合作原则视角下《生活大爆炸》中的幽默话语分析文献综述

 2021-12-30 20:40:32

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文献综述

1.Introduction1.1Research backgroundA great majority of British and American sitcoms have been introduced into China. In the happy atmosphere of sitcoms, people can not only understand western culture, but also improve their English listening and speaking ability. Among them, The Big Bang Theory tells the funny life story of four scientists and a beautiful neighbor. It not only creates humor, but also be rich in scientific and cultural knowledge, especially favored by young people.Humor permeates all aspects of peoples life and plays an indispensable role in peoples communication and interpersonal relationship. The study of humor involves many fields. From the perspective of linguistics, pragmatics provides an effective way to analyze humorous utterance, which is specialized in the study of language understanding and rules of use. The speaker often does not simply want to express the static meaning of language. At this time, the listener usually needs to understand the real intention of the speaker through a series of psychological reasoning. Therefore, it is helpful for us to understand and use language better to analyze peoples dialogues in specific situations from the perspective of pragmatics. Herbert Paul Grices Cooperative Principle is regarded as one of the most effective pragmatic theories. Although some scholars have questioned the CP, it is still an effective theory to explain the mechanism of humor generation. According to the CP, we can analyze the humorous utterances in a more orderly way, so that the audience and English learners can better understand the humorous effect of the lines in sitcoms, rather than laughing all over the place.With theoretical basis of the CP, this paper will make a detailed analysis of the lines with humorous effect selected in The Big Bang Theory, aiming to explore how humor is explained through language in sitcoms.1.2Need for the studyThrough literature search, it is found that most scholars and language learners are concerned about how to abide by the CP in conversation. Therefore, the author of this paper intends to analyze humorous utterances from the perspective of violating the CP. The necessity of the study can be explained as follows:First of all, the concept of humor is relatively broad, involving a wide range of fields, and scholars in different fields have studied it. However, the study of humor is still not comprehensive and in-depth. In the future, humor will be studied by many people. Therefore, this paper has a certain reference significance for future research.Secondly, it is more convenient and efficient to watch sitcoms and record the required lines than to observe and record the humorous words people say in real life. Therefore, sitcom is a suitable research material. Different from other sitcoms, The Big Bang Theory contains knowledge in many fields and is more meaningful for learning. Compared with the classic Friends and other sitcoms, The Big Bang Theory is closer to the current society.Thirdly, to study communicative discourse from a new perspective, we can find the greater theoretical significance and value of the CP. Most of the research on the CP focuses on how to follow the CP to conduct efficient dialogue. However, the author analyzes how humorous utterances are produced by violating the CP. Sometimes, properly violating these rules can make the language more vivid and interesting, and make the relationship between people more harmonious.Finally, the CP has been a hot topic in recent decades. However, there are few articles on sitcoms from the perspective of the CP, especially on the latest sitcoms. Most scholars use the CP to study the more ancient and classic sitcoms, some of which are out of date and do not conform to the current social situation. Therefore, researchers should keep pace with the times and constantly update the research materials to create more value.In a word, this paper has both theoretical significance and practical value. It is not only a further discussion on the theoretical value of the CP, but also is helpful for the audience to understand the humorous dialogue in sitcoms and to cultivate their sense of humor.1.3 Research purposesHumor is an indispensable part of daily communication, humor can bring people happy mood, can make interpersonal relationship more harmonious. Sitcoms are loved by many people and used by many English learners as learning materials and tools to improve the level of English listening and speaking. If we use the CP from the perspective of violating the CP, we can have a deeper understanding of the CP and create humor easily and effectively. Therefore, this paper aims to make more people understand how humorous language is produced, help the audience understand and appreciate the humorous lines, know how to properly violate the principle of cooperation, cultivate their sense of humor, and then apply it to daily communication, so as to contribute to the harmony of interpersonal relationship.2.Literature review2.1Definition of humorHumor involves many a field. Due to different perspectives, the concept of humor is different. Therefore, the concept of humor is complicated.Humor was originally a medical term. According to Attardo (1994), humor can be traced back to the Latin for liquid or fluid, which is closely related to the humor theory of medieval medicine. Nowadays, the concept of humor has changed. Various scholars try to give a definition of humor, but due to the limitations of the field, the definition of humor is relatively one-sided, and there is no clear definition of humor that scholars all agree with.In Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, humor is defined as the quality in something that makes it funny amusement or the ability to understand and enjoy funny situations or to laugh at things(1987: 523). In Modern Chinese Dictionary, humor is defined as something interesting or playful and having deep meaning or thought-provoking(2004: 1520). Raskin (1985) believed that though there are different definitions of humor, humor should include human participants. In this way, we can have a comprehensive understanding of humor. Humor is everything that is actually or potentially funny, and the process by which this funniness occurs(Palmer, 1994:3). Attardo (1994) concluded that laughter is a general criterion to emphasize the validity of the definition of humor. Ross discusses the definition of humor as something that makes people laugh or smile (1998:1). Lin Yutang (1990) considered humor as a tone, a mode of thinking, and a discourse category. Humor is a difficult concept to define first, and it can be studied from many aspects and perspectives. Therefore, the study of humor has never stopped, and there is still a lot of research space for scholars and linguists.Although the definitions of humor are different, they share a common view that humor is a human activity, which can make people laugh and think. Like the definition of humor, many scholars classify humor from different perspectives. In terms of language related humor, Bergson (1911) made a distinction between the humor expressed by