Research of Verbal Humors in the Modern American Sitcom Frie
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 A General View of the American Sitcom Friends
Comedy has been a part of TV life and played a key role in the development of thecommercial television in the United States since the first bunch of actors with loosepants appeared on American TV Screen in 1935. In the relatively short history of TVprograms, it was not until the year 1947 that the first true and regular situationcomedy Mary Kay and Johnny came onto TV and brought about the passion forsitcom and a large number of sitcom fans among Americans since ever. As the famousAmerican comedy writer Lenny Ripps (website) puts it: “It’s hard to imaginetelevision without the situation comedy, perhaps the most intrinsically American formof comedy today.” Although rooted in fierce competition with other commercial TVprograms，on-line videos and other forms of entertaining programs, as a main TVmedia, situation comedies nowadays have been recognized as one of the mainstreamtelevision entertainment across the world.One of the most successful and classic situation comedies of all time in the http://www.ukthesis.org/dissertation_writing/linguistic/ UnitedStates is the American modern sitcom Friends which is still wining people’sadmiration now. The program, produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions inassociation with Warner Bros. Television for NBC in the United States, was firstbroadcast on line in America then followed by other broadcast networks in numerouscountries throughout the world. In the United States, its first episode was aired onSeptember 22, 1994 and the last was aired on May 6, 2004. Friends has been one ofthe top TV series since its debut on NBC. It has been nominated for “AmericanComedy Reward” for many times and eventually won the reward in 2000.Friends is a typical and classic American situational comedy surrounding the dailylives of common people with ten seasons of over 200 episodes shot for ten years from1994 to 2004. The main characters are six persons in twenties (eventually in thirties)(three male, three female) who share neighboring apartments in Manhattan: Rachel, a spoiled girl who disappoints her wealthy doctor father by leaving her fiancé on theday of their wedding without notice and decides to move in with her childhood palMonica that she loses touch with for a long time to start her life over free from herfather’s financial support. Finally she earns a living from her first job as waitress inthe coffee house named “Central Perk” to a personal shopper at Bloomingdale’s thento an assistant buyer for Ralph Lauren, a well-paid decent office lady. Monica, whowas a laugh stock during her childhood for her extreme overweight, loves totalneatness and things well organized. She strives for success all the way in cookindustry and finally makes it as a head chef in a fancy restaurant; Phoebe, a vegetarianand environmentalist from the back slums who have gone all the bitterness andhardship in her childhood but still optimistic has little education. She ekes out a livingas a single song-writer and bar-singer and a freelance masseuse, and finally walksdown the isle with her Mr. Right, Mike who is a pianist and loves all her weirdness indaily life. Ross, a paleontologist and a young college professor, is Monica’s elderbrother and divorces three times (the first is with his first lesbian wife with whom theyhave a son Ben, the second is with Emily, a British with whom he fells in love at thefirst sight and the third is with Rachel after a hangover when they spend holiday inLas Vegas and get married for fun because of their drunkness). At last he ends hismarriage tragic and goes together with Rachel who he fell in love with secretly, givesbirth to their daughter named Emma in a one night stand and is doomed to be his otherhalf. Chandler, Ross’s roommate in college, changes his career from data processingto advertising. He begins his courtship and marriage life with Monica after they’reback from Ross’s London Marriage wedding ceremony which radically ruins theirlong time friendship; Joey, a handsome but poor educated Italian descendant，is aplayboy and Chandler’s roommate at first. He is struggling for success in his actingcareer all the time and is still unmarried till the end of the program.From the description of Friends, it is obvious that Friends is a well-receivedsituation comedy both at home and abroad. And it deserves people’s admiration for along time relying on its humorous conversation of high frequency and excellentcreation of the characters by perfect acting of the actors. Therefore, searching corpus for the research from Friends could not be a better choice.#p#分页标题#e#
1.2 Objectives of the Present Study
Through citing an authoritative cognitive theory of humor, “incongruity theory”as a criterion in sample collection, this study is conducted from functional perspective.According to Halliday, there are three types of meaning (the interpersonal, theideational and the textual meaning) that are known as the metafunctions. In terms ofgrammar, the ideational function is realized through transitivity choices, theinterpersonal function is realized through mood choices and the textual functionthrough theme choices. Transitivity, or process type, represents the encoding ofideational meanings: meanings about the world, about experience, about how weperceive and experience what is going on. In the functional stylistic analysis, Hallidayputs forward the notion of “incongruity” against “deflection” both of which make uphis “Prominence and Foregrounding” theory. According to Halliday, all the potentialstylistic features can be “prominence features” which is categorized in two kinds: oneis negative, and defying the convention established in language or society and theother is positive, aimed at building up conventions by presenting itself in largequantities. The former is called “incongruity”, qualitative in nature and the latter“deflection”, quantitative.By analyzing samples extracted from Friends and classified in six different kindsaccording to the process type, the study is going to generalize the stylistic featuresoccurred in the transitivity using “incongruity” theory that causes foregrounding andget the occurrence frequency of each kind of process and different stylistic featureswithin it through a quantitative study. Finally the readers will be totally aware ofwhich kind of process is more capable of bring about humor and within each kind ofprocess, which kind of strategy is more frequently used in humorous language.1.3 Significance of the Present StudyThis study will be of great significance both in theory and practice. Theoretically, in the research, theories of cognitive linguistics, functional grammar and functionalstylistic analysis