从合作原则角度分析《生活大爆炸》中的对话幽默英语论文.doc

本科生毕业论文（设计）册

学院 XXX学院
专业 XX
班级 XXXX级笔译X班
学生 XXX
指导教师 XXX

XXXX大学本科毕业论文（设计）任务书
编 号：
论文（设计）题目： 从合作原则角度分析《生活大爆炸》中的对话幽默
学院： XXX学院 专业： 笔译 班级： 2XXXX级笔译X班
学生姓名： XXX 学号： XXXXXX 指导教师： XXX 职称：XX

1、 论文（设计）研究目标及主要任务
本论文的研究目标是探讨合作原则在情景喜剧《生活大爆炸》中的应用及产生的幽默效果。其主要任务是通过分析合作原则的应用提高我们沟通、交流能力 。

2、论文（设计）的主要内容
本论文分为四章，第一章介绍合作原则、幽默的定义及其分类，第二章介绍中外语言学家关于言语幽默的语言学研究成果，第三章分析《生活大爆炸》中由于违背合作原则而产生的众多幽默效果，第四章探讨研究合作原则的重要意义。

3、论文（设计）的基础条件及研究路线
本论文的基础条件是不同的语言学家关于言语幽默的研究结果。
研究路线是对《生活大爆炸》中的幽默对话进行整理归类，并运用合作原则进行分析阐述。

4、主要参考文献
Attardo, S. 1994. Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Grice, H.P. 1975. “Logic and Conversation”. Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts No. 3, 41-58.
Hu, Zhuanglin. 2006. Linguistics: A Course Book. Beijing: Beijing UP.
Zhang, Yan. 2002. “The Violation of the Cooperative Principles in Catch-22.” Diss. Hebei Normal University.

5、计划进度

阶段
起止日期
1
确定初步论文题目
3月14日前
2
与导师见面，确定大致范围，填开题报告和任务书，导师签字
3月14日-3月19日
3
提交论文提纲
3月19日-3月28日
4
交初稿和文献综述
3月28日-4月18日
5
交终稿和评议书
5月8日前
指 导 教师： 年 月 日
教研室主任： 年 月
注：一式三份，学院（系）、指导教师、学生各一份
XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）开题报告书
XXX 学院 XX 专业 XXXX 届
学生
姓名
XXX
论文（设计）题目
从合作原则角度分析《生活大爆炸》中的对话幽默
指导
教师
XXX
专业
职称
XX
所属教研室
英语基础教研室
研究方向

语言学

课题论证：从违背格莱斯合作原则角度论证情景喜剧《生活大爆炸》中的幽默对话效果。

方案设计：第一章介绍合作原则、幽默的定义及其分类，
第二章介绍中外语言学家关于言语幽默的语言学研究成果，
第三章分析《生活大爆炸》中由于违背合作原则而产生的众多幽默效果，
第四章研究合作原则的重要意义。

进度计划：3月14日前确定初步论文题目
3月19日前写开题报告、任务书
3月28日前提交论文提纲
4月18日前提交初稿和文献综述
5月8日前交终稿和评议书
指导教师意见

指导教师签名： 年 月 日
教研室意见：

教研室主任签名： 年 月 日
XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）评议书
姓 名
XXX
学院
XXX学院
专业
XX
年级（班）
XXXX级笔译X班
论 文 题 目
从合作原则角度分析《生活大爆炸》中的对话幽默
完成时间
2013/5/4
论

文

内

容

摘

要

本论文主要以情景喜剧《生活大爆炸》中的对话为例，分析由于违背格赖斯的合作原则而产生的众多幽默效果。第一章主要对合作原则及其会话含义，幽默的定义及其分类作简要概述。第二章主要讨论中外语言学家关于言语幽默的语言学研究成果。 第三章从四个角度分析在《生活大爆炸》中通过违反合作原则所产生的幽默效果。第四章讲述研究合作原则的重要意义。因为它不仅可以帮助我们更好的欣赏电视节目，还可以提高我们理解他人，与他人交流的能力，从而使我们更好的享受生活。

