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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Veronika Psicová Analysis of Humour in Two and Half Men Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph. D. 2013 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Veronika Psicová 1 I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. for his kind help and support. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5 1.What is (and what is not) humour? ......................................................................................... 7 1.1 Irony and sarcasm ......................................................................................................... 9 2.What is a sitcom? .................................................................................................................. 14 2.1 Two and a Half Men ................................................................................................... 14 3.The Cooperative Principle ..................................................................................................... 18 4.Maxim of Quality .................................................................................................................. 19 4.1. Do not say what you believe to be false. ................................................................... 19 4.2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. .............................................. 22 5.Maxim of Quantity ................................................................................................................ 24 5.1 Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of exchange). ......................................................................................................................... 24 5.2 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. ........................... 27 6.Maxim of Relation ................................................................................................................ 31 7.Maxim of Manner .................................................................................................................. 35 7.1 Avoid obscurity of expression. ................................................................................... 35 7.2 Avoid ambiguity. ........................................................................................................ 38 7.3 Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) ........................................................................ 42 7.4 Be orderly. ................................................................................................................... 45 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 48 References ................................................................................................................................ 51 Summary .................................................................................................................................. 54 Resumé ..................................................................................................................................... 55 3 Introduction Humour is a very significant part of our everyday lives. It brings laughter and happi- ness to society, improves mood, brightens days and it can bring a positive attitude to people and the whole society and therefore humour can make things easier to bear (Hu, 2012). However, from a linguistic and pragmatic perspective, humour is a very interesting communication device. It is almost impossible to define it exactly. There are a lot of theories which try to define humour but none of these theories is unique. The thesis will focus on defi- nition not only of humour but also on a definition of irony and sarcasm and how humour is created with the assistance of these two. In addition, it will try to define it according to vari- ous sources such as online dictionaries and linguistic works. The next point in my thesis is the short outline of what is a sitcom, description of Two and a Half Men and its main characters as not everybody is knowledgeable with this situa- tional comedy. The focus will be set on the first three seasons. The largest part of my thesis is focused on exploration of Herbert Paul Grice‟s Coop- erative Principle and his four conversational maxims (i.e. maxim of Quality, Quantity, Rela- tion and Manner). Undoubtedly, there are a lot of other different theories with their own max- ims (for example politeness theories) but I will focus only on the Grice‟s Cooperative Princi- ple. Although his theories have a lot of imperfections as Grice (1975) himself admitted, his essays have been very influential and important for the further development of linguistics. I will analyse violation of these four maxims and whether the violation causes a humorous situ- ation or not. Last but not least, I will try to find out whether violation of some of these maxims cre- ates humour and a humorous situation for the audience. The theory of the conversational max- 4 ims will be applied on the previously mentioned sitcom Two and a Half Men. It will be ap- plied as well on the main characters‟ ironic and sarcastic utterances, comments and dialogues. At the beginning, I will define each of the four of the maxims and also its sub-maxims and then I will provide two or three examples for each sub-maxim and analyse them. 5 1. What is (and what is not) humour? Humour is a very interesting communication device which brings laughter and happi- ness to people and society, improves mood and can make a positive attitude to people and therefore make things easier (Hu, 2012). But what exactly is humour? First of all, it is more than necessary to mention that there is no unique theory of humour and therefore it is very difficult, almost impossible, to define it exactly. Shuqin Hu (2012) in her essay “An Analysis of Humor in The Big Bang Theory from Pragmatic Perspectives” introduces humour and its three most important and influential theories – Superiority Theory, the Release Theory and the Incongruity Theory.. Thomas Hobbes defined the Superiority Theory as “the sudden glory arising from the sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of oth- ers” (Hu, 2012, p. 1). According to him, people laugh at other‟s misfortune, making them su- perior to others. The Release Theory takes humour more from psychological point of view. It says that “laughter is a kind of release from social sanction physically and psychologically” (Hu, 2012, p. 1). Sigmund Freud (1976) is the main defender of this theory. The last theory Hu (2012) mentions is the Incongruity Theory which is the most influ- ential among these three theories (p. 1). She cites Attardo (1997), who defined this theory and the main idea is that “laughter arises from the view of two or more inconsistent, unsuitable or incongruous parts of circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assem- blage” (p. 396). Humour prevailingly provokes laughter and amusement. On the other hand, according to a previously mentioned linguist Salvatore Attardo (2003), who deals with analysing hu- 6 mour; humour and laughter, while they are obviously related, are not by all means coexten- sive. This means that there may be various reactions to humour or jokes – laughter but also misunderstanding, non-acceptance and in some cases anger or insult. Laughter can be also a reaction to non-humorous stimulus, for example tickling or a laughter provoked by some- body‟s stumble and fall. It can be also initialized by imitation when someone hears laughter s/he simply laughs as well. It is, for example, very common with children. But that is not hu- mour (p. 2). Attardo (2003) in his essay “Pragmatics of Humour” claimed that “serious responses to humorous teasing (Drew, 1987) are precisely non-amusement reactions to a humorous turn in conversation” (p. 2). There may be various reactions to some non-amusement situation. One of them is for example a denial (it is not funny!) or there can be various other factors why there is no laughter after humorous stimulus. Attardo (2003) further states in his theory of humour that: The response of the hearer may be affected by a number of factors, such as lack of perception of the stimulus, failure to understand it, refusal to consider it appropriate for a humorous exchange in the current situation (for ideological or other reasons), etc. (p. 2). Therefore laughter is not necessarily a reaction to humour and vice versa – humour does not always produce laughter. Definition of humour according to online dictionaries is much simpler but not very complex. According to dictionary.com, the definition of humour is following: 1. The quality of being funny 2. The ability to appreciate or express that which is humorous 7 3. Situations, speech, or writings that are thought to be humorous. These definitions are simple, short, clear, easily understood and well expressed and therefore they are made for a general public. Nevertheless, they are not quite accurate, definitely not from the linguistic point of view. The first definition “the quality of being funny” is true only partly because as was mentioned before, when something