Understanding Of Humorous Utterance From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Humorous utterance bears quite a strong communicative function. In social intercourse, employment of humorous utterance can avoid embarrassment, conflict and quarrel, so the study of humorous utterance is of great practical value.Production and comprehension of utterances are two main subjects of pragmatics. On the basis of Relevance Theory, this thesis employs concrete examples and analyzes the understanding process of humorous utterance from cognitive perspective. Through analysis, this thesis offers the following new findings: first, owing to the misunderstanding of one party, observation of Cooperative Principle can produce humor; second, owing to cultural differences and other factors, humor also can be produced; third, gender difference and age are also factors causing humor; fourth, in nature, humorous utterance is the abandonment of most relevance and realization of optimal relevance; fifth, in humorous utterance, the former and latter utterances are interdependent and provide cognitive environment for each other; finally, this thesis has discussed how to understand humorous utterance from cognitive perspective with Relevance Theory.Given the importance of humorous utterance, this thesis aims to discuss how to understand humorous utterance from a new perspective and offers some guidance for readers to appreciate it better as well as to add flavor to life.