The Cognitive Mechanisms Of Verbal Humor Interpretations: From The Perspective Of The Relevance Theory And The Conceptual Blending Theory

Verbal humor is a kind of Ostensive-Inferential communication in terms of the Relevance Theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995), in the process of which the speaker produces a certain language stimulus with the aim of fulfilling an informative intention as well as a communicative intention, and the hearer or the audience is to infer his/her intention in producing such a language stimulus from the ostensive behavior of the speaker.According to the Conceptual Blending Theory proposed by Fauconnier (1997), conceptual blending is a fundamental cognitive ability taking place at all levels of perception, of understanding and of memory, including comprehension of verbal humors. During the process of verbal humor interpretations the interpreter of humor utterance can blend the embodied world knowledge stored in the brain, including social, cultural knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge,and the input utterance information(contextual assumptions), which result in the emergent structure during the on-line meaning construction. According to Fauconnier (1997: 149), all forms of thought are creative in the sense that they produce new links, new configurations, and correspondingly, new meaning and novel conceptualization.The optimal relevance principle of the relevance theory is the cognitive base for the speaker to achieve and listeners to comprehend humorous effects. The analyzing ways provided by the conceptual blending theory can better disclose the on-line meaning construction and meaning creation during the process of verbal humor interpretations.This thesis probes into the cognitive mechanisms involved in the process of the interpretations of those verbal humors which do not have incongruity but still make the recipients laugh by adopting the Relevance Theory and the Conceptual Blending Theory which can explain the unexpected fun resulting from the emergent structure during the on-line meaning construction. We hold the assumption that the successful interpretation of verbal humor is decided not only by relevance and inference, but also by conceptual blending and the emergent structure.This thesis makes some case studies of verbal humor to elucidate the cognitive...