An Interpersonal Analysis Of Zhao Benshan’s Sketches

Sketches are a popular stage performance in China. Analyses on sketches or on humor in sketches are mainly from pragmatic perspective and try to explain the root of humor by examining the linguistic characteristics employed. As an efficient analytical tool, interpersonal metafunction, one of the three metafunctions in Systemic Functional Linguistics, draws more and more attention, mainly applied to the analysis of political discourse, literary genre, advertisements and so on. The application of Systemic Functional Linguistics in the analysis of sketches is seldom touched upon. This thesis is a study of interpersonal meaning conveyed in sketches. Considering the popularity of Zhao Benshan as a sketch performer, two of his sketches are chosen as the material analyzed.Given the characteristics of oral performance, among a variety of ways to realize interpersonal meaning, Mood, Modality and Vocative are chosen in analyzing two of Zhao Benshan’s sketches, namely Three Whippings and Hourly Rated Worker. Both quantitive and qualitive methods are adopted. The purpose of doing so is to reveal: first, what kinds of interpersonal relationships are realized in the sketches; second, how are the interpersonal relationships realized; third, what functions are to achieve through the interpersonal relationships. Meanwhile, this study is to testify the feasibility of analysis of sketches from the angle of Systemic Functional Linguistics and find out problems that may be encountered, so that some helpful suggestions for further study are attempted.It is revealed that through the use of Mood, proper vocatives, and modal verbs, the characters that Zhao Benshan portrays are always of confident, straightforward, witty and humorous personality. No special methods in sketches are directed at the audience, yet at the beginning, dialogues or words are often given to provide background information to interest and involve the audience. The study proves the feasibility of application in the analysis of sketches and meanwhile suggests that to get more objective and comprehensive result, more detailed definition of Mood types in oral Chinese and further exploration of linguistic sources to realize Modality are needed.