Analysis of Verbal Humor in Yes, Minister from the Perspective of Cooperative Principle

Abstract

The application of verbal humor in a sitcom is popular, and the verbal humor of Yes, Minister, a British political satire sitcom, is extremely distinct. Based on the Grice’s cooperative principle, this paper analyzes how verbal humor is generated in Yes, Minister to show that the flouting of the cooperative principle is indispensable to the generating mechanism of verbal humor.

The paper is divided into five parts. It firstly makes a brief introduction to sitcom and Yes, Minister. In the second part, it identifies the definition, the classification of humor and the definition of verbal humor. Third part explores the cooperative principle and its four maxims by Grice: maxim of quantity; maxim of quality; maxim of relation; and maxim of manner. Generally, cooperative principle is not obeyed by everyone all the time. It may be flouted. Therefore, in the fourth part, the author analyzes how verbal humor is generated in Yes, Minister from flouting of the four maxims of the cooperative principle. Finally, a further discussion is made about the significance of appreciating verbal humor to English teaching and cross-culture communication. 

Through the above analysis, it can be concluded that the verbal humor in Yes, Minister mainly comes from the flouting of the four maxims of the cooperative principle：the flouting of maxim of quantity leads to ironic understatement, the flouting of maxim of quantity to paradox, the flouting of maxim of relation to irrelevant information, and the flouting of maxim of manner to ambiguity. Meanwhile, the author hopes to provide some enlightenment to English teaching and cross-cultural communication through this paper. 

Key Words: Yes, Minister; sitcom; cooperative principle; flouting; humor