not try to chase Alex and pretends to be more interested in this girl than Leonard. Actually, Leonard feels good about Alex although he explains to Raj. The later story proves that there is a vague relationship between Leonard and Alex. After drawing the inference, the humorous effect is generated by violating ellipsis.
3.1.3 Use of roundabout sentences
Roundabout sentences refer to the utterances that are not done or said using the shortest, simplest, or most direct way possible. Zhang Yan has pointed that in such cases, speakers deliberately avoid the theme of the topic and choose to say something in a roundabout way so as to convey something implied or to express something indirectly, which can create a ridiculous and humorous effect (Zhang, 2002:18). In such kind of conversation, the speaker tends to supply inadequate information at the very beginning, so it is a violation of the maxim of Quantity. Consider the following dialogue:
Bernadette: What about you, Penny? Penny: what about me what?
Bernadette: Do you think you and Leonard might ever get married？ Penny: oh, well, he is sweetie.
Amy: You are not answering the question. Do you love him? Penny: Yeah, sure, of course, I love him. Bernadette: It doesn’t sound like that. Penny: well, I do.
Bernadette: Do you tell him that? Penny: He’d just take it the wrong way. Bernadette: What does that mean?
Penny: I mean he is special and smart and nice.
The background is the three girls are talking about their boyfriends and their future marriage. Although Penny loves his boyfriend Leonard, but she never think to marry him. The other two girls feel unbelievable of Penny’s reflection and keep asking her true feeling. Penny avoids answering it directly but chooses her own topic and delays to give the required information. So she risks violating the maxim of Quantity just to bury her real thinking.
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Definitely, her tactful and innocent roundabout way makes the audience laugh immediately.
3.2 Humor created by violating the maxim of Quality
In our daily conversation, speakers observe this maxim for a successful communication. “In the formal circumstances, if we violate this maxim, we will lose some credibility. However, under some less serious circumstances, violating such maxim may lead to amusement and humor. The criteria of such violation are: “if the speaker lies or says something that is believed to be false; if the speaker does irony or makes ironic and sarcastic statement; if the speaker denies something; if the speaker distorts information” (Grice, 1975: 47). Such violation makes the audience laugh and leads them to infer the conversational implicature in the deep level.
3.2.1 Use of irony
This rhetorical device is the uppermost figure of speech applied in the Big Bang Theory. Irony is “a figure of speech in which the intended meaning of the words used is directly opposite to their usual sense” (Zhang, 2005:216). So in an irony, the relationship between the explicit utterances and the intentional meanings is opposite. Thus, the speaker violates the maxim of Quality—Do not say what you believe to be false. In the following, we will discuss some interesting examples.
1. PENNY: Oh, guys. So how was paintball? Did you have fun?
SHELDON: Sure, if you consider being fragged by your own troops fun.
In this scene, the four guys lose a paintball game. They feel depressed and shameful. Sheldon said the main reason why they fail the game is that some people in their group do not follow the chain of command and Wolowits shoot him in the back during the game. When they meet Penny, Sheldon expresses a kind of sadness with the opposite words. Apparently, Sheldon’s utterance is an irony and is absolutely opposite to the reality which is a violation of the maxim of Quality. From this, the audience can really feel the four guys’ sadness and will burst into laugh for his humorous utterance which is really beyond expectation.
2. PENNY: hi, guys. I need some guinea pigs.
SHELDON: Ok, there is a lab animal supply company in Reseda you could try. But if
your research is going to have human applications, may I just suggest white mice instead? Their
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brain chemistry is far closer to ours.
PENNY: I swear to god, Sheldon, one day, I’m going to get the hang of talking to you. Actually, Sheldon uses too much technical terms while talking that others can not follow his speed and understand him. Penny do not really means that she will try her best to understand Sheldon, but to say that Sheldon speaks too fast and he must correct his utterance style in order to let people easily get his meaning. In fact, Penny swears to god that one day she will make Sheldon adapt to her, not let herself get used to Sheldon. So apparently, this is an irony. Penny sacrifices the maxim of Quality to convey his criticism and complaint. As audience, we will definitely laugh for the black humor created by the lovely girl.
3. PENNY: So, you and Leonard? SHELDON: Oh, dear, god!
PENYY: A little misunderstanding? Huh?
SHELDON: a little misunderstanding? Galileo and the pope had a little misunderstand- ing.
