A Functional Linguistic Analysis Of Humor In Reader's Digest

Humor, as a specific human linguistic phenomenon, not only permeates every corner of life, but is also an indispensable element of social practice .Therefore, studies of humor from different perspectives are of great theoretical significance and practical value.Within the theoretical framework of Systemic-functional linguistics, this paper will conduct a discourse study of humors in Reader's Digest, totally 12 volumes in 2006, from the perspectives of genre and Generic Structure Potential (GSP), context and discourse features.In Chapter One, the paper gives a brief introduction to the aim and significance of the study, namely, analyzing humorous discourse in Systemic-functional Linguistics ( henceforth: SFL) so as to verify the feasibility of this theory in humor analysis, thus a new study perspective on humor is provided.Chapter Two gives a survey of humor, including its definitions, classifications, functions and its research status at home and abroad.Based on the genre theory of Hasan and Martin, GSP theory of Hasan, the main genres of humorous discourse and their GSP are studied first in Chapter Three. Through a contrastive study of the three genres: story-type joke, riddle and one-liner, it is concluded that they as humor have a common generic structure potential (GSP), namely, humor, no matter long or short, generally has three structural elements like situation or co-text, problem and response or solution to the problem. The appreciation of humor has.to do with readers' cognitions and some other factors, so it is not an obligatory element for a humorous discourse. At last, the possible mismatches of generic structures of humorous discourse come to the study of this chapter, including that some extra elements are inserted into normal generic structure, the normal order of different elements is disturbed and the clash of two different generic structures.Chapter Four focuses on the analysis of context, including situational and cultural contexts. Through analyzing the context of humorous discourses in Reader's Digest, the paper points out the mismatches of contextual elements that may exist in humorous discourse compared with serious discourse, i.e. the mismatches of fields, tenors and modes. Mismatch of fields are mainly the mismatches of different topics; mismatch of tenors are the clash between different formalities or different functional tenors; mismatch of modes may be the clash between oral and written forms. Cultural context analysis of humor emphases the importance of culture in appreciating humor effect—the humor rooted in the deep culture is difficult for those outside the culture to understand.A discourse study of humorous discourse is conducted in Chapter Five, including the mismatch of grammatical cohesion and coherence, the cohesive use of pun, and the unique cohesive and coherent feature of the humorous discourse playing on language, namely, there are two systems of cohesion and coherence. One is explicit but incomplete, unable to run through the whole discourse; The implicit system explains the whole discourse, but doesn't conform to the common expectation. This unique cohesion and coherence feature is the linguistic difference between humorous discourse and serious discourse.From the discourse perspective of SFL, the paper emphases the GSP of the humorous discourse as a genre, and its difference from that of serious discourse are just the cause of humor effect. Meanwhile, as an indispensable element of discourse analysis, Context possesses a special significance in humor analysis, and becomes a key in creating and understanding humor.The paper proves the feasibility of SFL in analyzing humor discourse and at the same time provides a clear explanation of humors in Reader's Digest; however, only several genres of humor, such as jokes and riddles, are analyzed in this paper, so it is not comprehensive and detailed enough. Hopefully, more humorous genres will be taken in the future study.Humor is everywhere, and a study on humor language may improve our ability to appreciate humor, and accordingly our ability to understand and use English language. Humor is an essential part of social communication, and studying verbal humor can help people understand better not only humor phenomenon, but also themselves, others and even the society.