Abstract

Humor is a common linguistic phenomenon that exists in every corner of human life. It is often seen in the form of conversations and has distinctive pragmatic characteristics. The history of researching on humor is long and rich, especially in the pragmatic field. However, concerning the pragmatic characters and effects, these analyses mainly focus on the flouting of certain maxims of the Cooperative Principle or merely on the Relevance Theory, and little has been done in the area of rhetorical devices employed for humor. The present thesis aims to examine the different expressions of rhetorical humor in the framework of the Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory in order to find the laugh-eliciting mechanism of humor and to determine which one is better in humor interpretation. By using humorous utterances in the American sit-com Friends as examples, the present study tries to explain three most commonly-used rhetorical devices, i.e. metaphor, irony and hyperbole employed in humor through the two theories respectively. The Cooperative Principle holds that the violation of conversational maxims is the fountain of rhetorical humor, whereas the Relevance Theory proposes that it is the discrepancy between maximal relevance and optimal relevance that leads to humor. The process of understanding is from ostensive communication to inferential process. By comparison, it can be concluded that the Relevance Theory has a greater explanatory power than the Cooperative Principle in interpreting humor.

KEYWORDS:humor; the Cooperative Principle; the Relevance Theory; rhetorical devices

摘　要

幽默是生活中常见的语言现象。它在生活中常以会话形式出现，具有鲜明的语用特征。研究幽默的历史悠久而丰富，特别是在语用学领域更是硕果累累。然而，对于幽默所具有的语用特征和语用效果，前人总是从对合作原则的违反或是仅从关联理论的角度去研究，而缺少更深挖掘，特别是修辞的运用带来的幽默效果鲜有提及。本文正是着眼于修辞格引起的幽默在合作原则和关联理论中的不同体现，来研究英语幽默产生的机制，比较两种理论在幽默解释力上的优劣。本文以美国情景喜剧《老友记》作为幽默语料库，以隐喻、反讽和夸张三种修辞手法为分类依据，分别运用合作原则和关联理论进行阐释。合作原则认为，修辞手法的运用导致合作原则的违反，是产生幽默的重要来源；而关联理论则认为幽默产生于最大关联与最佳关联之间的反差，而修辞手段产生的幽默理解过程是人们从明示到推理的过程。通过比较，本文发现在对幽默的阐释方面，关联理论相对于合作原则更具有说服力。

关键词:幽默； 合作原则； 关联理论； 修辞手法