ABSTRACT

Humor, as a significant linguistic phenomenon, plays an indispensable role in human communication. Many scholars at home and abroad have studies humor from quite different perspectives, such as psychology, sociology and linguistics. Humorous language prevails in American situation comedies, which makes it quite popular among wide audiences. As a carrier of humor, situation comedy provides pragmatic research with rich data.

Based on the pragmatic theories such as Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle and Relevance Theory, this paper makes an analysis of some humorous dialogues of How I Met Your Mother. It tries to reveal the relation between verbal humor and pragmatics and how verbal humor is generated. This paper finds that verbal humor always works when people violate Cooperative Principle or Politeness Principle in communication. It can also be generated when maximal relevance and optimal relevance are not reached at the same time. This paper is aimed to help non-English speakers understand and appreciate verbal humor in American situation comedies better. 

Key words:Verbal humor; Pragmatics; American situation comedies

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-2

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-4

2.1 Studies on Humor at Home and Abroad-4

2.2 Studies on American Situation Comedy-5

Chapter Three AMERICAN SITUATION COMEDY AND HUMOR-7

3.1 The Definition of Situation Comedy-7

3.2 Humor in American Situation Comedy-8

Chapter Four BASIC THEORIES-10

4.1 Cooperative Principle-10

4.2 Politeness Principle-11

4.3 Relevance Theory-11

Chapter Five PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF HUMOR IN HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER-13

5.1 Brief Overview of How I Met Your Mother-13

5.2 Analysis of verbal humor on the Cooperative Principle-14

5.2.1 Violation of maxim of quantity and humor production-14

5.2.2 Violation of maxim of quality and humor production-15

5.2.3 Violation of maxim of Relation and humor production-16

5.2.4 Violation of maxim of manner and humor production-17

5.3 Analysis on Humor from Politeness Principle-18

5.4 Analysis of Humor on Relevance Theory-19

Chapter Six CONCLUSION-21

REFERENCES-23