Verbal Humor Pragmatics

This study is conducted in the cognitive-pragmatic framework in order to do some stereoscopic research on the generation, interpretation, acceptance and application of humorous utterances. Presupposition, deixis, the cooperative principle, speech act theory, face theory and politeness principle are used to elucidate the generation of the humorous utterances; Semantic Script Theory of Humor, General Theory of Verbal Humor, Marked Informativeness Requirement, Optimal Innovation Hypothesis and some construal operations in the cognitive linguistics are applied to the interpretation of the humorous utterances; under the guideline of the Acceptance Aesthetics Theory, the situation and target of the humorous utterances are explored; according to the Chinese and Western classic humor theories' description of the functions of humor, the functions of relief, rapprochement, dissolving, aggression and education of humorous utterances are summarized and exemplied in the actual communication.