Abstract Humor acts as a sort of flavoring agent among people in daily life and plays a role like lubricants in interpersonal relationships, showing humorous attraction, coordinating tense atmosphere, and creating certain connotations. Much attention has long been attracted to the study of language and humor. Joe Wong’s talk show in White House is a splendid example showing a great charm of humor. This thesis is intended to analyze the humor delivered from Joe Wong’s talk show in White House from the perspective of Speech Act Theory. Based on Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts, it sets its focus mainly on the representatives, commissives and expressives in the talk show to explore the production of humor.53559

Key words: Humor; Joe Wong’s talk show; Speech Act Theory

摘 要幽默是人们日常生活中的调剂，也是人们处理人际关系的润滑剂，在人际交往中起着至关重要的作用。幽默还可以展现个人的诙谐天赋，缓解紧张的气氛，而且往往意蕴深长。它长久以来吸引了无数专家学者投入到语言和幽默的研究中。黄西的白宫脱口秀表演作为一个绝妙的例子，展现出了言语幽默的无穷魅力。本文旨在从言语行为理论的角度研究黄西在白宫的脱口秀表演中所传递出的幽默。基于塞尔对言外行为的分类，本文着重分析了黄西脱口秀中阐述类、承诺类和表达类语句中所传递的言语幽默。

关键词：幽默；黄西脱口秀；言语行为理论

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Previous Studies on Humor from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory 1

2.2 Studies on Joe Wong and His Talk Show in White House 2

3. Language Humor & Speech Act Theory 3

3.1 The Definition, Causes, and Functions of Humor 3

3.2 An Introduction to Speech Act Theory and the Speech-act- theory-based Studies on Humor 4

4. An Analysis of Joe Wong’s Talk Show from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory 6

4.1 Humor in Representatives 6

4.2 Humor in Commissives 9

4.3 Humor in Expressives 11

5. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Humor is a powerful element in the colorful world of language which acts as a flavoring agent among people in their daily life, showing humorous attraction, coordinating tense or embarrassing atmosphere, and creating certain connotations.  Joe Wong’s talk show for American press conference 2010 is a splendid example showing great charm of language humor. Indeed, that conference has attracted great attention due to the rapier thrust and impressive remarks of the guests. Amazingly, Joe Wong, as a Chinese, can take on the stage and exert great influences on people present there, so it’s quite interesting and delightful to study his language. As known to many people, Joe Wong’s talk show is very typical and penetrating, which undoubtedly deserves to be held in White House and certainly caters to those American guests.

This thesis is intended to study the humor of his language from the perspective of Speech Act Theory. It is a leading theory in the branch of Pragmatics, which was first proposed by British philosopher John Austin and later improved by his student John Seal. According to this theory, people are performing actions when they are speaking. George Yule mentioned speech acts in his book The Study of Language: “The use of the term speech acts covers ‘actions’ such as ‘requesting’, ‘commanding’, ‘questioning’ and ‘informing’ (Yule, 2000:132).” The author will analyze the humor of Joe’s talk show mainly in representatives, commissives and expressives, with the aid of two leading functions of humor: solidarity-based function and aggression-based function.源'自:吹冰]'[论.文'网"]www.chuibin.com