An Analysis Of Verbal Humor From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Verbal humor is a hot topic of modern linguistic study and is also a common language phenomenon of verbal communication. Researchers both at home and abroad have already conducted humor studies from specific fields, such as sociology, philosophy, anthropology,aesthetics and linguistics, etc. With regard to linguistic study of verbal humor, previous studies have been conducted mainly from perspectives of phonetics, semantics, rhetoric and pragmatics, etc. And with the development of cognitive linguistics, scholars have made abundant studies on verbal humor from cognitive perspective. As one of the most influential theories in cognitive field, Conceptual Blending Theory has attracted wide attention for its powerful and unique explanatory power. It has therefore been used to explain and interpret the cognitive mechanism behind many language phenomena.Based on literature collected, classified and reviewed, it can be easily noticed that previous studies on verbal humor usually adopted Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle, Speech Act Theory or Relevance Theory as theoretical foundation, which can be categorized as static study and barely probes into the dynamic generation process and online meaning construction of verbal humor. Besides, most of previous studies have explained verbal humor without employing relevant figures and diagrams. While Conceptual Blending Theory can remedy this defect by direct and vivid illustration of verbal humor through relevant figures of conceptual blending networks, so as to reveal the hearer’s cognitive process and mental activities. What’s more, the corpus of most previous studies on verbal humor came from Chinese crosstalk, comic sketches, short messages, talk shows and cartoons, etc. Therefore, verbal humor study on situation comedy from cognitive perspective is few in number and verbal humor analysis from Conceptual Blending Theory is relatively a new attempt. Thus from the Conceptual Blending Theory perspective and mainly in qualitative analysis with examples collected and selected from sitcom Good Luck Charlie, the thesis will analyze and explain the dynamic process of verbal humor generation and humorous effect realization.The entire thesis is mainly composed of five parts, namely, introduction, literature review, theoretical framework, main body and conclusions.Chapter One is the introduction part, which presents briefly the research background, research purpose and significance together with the whole thesis structure. Chapter Two is the literature review part, which consists of the definition and classification of verbal humor, and reviews the status quo and achievements of previous studies on verbal humor at rhetoric, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive levels both at home and abroad. The limitations of previous studies have also been pointed out, which lead to the research perspective and creative point of the thesis. Chapter Three is the theoretical framework which lays a solid theoretical foundation for later detailed analysis. It introduces systematically some essential concepts, the basic conceptual blending model and the four specific networks of CBT, namely simplex network, mirror network, single-scope network and double-scope network. It also summarizes the main characteristics and differences of each network. Chapter Four is the core part of the whole thesis in which the author interprets three categories of verbal humor:language verbal humor, situational verbal humor and cultural verbal humor after a brief introduction to the sitcom, with various examples selected from the sitcom Good Luck Charlie based on canned laughter through the application of conceptual blending networks and relevant figures, so as to demonstrate the dynamic generation of verbal humor and realization of humorous effect. Chapter Five is the conclusion part in which the major findings, limitations of the research are summarized and suggestions for further research are put forth.Several major research findings are listed as follows:1) It has proved that Conceptual Blending Theory provides mighty explanatory power for verbal humor generation and humorous effect realization in sitcom Good Luck Charlie.2) Though the four specific types of conceptual blending networks has their own patterns and characteristics during the interpretation process of verbal humor in Good Luck Charlie, the whole blending processes have to undergo three steps of conceptual blending, namely Composition, Completion and Elaboration, which could then achieve a successful explanation of verbal humor generation and realization in the emergent structure.3) Through analysis of verbal humor in sitcom Good Luck Charlie from the perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory, it can be noticed that the whole blending process cannot be separated from the background zone. When explaining situational verbal humor, one must be very familiar with the characters’personality and specific situation; while explaining cultural verbal humor, one must have a clear understanding of the cultural background and cultural information behind the verbal humor.4) Cognitive activities and blending process run through the entire process of verbal humor generation and humorous effect realization. With blending networks and relevant figures, the hearers’ dynamic cognitive processes and mental activities can be illustrated better and more vividly. This type of dynamic study is a breakthrough compared with the previous static study on verbal humor explanation and interpretation.In a word, not only can the study help people better understand and appreciate verbal humor in situation comedy, it can also provide inspiration and reference for English verbal humor subtitle translation. In addition, the study, to certain extent, has proved that the generation and realization of humorous effect depends on conceptual blending and emergent structure, which has broadened the cognitive perspective of verbal humor study in sitcoms.