《老友记》与《爱情公寓》中英汉言语幽默的跨文化对比研究_英语论文

A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Verbal Humor in Friends and Love Apartment from the Cross-cultural Perspective

摘要

作为一种重要的交际方式，言语幽默从文艺学、哲学、心理学、社会学、人类学等各个角度进行了研究。目前国内外诸多学者对幽默进行的多数研究只是从语言学的角度分析幽默的生成和应用，对于幽默的文化特性的研究略显不足。然而幽默语言与社会文化有着密切联系，本文则从跨文化的角度对英汉言语幽默进行研究，在目前国内外对幽默研究的基础上，对比美国情景剧《老友记》和中国情景剧《爱情公寓》中的言语幽默，探究在不同的文化中如何正确理解言语幽默，从而帮助人们更好地欣赏言语幽默。

本文分为四部分。第一部分是文章的介绍。第二部分是文献综述，介绍了幽默、情景喜剧和前人研究。第三部分从文化角度比较分析了《老友记》和《爱情公寓》，来研究英汉言语幽默的异同。相同点包括修辞技巧和功能，不同点包括主题、开玩笑的对象、场合和表达方式。最后一部分总结全文并对后的研究提出建议。

关键词: 言语幽默；《老友记》；《爱情公寓》；文化差异

Abstract

As an important mode of communication, verbal humor has been studied from lots of fields such as literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology. Currently, most of researches on humor just reveal how humor comes into being and analyze the application of verbal humor from the perspective of linguistics according to many scholars at home and abroad. As a result, the studies of the cultural features of humor are slightly insufficient. However, humorous language and social culture are closely linked. On the basis of current studies on humor at home and abroad, this thesis will study English and Chinese verbal humor from the cross-cultural perspective and compare the verbal humor of American sitcom Friends and Chinese sitcom Love Apartment to discuss how to understand verbal humor correctly in different cultures, then help people appreciate verbal humor in a better way.

The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part is the introduction of the thesis. The second part is literature review, which introduces humor, sitcom and previous studies. The third part compares and analyzes Friends and Love Apartment to study the similarities and differences of verbal humor in English and Chinese from the perspective of culture. The similarities consist of techniques in rhetoric and functions, and the differences consist of topics, joking targets, occasions and modes of expression. The last part summarizes the thesis and puts forward suggestions for the further research.

Keywords:  verbal humor  Friends  Love Apartment  cultural differences

Contents

Acknowledgements I

Abstract II

摘要 III

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Objective and Significance of the Research 1

1.2 Research Methodology 1

1.3 Structure of the Thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 Overview of Humor 3

2.2 A Brief Survey on Sitcom 4

2.3 Previous Studies 4

2.3.1 Previous Studies on Verbal Humor 4

2.3.2 Previous Studies on Verbal Humor of Sitcoms 5

Chapter Three A Comparative Analysis of Verbal Humor in English and Chinese 6

3.1 Similarities of Verbal Humor in English and Chinese 6

3.1.1 Techniques in Rhetoric Applied to Verbal Humor 6

3.1.2 Functions of Verbal Humor 8

3.2 Differences of Verbal Humor in English and Chinese 10

3.2.1 Topics of Verbal Humor 10

3.2.2 Joking Targets of Verbal Humor 11

3.2.3 Occasions of Verbal Humor 12

3.2.4 Modes of Expression of Verbal Humor 13

Chapter Four Conclusion 15

4.1 Major Findings 15

4.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research 16

References 17