[摘 要]

幽默是我们生活中不可或缺的一部分，是日常生活中交际语言的一种普遍形式。因而，很多学者都对这种语言现象感兴趣，进行了各方面的研究。突出的代表有美国语言学家koller（1988）编纂出版的Humor and Society；国内学者张伯香在《英语幽默赏析》中也对幽默这一语言现象作了较为深刻的分析研究。这些研究中也不乏运用语用学基本理论如合作原则、言语行为理论、会话含义等来分析会话幽默的特点的。但是，本文作者认为关联理论也可以为幽默话语提供有效的解释。本文将则从合作原则、言语行为理论、会话含义和关联理论来分析幽默话语。进一步加深人们对幽默语言的认识，提高语言交际能力。

[关键词]幽默; 语用学; 合作原则; 关联理论; 言语行为理论

Abstract:

Humor plays a very important part in our daily life. It is a common form of communicative language. Many scholars are interested in this language phenomenon and  have done much  researches on it. There are some prominent representative works, such as Humor and Society written by Koller and The Appreciation of Humor in English written by Zhang Bo xiang. Both of them use pragmatical theories such as Cooperation Principle, Speech Act Theory, Conversational Implication etc. But I think Relevance Theory can also explain language humor. The essay will analyze language humor from Cooperation Principle, Speech Act Theory, Conversational Implication and Relevance Theory to strengthen cognition on language humor and improve the communicative competence.

Key words: humor; pragmatics; cooperation principle; relevance theory; speech act theory

1. Introduction
Humor is a communicative language form often used in daily life. To most of us, humor not only enriches our life, but also helps us to avoid embarrassment in certain circumstances. It can relieve our worries, and give us a pleasant mood. English jokes are humorous and implicit. They can set people laughing, and at the same time they can also set people thinking. Humor is a form of communication highly regarded in our society. It embodies human civilization and wisdom. Humor comes from deep understanding and careful observation of life. Properly used, it is very interesting, inspiring and revelatory. It is not only very pragmatic in our daily life, but also reflects the English language’s rules and characteristics. On the one hand, the production of English jokes has close connection with the inner rules of language itself. On the other hand, the production largely depends on the use of language in certain context. Humor is kind of art, and it takes on different forms, such as drama, painting, dancing, music, joke, story and novel. In terms of its language, humor can be regarded as a kind of writing style, an artistic form, or the effects created by its language.