An Analysis Of Verbal Humor From The Perspective Of Language Meme

Memetics which is based on Darwin's evolution theory is a new theory to interpret cultural evolution. From the memetic point of view, the language meme is a unit to spread culture and discloses the rule of discourse and language's transmission. In order to gain new enlightenment, scholars from many fields are attempting to link memetics with their own fields such as biology, psychology, sociology, linguistics and so on. In linguistic field, some researchers adopt memetics or the language meme to analyze certain linguistic phenomena, like advertisement, net language, loan word, catch-phrase and so forth. However, the relative studies of the analysis of verbal humor from the view of memetics are few, and relevant studies of analyzing verbal humor from the perspective of the language meme are less, which is exactly the creativity and specialty of the thesis.The thesis treating language memes as the theoretical framework analyzes language memes manifested in verbal humor and functions of verbal humor containing language memes overall and systematically. Two research questions are answered: (1) How is the language meme manifested in verbal humor? (2) What are the functions of verbal humor from the view of the language meme? 270 verbal humors containing language memes are collected and analyzed with a qualitative method in the thesis. Through the analysis of verbal humor from the perspective of the language meme, conclusions are drawn: firstly, language memes can be manifested at the level of phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar; secondly, verbal humor covering language memes has the functions of activating atmosphere, alleviating conflict, defending oneself, eliminating embarrassment, criticizing and exposing evils, and so on.Based on the conclusions mentioned above, some implications are given to such fields as culture, foreign language teaching and translation. Related studies of analyzing verbal humor from the perspective of the language meme are few, and the author's theoretical level and research experience are limited, so there exist limitations in the study and it needs improving and perfecting. It is hoped that the thesis can provide some useful reference to studies concerned with the analysis of verbal humor from the perspective of the language meme.