指
导
教
师
评
语

年 月 日
指 导 教 师

职称

初评成绩

答辩小组
姓名
职称
教研室
组长

成员

答辩记录：

记录人签字： 年 月 日
答辩小组意见：

组长签字： 年 月 日
学院意见：

评定成绩： 签章

年 月 日
XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述
Literature Review
1.Linguistic Approaches on Verbal Humor Study Abroad
Humor research has a long and glorious history. However, linguistics held an assured position in the late 1970s among the central player of humor research, which was traditionally psychology, sociology, and philosophy (Attardo, 1997: 395). Linguistic study on humor is concerning with linguistic devices such as exaggeration, ambiguity, pun etc is very common. Pepicello in his work The Language of Riddles (1984) pointed out that humor had a close relationship with ambiguity , and humor depended on the indecipherable ambiguity until the punch line resolved it in an unexpected way.
Raskin’s the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH for short) (1985) is the semantic theory on verbal humor from the point of cognitive linguistics. The aim of the SSHT is, “ideally, a linguistic theory of humor should determine and formulate the necessary and sufficient linguistic conditions for the text to be funny”( Raskin, 1985:47). A text can be characterized as a single-joke-carrying text if both of the conditions are satisfied:”the text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different scripts and, the two scripts with which the text is compatible are opposite” (Raskin, 1985:81). Here the script refers to a large chunk of semantic information surrounding the word or evoked by it. Therefore the “script” here contains more meanings than the lexical meanings offered by the dictionary. The opposition of the script is the most important element to influence a joke. Attardo and Raskin cooperate with each other and set up a new theory named the “General Theory of Verbal Humor” (GTVH for short), which is a revision of Raskin’s SSHT. As Attardo puts forward:” whereas the SSHT was a semantic theory of humor, the GTVH is a linguistic theory for it includes other areas of linguistics as well, including , most notably, textual linguistics, the theory of narrativity, and pragmatics”(Attardo, 1994:222). Comparatively speaking, the GTVH contains more linguistics knowledge than the SSHT. Raskin’s Semantic Script Theory of Humor and its further developed version General Theory of Verbal humor are the two most influential theories on humor study from the perspective of linguistics.
Coulson is the initiator who employs conceptual blending theory to study humor. In his paper” what’s so funny? Conceptual integration in humorous examples” (2002), he paid much attention to the humorous examples from political cartoons, and aimed to explore the role of Conceptual integration in these examples. He focused on the cultural concepts involved in these examples, and examined how conceptual blending works. There is a special topic on humor study from the cognitive linguistic way on the eighth International Cognitive Linguistics Association conference in 2003. G. Rithchie’s the Linguistic Analysis of Joke (2004) and Alan Partington’s the Linguistic of Laughter (2006) are the masterpieces of humor study in this field. G. Rithchie takes one subclass of joke-pun- as example, aims to discover the inner generation mechanism of jokes. Partington’s work examines the phenomenon of “laughter-talk” with the assistance of language corpora. The author tries to investigate “what speakers try to achieve by engaging in laughter-talk and what both speakers and hearers mat be signaling when then produce laughter” ( Partington, 2006:1)
2.Linguistic Approaches on Verbal Humor Study at Home
It was Lin Yutang, a great writer, who introduced the word “humor” for its current meaning in 1923. So humor study at home is relatively new, and scholars began to study language humor from linguistic aspects in 1980s. From that time on, theories on humor take on a new look, and the studies on humors go further.
Around the 1990s, humor studies concentrated on rhetoric. Hu’s Linguistics of Humor (1987) and Tan’s Humor and Language Humor (1997) are the representatives; both of the works are analyzing humor from the viewpoint of rhetoric. They take humor as a kind of rhetoric, and pay a lot attention to the rhetorical structures and techniques of humor; however, they overlook the internal mechanism, causation and process of humor.
Many scholars pay attention to how the humor comes into being. Yuan (2002) studies how the humor efforts are produced from the perspective of language deviation. Her paper, the humorous effect of language deviation, shows the efforts are produced from the perspective of language deviation. Her paper, the Humorous Effect of Language Deviation, shows the formation of language deviation and its humorous effect by taking different deviations and the humorous effect as examples, such vocabulary deviation and humorous effect, grammar deviation and humorous effect, semantic deviation and humorous effect, etc. Zhang (1993) and Cai (2001) do that research on humor from the ambiguity and misunderstanding respectively.
Study on humor from pragmatics is popular recently. Duan (2002) applies conversational maxims, Politeness principle, Deixis, and Pragmatic Vagueness to study the humor in Chinese. Wu (2005) wrote a paper named The Cooperative Principle and Humor in Sit-coms. She used Cooperative Principle to show that how the humorous effect was achieved due to the violation of a certain maxim of the Cooperative Principle.
Compared with humor study abroad, the humor study at home is not sufficient enough whether in scope or in depth. Not so much interest is invested in this field; articles on humor published on the journals and works on humor study are rare, so more emphasis should be put on humor research.

