A Contrastive Analysis Of Humorous Expressions In English And Chinese From A Rhetorical Perspective

Humor can be found almost everywhere in our daily life and the study on humor has become an independent field of research. With the progress of the human society and the science of humanities, the research on humor has been expended to numerous fields including rhetoric.Rhetorical devices, an essential component of rhetoric, are language forms that are typically regarded as methods to achieve special effects that transcend the literal meaning in specific language contexts, in other words, rhetorical devices are the departure from the linguistic "norms" of everyday language in some way. Humorous language is usually the expression full of interest and charm through the adjustment of rhetorical devices. A lot of English and Chinese rhetorical devices become effective vehicles of humorous expressions, most of which share lots of common grounds. However, English and Chinese belong to different language families, and great disparity exists in word formation, sentence structure and word order, hence, there must be discrepancy in rhetorical thinking and expression for the purposes of humor.On the other hand, different cultural backgrounds, social customs and habits as well as the values and taste affect one's use of rhetorical techniques to achieve humorous effects. Considering the rhetorical differences and similarities in English and Chinese, it is necessary to conduct a comparative or contrastive analysis in order to gain a deeper insight into the subject.The present thesis is composed of four parts: (1) a survey of the possible definitions and the theories of humor that have been proposed by scholars at home and abroad; (2) a discussion of the relation between rhetoric and humorous language; (3) identification of the essential differences and similarities in three pairs of rhetorical devices for the purposes of humorous expressions, namely, pun vs. shuangguan, parody vs. fangni and simile vs. mingyu, and try to find out the factors causing the differences; (4) a summary of the present thesis...