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An Analysis of Cooperative Principles and Humorous Effects in Friends 中文摘要………………………………………………………………………………………i Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………….iii Introduction……………………………………………………………………......3 I. An introduction of Friends and humor………………………………………....4 A. A brief introduction to Friends…………………………………………..…..4 B. A brief introduction to humor……………………………………………..…5. II. An analysis of Friends depends on the maxim of quantity…………………….8 A. Make your contribution as informative as required………………………..…8 B. Do not make your contribution more informative as required……………..…9 III. An analysis of Friends depends on the maxim of quality……………………11 A. Do not say what you believe to be false…………………………………..…11 B. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence…………………....…14 IV. An analysis of Friends depends on the maxim of relation…………………....15 V. An analysis of Friends depends on the maxim of manner………………….…17 A. Avoid ambiguity ………………………………………………………….…17 B. Avoid obscurity of expression…………………………………………….…18 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………....20 Notes……………………………………………………………………………...21 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………...22
幽默，属于一种社会现象，极其有趣和迷人，有着多维化、复杂化、无所不在的特点。因此,世界各地的学者和专家对幽默进行了深刻的研究探索。幽默有着极其重要的功能，引起了各方学者极大的兴趣。大约2000年前,人们开始研究幽默。然而,幽默的研究并不是一个简单的任务,这是一个利用广泛的学科，需要用到跨学科的科学，包括生物学、心理学、社会学、哲学、地理、历史、语言学、文学、教育、家庭科学,和电影研究等等。此外,幽默的产生有不同的原因和目的。一个喜好交际的人会将幽默处理得更好，使人看起来更聪明，解决问题更有效果，幽默的使用要注意其范围和临界点，否则就不能合理地表达幽默，产生想象中的幽默感。
Friend is a world famous American sitcom telling of the stories of six good friends and their respective private lives. The story takes place in Manhattan, New York. It presents most aspects of American society, for example, morality, social values, family values, sex values, religion, government, institution, education, occupation, etc. and introduces people of all walks to the audiences, from cooks to professors, from blue collars to white collars. And the most important feature for the sitcom is its humorous dialogues among the characters. The sitcom Friends has six protagonists who recur in the sitcom all the way. What follows is a general introduction to them with the purpose to do better analysis on the humor in the sitcom.
In Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, the notion of humor is the quality in something that makes it funny or amusing; or the ability to laugh at things that are amusing. Humor1 is a central part of all cultures, languages, idiolects, and most registers of speech. And not only is humor a pervasive phenomenon fulfilling vital roles in all kinds of human communication, it also forms a quantitatively relevant part of it. This centrality of humor, both as a means and as an end of human interchange, is widely accepted.
“One’s contribution should provide sufficient, but not too much information.”2 That is to say, an efficient speaker should know when and where to stop talking and not over do it. More information will enhance comprehension, but too much will lead to just the opposite. However, if the speaker violates quantity maxim on purpose, he might bring about some humorous effect. Let us consider some examples from the following scenes in the American sitcom Friends.
(1)Mrs. Geller: What that Rachel did to her life....We ran into her parents at the club, they were not playing very well. Mr. Geller: I'm not goanna tell you what they spent on that wedding...but forty thousand dollars is a lot of money! Mrs. Geller: Well, at least she had the chance to leave a man at the altar... Monica: What's that supposed to mean? Mrs. Geller: Nothing! It's an expression. (Episode 1, scene 2) In (1)scene, Monica and her mother Mrs. Geller are talking about Rachel’s runaway from her wedding .Mrs. Geller finishes only half of what she wants to say (Well, at least she had the chance to leave a man at the altar...).Her infringement of the first maxim of Quantity can be analyzed that she is reluctant to say more since the hearer, Monica, is her daughter who has a high level of self-respect. So Mrs. Geller doesn’t want to injure Monica’s self-esteem by withdrawal the latter half of the sentence. While in fact both Monica and the audience can infer that Mrs. Geller’s implied meaning is that Rachel at least has the chance to get married but you, Monica, has not a boyfriend. After drawing the inference, the humorous effect is generated simultaneously. (2)[Time lapse. Now everyone but Ross and Phoebe is back at Monica and Rachel's.] Joey: How could you lose him? Rachel: I don't know. We were watching TV, and then he pooped in Monica's shoe. Monica: Wait. He pooped in my shoe? Which one? Rachel: I don't know. The left one. Monica: Which ones? Rachel: Oh. Oh, those little clunky Amish things you think go with everything. (Episode 1, scene 19) In (2) Rachel tells Monica that Marcel, the monkey, relieves nature in her shoes (he pooped in Monica's shoe).Monica is astonished and asks “Which one?” .Monica’s question violates the first maxim of Quantity because she doesn’t present adequate information for Rachel to make an answer. In fact, Monica’s question can be understood either “which pair of shoes?” or “which one of the shoes, right one or left one?” Accordingly, Monica’s inadequate information leads to Rachel’s misunderstanding answer “The left one”. But what Monica wants to know is which pair of shoes. Similarly, the same misunderstanding happens in scene
