On The Analysis Of English Humor In Reading From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Humor, as a special language communication, is available in everyday life. It has become a topic of general interest for the researchers, because of its marvelous effect. With the development of linguistics, humor has been studied from multi-perspectives. The application of Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) to humor breaks new ground for English humor study in future. CBT was first proposed by Fauconnier and discussed at length in Fauconnier and Turner (1998) and Coulson (2000), which is a theoretical framework for exploring human information integration. Due to its great explanatory power, CBT has been applied to many fields, such as arts, architecture, mathematics, humor and so on.The purposes of the present study are to enrich the theories of English humor; prove the explanatory power of CBT on English humor and point out the exiting problems in the same field; analyze the factors affecting college students'appreciation of English humor in reading; and at the same time, this study is expected to give some implications and suggestions to English humor teaching and learning.In the present study, three hypotheses were proposed, circling round the relationship between CBT and English humor reading.1. Does CBT have explanatory power on English humor?2. What are the factors affecting students'perception of English humor in reading?3. What is the cognitive process of English humor reading? In this study, 82 college students from different colleges took part in the research actively. In the process of data analysis, quantitative and qualitative analysis were used. The quantitative analysis was conducted by computer with SPSS. The qualitative analysis was achieved with the help of the instruments,such as English humor test, questionnaire, think-aloud, written report and interview. The treatment procedures began with the English humor test (20 passages of English humor reading). Afterwards, the questionnaires were administered, aiming at the beliefs, the factors affecting English humor reading and the strategies used. Subsequently, it was followed by think-aloud and interview, which further explored the subjects'appreciation of English humor in reading.Through the findings, the author found that during the process of explaining the English humors, almost all the students had used CBT subconsciously, which proved that there was close relation between CBT and English humor. In other words, the striking feature of CBT is on-line meaning construction, which has the advantage of explaining English humor. In the meanwhile, the author also found some limitations of CBT. For example, the production of laughter was not always made by blending but depending on the clash between the mental spaces. So CBT didn't work in the same way on different types of English humor.In the meanwhile, some factors affecting students'appreciation of English humor in reading were checked and revealed with supports of large number of theories and findings. And the cognitive process of English humor reading was also explored by the author, including schemata, relevance, context, reference and so on, besides conceptual blending. At the end of the study, some implications were proposed from the perspective of theory, methodology, and practical teaching, which were followed by the suggestions given to teachers and students.