A Research On Functions Of Ellipsis In The Discourse Of Black Humor

Ellipsis is a common phenomenon in languages which means the omission of the certain component in language structure. Scholars at home and abroad have done extensive and deep researches on ellipsis, but most researchers concentrated on issues such as the definitions of ellipsis, the criteria of ellipsis, the classification and how to recover the omission parts. The function of ellipsis was not paid much attention. Previous studies discussed the function of ellipsis mainly on rhetorical and functional view. What's more, there was a research analyzing ellipsis from the view of discourse function. However, researches on the function of ellipsis in literature are hardly any. Therefore, the tentative study was made to find out the functions and features of ellipsis in black humor discourse.With the combination of the theory and practice, the Catch-22 was selected as my language material in order to get the functions of ellipsis in black humor discourse. The fragmented, incomplete, broken, the extremely transmutative and exaggerated comic language expresses the tragic theme in Catch-22. Ellipsis exists a lot in Catch-22 with its own functions and features.The following contributions are made in this thesis:Firstly, this thesis was based on the three grammar schools'ellipsis study---the descriptive grammar, the functional grammar and transformational grammar, and tried to analyze the functions of ellipsis in black humor. By the general analysis, the functional grammar was more practical and controllable in literature research which can analyze the functions of ellipsis effectively.Secondly, the three functions of ellipsis were found by the methods of qualitative and quantitative. They are interpersonal function, coherence function and informational-focus function which make the novel understood much better. The interpersonal function is reflected in the dialogues between different society standards. The coherence function is reflected in the language of Catch-22, on the surface, the language seems fragmented but in fact is cohesion which proves the logicality of this novel under the disordered language. Informational-focus function is reflected in the characters, the writing background and so on, as the war made everybody felt nervous, the simple languages emphasize the theme of black humor discourse.However, the limitations were still existed in this thesis. The data's collection was according to the definition and classification of ellipsis which show us a tendency, but due to the huge data collection and the ability of the author, the data can not be calculated with 100% accuracy. Therefore, all the conclusions and findings in the present study are waiting further study.