A Relevance-Based Approach To Verbal Humor In American Sitcom Friends

As an important and distinctive way of communication, humor has long received attention from various scholars at home and abroad. They have made profound studies of humor from different perspectives, such as aesthetics, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc. In recent years, as the rapid development of linguistics, humor has become the concern of linguists. And language, as a natural carrier of verbal humor, becomes the focus of humor study. However, after the review of previous studies on humor, it seems that the research of language itself cannot adequately explain how humor is comprehended by the hearer and how it is produced. For these questions, we find that the cognitive linguistics can give more feasible explanation. The current research attempts to reveal the cognitive process of humor production and comprehension in the framework of Wilson and Sperber’s Relevance Theory (Sperber, D&Wilson, D,2001/1995).As a general theory for the human communication and cognition, relevance theory supplies a new perspective for interpreting a variety of language phenomenon. In terms of relevance theory, the process of humor comprehension is essentially a process of searching for relevance. Through a case study of Friends (Marta Kauffman&David Crane,1994-2004) and a detailed analysis of its humorous utterances with a qualitative-based research method, the cognitive process of humor production and comprehension may be depicted. The author of this thesis also attempts to explain the three figures of speech (Irony, Metaphor and Hyperbole) commonly used in humorous utterances of Friends in the framework of relevance theory.The present study attempts to analyze verbal humor in the American sitcom Friends in the light of relevance theory, and concludes that humorous effects in Friends can be achieved from the ostension and inference, from the gap between maximal and optimal relevance, from the differences in the contextual effect or cognitive effect between the speaker and hearer. At the same time, through attempting to comprehend sample humorous dialogues in Friends, we have found something in common in this cognitive process, that is, the four steps of humor comprehension:a. first interpretation (maximal relevance achieved by the hearer or audience with the least processing effort); b. the hearer’s realization of being misled; c. adjustment of the context to integrate new information; d. second interpretation (optimal relevance is achieved and the extra processing effort is offset by humorous effect). Relevance theory has strong interpretative force in the whole cognitive process of humor comprehension. On the other hand, we find that three types of figures of speech are commonly employed in humorous utterances of Friends and they can also be interpreted in terms of relevance theory. This is a tentative study of the cognitive process of verbal humor. It hopes to make some contribution to humor study and facilitate people’s appreciation of verbal humor.