本科生毕业论文设计

题目： 从合作原则角度分析《生活大爆炸》中的对话幽默

作者姓名： XXX
指导教师： XXXX
所在学院： XXX学院
专业（系）： XX系XX专业
班级（届）： XXX届

完成日期 XXX 年 5 月 4 日

On Verbal Humor in the Big Bang Theory
From the Perspective of Cooperative Principle

BY
XXX
Fu XXX, Tutor

A Thesis Submitted to Department of English
Language and Literature in Partial
Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in English
At XXXXUniversity

May 4th,XXXX

Abstract

This thesis mainly aims to explore the numerous humorous effects brought about by violating Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP) with examples from the dialogues of the sitcom the Big Bang Theory. The first chapter gives a brief introduction about the CP, its implicatures, and humor. The second chapter presents the previous researches on humor, done from foreign theories to domestic theories. The third chapter investigates the humor brought about by violating the CP from four aspects. The last chapter summarizes the significance of conducting research about CP since it could not only help us appreciate some TV programs better, but also improve our ability to understand and communicate with others, and make us enjoy the life better.

Key words: cooperative principle implicature humor

摘要

本论文主要以情景喜剧《生活大爆炸》中的对话为例，分析由于违背格赖斯的合作原则而产生的众多幽默效果。第一章主要对合作原则及其会话含义，幽默的定义及其分类作简要概述。第二章主要讨论中外语言学家关于言语幽默的语言学研究成果。 第三章从四个角度分析在《生活大爆炸》中通过违反合作原则所产生的幽默效果。第四章讲述研究合作原则的重要意义。因为它不仅可以帮助我们更好的欣赏电视节目，还可以提高我们理解他人，与他人交流的能力，从而使我们更好的享受生活。
。

关键词： 合作原则 会话含义 幽默

Table of Contents
Chapter1 Introduction….........................................................................................................1
1.1Cooperative principle…………………………………………………………..1
1.2 Humor Introduction………………………………………………………….2
1.2.1 Definition of Humor…………………………………….....................2
1.2.2 Classifications of Humors…………………………………………….4
1.3 Significance of Present Research………………………………………………4
Chapter2 Literature Review…………………………………………………....................6
2.1 Linguistic Approaches on Verbal Humor Study Abroad………………………6
2.2 Linguistic Approaches on Verbal Humor Study at Home……………………...7
Chapter3 Violation of CP on Humor in the Big Bang Theory...................................................9
3.1 Humor created by violating the maxim of Quantity…….……………………..9
3.1.1 Use of repetition………………………………………….........................9
3.1.2 Use of ellipsis…………………………………………………………….10
3.1.3 Use of roundabout sentences…………………………….........................11
3.2 Humor created by violating the maxim of Quality……………........................12
3.2.1 Use of irony……………………….......................................................... 13
3.2.2 Use of metaphor…….…….……………………………………………..14
3.2.3 Use of rhetorical question….................................15
3.3 Humor crated by violating the maxim of Relation……………........................15
3.3.1 Partial irrelevance…..................................................................................15
3.3.2 Complete irrelevance …………………………………………………...17
3.4 Humor created by violating the maxim of Manner…..........................................18
3.4.1 Use of prolix sentences………………………………………………….18
3.4.2 Use of hyperbole………………………………......................................19
Chapter4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….21
Bibliography…………………………………………………………….…..........................22
xiv

Chapter1. Introduction

1.1 Cooperative Principle
Cooperative Principle (CP) was proposed by an Oxford philosopher Herbert Paul Grice. It first became known to the public in 1967 through the William James lectures Grice delivered at Harvard. Part of the theory was published in his Logic and Conversation in 1975. “In a conversation, a speaker and a hearer are supposed to respond to each other in their turn and exchange with needed information that benefits both of them” (Crowley and Mitchell 1994: 140). Only through this can the participants create a successful and smooth conversation. According to Grice (Grice, 1975), to achieve such effect, people are supposed to follow a certain set of principles, that is, the Cooperative Principle.
These principles are what participants should follow in order to achieve a satisfactory and efficient conversation. However, Grice found that in many cases, people fail to fulfill them in various ways though they still want to create a successful communication. By violating them, people can express their deep meanings or use it as a strategy to communicate. Grice used a term “implicature” to refer to such kind of deep meaning. Generally speaking, if we study it further, we can find out that a lot of laughter and humor can be created and understood through understanding the implicature. The CP is stated as follows:
“Make you conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” (Grice, 1975:45).
To specify the CP further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims as follows:
Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say what for which you lack adequate evidence.
Quantity:
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of exchange).
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Relation: Be relevant.
Manner: Be perspicuous.
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4. Be orderly (Grice 45-46).
People observe the Cooperative Principle consciously or even unconsciously when communicating with others. Hu Zhuanglin has pointed that the CP is meant to describe what actually happens in conversation instead of telling the speakers how they ought to behave, though it is described in the imperative (Hu, 2006:192). That is to say, people usually disobey these maxims here and there due to various purposes and such condition is cal