An Analysis of Political Humor in the Yes Minister from the Perspective of Interpersonal Function_英语论文

摘要

情景喜剧是一种幽默的演出形式。其达到演出效果的同时也能发人深省，而幽默则是实现这一目标必不可缺的元素。与其他情景喜剧不同，政治情景喜剧的主题创作主要基于政治素材并对政治生活进行讽刺，而政治素材恰巧是观众们认为有距离感的、提不起兴趣的。因此，当有一部政治情景喜剧能克服这一难题并大获成功，人们纷纷对其产生了研究兴趣。研究过后，人们发现，除了精湛的演技、搞笑的情节，剧集中的幽默对话也能产生喜剧效果。本论文将会在韩礼德的系统功能语法的基础上，运用人际功能的相关知识，对政治对话中的幽默效果进行分析。基于以上的研究理论，论文选取《遵命大臣》为例，运用系统功能语法理论从人称、情态及语气三方面对语篇进行话语幽默的分析，旨在探讨人际功能的运用及幽默效果的实现。

关键词：人际功能  政治幽默  遵命大臣 韩礼德

Abstract

To study a situation comedy, humor is the necessary elements to take into consideration for it is humor that achieves the main task of a situation comedy as making people laugh. Unlike other situation comedies, the theme of political sitcoms are more based on solemn political material that many people feel distant and uninterested. Therefore, a political sitcom with wide popularity stimulates people to figure out how can it arouse audience’s interest in such serious themes and improve the audience interaction. Aside from the acting skills and plots that can explicitly bring about comedy effects, audience can also be amused by humorous conversations. In this thesis, the political humor will be analyzed from conversation in political topic under the guidance of interpersonal function based on Systemic Functional Grammar proposed by Halliday. Based on the above theory, this paper takes Yes Minister as research material to make a discourse analysis and figures out the reflection of political humor from three aspects: personal pronouns, modality and mood system, hoping to embody the realization of humorous effect and the application of interpersonal function.

Key Words: interpersonal function  political humor  Yes Minister  Halliday

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Significance and Purpose of This Thesis 1

1.2  A Brief Introduction of Yes Minister 1

1.3  Humor 2

1.4  Research Method of This Thesis 3

1.5  Structure of This Thesis 3

Chapter Two  Literature Review 4

2.1  Introduction 4

2.2  Approaches in Analysis of Yes Minister 4

2.3  Systemic Functional Grammar in Discourse Analysis 5

2.4  Comment 6

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 7

3.1  Introduction 7

3.2  Systemic Functional Grammar 7

3.3  The Interpersonal Function 8

3.4  Summary 10

Chapter Four  An Analysis of Political Humor in Yes Minister 12

4.1  Personal Pronouns in Discourse of Yes Minister 12

4.2  Modality in Discourse of Yes Minister 14

4.2.1 Usuality 14

4.2.2 Probability 15

4.3  Mood System in Discourse of Yes Minister 16

4.3.1 Dominance of Conversation Topics 16

4.3.2 Swift of Speech Roles 18

4.4  Summary 20

Chapter Five  Conclusion 21

5.1  Major Findings 21

5.2  Discussion and Practical Implications 22

5.3  Limitations and Suggestions for Future Study 23

Bibliography

Acknowledgements