A Pragmatic Presuppositional Analysis Of Humor In Ah Q Cheng-Chuan

Lu Xun's works are a milestone in the history of Chinese literature. They mark the peak in the history of Chinese modern literature. He is known as a master of language for profound irony and humor. As an important theory in pragmatics, presupposition has been applied in the study of various linguistic phenomena. In Ah Q Cheng-chuan, Lu Xun takes advantage of presuppositions. On the basis of previous studies, this thesis will borrow Victor Raskin's Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) developed from the Incongruity Theory and will give a detailed analysis of the humorous cases in Ah Q Cheng-chuan from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition. It will focus on the generating mechanism, that is, how those pragmatic presuppositions in Ah Q Cheng-chuan generate humor.Chen Xinren (1998) classified presupposition in advertisement into four different types based on a linguistic criterion, namely, fact presuppositions, state presuppositions, action and belief presuppositions.This thesis borrows that classification and classifies the pragmatic presuppositions in Ah Q Cheng-chuan into existential presuppositions, fact presuppositions, state presuppositions and action presuppositions. Meanwhile, in the light of two necessary and sufficient conditions raised by Raskin (1985), this thesis carries a detailed analysis about the seventeen cases in Ah Q Cheng-chuan.Borrowing the basic concept of "script" from the book Semantic Mechanism of Humor by Victor Raskin (1985), this thesis puts forward the notion of "presupposition script", "context script" and "common sense script" when pragmatic presuppositions are applied in humor text. Among the seventeen humorous cases in Ah Q Cheng-chuan, twelve cases' opposition between presupposition script and context script or common sense script falls into the actual and non-actual dichotomy, four cases'opposition between presupposition script and context script or common sense script falls into the normal and abnormal dichotomy and one case's opposition between presupposition script and context script or common sense script falls into the possible and impossible dichotomy. It is because of these oppositions that humor is generated, which can prove that presupposition is definitely one of the ways to generate humorAs Raskin(1985) puts it, all of the three oppositions belong to the most abstract level, namely, real and unreal dichotomy. Those presupposition scripts triggered by pragmatic presuppositions are not real but false. That is to say, it is because of the falsity of pragmatic presuppositions that those oppositions exist. Lu Xun's humor is triggered by successfully manipulating those false presuppositions. What's more, based on the analysis, this thesis explores effects of the humor generated by pragmatic presupposition. By successfully manipulating appropriate false presuppositions, intentional false presuppositions and accidental false presuppositions, Lu Xun achieved the effect of humor. Thanks to those strategies, Lu Xun's characteristic humor is revealed and the character of Ah Q is portrayed.This thesis is an application study of the relevant theories to investigate Lu Xun's Ah Q Cheng-chuan's humor. It is expected that this thesis may make contribution to an exploration of Lu Xun's language styles.