Abstract:

Humor is not only an art form but also an emotional expression way. It is indispensable in people's daily life, influencing every aspect of human’s lives. In daily communication, humor is necessary for people. Humors bring laughter and joy to people by the witty and ironic language style. At the same time, it reflects human’s cultivation and wisdom. The languages of different countries reflect the unique social and cultural connotation. For most people, it is not difficult to understand literal meanings of verbal humors. However, because of the different cultural backgrounds, people often study or appreciate the verbal humors of exotic features through their own cultural backgrounds. But it would greatly weaken the original effects of verbal humors. So when people understand the verbal humors people have to consider the social and cultural factors. The Big Bang Theory and Ipartment are popular in the USA and China respectively. They have analogical actor members and similar themes, both of which can reflect their social and cultural characteristics as well as psychology of young people in China and the United States. Therefore, this paper compared the two situation comedies to find out the similarities and differences in English and Chinese verbal humors. Moreover, the social and cultural roots of the differences between English and Chinese verbal humors were discussed and the understanding of Chinese and western culture has been deepened.

Keywords: verbal humor; sitcoms; cultural context; the Big Bang Theory; Ipartment.

摘 要：

幽默不仅是一种艺术方式更是一种情感表达方式。是人们日常生活中不可或缺的，充斥于我们生活的每个角落。在日常交往中幽默是不可或缺的，幽默能以诙谐讽刺的语言形式给人们带来欢笑和愉悦，反映出人类的文明与智慧。不同国家的语言反映各自独特的社会文化内涵。英汉言语幽默更是如此，对于大多数人来说理解言语幽默的字面意义并不难，可是，由于文化背景不同，在交际过程中人们往往结合自己的文化背景去理解或赏析带有异国特色的言语幽默，但这会大大削弱原幽默的语言效果。因此理解言语幽默就不能不考虑社会文化因素。《生活大爆炸》和《爱情公寓》在中美都是具有影响力的情景喜剧,他们有相似的演员组成成员和相似的主题并能够反映中美两国各自的社会文化特点和青年心理。本文通过对两部情景喜剧的评析与对比找出英汉幽默的相同点及差异，进而探讨英汉言语幽默差异的社会文化根源，加深了人们对中西文化的进一步了解。

关键词：言语幽默；情景喜剧；文化背景；《生活大爆炸》；《爱情公寓》