Abstract

With the unstoppable tendency of globalization, cultural globalization, as an important part of it, also becomes more and more popular. As intercultural communication appears more and more frequent in our life, cultural conflicts also become usual. Humor, as the product and container of culture is the most complex part in intercultural communication. Therefore, to study humor can be an access to walking into the center of culture and breaking cultural barriers. Undoubtedly, to make cultural analysis and comparison on different country’s humor, will provide practical ways to solve the problems in intercultural communication so that we can quickly adapt to the cultural globalization.

This thesis is aimed to discover the cultural elements of Chinese and American humor by analyzing various examples of humor, comparing and concluding the differences and similarities. The thesis first gives definition to humor by summarizing researchers’ ideas. Then it introduces the history and cultural characters of each kind of humor. Then the thesis makes cultural analysis on Chinese and American humor in different forms to find out and prove the relationship between humor and culture. At last, based on the analysis, an intercultural comparison is made.

The thesis not only finds out the differences between Chinese and American humor to solve the problems in intercultural communication, but also summarizes the similarities in Chinese and American humor from cultural aspect, which can also help find and predict the tendency of the use of humor in intercultural communication.

Key words: Chinese humor, American humor, intercultural communication, intercultural comparison

摘要

随着全球化的大潮日益强大，文化全球化作为其中一部分也自然愈演愈烈。跨文化交际在人们的日常生活中越来越频繁，而文化冲突也伴随着时常发生。幽默是文化的产物，亦是文化的载体，同时也是跨文化交际较为复杂的一环。故研究幽默可以成为研究文化核心，突破文化障碍的捷径。因此，通过对不同的幽默进行文化层次的比较、研究，必定能为解决跨文化交际中的文化冲突提供解决方法，更好地适应文化全球化的大潮。
本文牢牢抓住幽默与文化联系，并以中美幽默为主要研究对象，以实例分析为主要方法，通过对比、总结致力于幽默的文化层次解剖。首先是对幽默的定义陈述，然后分别对中美幽默各自的历史发展，文化特点进行阐述。然后通过结合、分析大量的不同类型的中美幽默实例，来发掘其中的文化内涵，证实幽默与其对应文化的关系，进而对中美两种幽默进行跨文化比较与研究。
本文不仅通过找到两种幽默的不同之处来得到跨文化交际中存在的问题，并提供一定的解决方法。还通过总结两种幽默的相同之处来发现幽默在跨文化交际中的发展趋势。


关键词：中式幽默，美式幽默，跨文化交际，跨文化比较