A Study of Verbal Humor in the Abominable Bride from the Perspective of Pragmatics

【摘要】：Abstract： Humor， a common word in our daily life which attracts many scholars to do some researches. And the analysis of humor from the perspective of pragmatics is being a trend in academia. As is known to us， the English mini drama Sherlock is popular in the world and its language is humorous which is suitable for us to study. This study aims to help viewers learn and apply humorous words with full vigour. Key words： humor; the perspective of pragmatics; cooperative principle; politeness principle

1.Introduction

Humor is an old research subject and the theory of it can be traced back to the age of Platon and Aristotle in ancient Greece. From then on， humor is corrected， inspected and developed in the next century constantly. However， humor has not been paid enough attention in many academic studies. Pragmatics is a new branch of linguistics， which is a new field of study with the meaning of language as the object of study. He Zhaoxiong pointed out in his book of Pragmatics that there are two basic concepts among the many definitions of pragmatics， one is the meaning， and another is the context （12）. It is divided into three parts to analyze the humor in the Abominable Bride. The first part is to introduce the meaning of pragmatics and verbal humor. The second part is to analyze the verbal humor from the perspective of corporative principle. The third part is to analyze the verbal humor from the perspective of politeness principle.

2.Literature Review

2.1The Study of Pragmatics

Pragmatics originates from philosophy and logic. It was first proposed by American logician Charles W. Morris in the Symbol Theory that the study of the relationship between the sign and the symbol， the study of the sign and the life， that means， all of the psychological， physiological and social phenomena under the action of the research sign （qtd. in Kuang Xinhua and Xie Hua 6）. From the above definition， pragmatics is actually the study of the meaning of language and the explanation of language use whether it is appropriate or not.

Pragmatics includes \"cooperative principle\" and \"Politeness Principle\". \"Cooperative principle\" was presented by Grice， a famous American language philosopher， at the Harvard University in 1967. He believes that personal verbal communication is always cooperative， both sides have a common desire “both sides of the discourse can be mutual understanding and cooperated” （qtd. in Zhang Ling 199）.

2.2The Study of Verbal Humor

The theory of humor can be traced back to the age of Platon and Aristotle in ancient Greece. From then on， humor is corrected，inspected and developed in the next century constantly. Generally speaking， the humor theory and humor research can be classified into three categories： the superiority of social behavior/ the theory of contempt， the release theory in psychological point of view and incongruity theory in psychological cognition （Cai Hui and Yin Xing 5）. In China， from the ancient Confucian culture， modern cultural people， such as Lu Xun， Lin Yutang， Zhu Guangqian， to contemporary Sun Shaozhen， Chen Xiaoying et al. There are two sides which make a deep and meaningful exploration of the theory of humor. On the one hand， from the national cultural background; on the other hand， learn the theoretic al results of humor from abroad actively.

2.3The Pragmatic Approach on Humor Study

In the Pragmatic Study on Humor Language， Qiu Yuhua uses an example of hmor to analyze and explain the four pragmatic theories which are the point of view， cooperative principle， conversational implication and speech act （55）. Humor is a kind of language phenomenon， which is very rich in connotation and has a strong flavor of life. Using pragmatics to analyze humor can make people feel the author's intention， and realize the \"Reasoned Humor\" （qtd. in Qiu Yuhua 57）.

In the To Unscramble the Language of Humor from the Perspective of Pragmatics， Liu Xiaolan mentioned the language of humor which is \"the humor is created by the language\". Any language itself is not humorous， only when it is combined with the specific context and thoughts which need to express， the listener can truly understand it.

In a word， many foreign scholars have done many researches on pragmatics and language humor which played an important significance for Chinese scholars to research the pragmatic study of humor. However， this article is based on the cooperative principle and politeness principle to analyze the linguistic humor. Although scholars started to do the research of humor early， many linguists have studied the phenomenon of humor from the perspective of rhetoric and semantics. Moreover， many humorous dramas and films provide a rich material for us to analyze verbal humor with pragmatics. As we all know， the language of Sherlock is humorous and often elusive. This article does the study of its series of films to help readers better understand and appreciate the humor in English which can also improve the ability of our English application. Furthermore， this study can provide a meaningful reference for the creation of verbal humor.

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