The Comparative Study Of Humorous Utterances Between Chinese And American Talk Shows From The Perspective Of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Of Power Distance

The British linguist Leech puts forward Politeness Principle as a complement to Cooperative Principle.It is an important theory in linguistic and pragmatic research.However,it is always ignored for its particularity.In recent decades,scholars for humorous utterance research have attached importance to Cooperative Principle,Relevance Theory,Conceptual Integration Theory,Memetics and so forth.According to some scholars,Politeness Principle,which is non Bona-Fide mode of communication,does not work in humorous utterance.However,adoption of Politeness Principle to study humorous utterance may be of actual significance in big cultural view.In addition,as most data used in the relevant research is mainly single language,the author chooses Jin Xing Show and Ellen Show as bilingual language data of humorous utterance research.Humorous utterance as an effective way of personal communication is an important part of language and culture,and is also influenced by pragmatic rules and speakers’ cultural background.Under the circumstance of globalization,Politeness Principle related to utterance communication will not merely be limited to pragmatics scope.In the thesis,the author makes a comparative study on humorous utterances between Jin Xing Show and Ellen Show and the reasons for the cultural difference from the perspective of Hofstede’s cultural dimension of Power Distance and Politeness Principle.The author makes such a hypothesis: in Jin Xing Show,higher power level speakers violate Politeness Principle more when generating humorous utterances;while in Ellen Show,lower power level speakers violate Politeness Principle more when making humorous utterances.The author chooses 100 cases of humorous utterances respectively from the video material of the two programs from 2014 to 2016.After data analysis,a conclusion is made: in Jin Xing Show,the violation rate of Politeness Principle by higher power level speakers is 70% in generation of humorous utterances.But the violation rate of lower power level speakers is only 30%;in Ellen Show,the violation rate of Politeness Principle by higher power level speakers is only 24% in generation of humorous utterances while the violation rate of lower power level is 76%.According to the Chi-Square test on the basis of the data above,the result is significant at p<.05.Finally the conclusion is made: in Chinese talk shows influenced by cultural dimension of high power distance,speakers of low power keep more politeness degree in front of those of high power when generating humorous utterances;however,in American talk shows affected by cultural dimension of low power distance,speakers of low power keep less politeness to those of high power when generating humorous utterances.And the conclusion matches the hypothesis.At last,the author probes into the reasons for the power distance difference between China and America in four sides: traditional values,civilization history,political system and national characteristics.This thesis may be of important significance to the understanding and accepting of intercultural humor.