An Analysis On Verbal Humor In Cross Talks From The Perspective Of Schema Theory

As one of the cultural treasures in Chinese nation, the cross talk has a history of more than onehundred years. The witty and humorous words of cross talks reflect the wisdom and creativity of Chinesepeople, and deserve more researches. This paper is an analysis on the verbal humor in cross talks from theperspective of schema theory.On the basis of qualitative analysis on the collected data, this study attempts to answer the followingthree questions:(1) Why is the verbal humor in cross talks laughable?(2) How do the audience understandthe verbal humor in cross talks and what are the factors that may arouse the verbal humor?(3) In what waydo foreign Chinese learners understand the verbal humor in cross talks?After analyzing “Semantic Script Theory of Humor” and “General Theory of Verbal Humor” whichproposed that any verbal humor is compatible with two opposed schemata, this paper expounds that theverbal humor in cross talks are much more complicated. Besides the verbal humor composed of twoopposed schemata, there are also the verbal humor composed of one self-contradictory schema and theverbal humor composed of multi-schemata oppositions.Meanwhile, the author makes a deep study on the process of cross talk comprehension under theguidance of schema theory. The critical point in cross talk comprehension is whether the audience canactivate the relevant schema/schemata, thus leading to the stages of information prediction, informationselection, reconstruction and new-schema storage. At last, the author summarizes five main points thatforeigners should consider in the process of cross talk comprehension.Cross talks have passed through more than100years, but the relevant research is insufficient. Thispaper is a tentative research on the verbal humor in cross talks, aiming to lay the foundation for the furtherresearches on the combination of schema theory and traditional Chinese culture.