A Pragmatic Study Of Attached Sign Cluster's Humor Production Mechanism

This thesis is the pragmatic study of the humor production mechanism of ASC (attached sign cluster).In comparison with the researches into speech language, the exploration into the functions that ASC (which refers to the non-verbal cluster of signs adhering to speakers) performs has long been neglected. The research in this field is inadequate and open to be furthered and deepened. This research is an attempt at this.One of the important theoretic foundations of this thesis is Professor Qian's redefined pragmatics and its research scope with due consideration to the mature western pragmatic theories in his book Pragmatics in Chinese Culture-Speechology in Humanistic Networks, which is based on Chinese culture and Chinese language phenomena. Qian puts special emphasis on the function that non-speech factors perform in the communicative course. Qian refers to pragmatics as "speechology in humanistic network" and redefines it as "a functional language theory, which studies how language users explain the implied meaning rather than the literal meaning of the language with the interference and involvement of the cluster of signs adhering to speakers, context and intelligence. Briefly, Qian interprets this definition as "3+1 pragmatics". According to his theory, ASC includes object language, paralanguage and body language signs. They all take part in communication and sometimes play roles more important than the verbal ones do.When we look into the non-speech humor production mechanism, context stays in the core. In order to facilitate the description of ASC's humor production process, the categories and scope of context here is redefined and adjusted into 4 groups in reference to Qian's classification of context and other relevant claims about context:context composed of ASC and/or verbal signs; social/cultural context (recessive context); situational context (dominant context) and cognitive context. This new classification is based on the understanding and employment of the existent context conceptions. It's also the theoretic innovation on ASC's humor research. In the final part of the thesis, ASC's humor production mechanism is illustrated with pictures and vivid examples to explain how (a) humor receiver (s) understand(s) humor through incongruity between assumption(s) or interpretation(s) of ASC and (a) former assumption (s) in dynamic cognitive contexts.The whole thesis is composed of 3 parts:introduction, the body part and conclusion.The introduction includes 2 parts:the first part focuses on the existent studies on humor:people explore it from varied angles and approaches:linguistically (phonetically, semantically, syntactically, discourse-concerned), stylistically (rhetorically), psychologically, logically, pragmatically (from the stand point of hypothesis theory, cooperative principles, face-saving theory, speech act principles, relevance theory which belongs to cognitive approach) and some new development in incongruity or deviation. The second part illustrates the innovation in this thesis about non-verbal humor production.The body part is divided into 4 chapters.Chapter One states the various versions about humor's originations, definitions, and productive theories. Emphasis is put on the theory of incongruity which is the foundation of non-verbal humor employed in this thesis.Chapter Two introduces some important founding theories:Professor Qian Guanlian's definition of pragmatics, its theoretic system and scope. Here the significance of the nationalization of western pragmatics in the development of Chinese characterized pragmatic theoretic system is stressed.Chapter Three further discusses another key word:ASC. In the first part of this chapter, two closely-related concepts are discussed in detail:non-verbal communication and signs. After that, emphasis is put on the definition, classification, characteristics and practical functions of ASC in communication, which clears the road for the discussion of ASC's humor production mechanism in Chapter IV.Chapter Four is the core of the thesis. First of all, the concept of context is explored in detail because ASC's meaning can only be created and interpreted through context. Although context's definitions and classifications vary, this thesis puts context into 4 categories:context composed of ASC and/or verbal signs; social/cultural context (recessive context); situational context (dominant context) and cognitive context. It's also the theoretic innovation on non-verbal humor research.The next part which is the most important of all, is a theoretic innovation on ASC's humor production mechanism. This is well illustrated in the rest part of the chapter by some most representative and classical examples both in English and Chinese culture from American sitcom Friends and Zhao Benshan's short comic plays.The conclusion part sums up the whole thesis.This research is based on nationalized pragmatic theories into a rarely explored field-the humor production mechanism of ASC (attached sign cluster) in the pragmatic scope, using Qian's Chinese characterized terms and theoretic frameworks, and what's more, there are several theoretic innovations in ASC's humor production mechanism which certainly is of pragmatic and ethnic value.