A Functional Linguistics Analysis Of Humor

Humor is everywhere in our daily life. Throughout the centuries, it has been studied by psychologists, physiologists and philosophers. Gradually, humor style has developed into one with its own characteristics in words, grammar and rhetoric, and so on. Nowadays the study of humor has already become a special and independent discipline, the linguistic analysis of humor cannot only help people understand the nature of humor, but also can help people understand human beings' selves. This thesis aims to make a modern linguistic study of the whole text under the guidance of the theories such as Systematic-Functional Grammar, Contextual Analysis and Genre-based Approach etc. Language itself becomes the subject matter of humor. The development, comprehension, and appreciation of humor depend, to a large degree, on the use and function of language in society and on the cultural attitudes and values associated with it. On balance, a linguistic study of such culturally or socially bound phenomena as humor can benefit the analysis of humor. This thesis concentrates on the Hallidayan functional linguistic theory which make the general design clear, and meanwhile takes into account the practices and theories of various disciplines.This thesis goes in six chapters. Chapter one briefly introduces the purpose, significance, methodology of the thesis.Chapter two introduces some basic concepts of humor: its definitions, classifications, creation, nature, and functions.The next three chapters are the main body of the thesis. Chapter three analyzes the cultural context of humor in terms of genres and generic structure potential. Chapter four analyzes the situational context of humor in terms of register (field, mode, and tenor), and explores the deep causes of generating humor. Chapter five analyzes humor on the basis of textual meta-function, especially of the cohesion and coherence, and applies a systemic approach to the analysis of detail sample humor texts. And the chapter six gives a conclusion for the whole thesis, and summarizes the theory basis and important findings of the thesis, and acknowledge the problems in the thesis.