(3)[Scene: Monica and Rachel's, everyone is sitting around the kitchen table. Rachel's credit cards are spread out on the table along with a pair44 of scissors.]#p#分页标题#e# Rachel: Oh God, come on you guys, is this really necessary? I mean, I can stop charging anytime I want. Monica: C'mon, you can't live off your parents your whole life. Rachel: I know that. That's why I was getting married. Phoebe: Give her a break, its hard being on you r own for the first time. Rachel: Thank you. Phoebe: You're welcome. I remember when I first came to this city. I was fourteen. My mom had just killed herself and my step-dad was back in prison, and I got here, and I didn't know anybody. And I ended up living with this albino guy, who was, like, cleaning windshields outside port authority, and then he killed himself, and then I found aromatherapy. So believe me, I know exactly how you feel. (Episode 1, scene 1) (4)Chandler: Can you see my nipples through this shirt? Rachel: No. But don't worry; I’m sure they're still there. (Episode 1, scene 15) In (3) all the friends are there to encourage Rachel to cut her credits as a ritual to enter into independent life instead of depending on her father’s sustentation. Phoebe, in order to encourage Rachel, gives a very detailed recounting of her misfortune when she first comes to New York. But her depiction is too detailed including her mother’s suicide, her step-father’s imprisonment, her living with an albino guy, etc. Of course, Phoebe gives too much information and violates the second maxims of Quantity. She is a little bit straying from the subject, because the other guys will be attracted to show pity for her instead of supporting Rachel’s independence ritual. What’s more, Phoebe’s overmuch and ridiculous examples make the audience laugh. In (4), we have to get some knowledge about the prelude of the story in order to understand the humor. In this scene, in Monica and Rachel's, Chandler walks in and starts raiding the fridge. Then Rachel comes out of the shower with a towel wrapped round her waist, drying herself with another towel. Chandler and Rachel startle each other and she drops the towel for a second and snatches the rug off the couch. However, that's a relatively open weave so Chandler sees Rachel’s breast areas. On the other day, the above conversation happens. Rachel wants to avenger herself on Chandler and she carries out an eye for an eye plan, that is, to see through Chandler’s breast. When Rachel stares at Chandler’s breast, Chandler asks, “Can you see my nipples through this shirt?” Instead of giving the adequate answer yes or no, Rachel says more. She tells Chandler even though I cannot see them but you don’t lose them and they are still on your breast. We can see Rachel violates the second maxim of Quantity in order to show her rage and mock Chandler.
Flouting the first maxim of quality—do not say what you believe to be false3—will be realized by applying the figure of speech such as irony, metaphor, meiosis and hyperbole. (5)Rachel: Guess what? Ross: You got a job? Rachel: Are you kidding? I'm trained for nothing! I was laughed out of twelve interviews today. Chandler: And yet you're surprisingly upbeat. Rachel: You would be too if you found John and David boots on sale, fifty percent off! Chandler: Oh, how well you know me... (Episode 1, scene 1) In(5),Rachel is extremely excited for buying the John and David boots on sale and she presumes childishly that Chandler will be in the same feverish state if he finds the discount on boots .However according to the common sense, men are not addicted to shopping and there is no exception to Chandler. But Chandler doesn’t deny directly by saying, “No, I have no interest in shopping” .Instead, he says, “Oh, how well you know me...”.Apparently we can take this response as an agreement with Rachel’s assertion, but what Chandler wants to get across is that I’m a man and I don’t like shopping. Here, Chandler uses ironic way to show both his denial and his dissatisfaction on Rachel. He says something he believes to be false and infringes the first maxim of Quality. If the audience can sense his ironic utterance they will smile at Chandler’s sense of humor. Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “a sea of troubles” or “you are a pearl in my palm” .Now let us take a look at the examples below. (6)Monica: So how you doing today? Did you sleep okay? Talk to Barry? I can't stop smiling. Rachel: I can see that. You look like you slept with a hanger in your mouth. (Episode 1, scene 1) In (6), Rachel has just run away from her wedding; as a result, she has to face her ex-fiancé, Barry and explain herself to him. Monica is concerned about Rachel and asks her about her talks with Barry. Generally speaking, Monica shouldn’t smile in such situation but she cannot help doing that as she has some romantic affair with her boyfriend. So Rachel uses “You look like you slept with a hanger in your mouth.” to describe her smile. Of course, Monica cannot sleep with a hanger in her mouth; it is just a metaphor. (7)Rachel: so, he said it was just a sprain, and that was it. Monica: Uh, you left out the stupid part. Rachel: Not stupid. The very cute, cute, cute doctors asked us out for tomorrow night, and I said "yes." Monica: I think it's totally insane, I mean, they work for the hospital. It's like returning to the scene of the crime. You know, I say we blow off the dates. (Episode 1, scene 17) In (7), Monica and Rachel are talking about Rachel’s wreck on the ankle. The reason why Monica describes returning to the hospital as returning to the scene of the crime is that Rachel uses Monica’s insurance to pay for the X-ray’s fee, which is insurance fraud. So Monica thinks they have committed a crime. As a result, that hospital becomes the scene in which the crime is committed. The scene of the crime is a very humorous metaphor. Meiosis, also called understatement, distort and minimize the truth by expressing with restraint or lacking of emphasis. Let us consider the following examples. (8)Monica: (trying desperately to change the subject) So, Ross, what's going on with you? Any stories? (Digs her elbow into his hand) No news, no little anecdotes to share with the folks? Ross: (pulls his hand away) Okay! Okay. (To his parents)Look, I, uh-I realize you guys have been wondering what exactly happened between Carol and me, and, so, well, here's the deal. Carol's a lesbian. She's living with a woman named Susan. She's pregnant with my child, and she and Susan are going to raise the baby. (Stunned silence ensues.)(Episode 1, scene 2) In (8), Monica and Ross’s parents keep on with finding fault with Monica and she tries to get them to stop nitpicking about her all the time through diverting the topic to Ross. In fact, she wants Ross to talk about his divorce, his lesbian ex-wife and his baby on the way, etc. All these things Ross is experiencing can be labeled as vital issues. However, Monica just calls them “little anecdotes”. She doesn’t tell the truth with the purpose to make her parents more astonished after knowing the truth from Ross’s mouth. Besides, Ross also applies the rhetorical strategy of meiosis by just enumerating the facts and avoiding getting to analyze them. Ross’s way of organizing these facts is a hint for his parents that there is nothing to be surprised at. Consequently, the audience will burst into laugh after knowing these sister and brother’s tricks. Although in (18), both Ross and Monica intend to reduce the major issues to minor ones, Ross has to face the music. Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in “I could sleep for a year” or “This book weighs a ton” .From the pragmatics view, hyperbole is flouting the first maxim of quality because the speaker says something that he knows is not the fact .Now, look at the examples below. (9)Monica: I'm sorry, why is this girl going to call me? Mrs. Geller: Oh, she just graduated, and she wants to be something in cooking, or food, or....I don't know Anyway, I told her you had a restaurant- Monica: No Mom, I don't have a restaurant, I work in a restaurant. Mrs. Geller: Well, they don't have to know that... (Episode 1, scene 2) In (9), Monica’s mother is talking big through exaggerating Monica’s post from “working in a restaurant” to “having a restaurant” .Of course, there is outstanding difference in the positions between a worker and a manager. In this play, Mrs. Geller, is described as a woman who likes showing off whatever she has. This is a good example to illustrate her boastful personality. B. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Examples in which the second maxim of Quality—does not say that for which you lack adequate evidence4—is flouted are perhaps not easy to find, but the following seems to be a specimen. In episode 720, Rachel is helping Chandler to choose a tuxedo in his wedding. Some of the tuxedos were worn by celebrities such as Tom Brokaw, Paul O’Neil, and Pierce Brosnan (10)Chandler: Okay, who wore those? Rachel: Umm, well let’s see uh, this one is Tom Brokaw. (NBC newscaster) Chandler: Not bad. Rachel: (reading a tag) This one is uh, Paul O’Neil. (Minister of treasury department)#p#分页标题#e# Chandler: Who’s that? Rachel: He plays for the Yankees (a baseball team).Seriously, ESPN! Just once and a while, have it on in the background. (Chandler nods and Rachel grabs another tux)Ooh, this one was Pierce Brosnan! (Leading actor of the film series 007) (Episode 7, scene 20) The maxim of quality requires that do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. And obviously, in this episode, Rachel flouts this maxim because she presumes that Paul O’Neil, the minister of treasury department, is a baseball player on account of her seeing him on the sports channel once. Everyone knows that to appear on the sports channel doesn’t mean that one has to be an athlete except Rachel. This example shows that Rachel has fashionable expertise but politically illiterate. Needless to say, the audience burst into laughter on Rachel’s innocence and loveliness.
