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成 都 理 工 大 學學生畢業(yè)設計（論文）文獻綜述報告學生姓名：張露學號：200811010418專業(yè)名稱：英語文獻綜述題目：A Pragmatic Analysis of English Humor Literature Review 英語幽默語用淺析文獻綜述引用文獻：中文 6篇；英文9篇；其它語種 0 篇其中期刊：3種；專著12本；其它： 0種引用文獻時間跨度：1962 2006 年 指導教師審閱簽名： 綜述報告正文：A Pragmatic Analysis of English Humor Literature ReviewDifferent researches of humor appear in different periods. Traditionally, there exist three dominant theories: Superiority Theory, Release Theory and Incongruity Theory. Currently, the Script-based Semantic Theory, General Theory, and Audience-based Theory have held peoples attention. In the following, this paper will make a detailed account of the six theories mentioned above.1. Traditional Theories on Humor1.1 Superiority TheorySuperiority theory, which is also called degradation, disparagement and derision theory, has a long history. It derives from Aristotles (384-322 BC) view that comedy is based on an imitation of men worse than the average, of people who are ridiculous, which accounts for the pleasure one feels when the less fortunate and less desirable figures are laughed at. Though it deals with the nature of comedy, it can also be applied to humor, because in the broad sense the two are interchangeable though comedy is, technically speaking, a literary form (Berger, 1993). Plato (427-347BC) suggests that all humor can be explained by this theory. People laugh whenever someone or something is degraded, so they can feel themselves superior. Later, Thomas Hobbes develops their views in that laughter bears on ones social status and superiority over ones peers. He (1651) explains that humans are in constant competitions with each other, and looking for shortcomings of other persons. Laughing at the inferior builds our self-confidence and makes us feel superior. Because of their emphasis on the interpersonal and social aspect of humor, superiority theories are of considerable interest to the sociolinguists of humor.However, this theory is not so popular now as it was in ancient times, because not any humor can display a superior-inferior relationship and the feelings of superiority is not enough to explain why people laugh. Whats more, sometimes instead of being amused, we would rather pity those who are inferior and suffering. 1.2 Release TheoryThis theory is primarily a psychological one about humor, closely associated with Freud. In his book, Jokes and Their Relation to Unconscious (1960), Freud states that there is a strong link between the unconscious and both jokes and dreams, and that the latter two employ similar techniques (condensation, displacement) to carry out their “joke-work” and “dream-work”. As for the material that causes amusement, he distinguishes between jokes (wits), the comic, and humor. Each of them involves a saving or economizing of energy which, having become unnecessary for its normal purposes, is dissipated in the form of laughter: jokes allow economies in expenditure on inhibition and suppression, the comic on ideation (thinking), and humor on emotion. Freud explains that the “psychic energy” in our body is built as an aid for suppressing feelings in taboo areas, like sex or death. When this energy is released, laughter can be experienced, not only because this energy is released, but also these taboo thoughts are being entertained. A more conventional version of this theory is that a pleasant sensation is experienced when humor replaces negative feelings like pains or sadness.Freud (1960) comments that the feeling of propriety that prevents us from insulting someone directly can be overcome if the insult is expressed in the form of a joke. Lippitt (1995) argues that this is not always the case. Under some circumstances, even when the butt of the joke feels obliged to join in the pleasure, rather than be seen as lacking a sense of humor, he can be left looking foolish while the joker superior. That is, such an insult joking can be even more wounding than a direct insult, in which the insulters behavior may be socially censored and the insulted person receives sympathy.Herbert Spencer (1977) also discusses release in relation to laughter, but his is chiefly a physiological explanation, which sees laughter as the discharge of nervous energy triggered by simple emotions. He proposes that as a response to the comical, the comical inexorably signifies some sort of incongruity, but this incongruity must carry a descending character. In other words, in a comical situation, something large is expected, and something small is found. This is what is called a “descending incongruity”. On the contrary, if something large is suddenly discovered instead of something small, a feeling of “ascending incongruity” is obtained. As to the above point, Lorenz (1996) proposes that most jokes provoke laughter by building up a tension which is then suddenly and unexpectedly exploded.1.3 Incongruity TheoryThe incongruity theory of humor, virtually dominating contemporary psychological researches on humor, is the most influential