On The Humorous Effect From Cooperative Principle’s View Point:a Case Study Of The Big Bang Theory

In this thesis, the author probes into the mechanism of humor, and analyzes humorous conversation in American sitcom The Big Bang Theory from the perspective of the Cooperative Principle which is proposed by Grice. Many case studies are made to give audience a better understanding and deeper appreciation of humor.Humor, like a mystery, is an old and obscure research topic. As is known to all, humor is a foreign word in China, and the first introducer and translator of humor is Lin Yutang. From then on, domestic researches on humor are flourishing. Humor has become a hot research topic which attracts countless scholars. There exist numorous theories on humor, however, no theory can reasonably solve this mystery so far. Apte says that humor is probably one of the most difficult research topics. Humor plays an important role in people’s life. In the information society today, American sitcoms are one of the most popular forms for people to appreciate humor. On the one hand, they provide audience with laughter; on the other hand, they integrate many modern elements and plentiful information which provides people with valuable knowledge. Therefore, sitcoms are one of the hottest topics for humor research.In this paper, quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are used as the research methods. Quantitative analysis is used to scrutinize into people’s understanding of humor to clarify the relationships, discover the laws governing the humor and grasp the essence of humor scientifically. Qualitative analysis is used to analyze the qualitative aspects of humor, specially, through using analysis and synthesis methods to process variety of material, so as to achieve two purposes:understanding the nature of humor and revealing the inherent law of humor.Firstly, the author clarifies the subjects of this research and states the process of data collection. Then, the definitions and classifications of humor are declared, the previous studies on humor which includes the origin of humor and humor theories are summarized. The author also sums up linguistic study on humor. Afterwards, the theoretical basis are presented:The Cooperative Principle and its four maxims, analyzes the limitations of the CP and summarizes the Post-Gricean development and previous CP researches both at home and abroad. Then, the author introduces The Big Bang Theory and its five leading characters, analyzes humorous conversations which flout the CP. In the discussion, some rhetoric analysis is included to find out the ways humor is generated, which will help people grasp the essence of humor, understand and appreciate humor better. At last, the author summarizes two findings and four limitations of this paper.From the author’s point of view, as a successful sitcom, The Big Bang Theory provides audience with not only laughter, but also encyclopedic knowledge. In particular, the sitcom exerts an invisible, informative influence on the audience with some new methods of communication and new ways of expression. The author hopes that this thesis can provide help for people who probe into humor and sitcoms and the script translators.