Abstract:The present paper carries out an analysis on the humorous effects of the dialogues in the Western sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond from the aspect of the cooperative principle promoted by Grice in pragmatics. The cooperative principle includes four maxims: quantity, quality, relation, and manner; each maxim has its specific details, which can be used to explain why and how some daily conversations can go on smoothly. However, sometimes, in some particular context these maxims are violated deliberately so that the speakers can fulfill their particular communicative purposes, for instance, to create a humorous effect. In the body of this paper, many different dialogues are analyzed within the domain of the above-mentioned maxims one by one with the purpose to probe how these maxims are violated in detail. With the specific analysis done, the findings show that one of the causes of the humorous effect of some dialogues in the English sitcoms, in a greater part, comes from the inharmonic situation in the sitcom, i.e. the deliberate violation of the maxims of the cooperative principle. The research result of this paper may be extended to the explanation of other materials of humorous language in the domain of the cooperative principle.
Key words: Cooperative principle, sitcom, violation of the Cooperative Principle
摘要:本论文从语用学中的“合作原则”角度来分析英语情景喜剧《人人都爱雷蒙德》中部分对白的幽默效果。在语言学中，“合作原则”包括四个范畴：量的准则、质的准则、关联准则、方式准则。其中，每一个范畴又包括一些更细微的准则，而且我们的日常生活交流也应该遵循这些准则。但是有时为了某种特别的交际目的，这些准则会被故意违反。在这篇论文中，通过对该情景喜剧中主要人物部分对白的详细分析，我们发现情景喜剧对白的幽默效果来自对白在上下文中的不协调性，而造成这种不协调性的因素主要是由于对“合作原则”不同准则的违反。本文的分析同时表明，“合作原则”也可以用于分析其它形式的幽默语言。
关键词：合作原则，情景喜剧，合作原则的违反
