| Humor, as one of the sources of happiness, exists everywhere in our daily life. It brings not only laughers to people, but also health and a sense of satisfaction with their lives. It originates from life and can be procured from many kinds of materials, among which humorous language is the most frequently-used one, as it can be used everywhere by every human being. So, humorous language is set as the research object of this thesis.In this thesis, the research on humorous language is carried on in terms of pragmatics, since humorous language is one that is uses in our daily life. Although there are many people who study humorous language, yet they mainly focus on the research on the jokes and the pragmatic characteristics of humor. This thesis focuses on the humorous language appearing in the famous American situation comedy Friends, as the conversations in it get closer to our daily life. So, the research into the humorous language in it is of more practical value. Through lots of detailed analyses of humorous conversations, mainly selected from Friends, this thesis discusses the factors and the mechanism that affect the achievement and conveyance of humorous effect with the help of the three main pragmatic theories, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the face-saving theory. Besides, the thesis also introduces some methods that are commonly used in achieving humorous effect, especially in TV series like Friends.In conclusion, almost all the methods achieving humorous effect process a common feature, that is, humor is achieved by breaking the conventional rules. On the other hand, to appreciate humor, people have to connect the humorous language with its context, as the context of the humorous language is of great importance in the achievement and conveyance of humorous effect. |
