An Analysis Of Verbal Humor In American Sitcoms From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Presupposition

Humor is an essential part of modern spiritual civilization,which plays an increasingly important role in people’s daily life.Besides,verbal humor is a unique linguistic phenomenon,which refers to the humor that produces when people communicate verbally in specific situations.After Friends,Modern Family is another famous American sitcom.Hence,a further study on its humorous dialogues is needed.This study aims to interpret verbal humor from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition,humorous dialogues in the classic American sitcom Modern Family are chosen as the research corpus.Modern Family has been updated to 9th at present and due to the large number of humorous lines and the limited length of this thesis,this thesis mainly focuses on the 7th season and 50 classic humorous dialogues in 22 episodes are collected for analysis.Through qualitative analysis,this thesis attempts to analyze the presupposition characteristics and the triggering strategies of verbal humors in Modern Family.Accordingly,this thesis will make a summary of the factors that influence the application of pragmatic presupposition to produce verbal humors in Modern Family.Thus,the following three questions will be explored in this thesis:(1)What are the presupposition features of verbal humors in Modern Family?(2)How are the verbal humors triggered by pragmatic presupposition in Modern Family?(3)What are the main factors that influence the application of pragmatic presupposition to produce verbal humors in Modern Family?Through research,this paper draws the following conclusions:(1)The verbal humors in Modern Family are triggered by the language conflict(incongruity)between the addresser and the addressee.The verbal humors in Modern Family are mainly realized by the four presupposition features,mutual knowledge,defeasibility,appropriateness and subjectivity,in verbal communication.(2)The verbal humors in Modern Family can be triggered by preserved presupposition,canceled presupposition,false presupposition and contradicted presupposition.(3)Factors that mainly influence the application of pragmatic presupposition to produce verbal humors inModern Family can be divided into three categories: linguistic factors,cultural factors and situational factors.This study can enrich related studies of American sitcom Modern Family in pragmatics.Moreover,it has a positive effect on the English learning for English learners.English learners can learn and appreciate the verbal humors in Modern Family,which can help to improve their communication ability.Secondly,it is also helpful for English learners to understand American life so as to improve their English learning ability.Thirdly,it also provides a meaningful reference to English learners to master pragmatic presupposition theory.