It is said that Relation maxim5 is the most important maxim in Cooperation Principle because it is the maxim violated most frequently in order to generate conversational implicature. This is perhaps what led some linguists to believe that this maxim subsumes all of Grice’s maxims and to raise the maxim, therefore, to a general Principle of Relevance. According to this maxim, the speaker should offer pertinent and relevant information to the topic. That is to say that the speaker should only include information in his communication that is relevant to the discourse topic. In some situation, people deliberately violate this maxim for sake of avoiding awkwardness or expressing their ideas in a roundabout way. According to Wang Shouyuan, violations of the maxims are frequently found in literary texts. These are intended to portray characters and their relationships and to indicate the relation between the reader and the author. Let us study some examples which violate the Relation maxim excellently and give rise to humorous effects. (11)Rachel: Has anybody seen my engagement ring? Phoebe: Yeah, it's beautiful. (Episode 1, scene 1) (12)Joey: Alright, when'd' ya have it on last? (When do you have it on last?) Phoebe: Boy! Probably right before she lost it! (Episode 1, scene 2) In (11), this dialogue happens after Rachel runs away from her wedding. She wants to return the engagement ring to her ex-fiancé. Unfortunately, she loses it.So her intention by her question “Has anybody seen my engagement ring?” is to find the ring instead of knowing other’s opinion on the ring. However, Phoebe is not very serious about it and gives the answer on appraisement on the ring. So Phoebe doesn’t respond relevantly to Rachel’s question. Obviously Phoebe violates the maxim of relation, maybe deliberately or otherwise unconsciously. And the audiences are amused by Phoebe’s totally unrelated responds. In (12), all the guys begin to help Rachel to find her engagement ring. Joey wants to find some clue to help them seeking for the ring. He wants to figure out when Rachel has it on the last time. For this question the relevant and appropriate answers will be “It is just a moment ago before I went to bathe.” Or “The last time I wore it is before I went to bed last night.” Even the directly answer “I don’t know” is welcome. But phoebe’s answer is that the last time Rachel wears her ring is right before she loses it, which is just insignificant talk and totally irrelevant to Joey’s question. This is an extreme example of a flouting of the maxim of Relation.
The manner maxim6 falls under the super-maxim—“Be perspicuous”, which requires the speaker to make his/her utterance as brief, clear ,and orderly as possible and avoid making such statement that is obscure and ambiguous. If a person doesn’t observe this maxim, he/she might make the addressee at a loss. It is a very interesting phenomenon that the speaker sometimes goes out of the way to flout this maxim in order to avoid embarrassment, unpleasantness, offence, taboo and so on. Consequently, the conversation that violates the maxim of Manner may lead to misunderstanding and humorous conversational implicature. When it comes to flouting the Manner maxim, the speaker usually employs the following rhetorical devices.
Pun is a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words. For example, Franklin’s famous proverb “We must all hang together or we shall all hang separately.”And“7 days without water makes one weak (=week)”.As far as pragmatics is concerned; the rhetorical device of pun violates the Manner maxim of avoiding ambiguity. The uncertain meaning of pun may lead to humorous effect. (13)Phoebe: What were you modeling for? Joey: You know those posters for the city free clinic? Monica: Oh, wow, so you're goanna is one of those "healthy, healthy, healthy guys"? Phoebe: You know, the asthma guy was really cute. Chandler: Do you know which one you're goanna be? Joey: No, but I hear lyme disease is open, so... (Crosses fingers) Chandler: Good luck, man. I hope you get it. Joey: Thanks. (Episode 1, scene 9) (14)Ross: Hi, is uh, is Carol here? Susan: No, she's at a faculty meeting. Ross: Oh, I uh, just came by to pick up my skull. Well, not mine, but... Susan: Come in. Ross: Thanks. Yeah, Carol borrowed it for a class, and I have to get it back to the museum. (Episode 1, scene 9) In (13), Joey has applied for the position as a spokesperson on the posters, through which views of the city free clinic are expressed. His friends are curious about what kind of disease he is going to model for. And Joey tells them there is still a vacant position for lyme disease. After hearing this, Chandler says, “I hope you get it”. Here Chandler’s utterance is very ecause “get it” can give rise two totally opposite interpretation: for one thing, it can be understood as “I hope you get the position”; for another, it can be comprehended as “I hope you get the lyme disease”. Chandler’s casual contrived phonetic ambiguity produces a very humorous utterance. In (14), the humorous effect is also made by the use of homonymous pun, where Ross goes to Carol and Susan’s with the purpose of getting his things back. At the sight of Carol’s lesbian partner, Ross becomes uneasy and troubled; he blurts out that “I uh, just came by to pick up my skull”. Here Ross’s “my skull” is an ambiguous expressions in that it can refer to Ross own skull or the skull belonging to the museum where Ross works. How funny it is when Ross himself realizes his fault. The more he tries to correct his words, the more humorous they become.
