A Study Of The Generation Mechanism Of English Verbal Humor From The Perspective Of Grammatical Metaphor

Humor, as a complex and intriguing aspect of human language, has been studied by scholars at home and abroad from aspects like pragmatics, semantics, cognitive linguistics and so on, whereas very few inquiries are conducted from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This thesis makes a tentative purport to investigate the generation mechanism of English verbal humor in the framework of grammatical metaphor, trying to propose a general pattern for English verbal humor generation. According to the metafunctions of language, Halliday has classified grammatical metaphor into two categories:ideational metaphor and interpersonal metaphor, with textual metaphor excluded. This paper adopts Halliday’s division and makes a comparatively comprehensive analysis of English verbal humor generation by case study.The present thesis attempts to answer the following questions:(i) Do grammatical metaphor theories have adequate explanatory force to expound English verbal humor?(ii) How are the humorous effects realized in English verbal jokes from the perspective of grammatical metaphor?(iii) What are the techniques or strategies that contribute to the generation of humorous utterances? The major findings of this thesis can be summarized as follows:(a) In concern of transitivity system, humor can be realized through incongruity among different elements of transitivity process, which is a fruitful source of English verbal humor.(b) In order to achieve certain intentions, speakers tend to use incongruent forms of mood and modality. If interpreted inappropriately, however, it can bring about unexpected reaction from the hearer and that is usually how humor is generated.(c) The utilization of interpersonal metaphor contributes to a smoother flow of communication, but sometimes negative side-effects might come along.(d) Grammatical metaphor bears adequate explanatory force to describe why and how jokes are funny, which may hopefully help fill the gap in humor studies.The findings of this thesis are expected to shed some light on future humor studies, and at the same time help improve the creation of humor in day-to-day interactions as well as the comprehension of humorous utterances.