An Analysis Of Verbal Humor In How I Met Your Mother From The Perspective Of Cooperative Principle

The research on humor was firstly mentioned in the era of Plato and Aristotle inAncient Greece. And in following centuries, people do a lot of researches about itfrom different perspectives which include aesthetics, philosophy, psychology andsociology. In the study of humor, there are three traditional and significant theoriesincluding the incongruity theory, the superiority theory and the relief theory. Later on,the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) and the General Theory of Verbalhumor (GTVH) which are two theories in the light of semantics have great effect onthe study humor. In recent years, more and more researchers study the verbal humorfrom the angle of linguistics based on the humor researches of the domestic andoverseas scholars. It is a relatively new exploration for the study on humor from theperspective of linguistics especially the pragmatics. With the gradual developmentand completion of pragmatics, researchers attempt to explore the generationmechanism of verbal humor on the basis of pragmatics. This kind of research makesgreat contribution to the enrichment of the humor study.The thesis applies the Cooperative Principle of pragmatics as the theoreticalframework. The Cooperative Principle which is put forward by American famouslinguist Raskin in1976is the central and important topic in the development ofpragmatics. From the perspective of Cooperative Principle, there are some basic rulesand principles between the speaker and the hearer which aim to guarantee the smoothand successful process of the communications. Cooperative Principle contains fourkinds of maxims which are the quantity maxim, the quality maxim, the relationmaxim and the manner maxim. In the communications, obeying the cooperativeprinciple can make the conversation successful, but violating the principle may causeother effects such as humor. There is no doubt that the situation comedy provides abundant materials for thestudy on humor from the perspective of pragmatics. Situation comedy which isoriginated from America is one of the most popular TV shows. It attracts a lot ofpeople all over the world because of its humorous utterances and fascinating plots.People can not only reduce their pressure and ease their mood, but also know thelifestyle, culture and customs about other countries from the situation comedy.Meanwhile as large amounts of humorous utterances in the situation comedy integratewith the context, they are the perfectly appropriate and typical corpus for the verbalhumor research from the angle of pragmatics.This thesis tries to analyze the verbal humor in the sitcom from the perspective ofcooperative principle. The thesis chooses the American popular sitcom “How I MetYour Mother” as the corpus to explore the generation mechanism of verbal humor.Two questions are focused on in the thesis as follows:(1) Among the four maxims of the CP, which is the most frequently violated?Which is the least frequently violated?(2) How is verbal humor produced by violating the Cooperative Principle and itsfour maxims?In this study,20episodes are selected randomly from the fifth and sixth season ofHow I Met Your Mother. And in the collection of verbal humor, the backgroundaudience’s laughter is regarded as the standard. Meanwhile, this thesis uses qualitativeand quantitative methods to explore the generation mechanism of verbal humor.Quantitative method is mainly used to count the exact number and percentage andqualitative method is mainly used to analyze the typical examples selected in thecorpus under the framework of the cooperative principle aiming at exploring thegeneration mechanism of the verbal humor.According to the analysis of verbal humor, this research has proved that there is aclose relationship between the generation of verbal humor and the cooperativeprinciple. And it is the main way to produce verbal humor by violating thecooperative principle and its maxims. Meanwhile, violating quality maxim of thecooperative principle takes up the highest percentage and violating manner maxim of the cooperative principle takes up least in the generation of verbal humor. To someextent, it enriches and perfects the study on verbal humor as it is relatively new angle.In addition, this research makes great contributions to appreciating the verbal humorand learning English language. At the same time, it has great effect on the creation ofthe situation comedy and the verbal humor. At last, the author explores the study inthe aspect of English teaching, learning and the appreciation of humor. In the aspectof English teaching, the application of sitcom can arouse the students’ interests andmake a more relaxing learning atmosphere. In the aspect of English learning, studentscan not only experience the real happiness of English learning, but also help themmaster more vocabularies and daily expressions by sitcom. Meanwhile, it can helpstudents enhance their oral English and learn more foreign culture. In the aspect ofappreciation and creation of humor, the study can not only help people understand theverbal humor of sitcom better, but also make great contribution on the creation of thesituation comedy and the verbal humor.