Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Eva Čapková Pragmatic Principles and Humour in "The IT Crowd" Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr., Jan Chovanec, Ph. D. 2012 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature I would like to thank to my supervisor, Mr. Jan Chovanec, whose encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final level enabled me to write this thesis. It is a pleasure to thank those who supported me in any respect during that time. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 6 2. Humour and Laughter ............................................................................................................... 7 3. Genre of Sitcom ...................................................................................................................... 12 3.1 The IT Crowd ................................................................................................................... 17 4. Pragmatics ............................................................................................................................... 18 4.1 Grice‟s Cooperative Principle ........................................................................................... 19 4.1.1 Maxim of Quality ...................................................................................................... 22 4.1.2 Maxim of Quantity .................................................................................................... 23 4.1.3 Maxim of Relation ..................................................................................................... 24 4.1.4 Maxim of Manner ...................................................................................................... 25 4.2 Leech‟s Politeness Principle ............................................................................................. 25 4.2.1 Tact Maxim ............................................................................................................... 29 4.2.2 Generosity Maxim ..................................................................................................... 30 4.2.3 Approbation Maxim .................................................................................................. 30 4.2.4 Modesty Maxim ........................................................................................................ 31 4.2.5 Agreement Maxim ..................................................................................................... 32 4.2.6 Sympathy Maxim ...................................................................................................... 32 4.3 Humorous potential of non-observance of the CP and PP ................................................ 33 5. Non-observance of the CP and PP in "The IT Crowd" ........................................................... 34 5.1 Non-observance of the CP ................................................................................................ 35 5.1.1 Maxim of Quality ...................................................................................................... 35 5.1.1.1 "Do not say what you believe to be false" ......................................................... 35 5.1.1.2 "Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence" ................................... 37 5.1.2 Maxim of Quantity .................................................................................................... 38 5.1.2.1 "Make your contribution as informative as required" ........................................ 38 5.1.2.2 "Do not make your contribution more informative than is required" ................ 39 5.1.3 Maxim of Relation ..................................................................................................... 40 5.1.4 Maxim of Manner ...................................................................................................... 41 5.1.4.1 "Avoid obscurity"............................................................................................... 41 5.1.4.2 "Avoid ambiguity" ............................................................................................. 42 5.1.4.3 "Be brief" ........................................................................................................... 43 5.1.4.4 "Be orderly" ....................................................................................................... 44 5.2 Non-observance of the PP ................................................................................................ 45 5.2.1 Tact Maxim ............................................................................................................... 46 5.2.2 Generosity Maxim ..................................................................................................... 47 5.2.3 Approbation Maxim .................................................................................................. 47 5.2.4 Modesty Maxim ........................................................................................................ 48 5.2.5 Agreement Maxim ..................................................................................................... 49 5.2.6 Sympathy Maxim ...................................................................................................... 50 5.3 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 51 6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 52 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 55 Anotace ....................................................................................................................................... 57 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 58 1. Introduction Humour represents an important part of human experience and it is no wonder that it has been the subject of various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, aesthetics and linguistics. An immense number of scholars has tried to provide definition of humour and large amount of theories of humour were formulated, which attempt to determine necessary and sufficient condition for humour to be funny. (Raskin, 1985, p. 47) In this thesis, humour in verbal communication will be discussed from linguistic, specifically pragmatic, point of view. It will be focused on the British sitcom "The IT Crowd" in relation to the Cooperative Principle by Herbert Paul Grice and the Politeness Principle by Geoffrey Leech. Different maxims of these two principles will be discussed in order to determine what part they play in creating humorous situations in sitcoms. The thesis consists of six chapters, the first of which is the introduction that discusses the purpose and layout of this study. Chapter two provides the reader with theoretical background to humour and laughter. It attempts to define the term humour and establish its relation to laughter. The third chapter discusses the genre of sitcom, its main characteristics and offers brief introduction to the sitcom, which will be analysed in this study. Chapter four serves as the theoretical framework of the thesis, which includes introduction to pragmatics, the Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle, as well as its connection to humour. In chapter five, the two principles of communication are applied on the excerpts from the sitcom "The IT Crowd" in order to determine how humour is created by non-observance of its maxims. Chapter six summarizes the findings of this thesis. 6 2. Humour and Laughter One of the essential steps in discussion of humour is to define the word humour itself. Even thought humour constitutes almost an inseparable part of everyday life, only rarely do people stop to reflect upon what the term actually covers and how complex it can be. Scholarly research on this subject is nevertheless very extensive and many authors have managed to put forward rich amount of text concerned with humour and issues connected with definition of this term. Throughout history until these days numerous attempts have been made to define what humour is and what people find humorous. Several different fields of human studies such as psychology, sociology and linguistic try to grasp this term from different points of view in order to define some boundaries. These boundaries should not be, however, always understood as limitations for the term, but rather an attempt to create a starting point for a discussion of this subject. Even thought so many definitions had been proposed, there is no single correct definition that would be generally agreed on by all disciplines and scholars. It is also necessary to mention that some researchers believe that the definition of humour is entirely impossible (Attardo, 1960, p. 3). This does not, however, mean that the research of humour that had taken place up to now was unsuccessful or even pointless. On the contrary, every discussion that emerges allows the researches to re-evaluate their theories and provide the world with