A Pragmatic Analysis To Humorous Utterances In The American Sitcom The Big Bang Theory

Humor is a common and intriguing linguistic phenomenon. The use of humor has a vitalimportance in daily communication. The research on this phenomenon has been conductedboth at home and aboard from different perspectives such as linguistics, psychology andsociology, etc. But the study of humor in the situation comedy is restricted to the syntactic level.Under the framework of the Speech Act Theory, the functions of humor can be studied frompragmatic perspective. Other than producing amusement, humor can be used to do all kinds ofspeech activities to realize special communicative goals. So this thesis will study the humorousutterances in the latest and most popular American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which isfamous for its original material and humorous utterances.This thesis tries to interpret how humor is produced and what pragmatic strategies areused mostly in the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The first2seasons are chosen as thecorpus data.300examples are selected, of which35are analyzed carefully to fulfill theresearch. The data is chosen by background audience's laughter sound track.Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed in this thesis. Qualitative methodanalyzes how humor is produced. Quantitative method analyzes the distribution ofillocutionary and perlocutinary acts of the humorous utterances. Based on Austin's study andSearle's classification of five categories of illocutionary acts (Representatives, Expressives,Declarations, Commissives and Directives), humorous illocutionary acts are analyzed. Fromthe distribution of illocutionary speech acts, it can be inferred that illocutionary acts ofRepresentatives take up the most percent. People like to use humorous words to state, assertand claim. Expressives are the next prevalent, followed by Directives and Commissives.Declarations take up the least. Hay's categories of humor functions are used to investigate theperlocutionary acts which are done under three categories: Solidarity, Aggression and Defense.In American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, characters prefer to use humor to show aggression.Perlocutinary acts of defense and solidarity comes next. Characters use some pragmaticstrategies such as reinforcing boundaries, fostering conflict, confessing and coping, etc.The study of humor in The Big Bang Theory based on the Speech Act Theory is new andchallenging. The study of humor in American sitcom has significant practical importance toEnglish learning and teaching. It can help English learners to appreciate humor better and canprovide a lot of authentic and up-to-date materials for English teaching.