a pathetic

explanation，etc．

(9) Purpose--what did the participants intend should come about as a result Of the communicative event．(Brown, G&Yule, G  2004). According to them, context analysis competence is all ability to grasp the panorama of the spoken or written text．The comprehensive understanding includes not only the grasp of the sentence meaning but also the background information of the speakers and hearers involving in the text and the scene in which the text takes place．Accordingly, a wide range of knowledge will benefit people’s understanding the text．To sum up, they are Conversation analysis competence and Bicultural Communication Competence.

In conclusion，“one has to have a good command of social and cultural presuppositions for comprehension of English humor．Presupposition is the shared knowledge by both the speaker and the hearer. For example，in the sentence ‘'John saw／didn’t see the man、with two heads．”the presupposition is “there exists a mall with two heads．Simply speaking，pragmatic presupposition is the kind of information that is shared in the knowledge-store of both of the speaker and the addressee；or the information that the addressee understands after the speaker hints through words；or the information that the speaker and addressee shares，while the third person cannot understand what they say without the help of the context.”(张亭亭 2008).

Other researches like Su Hui(2008) study the humor from its development in United State. In her opinion, Humor of American literature has shaped since the colonial period, which is related to the social and historical backgrounds, national character，religion，philosophy and multiple cultures．In that way, she tries to analysis the features of the humor in detail.

II．Outline

Title: A Pragmatic Analysis of the Humor in American Sitcom Friends

1. Introduction

2. The Study of Humor and Sitcom 

  2.1 The Study of Humor 

2.2 The Study of Sitcom

3. Verbal Humor from the Perspective of Cooperative Principle

3.1 Cooperative Principle

3.2 Humor by Flouting the maxims of Cooperative Principle

4. Verbal Humor from the Perspective of Politeness Principle

4.1 Politeness Principle

  4.2 Humor by Flouting the maxims of Politeness Principle

5. Conclusion

Ⅲ、References:

[1]Austin，J，L. Philosophical Papers[M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1 970.

[2]Brown, G&Yule, G．Discourse Analysis[M].Beijing: Foreign Language

Teaching and Research Press．2004.

[3]Grice，P. Studies in the Way of Words[M]．Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2002．

[4] Leech, G. Principes of pragmatics [M]. UK: Longman. 1983.

[5]Sperber& Wilson. Relevance: Communication & Cognition(2nd edition)[M].Oxford &Cambridge: Blackwel. 1995.

[7]李蜜蜜．“语用原则对分析英语幽默的作用——兼论《老友记》的语用幽默”[J]．外语研究．2006(10):56-60.

[8]廖晓丹.“从语用视角探析《老友记》的幽默话语” [J].福建论坛.人文社会科学版.2009(11):12-15.

[9]刘波．“幽默言语行为：美国情景喜剧《老友记》的语用研究"[J].西安外国语大学学报.2008(4):13-18.

[10]杨信彰. “语言学概论”[M]. 北京：高等教育出版社. 2005.

[11]张金英.“中西方情景喜剧言语幽默的修辞对比研究——以《老友记》和家有儿女为例” [J].茂名学院学报．2009(10):40-43. 

[12]张亭亭.“从违反合作原则的角度解读《老友记》的幽默"[J].新乡学院学报.2008(8):20-25.