Abstract

    Humour plays an important role in our daily communication as it is a unique form of intercourse. It is a representation of human wisdom which can create a favorable communicative atmosphere, relieve tense situation, delight interpersonal intercourse, and even enlighten people's mind. Therefore, investigation into this linguistic phenomenon is of practical significance. The current study is focused on the analysis of English humour from the perspective of the illocutionary act theory and the conversational implicature theory. Through studying John Langshaw Austin's the Illocutionary Act Theory, we have learnt that there are three senses in which saying something may be understood as doing something as proposed by Austin, known respectively as the locutionary act, the illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act. And through studying another Oxford philosopher Herbert Paul Grice's Conversational Implicature Theory, we have known that guided under the cooperative principles, together with the context, the "implicature" can be concluded. English humour, as a special linguistic phenomenon, can be analysed though these two theories combined with English humour examples to get a better understanding of this phenomenon for our non-native English speakers.

Key Words: English humour; the Illocutionary Act Theory; the Conversational Implicature Theory; the cooperative principles

摘 要

     幽默作为一种独特的会话形式在我们日常生活中扮演着重要角色。它代表着人们的智慧，它能创造出良好的交流氛围，缓解紧张局面，愉悦人们之间的会话，甚至能给人以启迪。因此，对该语言现象的探究具有实际意义。本文着重于从行事行为理论和会话含义理论角度来分析英语幽默。通过学习奥斯汀的行事行为理论，我们了解到说话可以在三种意义上被看成做事，它们分别是被称为发话行为、行事行为和取效行为。通过格赖斯的会话含义理论，我们学习到会话含义可以在合作原则的指导下，结合语境推导出来。英语幽默作为一种特殊的语言现象，可以通过具体实例结合该两大理论来分析，以帮助母语为非英语的人士更好地理解该语言现象。

关键词： 英语幽默；行事行为理论；会话含义理论；合作原则

1  Introduction
    Humour, as an unique form of linguistic phenomenon, plays an important role in our social communication. As Alexander puts it, "Since the point of language is initially to communicate successfully with other speakers of our mother tongue, it is evident that the ability to appreciate and to engage in humour is part and parcel of human language behaviour." To appreciate and to engage in humour, and moreover, to gain a better understanding of humour will enable us to achieve a more successful result of social communication.