A Tentative Study Of Verbal Humor In Zhao Benshan’s Comic Sketches: A Multidimensional Approach

Humor, as one of the most intriguing and amazing intellectual treasures, has long remained as a research topic of interest for many scholars across various disciplines. The goal of this thesis is to explore into the field of humor research from a multidimensional perspective. The author selects Zhao Benshan’s comic sketches in CCTV Festival Gala from 1990 to 2011 as the data of research and uses a qualitative analysis method to attempt the study of laughingstocks in his works.This thesis is a language-based multidimensional survey of verbal humor from three perspectives, namely, linguistic mechanism, logical mechanism and pragmatic mechanism, aiming at remedying the gap of single-theory relatively limited explanation and making the laughingstocks in Zhao Benshan’s comic sketches comprehensively understood. It begins with a two-pronged illustrations of language, the salient formal dimension and logic, the hidden thought process dimension, with the laughable script lines in Zhao’s sketches, attempting to present an elaborate description of how humor works in the dimensions of language form and logic expression, and to preliminarily establish the external and internal mechanisms to Zhao’s verbal humor. Then, since comic sketch distinguishes itself from other performances like monologue cross-talk and talk show with its exclusive feature of the conversation context, the thesis further carries out a detailed analysis from a pragmatic mechanism, detailedly applying Grice’s Cooperative Principle to supplement the previous two dimensions and to probe how pragmatic theory works in the construction of humor. The framework of this thesis is as follows:Chapter one offers an introduction to the whole thesis. It presents an overall picture of the study, equipping the readers with an initial knowledge of the study subject of this thesis, the significance, data and methodology of this study and the framework of this thesis.Chapter two presents a brief review of literature. It starts with a brief look at the etymology and definition of humor at the beginning; then reviews the traditional theories and linguistic theories of humor study; at last points out the gap of the previous study on humor and briefly gives a statement on multidimensional approach to Zhao’s comic sketches.Chapter three conducts a detailed material analysis from linguistic mechanism and humor. And the language components will be mainly focused on phone, lexicon and grammar.Chapter four discusses the relation between the humor in Zhao’s comic sketches and logic laws, namely, law of identity, non-contradiction, middle excluded and sufficient reasons.Chapter five applies Grice’s Cooperative Principle to the examination of Zhao’s humor study, addressing the subject mainly based on its four maxims and its explanatory power in humor study.Chapter six is the conclusion of this thesis. It provides a preliminary summary of the major findings and limitations of the study and makes several suggestions for further studies.