Gross-cultural Analysis Of Chinese And English Verhal Humors

Initially, studies about humors were limited in the field of esthetics, psychology, sociologyand philosophy. Later, with the development of linguistics, some linguists found they couldexplain the mechanism of humors based on linguistic theories. In recent years, with thedevelopment of globalization, communications among different countries become more andmore frequent. But the crashes and conflicts among different cultures are more and more obviousdue to cultural differences. Humor is not only the way to produce laughter, but the embodimentof human civilization and wisdom. It is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also a special carrierof culture. However, few studies on humors are carried out from the perspective of culture. LinYutang (1994) once said that humors could take us into the deep level of cultural understanding.What stands behind Chinese humors is Chinese culture; while what goes beyond English humorsis western culture. The studies about humors from cultural perspective become important andimpendent.This study is designed to analyze humors from cross-cultural perspective. By using thecontrastive method, this study analyses the cultural elements behind Chinese and English verbalhumors with examples. Due to non-catching cultural information in humors, people can neitherunderstand them nor get their humorous effects.Humors have covered every aspect of social life, so data of this study are from diversesources, including books, magazines, newspapers, and the Internet. But as space is limited, thispaper mainly takes some short humors, and some examples are cut short. There are thirty humorsin this study, including fifteen Chinese verbal humors and fifteen English verbal humors. Thisstudy focuses on these questions: What are the sources of humors? Do cultural elementsinfluence the understanding of humors, and how? What are the cultural elements behind Chineseand English verbal humors? And what are the differences of these cultural elements? What kindsof functions do humors play?This study indicates that cultural elements are the sources of humors, and cultural elementsinfluence the understanding of humors. These influences can be concluded into five aspects:skillful use of words, traditional beliefs, historical events, national mentalities and socialconventions. This study also shows that humors have three functions: entertaining function,social function and cultural function. Entertaining function is the basic function of humors. Itindicates that humors provide amusement to people, and enable people to laugh and feel relaxed.Social function indicates that humors play an important role in social life. They can be used assecret weapons to establish pleasant and harmonious interpersonal relationship. Cultural function indicates that humors introduce a lot of cultural information to people. They can be used asspecial reading materials in cultural learning. And humors promote the cross-culturalcommunications among countries.The significance of this study lies in the functions of humors to cross-culturalcommunications and foreign language teaching and learning. The development of cross-culturalcommunications requires people to learn more cultural knowledge; and humors, as specialreading materials, play a special role in foreign language teaching and learning.