Verbal Humor Interpretation From The Perspective Of Cooperative Principle

Verbal humor, as an important part of language and culture, has attracted more andmore attention from foreign language teaching and research.The previous studies on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are mademainly from three perspectives: translation, culture or cross-culture, and pragmatics, mostof which are carried out from the first two perspectives, and few of them are conductedfrom the perspective of pragmatics. The present thesis, mainly by case analysis, is intendedto interpret the verbal humor in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspectiveof Cooperative Principle, and is attempted to answer two research questions: how doesCooperative Principle prove applicable and feasible in interpreting verbal humor and howdoes Cooperative Principle operate in interpreting verbal humor?The present thesis firstly introduces the research questions and the significance of thestudy, proposes the theoretical framework and methodology based on a literature review,and then presents a detailed analysis of the verbal humor in Huckleberry Finn from theperspective of Cooperative Principle before summing up the major findings, implications,limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.Two major findings are derived from the study: Cooperative Principle is provedhighly applicable and feasible in interpreting verbal humor, and the generation andinterpretation of verbal humor are closely related with the violation of CooperativePrinciple and its maxims.