are applied which makes the research quite convincing. In theliterary review part, it is known that the study of humor is mostly confined tocognitive-pragmatic field, and research from other areas such as systemic-functionalapproach is rare. On the basis of “incongruity” theory of humor generation incognitive area, the author takes a functional approach and analyzes the stylisticfeatures of humorous language by using theories of Halliday’s functional stylisticanalysis which is also a breakthrough of the thesis.Practically, the findings of the research can be applied to people’s dailyinteraction or construction of some amusing programs such as cross-talk, sketch,situational comedy, etc. By analyzing humorous language from its experientialmeaning, the author presents to the readers the incongruities in the transitivity systemthat features humor which is easier to be understood and applied. Friends, a popularand classic situation comedy is taken as the source of the samples. In the situationcomedy, humor is incurred not only by some humorous language but also by thecombination of some clauses that triggers humor and the situation which is dividedinto the context of the language and the surroundings; therefore, the study of humor insitcom should take situations into consideration thus it is more dynamic andapplicable.1.4 Organization of the ThesisThe thesis is made up of seven chapters, the introduction and the conclusion partincluded.Chapter One is the introduction part. It gives a panorama of the famousAmerican sitcom Friends, makes clear the objective and the significance of the studyand briefs readers the design of the thesis.Chapter Two is the literature review. This part is mainly concerned with thecognitive-pragmatic study of humor. It lists three prominent traditional theories ofhumor, namely “the superiority theory”, “the incongruity theory” and “Relief theory” at first and recognizes “the incongruity theory” as the cognitive basis of mechanism ofhumor appreciation and takes it as the standard of samples extraction. Then somepopular cognitive theories based on “the incongruity theory” such as “semantic scripttheory”, “frame-shifting theory”, etc. are enumerated and reviewed. Lastly, to add up,some popular pragmatic theories on humor are interposed.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework. In this part, the functional theoryapplied to the research is introduced in detail. This chapter consists of two parts withpart one presenting transitivity realized by the six processes and part two regardingtheories of the functional stylistic analysis, “foregrounding” and “incongruity”. Thefirst part is to familiarize readers with the levels of transitivity where the research isconducted and the second part is to present theories employed to analyze thediscourses selected from Friends.Chapter Four is the research methodology. In this part, dada collection anddescription are offered and then five steps used are presented. Step one is the drawingof the samples from Friends; step two is the categorizing of the samples according tothe process type; step three is the quantitative analysis of the samples; step four is thequalitative analysis of the samples.Chapter Five is the detailed analysis of samples from Friends. In this part, bothquantitative and qualitative approaches of research are conducted respectively. Aftercategorizing the samples according to the six process types, material process, mentalprocess, verbal process, behavioral process, existential process and relational process,the author draws out the findings of the research by presenting two tables and adiagram showing the findings of the research. Then the author illustrates the findingsby analyzing samples under each feature.Chapter Six is the discussion of the findings. The author in this part interprets thefindings of the research.Chapter Seven is the conclusion part. It concludes the research, and points out thelimitations of the study and offers the implication for further study.#p#分页标题#e#
Chapter Three Theoretical Framework 22-37
3.1 Transitivity in systemic-functional … 22-34
3.1.1 Material Process 22-25
3.1.1.1 Direct Participants in … 23
3.1.1.2 Goal versus Range 23-24
3.1.1.3 Beneficiary 24
3.1.1.4 Circumstances 24-25
3.1.2 Mental Process 25-27
3.1.2.1 Phenomenon: Acts 26
3.1.2.2 Phenomenon: Facts 26-27
3.1.2.3 Circumstantials in …27
3.1.3 Behavioral Processes 27-28
3.1.4 Verbal Process 28-29
3.1.5 Existential Process 29-30
3.1.6 Relational Processes 30-33
3.1.6.1 Intensive Attributive … 30-31
3.1.6.2 Intensive Identifying … 31
3.1.6.3 Other Common Sub-… 31-33
3.1.7 Summary 33-34
3.2 Introduction to Foregrounding 34-37
3.2.1 Incongruity 35
3.2.2 Deflection 35-36
3.2.3 Summary 36-37
Chapter Seven Conclusion
7.1 Findings
In this thesis, a tentative study of 150 samples of conversation selected from thefamous sitcom Friends is conducted guided by Halliday’s stylistic analysis theory interms of transitivity. According to Halliday, there are six process types in transitivitysystem to realize the ideational function of language: material process, mental process,behavioral process, verbal process, existential process and relational process. Thisthesis is an endeavor to explore the stylish features that are reflected in terms oftransitivity in the funny clauses that triggers humor and the frequency of each processand each feature to bring about humor. Based on the quantitative analysis andqualitative analysis, the following major findings are attained:Firstly, humor can be analyzed in light of the transitivity structure of the funnyclauses that bring about humor. In the research, the humorous samples are categorizedaccording to their process type, and then analyzed under the guidance of incongruitywithin each process. A total of 13 features of incongruity are summarized andpresented in this thesis. #p#分页标题#e#http://www.ukthesis.org/dissertation_writing/linguistic/ Taking this viewpoint of dissecting humor from transitivity isunprecedented, and makes the apprehension of humor clearer to the readers by thequalitative sample analysis.Secondly, there are more humor created in material process, mental process andrelational process than in the other three process types. Of the 150 samples, samplesunder material process takes 37 percent, 17 percent under mental process and 29percent under relational process while samples under any of the rest three processtypes accounts for not more than 10 percent. With the qualitative analysis of eachsample as supporting evidence, this finding is quite accurate and applicable in termsof all the humor in the total ten seasons of Friends in spite of some deviation.Thirdly, in the formation of humor, there are at least two features in terms oftransitivity in material process, mental process, behavioral process and verbal process
