Discourse Analysis Of Dialogues In The Sitcom

Discourse analysis (hereinafter DA) is an interdisciplinary research, the theory and methodology of which, in recent years, have been extensively applied to the interpretation of the dramatic texts. Sitcom, as one of the extended forms of drama with distinctive features, has long been neglected by the stylisticians. This dissertation is an attempt to apply the theory and techniques of DA to the analysis of dialogues in the sitcom, taking the American sitcom Friends as a case.This dissertation consists of five chapters:The first chapter as an introduction presents the general aims and the framework of this dissertation.Chapter 2 is the theoretical preliminaries for later analyses. An introduction is provided first to stylistics, focusing on different interpretations of"stylistics"and"style", then to the development and models of stylistics, and the scope of our study within dramatic stylistics, a newly-established branch of literary stylistics. Based on a summary of the recent works on dramatic stylistics, it is concluded that the burgeoning research in DA has offered the possibility for dramatic stylisticians to study the dramatic texts in a new and productive way. At the end of this chapter is an overview of DA, concentrating on its three schools and its approaches.Chapter 3 comes to the object and methodology of our study. In description of the general features of the sitcom, it is pointed out that dialogues are the main body of the sitcom, and that the stylistic significance of the sitcom lies in the humorous discourse generated within certain context of situation and in its markedly different types of characters. Then there is a presentation of a synopsis of Friends, a case deliberately chosen for study, and an illustration of the approaches taken and the data collected in later analyses.Chapter 4 is the main body of this dissertation. It is devoted to comparison of the similarities and differences between dramatic dialogue and daily conversation, and then by means of Speech Act Theory, Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle, Register Theory and Conversation Analysis Theory, an exploration is made about how the humorous effect is achieved and how the traits of the characters are presented by the use of language in Friends. And in the summary section, it is argued that DA has provided important theoretical grounds and analytical tools for the interpretation of the dramatic discourse of the sitcom.The last chapter, Chapter 5, is a concluding chapter, in which this research is summed up, the limitations are listed, and some suggestions for further study are offered. This dissertation aims to throw out a minnow to catch a whale in searching for the approaches to combining DA with the stylistic analysis of the sitcom. It is hoped that the present study can attract more scholars into this field for further research, and thereby enriching the substance for dramatic stylistics and promoting its development.