approach adopted to the problem (Raskin, 1985). Incongruity theory, enjoying a long history, may go back as far as to the Greeks and the Renaissance (Attardo, 1994). However, it is formally proposed by Kant and Schopenhauer.Kant, a scholar in the eighteenth century, is credited to have made the full conceptualization of incongruity first. He says that humor arises “from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing” (Attardo, 1997: 396). According to Schopenhauers definition of laughter, incongruity is explicitly mentioned: “The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity” (Attardo, 1997: 396-397).The basic assumption of this theory is that humor arises from the perception of an element of incongruity. The notion of incongruity refers to the abnormal, contradictory, unexpected or illogical relationship between components of an idea, object, event, or social expectation. In this sense, incongruity is an essential laughter-eliciting mechanism.However, it is agreed by the majority that it is not the incongruity but the congruous resolution of the apparent incongruity that makes a certain situation funny. The contemporary conceptualization in psychology views incongruity-resolution (IR) model as “two stage” models.“In the first stage, the perceiver finds his/her expectations about the text disconfirmed by the ending of the joke. In other words, the recipient encounters an incongruity: the punch line. In the second stage, the perceiver engages in a form of problem-solving to find a cognitive rule which makes the punch line follow from the main part of the joke and reconciles the incongruous parts” (Suls, 1972：82).The incongruity theory provides a helpful approach to the study of humor and laughter, and partially explains why humor makes us laugh. However, it has some weaknesses. First, it does not explain specifically how incongruity arises in humor; second, it fails to explain why some data, which involve incongruity, are not humorous at all. Instead, they make people feel disappointed, puzzled and even angry (Curco, 1998).Although the three traditional approaches characterize the complex phenomena of humor from very different angles, yet they seem to be in nice supplementation with each other. The incongruity theory makes a statement about the stimulus; the superiority theory characterizes the relations or attitudes between the speaker and hearer; and the release/relief theory comments on the feelings and psychology of the hearer.2Modern Linguistic Theories on HumorAs Raskin (1985) notes, while dealing primarily with examples of verbal humor, the classical theories do not offer any significant insights into the linguistics of humor. Until the late twenty years, linguists began to set foot in the field and linguistic survey of humor gradually receives increasing interest, which makes remarkable contributions to the humor researches. This section will take a close look at the previous linguistic studies on humor.2.1 Script-based Semantic Theory of HumorRaskins script-based semantic theory of humor (1985) was the first linguistic-based theory of humor. Raskins theory posits that the text of a joke is always fully or partly compatible with two distinct scripts and that the two scripts are opposed to each other in a special way. The punchline triggers the switch from one script to the other by making the hearer backtrack and realizes that a different interpretation of the joke was possible from the very beginning (Attardo & Raskin, 1991: 308).2.2 General Theory of Verbal HumorIn the revision of Raskins script-based semantic theory of humor, Attardo and Raskin (1991) collaborate to put forth a “General Theory of Verbal Humor” (GTVH) based on six knowledge resources (KRs), namely, script opposition, logical mechanism, situation (including the audience), target, narrative strategy, and language. This new theory “incorporates, subsumes, and revises”(Raskin, 1991:329) Raskins script-based semantic theory and Attardos five-level model but still concentrates virtually exclusively on the text of the joke.2.3 Audience-based Theory of Verbal HumorThe Audience-Based Theory of Verbal Humor (Carrel, 1993) posits that humor resides with the audience, and thus, nothing is inherently humorous. That explains why some joke texts will succeed on the part of one audience and fail on another. The humor event is made up of four necessary constituents: the joke teller, the joke text, the object of laughter and the audience, all of which exist within a particular situation and complement with each other in the humor event. Or put it another way, the four constituents are in co-existent relationship with each other.Different people from different times have done different work on pragmatic analysis of English humor. Nobody can finish the study, we can try more ways to get the answer about the relation between humor and pragmatics, even the relation with linguistics. Now ,we already can explain humor with Grice cooperative principle, speech act theory and relevance theory. We hope