(4) A staid-looking gentleman was upset at the dress of some young people in the street.
“Just look at that one”, he larked to a bystander, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It's a girl. She is my daughter.”
“Oh, forgive me”, apologized the man, “I didn't know you were her mother.”
“I’m not”, snapped by the bystander, “I’m her father.”
(5) “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
In the first story, the gentleman used a wrong presupposition---the bystander is the girl’s mother. Yet, the bystander soon denied his presupposition, which implies his sex can't be judge by his clothes as well as his daughter. Therefore, the atmosphere of humor was created. In the example (5), the speaker used a presupposition leaving no room for criticism, that is, you beat your wife, which will easily make the addressee confess to beating his wife. Because this is a “yes or no question”, generally speaking, the answer would only be “yes” or “no”. However, no matter what the answer of the addressee is, he will fall into the trap:
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”
--Yes. (= I have beaten my wife before.)
--No. (= I’m still beating my wife.)
2.1.3 Relevance Theory and English humor
Relevance theory holds on the idea that communication is an ostensive-inferential process that involves informative intention and communicative intention. The reason why communication can be carried out successfully is the optimal cognitive pattern -- relevance. When the relevant relations were not so clear or optimal, communication would meet blocks and even fail. Then humorous effects sometimes may be created. For example:
(6) Mark Twain once said to a woman sitting opposite to him: “you really beautiful, madam.”
“I’m sorry, I really can not flatter you in the same terms as you do to me”, the woman replied arrogantly.
“That doesn’t matter”, Mark Twain commented, “Any way, you can lie as I do.”[6]
(7) A geographic teacher wanted to activate the class’s atmosphere, and he asked the students a question, “What is the most famous in France?”
“French perfume!” the students shouted in chorus.
In Example (6), when the lady got the praise from Mark Twain, she caustically laughed at his appearance. She might think that Mark Twain had no words to refute her mock. She might proudly think that she beat Mark Twain to no words, after hearing the master’s words “That doesn’t matter.” However, with the last part of sentence, “anyway, you can lie as I do”. She would probably connect the context with that of the first part of the sentence. She might regard the last sentence as Mark Twain’ self-scorn. But if she got the optimal relevance to Mark Twain’s two sentences and got the actual idea, she would realize that the master ridiculed her arrogance humorously.
In Example (7), we may easily infer that the geographic teacher’s question must have relations with the historical site or scenic spots. Obviously, the students must know the teacher’s purpose, but they didn’t know the answer. Then they deliberately gave an answer which had no the optimal relevance to the teacher’s question. Their answer was right in a certain extent, though it had no relevance to this geographic lesson. Here, the student violated the relevance theory and created humor effect.
2.1.4 Speech Act and English humor
In the previous section, it introduced three parts of speech act, locutionary, illocutionary and prelocutionary acts divided by the philosopher Austin. In our daily communication, sometimes we have to take an indirect way when we speak because of some social factor such as different social status, age, sex, level of acquaintance ect. If the indirect speech act is going to be explored, then the literal force should understood firstly. Therefore, the indirect speech act can be inferred. But sometimes, the hearer purposely focuses on the locutionary act, ignoring the indirect speech act. In this way, humorous atmosphere would be created. For example:
(8)(On a train, a man had just put a heavy box somewhere above a lady’s head.)
Lady: Sir, what if the box drops down?
Man: Don’t worry, madam. There aren’t any breakable inside. [7]
In this story, the lady didn’t know the man. So she would not worry about the damage of the man’s box. We know that the box was just over the lady’s head. Obviously, the lady was afraid of being hurt if the box fell down from the above, but not the conditions of the box. So we should understand the lady’s words in this way, “What will happen to me if the box drops down?” But the man purposely interpreted the lady’s words in another way, “What will be the situation inside if the box drops down?” He deliberately misunderstood the lady’s warning into consideration, and illocutionary act into locutionary act. We can suppose that the man must have been quite sure that the box would not drop down. So he could be confidently humorous to the lady’s question.
2.1.5 Conversational Principle and English humor
As mentioned in the previous section, we know there are four maxims under this cooperative principle. They are the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relevance and the maxim of manner. The violating of these maxims usually creates the humor. In this section, some examples for each of the maxims are given to show how humor is realized by violating the principle.
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