美国情景喜剧《老友记》的幽默语用分析_英语论文

Pragmatic Analysis of the Production of Humor in American Sitcom Friends

摘要

幽默是人类生活的一部分。世界各地都存在幽默现象，幽默是人类活动的共核之一，幽默元素超越了国界，在某些方面甚至超越了语言差异。幽默充当着人际交往的润滑剂，在交流中扮演着举足轻重的作用。正是因为这种重要性，对幽默的研究也有着悠久的历史，心理学、哲学、社会学等各个学科都有对幽默的研究。随着近年来语言学的繁荣发展，语言学的各个领域也都涉足对幽默现象的分析，其中主要是利用语义学对其进行分析。如今语用学正越来越成为语言学家们关注的焦点，对幽默的语用分析也开始盛行起来。可能最明显的幽默载体便是情景喜剧这种小型电视节目。美国情景喜剧《老友记》是一部经典喜剧节目，观众遍布世界各地，节目上演10多年来一直深受广大观众的喜爱。这部节目中幽默现象俯拾皆是，因此，通过语用学对幽默进行分析在许多方面来说都是有意义的。

本文作者利用语用学的三个理论对老友记中演员们的幽默对话进行了分析。这三大理论分别是格莱斯的合作原则，里其的礼貌原则以及   的关联理论。主要的分析方法是通过具体案例阐述相关各理论。

通过分析出幽默产生的语用机制，语言学的学习者们将会更好地理解语言学理论。同时，非英语国家的英语学习者也会增强对英文幽默的鉴赏力，理解幽默产生的环境因素。

关键词：幽默，情景喜剧，老友记，语用学，合作原则，礼貌原则，关联理论

Abstract

Humor , an element of human life, exists in every part of the world, being one of the common core of human activities across boundaries of nations and in some aspects even across languages. It acts as the lubricant in the interpersonal contacts and plays a crucial role in communication. Given the significance of it , the study of humor has experienced a long history and covered a wide range of subjects, such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, etc. As linguistics has seen prosperous development in recent years, humor has also been analyzed through various areas of linguistics, dominantly semantics. Pragmatics, the recent concern of linguists, is becoming more and more popular in the study of humor. Perhaps one of the most noticeable form containing humor is sitcom, a short TV program . The American sitcom Friends is one of the most classic ones, which has been on screen for more than a decade while still remains to be welcomed by its wide audience all over the world. Humor in this sitcom is almost seen everywhere, thus a study of different kinds of humorous situations associated with some theories of pragmatics is worthwhile in many ways.

The author in this thesis employs three branches of pragmatics in the analysis of humor created by the conversations among those actors and actresses. They are Grice’s cooperative principle, Leech’s politeness principle and relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson. The method mainly used is to combine specific cases with relevant theories and principles. Through exploring the mechanisms governing the production of humor within the scope of pragmatics, learners of linguistics will have a better understanding of these theories. Moreover, it will enable English learners in non-English-speaking countries to appreciate humor in English and know how it works in the larger context.

Key words: humor, Friends, pragmatics, cooperative principle, politeness principle, relevance theory 

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1 Introduction of Humor 1

1.2 General Review of the Studies of Humor 1

1.3 A Brief Introduction of Friends 2

Chapter Two  Humor and Cooperative Principle 4

2.1 Flouting the Maxim of Quantity 5

2.2 Flouting the Maxim of Quality 7

2.3 Flouting the Maxim of Relation 9

2.4 Flouting the Maxim of Manner 9

Chapter Three  Politeness Principle 12

3.1 Flouting of Tact Maxim 13

3.2 Flouting of Generosity Maxim 13

3.3 Flouting of Approbation Maxim 14

3.4 Flouting of Modesty Maxim 14

3.5 Flouting of Agreement Maxim 15

3.6 Flouting of Sympathy Maxim 16

Chapter Four  Relevance Theory and Humor 17

Chapter Five  Conclusion 19

5.1 The Objectives of the Thesis 19

5.2 Summary of the Study 19

5.3 The Organization of the Thesis 20

5.4 The Shortcomings of the Study 20

Bibliography 21

Acknowledgments 21