A Pragmatic Analysis Of Verbal Humor In Young Sheldon From The Perspective Of Cooperative Principle

Humor is a special linguistic phenomenon.The study of it has been continuously developed and tested in a rather long history of 2000 years.Humor has been analyzed from many perspectives,such as philosophy,psychology,and undoubtedly,linguistics.In linguistics,the focus of the research was first settled on the static and isolated words.Then,it has been shifted to dynamic,multi-dimensional conversations,such as in movies,dramas,advertisements,sitcoms.What's more,there has been an increasing tendency in integrating verbal humor with pragmatics.Therefore,under the guidance of the classical pragmatics theory: Cooperative Principle,by extracting examples from the American sitcom Young Sheldon,this thesis attempts to figure out how verbal humor is realized by flouting the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle.This thesis presents a detailed analysis of verbal humor,including a quantitative study with figures and a qualitative analysis with specific examples.Firstly,by collecting and analyzing some typical dialogues of Young Sheldon,the numbers and percentages of flouting the four maxims of the CP can be known.Secondly,this thesis illustrates how characters flout each maxim of the CP by employing different rhetorical devices.What's more,previous researches on verbal humor from the pragmatic perspective in sitcoms have been wildly done,but discussions on the underlying reasons why characters flout the CP are rare.Therefore,the thesis studies the various reasons why characters in this sitcom flout four maxims of the CP.It indicates that the main reasons of flouting the CP are concealing facts,satirizing others,avoiding embarrassment,and strengthening persuasion,etc.In conclusion,this thesis can serve as a new tool in helping audience enjoy the vivid personalities of the characters and also helping them appreciate the humor of English language from a new perspective.In the meantime,the study on verbal humor from the perspective of the CP can also shed some light on second language acquisition.With a deeper understanding on the humor generation mechanism,second language learners can interpret verbal humor in a more comprehensive way.