Paradox is a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true like “standing is more tiring than walking.” The use of paradox flouts the first sub-maxim of manner—to avoid obscurity .From the pragmatics perspective, the speaker must intend his hearer to understand what he is saying despite the obscurity he imports into his utterance. Let us consider the following examples. (15)Chandler: Sometimes I wish I was a lesbian... (They all stare at him.)Did I say that out loud? (Episode 1, scene 1) (16)Joey: Hey Phoebes, you want to help? Phoebe: Oh, I wish I could, but I don't want to. (Episode 1, scene 1) In (15), Ross has just divorced with his wife because she is a lesbian. And Chandler blurts out that he wants to be a lesbian, which is contradictory to common sense for a lesbian has to be a woman. Chandler as a man can never become a lesbian. In (16), Joey asks Phoebe to help to put together Ross’s new furniture. Phoebe’s answer is self-contradictory since her former half sentence shows her willingness to offer the help; while her latter half sentence shows her unwillingness to give a hand. Her contradictory utterance is a good example to manifest her weird character.
This thesis discusses some humorous conversations in the American sitcom Friends based on the philosopher Henry Paul Grice’s Cooperative Principle (abbreviated as CP) and his conversational implicature theory, and finds out the relationship between humor and the CP. In detail, when the participants make a humorous conversation, they may flout the maxim of Quality, of Quantity, of Relevance or of Manner. Humorous conversation is sometimes in this case delivering a conversational implicature. Thus, this paper, furthermore, is likely to explore the implied or deeper meaning hiding in humor. To some extents, this paper assists English learners to better understand the ways in which humor occurs and the meaning conveyed by humor, in particular, to improve their ability of understanding and using American verbal humor because the humor in Friends is humor of unique American style. The present study has made a tentative effort to investigate the underlying mechanisms of humor. It has discussed the verbal humor from Cooperative Principle. Cooperative Principle’s inferential model can be described as inference and coding. As far as meaning is concerned, Cooperative Principle defines it as speaker’s intention. Sperber and Wilson divide the speaker’s intention into two sub-categories: informative intention and communicative intention; and they claim that “meaning” is speaker’s “communicative intention”. With regard to the definition of context, Cooperative Principle views it as an all-embracing category; hence, there may be some limitations in this paper.#p#分页标题#e#
1Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary(第六版) 863. 2梅德明 现代语言学简明教程 上海外语教育出版社 第128页。 3梅德明 第128页。 4梅德明 第128页。 5梅德明 第128页。 6梅德明 第128页。 Bibliography Hu Zhuanlin (2001) Lingustics A Course Book PeKing University Press Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2001. http://baike.baidu.com/view/7878.html?wtp=tt http://www.gougou.com/search?search=老友记&id=16 http://www.wmmenglish.com/Soft/down04/2005-08-04/131.html http://www.verycd.com/topics/43998/ http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/46806354.html?si=1 http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/english/1/141247.shtml 说话幽默的学问 石油工业出版社(http://www.verycd.com/topics/2805690/) An Introduction to Linguistics语言学导论 胡壮麟主编 《语言学教程》(修订版)北京：北京大学出版社 2001年 梅德明 Modern Linguistics A Concise Course(现代语言学简明教程) 上海外语教育出版社 范施懿 从语用学的角度浅析英语幽默 边疆经济文化 2009 张彦 《老友记》中映射的美国人的语用原则 赤峰学院学报(汉文哲学社会科学版)2009.7 廖秋忠 《语用学的原则》介绍 国外语言学 北京1986.4 佟秋华 闫涛 从合作原则看幽默效果的产生 齐齐哈尔大学学报 2009.1 吴涛 礼貌原则和情景喜剧中的幽默 江南学报 2006.12 孟宪红 刘筱婷《老友记》中幽默对白语用学分析 2007.8 徐涵 美国情景剧《老友记》(friends)对白的语用分析 华南师范大学外文学院 广东 广州 安微文学 姚凤华 张晓明 合作原则与英语幽默的解读——以室内情景喜剧《老友记》为例 无锡职业技术学院学报 覃润娟 幽默对白与格赖斯会话合作原则的违反——以情景喜剧《家有儿女》为例 广西师范大学外国语学院 人文社科 李婷 浅论主持人的语用原则 吉林广播电视大学学报 2008.4 |
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