从会话含义角度解读《老友记》的言语幽默效果(4)
2.3 A Brief Introduction to the Subject Friends
The first season of Friends was directed by Kevin S. Bright in 1994, and till 2003, altogether ten seasons were shot. Ever since its debut, Friends has won many rewards such as People’s Choice Award and The Emmy Awards. It has been enjoyed by the audience all over the world as one of the best American sitcoms.
The story happens in the New York City where six young friends, three males — Ross, Chandler, Joey, and three females — Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, spend a happy time together.
Many basic threads can be found in Friends, like the love story between Ross and Rachel; the romantic, touching marriage between Chandler and Monica; lots of interesting love affairs between various beautiful women and Joey; and the fascinating life experience of Phoebe.
As we can see from the title — Friends, friendship is the main theme of the sitcom. As a really classic sitcom, the success of Friends may lie in the undeniable truth that after laughing at end of each episode, the audience is left with a touched, warm heart, feeling the most beautiful nature of human beings.
So, Friends provide a large number of humorous dialogues for this paper to study the generation of verbal humor, which will enable us to establish a better relationship between the examples and the theory.