Sheldon and Leonard received a letter from the institute for experimental physics who wants them to deliver a speech about their research fruits. Sheldon refuses this invitation because he has no interest in standing in the rose room in front of a group of judgmental strangers who he thinks would not recognize true genius. While Leonard values this honor and strongly wish to attend it and has a quarrel with Sheldon. Penny wants to persuade the two guys to compromise, while Sheldon raises the example of Galileo and the pope to prove that they have totally different values and they have not just a little misunderstanding. Here in this scene, by means of irony, on the surface, Sheldon seems to agree that there is a little misunderstanding between he and Leonard, but on the deep level, he expresses his dissatisfaction and anger. By violating the maxim of Quality, Sheldon makes the audience laugh and feel special black humor.
3.2.2 Use of metaphor
“A metaphor uses words to introduce something different from their literal meaning—one thing is described in terms of another so as to suggest a likeness or analogy between them” (Zhang, 2002:161). Like irony, it also violates the maxim of Quality and causes conversational
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implicature. The use of metaphor is likely to produce humor and delight atmosphere. Now, let us take a look at the example below:
WOLOWITZ: See a penny, pick her up, and all day you’ll have good luck! PENNY: No, you won’t.
Here in this dialogue, Wolowitz sing a song about penny. As we all know, Wolowitz wants Penny to be his girlfriend at the beginning, and he tries to make Penny happy. In his song the word” penny”refers to a coin as well as the girl Penny, and the real meaning of the sentence is that if you see Penny, you will have a good luck all day.. However, penny’s answer is a direct rejection to Wolowitz’s love expression. Certainly, Wolowitz’s sentence is a metaphor and is definitely not true because having good luck has no relation with meeting Penny. Wolowitz says something false and thus violates the maxim of Quality. If the audience can sense his meaning and the background, they will definitely be amused by Wolowitz’s style of humor.
3.2.3 Use of rhetorical questions
“A rhetorical question is one that does not need an answer, for the answer is suggested by the speaker, or presumed by the speaker to be fairly obvious or probably known to the audience” (Zhang, 2002:152-153). By asking rhetorical questions, the speaker doesn’t need any answer in fact and usually invites implicatures to express his/her anger, criticism, surprise, and irony, etc. and thus violates the maxim of Quality. Here is one example to illustrate this strategy.
1. PENNY: Good afternoon, gentlemen. And welcome to today’s physics bowl practice round. I’m Penny and I’ll be your host. Because apparently I do not have anything else to do in the Saturday afternoon. And isn’t that a just little sad? Ok, gentlemen, are you ready?
The four guys will attend a physics contest and they want Penny to help them practice,
Penny is a girl who knows little about scientific studies and has no interest in this contest. Therefore, being host for the four guy’s practice is a boring job for her. She uses a rhetorical question “And isn’t that a just little sad?” to express her frustration. Certainly she knows the answer clearly but she still uses a question. However, after violating the maxim of Quality, Penny’s rhetorical question leads the audience to burst into laugh immediately.
3.3 Humor created by violating the maxim of Relation
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The maxim of Relation requires that one’s contribution must be relevant. That is to say, relevance refers to an utterance that is relevant to the topic of the conversation or communication. However, it is this maxim that is violated most frequently in order to generate conversational implicature. As to this thesis, the violation of this maxim in the big bang theory falls into two kinds: partial irrelevance and complete irrelevance.
3.3.1 Partial irrelevance
Sometimes the information in the big bang theory is not completely related to the contemporary character or episode. Part of the utterance relates well with the dialogue or situation, while the rest is irrelevant to that. Such kind of switch is usually opposite to the audience’s consciousness. Therefore, such way of violation of the maxim of Relation can achieve various kinds of unexpected effects, including humor. This will be further illustrated by the following examples.
1. SHELDON: Penny, Penny, Penny! Good morning！ PENNY: Do you have any idea what time it is?
SHELDON: Of course I do. My watch is linked to the atomic clock in boulder,
Colorado. It is accurate to one-tenth of a second. But as I am saying this, it occurs to me that, once again, your question have been rhetorical.
The dialogue happens when Sheldon knocks the door of Penny’s room in the very early morning while Penny is still sleeping. As in normal situation, when Penny asks Sheldon question like do you have any idea what time it is, the usual response of the listener is to realize that he/she has annoyed others and immediately make apologize for disturbing others at inappropriate time. However, out of our expectation, Sheldon directly answer the question of Penny, explain how accurate his watch is and do not feel sorry for disturbing her. With little doubt, Sheldon violates the maxim of Relation for his utterance is partially irrelevant to the current situation. What’s more, in this sitcom, we may realize that Sheldon usually fails to grasp the important point of the current topic and pays attention to something else because of his over complicated-mindedness. However, it is his special response and performance that amuses the audience a lot and increases the humorous effect of the sitcom.
2. LEONARD: what are you talking about?
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从合作原则角度分析《生活大爆炸》中的对话幽默英语论文