language and the humor created by language. The former can be translated to different languages whereas the latter can hardly be translated, because the humor lies in the clever arrangement of words or sentence structure. It is language itself that leads to humor. Bergson (1980:25) once divided comedy the comic element in situations and the comic element in words. Koestler (1993:684-685) followed Bergsons theory and distinguished verbal humor from situational humor. Verbal humor is expressed through language, while situational humor depends on situation and specific context. As the material of this paper is humorous lines in sitcom, which aims to help English learners better understand and appreciate the humor expressed in the lines, this paper mainly studies the humor expressed in language and verbal humor. Humor in sitcoms is often accompanied by background laughter, therefore, the recognition of humorous utterances mainly depends on the background.2.2 Introduction to Grices Cooperative PrincipleHerbert Paul Grice, an American linguist, put forward the CP and a series of related maxims. Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction (Grice, 1975:45). Thus, Grice (1975) came up with a principle that the speaker must make necessary contribution according to the purpose or direction of conversation in the stage of conversation , which is called the Cooperative Principle. In order to specify the principle of cooperation, Grice introduced four maxims:Quantity(i)Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes for the exchange).(ii) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.Quality(i)Do not say what you believe to be false.(ii)Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.Relation: Be relevant.Manner: Be perspicuous.(i)Avoid obscurity of expression.(ii)Avoid ambiguity.(iii)Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).(iv)Be orderly.(Grice, 1975: 45-46)In brief, in order to talk in the most effective, rational and cooperative way, participants should speak sincerely, relevant and clearly, and provide enough information at the same time (Levinson, 1983). However, in real life communication, people do not always abide by the CP, sometimes people will deliberately violate one or more of the four maxims. The listener is required to infer the reason of violating the rules according to the context to understand the conversational implicature. In China, the introduction of the CP can be traced back to the 1980s. Hu Zhuanglin is the scholar who first mentioned it. In 1983, Cheng Yumin published Grices Conversational Implicature and Related Discussions, which introduced partnership in an all-round way. Then, the CP became the topic of pragmatic study.2.3 Review of the related researchHumor, as a hot research topic, has been widely studied in various fields. In the field of Pragmatics, some theories such as the Speech Act Theory, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle have used to analyze the generation of humor. Since this paper analyzes humor from the perspective of the CP, the author will mainly review the relevant literature on humor analysis based on the CP.By analyzing the classic dialogues in 2 Broke Girls, Zhang Yangrui (2013) concluded that the actors need to deliberately violate certain norms to produce certain conversational implicature and convey their real intention implicitly, skillfully, indirectly, so as to avoid embarrassment and add fun. An Junli (2014) analyzed Meng Feis discourse in You Are the One from the perspective of following and violating the CP, which found that following the CP is the main theme, but timely and moderate violation may be more suitable for the needs of the program. Yang Shaobo (2014) attempted to interpret the conversational implicature of classic humorous dialogues in Hannah Montana from the perspective of the CP, so as to help the audience understand the play and inspire the writers to create more excellent sitcoms. Ji Shu (2014) used the Relevance theory and the CP to explore the generation of verbal humor from several dialogues in Friends. Lv Tingting (2016) discussed the formation mechanism of different types of humor in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, aiming to make a new attempt to the study of humor in works, so as to help readers better appreciate their unique artistic value and aesthetic value. Niu Huijuan (2017) analyzed the language art in Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of three language strategies. According to her research, through violating the CP, the special purpose of the speaker or the author of the novel could be expressed, the characters could be portrayed more realistically and vividly, the theme of the novel could be better expressed, and the thought of the novel could be more profound.Scholars used the CP to analyze different materials, including the host's words in TV programs, the characters' lines in classic sitcoms and the dialogues in novels.2.4 Research gapThrough literature review, it is found that the CP plays an important role in the field of Pragmatics, which has been used as theoretical basis or theoretical guidance by various scholars. However, there are not many researches on sitcoms, and the sitcoms used by scholars in the past are a little outdated now, which is not in line with the current trend. For example, Friends, though classic, was very popular at that time. But with the passing of time and the broadcast of new sitcoms, its audience is less now, so it is not suitable for the current research material. Because of its interesting and knowledgeable content, The Big Bang Theory is deeply loved by the majority of the audience, and the latest season just ends in 2019, which means the content is relatively novel, which can reflect the development of the current society. Although some studies have used the CP to analyze The Big Bang Theory, no one has analyzed the humorous lines of the latest season. The research should keep pace with the times, and the choice of updated materials can help people today better and provide the latest reference for future research. Therefore, in order to make up for the gap in the study of the latest season of The Big Bang Theory from the perspective of the CP, the author will select the humorous discourse in the twelfth season of The Big Bang Theory as research material. ReferencesAttardo, S. (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humor, Berlin New York: Mouton de Gruvter.Bergson, H. (1911). Laughter an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. New York: Macmillan, 17.Bergson, H. (1980). Comedy. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. New York: Academic Press.Koestler, A. (1993). Humor and Wit. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Procter P. (1987). Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Beijing: The Commercial Press and Longman, 523.Palmer, J. (1994). Taking Humour Seriously. London: Routledge.Raskin, V. (1985). Semantic Theory of Humor: Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Springer Netherlands.Ross, A. (1998). The Language of humour. London: Routledge.安俊丽（2014），基于合作原则理论看孟非的主持艺术，《当代电视》，（08）：110-111。

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