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The Analysis of Verbal Humor Based on Relevance Theory

Author: YangMei
Tutor: XuLiQin
School: Nanchang University of Aeronautics and
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: Relevance Theory Incongruity-Resolution Maximal RelevanceOptimal Relevance Context
CLC: H030
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 38
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Abstract


Humor is the essence of human culture and life. It not only brings people pleasure and regulates the communication atmosphere, but also relieves pressure and helps people avoid embarrassment. And at the same time the information and the communicative intension are also transmitted. Therefore, humor is extensively studied in humanities, such as philosophy, aesthetics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and so on. In the linguistic field different scholars study humor from distinctive aspects. Sperber&Wilson’s Relevance Theory brings us a new cognitive pragmatic angle to interpret humor.According to Sperber and Wilson, human communication is an ostensive-inferential communication and in this process people try to seek relevance. Relevance Theory is based on the definition of relevance and two general principles. Relevance is defined in terms of cognitive effects and processing effort:(a) The greater the cognitive effects, the greater the relevance;(b) The smaller the processing effort, the greater the relevance. Cognitive Principle and Communicative Principle are the two general principles. The Cognitive Principle means that human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance while the Communicative Principle indicates that utterances create presumptions of optimal relevance.This thesis mainly goes to analyze and study systematically the cognitive mechanism of the production and comprehension of humor from the perspective of Relevance Theory. The first problem to study in this thesis is the cognitive mechanism of the production of the humor and the process of the humor comprehension; the second is the cognitive barriers influencing the humor comprehension.As for the first problem, by adopting qualitative methodology and carrying out a lot of data analyses, it is discovered that the Relevance Principle plays a very critical role in the process of humor comprehension. Whether the humor succeeds or not depends on the hearer’s correct understanding. The production of the humorous effect results from the resolution of the incongruity produced by the two interpretations of the speaker’s utterances and by the hearer’s deliberate misinterpretation. The production of the humorous effect can also be caused by the correct selection of context in the process of seeking for the relevance. The extra processing effort paid in the comprehension process is offset by the humorous effect at last.When it comes to the second problem, the Relevance Theory is applied to analyzing the major cognitive barriers of the humor too. It is found that although the incongruity is a prerequisite of humor, it doesn’t follow that the incongruity can lead to the successful humor. The difficulty degree of the humor directly influences the production of the humorous effect, and too easy or too complicated incongruity will result in the failure of the humor. The main factors influencing the incongruity resolution are lack of necessary encyclopedic or lexical knowledge. Furthermore, it is found that the incorrect choice of context will lead to the failure of humor and it is the individual context differences caused by culture that can not be ignored, either.It is concluded that the hearer’s correct comprehension of humor is influenced by the contextual information and cognitive ability. We can appreciate the humor better and make a successful communication by enriching the contextual information and enhancing the communicator’s cognitive ability as well as cross-culture communication ability.

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CLC: > Language, writing > Linguistics > Semantics,pragmatics,lexicology, meaning school > Semantics, pragmatics
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