摘要

    幽默是对语言的一种有意识的积极运用，反映出幽默制造者的知识、修养、智慧以及交际技巧，颇有审美价值。作为交际中言语活动的结果和一种会话含义的体现，幽默离不开合作原则和认知语境，他们都是语用学关键概念之一，所以幽默可以从语言学那里找到理据。本文旨在从合作原则和认知语境两个角度分析幽默的语用理据。合作原则对人处于不理想状态时所说的不相关话语而引起的幽默具有解释力，而认知语境能够解释不同的心理机制引起的幽默。将二者互相配合解释幽默语言是语用学关注的新焦点。本文选取深受我国广大观众喜爱的美国情景喜剧中部分幽默言语事例，从合作原则和认知语境两个角度探讨言语幽默，比较各自对幽默言语的解释力以及不足，并将分析得出违反合作原则及分析认知语境相结合是分析英语幽默产生的重要源泉。本文对于人们笑声背后幽默系统如何运作进行了尝试性的论述，它可以增进我们对美国情景喜剧和日常会话幽默的理解和欣赏。

关键词：英文影视剧;语言幽默;合作原则;认知语境

Abstract

Humor is one of the conscious positive application of language in communication. It reflects the humor producer’s knowledge, cultivation, wisdom and communication techniques. Humor, as the result of speech event and one kind of conversational implicature, is associated with cooperative principle and cognitive context which are key notions in pragmatics. Such pragmatic motivations, in perspective of cooperative principle and cognitive context, can be found in some concrete humorous utterances. Cooperative Principle does a better job in explaining verbal humor by speaking irrelevant utterance when the speakers are in bad moods, while Cognitive Context is more effective in analyzing verbal humor for different psychology. The combination of the two complements is a new focus on analyzing verbal humor in pragmatic study. This thesis intends to analyze the examples of verbal humor in the American sitcom with the help of pragmatic theories involving Cooperative Principle and Cognitive Context. It finds that applying the Cooperative Principle and Cognitive Context is of the great importance in English humor. Based on these analyses, the deep structure of English verbal humor has been tentatively explored. The findings of this thesis can help the English learners to comprehend and appreciate the verbal humor in English sitcoms as well as in daily communication.

Key words: English films; verbal humor; Cooperative Principle; Cognitive Context