A Semantic Study Of English Conundrums

As a form of English riddles, conundrums are usually propounded to make fun. This thesis attempts to make a semantic study of conundrums for the purpose of analyzing the semantic strategies and exploring the internal mechanism of conundrums.The relevant literature is reviewed first. Then the thesis goes on with the limitations of the previous approaches. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of conundrums, the semantic approach is introduced and the semantic strategies are summarized. According to the semantic strategies, conundrums are classified and interpreted. Furthermore, implications of the present study are discussed in the final section.Conundrums constitute a form of humorous expressions in English. The analysis of semantic strategies adopted in conundrums will be a great help for better comprehension of English humors. Moreover, the present study will make a valuable contribution to the analysis of Chinese brain-twisters and the comparison of English-Chinese humorous expressions.