Research On The Role Of Cultural Context In Verbal Humor Understanding

This thesis aims to explore the effect of cultural context on verbal humor understanding. In this study, the author adopts literature review and logical deductive methods to explore the role of cultural context in verbal humor understanding. A lot of verbal humor illustrations are chosen from newspapers, magazines, books and Internets to explain the effect of cultural context on verbal humor understanding. On the basis of pragmatic theory and from four important aspects of the cultural context, which are history, religion, social convention and value system, the research intends to explore functions of cultural context in verbal humor understanding. And then the model of Relevance theory and Conceptual blending theory is used to further illustrate the effect of cultural context on verbal humor understanding from theoretical perspective. Results of this study show that cultural context has two important functions in verbal humor understanding: one is restrictive function, which means that when the information of cultural context has been obtained by language learners, such information of cultural context will help language learners interpret the verbal humor. In terms of this function, three aspects are concerned: situation restriction, content restriction and cultural restriction. The other is the interpretative function of cultural context to verbal humor understanding. In terms of this function, three subdivisions are mentioned: eliminating ambiguity, removing vagueness and inferring the implied meaning. Through exploration, we can get a clear idea about the function of cultural context to verbal humor understanding. Obtaining this knowledge is very helpful for language learners' study and research.