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1. Introduction . 1
1.1 The Background of the Thesis . 1
1.2 The Significance of the Thesis 1
1.3 An Introduction to Sitcom Two and a Half Men 1
2. Literature Review . 2
3. Research Methodology .. 2
3.1 Materials . 2
3.2 Data collection . 3
3.3 Analytical approach Data Analysis . 3
4. Analysis of Humorous Utterance from the Perspective of CP .. 4
4.1 Humor: Violation of Quantity Maxim . 4
4.2 Humor from the Violation of Quality Maxim . 6
4.3 Humor from the Violation of Relation Maxim 7
4.4 Humor from the Violation of Manner Maxim . 9
4.5 Number and percentage of violation of four maxims of sitcom .. 10
Conclusion .. 11
Acknowledgements 12
Bibliography .. 13
1. Introduction 1.1 The Background of the Thesis Humor is a universal phenomenon. It is widely applied in verbal communication of daily life and literary works. For centuries there has been a large number of theories and article about humor. The study of humor is a multiple disciplinary science constituted of rhetoric, aesthetics, linguistics, sociology and philosophy. The early research of humor was mainly from the perspective of philosophy and literary. Humor became the heated topic of pragmatic linguistics with the development in pragmatics. Under this scenario, Grice's Cooperative Principle (CP) is used as the framework to analyze the effects源]自{751·~论\文}网·www.751com.cn/ of humor in the sitcom. Further, some other academia put forwards that humorous effect came from violation to at least one maxim of CP.
1.2 The Significance of the Thesis Although the explanation of the mechanism of humor generation and perception from the pragmatics perspective has been argued for a prolonged time, we rarely see any pragmatic application of this theory in any specific humor contest sitcom. This present paper focuses on the verbal humor in communication, so it can broaden the corresponding theoretical hypothesis. In addition, this study could help us to analyze and understand the way of expression in humor sitcoms and our daily communication. Furthermore, we could apply humor to English teaching classroom. The humorous teaching approach could active classroom atmosphere, reduce the tension and arouse students’ interest.
1.3 An Introduction to Sitcom Two and a Half Men The ten-season CBS teleplay Two and a Half Men is a well-known sitcom, which has been nominated three times for Grammy Awards. I’ll use this case for my argument due to its abundance in linguistic information. 2. Literature Review When entering the 21st centuries, humor became an overwhelmingly discussed topic which gains attention from various fields. “By thorough assessment, people now may be capable to acquire and appreciate humor patters from outside their social semiotic (Halliday, 1978: 107).” Though commonly heard in everyday life, humor is a concept rather elusive and indefinable. But this challenging problem has not prevented scholars of various disciplines, ranging from psychology to sociology to linguistics, from probing into the topic, further result in propagation of theoretical legacy. In 1975, the famous philosopher of language H.R Grice proposed an important idea in his article called “The Cooperative Principal”, which is extraordinary in the linguistic field. According to Grice, he stated that “Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange (Grice, 1975: 47).” He believed that pursuit of purpose of mutual understanding is based on tacit agreement and cooperation between speakers and hearers. Taking this as a fundamental principle, the Cooperative Principle is consisted of four maxims, called the Gricean maxims. However, other contemporary scholars argue that, in fact, two ends of conversation are trying to break this theory when they are making a joke on purpose.