A Study Of Generation Mechanism Of Verbal Humor In Short Sketches From The Perspective Of Memetics

Based on Darwin's evolutionary theory, memetics is a new theory which is us ed to explain the laws of human cultural evolution. La nguage is one of the carriers of m emes. The replication and transmission of language memes provide a fast and effective way for hum an language's enrichment. They also provide a new way for us to st udy language. In 2003, professor He Ziran attempted to combine m emetics and language, and proposed the theory of language meme. Soon the proposal of the theory of language meme draws much attention in the linguistic field and the studies on the la nguage phenomenon have become one of hotspots of current researches. However, a few scholars study short sketches fro m the perspective of memetics, not to mention the studies on verbal humor in short sketches from the perspective of memetics. The research expands the research space of the memetics theory.This research adopts D awkins' memetics theory and He Ziran' s theory of language meme as the m ain theoretical foundation to make an analysis of generation m echanism of verbal humor in the sixteen shor t sketches of Spring Festival Gala from the year of 2005 to 2014, among which qualitative and quantitative method will be used. The study is going to discuss the following questions: what' s the relationship between language m eme and verbal humor in short sketches; how do the replicati on stages of language m eme reflect generation process of verbal humor; what are the m odes of the language m emes that generate verbal humor. The results of the research show that(1) The replication and variation of language memes can generate verbal hum or and variation of language m emes enrich the language of human beings in a great degree. What' s more, verbal humor generated in the short sketches promotes replication and transmission of language m emes. It has great power to make weak memes become strong ones. So language m emes have a close connection with verbal hum or.(2) The generation process of verbal hum or in short sketches can be interpreted from the four stages of mem e replication, nam ely assimilation, retention, expression and transm ission. Assimilation and retention stages of language memes are preparation stages for generating verbal humor; expression stage of language m emes is generation stage of verbal humor; and the transmission stage of language m emes is appreciation stage of verbal hum or. The first three stages are indispensable in the whole generation process and have great effect on the generation of verbal humor.(3) The language memes in short sketches generate verbal humor through five modes: “transmitting same information directly in the same form”, “transmitting same information in dif ferent forms”, “transmitting different information through same pronunciation”, “transmitting different information through the same form”, and “transmitting different information through same structure”. It is the incongruity contained in the m emetic genotype and memetic phenotype that generates verbal humor.