The Study Of Verbal Humor From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Humor has always been an old and hot research topic.In the 1980s,with the development of cognitive pragmatics,the study on humor expanded to the cognitive level,and the most typical theory is Relevance Theory.In recent years,domestic scholars have used sitcoms,variety shows,films,skits and crosstalk as corpora to interpret verbal humor from the perspective of Relevance Theory.However,English jokes,as a common form of expression of verbal humor,are rarely studied.In order to make up for the lack of theoretical study and interpret the generation mode and the comprehension pattern of verbal humor more comprehensively and thoroughly,it is necessary to analyze verbal humor in English jokes from the perspective of Relevance Theory.Based on predecessors' excellent achievements,this thesis takes Relevance Theory as the theoretical framework,verbal humor in English jokes as the research object,uses corpus analysis,deductive and inductive methods as the research methods,and takes the ostensive-inferential model,principles of relevance and cognitive context as the points for penetration.Through scientific demonstration,it aims to explore the generation mode and the comprehension pattern of verbal humor in English jokes.Specifically,this thesis aims to solve the following three core research questions:Firstly,from the perspective of Relevance Theory,what is the generation mode of verbal humor in English jokes?Secondly,according to Relevance Theory,how should the hearer comprehend verbal humor in English jokes?Thirdly,what are the main obstacles for the hearer to comprehend verbal humor in English jokes?The corpus of this thesis is selected from Humor&Jokes written by Qing Run,Zhang Ling and Ting Quan.Through a systematic and scientific analysis of 40 typical English jokes,this study shows that from the perspective of Relevance Theory,ostensive-inferential model,principles of relevance and cognitive context are closely related to the generation and comprehension of verbal humor in English jokes.Verbal humor in English jokes is generated from the difference between informative intention and communicative intention,the inconsistency between maximal relevance and optimal relevance,and the non-mutual cognitive context.Among them,the principle of relevance is the most popular principle to guide the design of English jokes for writers.Similarly,there are three patterns to comprehend verbal humor in English jokes:the hearer comprehends verbal humor by inferring the communicative intention behind the speaker's informative intention;the hearer comprehends verbal humor by breaking the expectation of maximal relevance and making extra efforts to seek the optimal relevance provided by the speaker;the hearer comprehends verbal humor by converting the context.In addition,language and cultural context are the main obstacles to the comprehension of verbal humor in English jokes.In a word,Relevance Theory can provide a good theoretical framework for the study on verbal humor in English jokes.It can explain the generation and comprehension of verbal humor in English jokes scientifically and effectively.This thesis combines theory with practice,it is helpful for people to comprehend and appreciate verbal humor in a better way;it can provide a meaningful reference for the design of verbal humor in English jokes;it is helpful for English learners to understand Relevance Theory,verbal humor and the relationship between them and it also can play an enlightening role in English classroom teaching.