Violation of the cooperative principle in the movie Lost in Thailand开题报告

Thesis Report

Title

Violation of the cooperative principle in the movie Lost in Thailand .

Thesis Statement

By analyzing the conversations in the movie, this thesis aims at proving that violation of the cooperative principle can make dialogues produce humorous effects.

Need for the Study

Grice proposed the cooperative principle in communication. In fact, people do not obey the cooperative principle for various reasons. They sometimes violate these principles to reach a humor effect in some specific context. This article will study the character#8217;s dialogue in the movie on the basis of important pragmatics theory studies to show how violation of the cooperative principle achieves the unique humorous effect in the movie. This article will analyze what comedy the violation of four specific cooperative principles can bring about.

Research Question(s)

1. The definition of humor;

2. The contents of cooperative principles and violations of this principle;

3. How this movie violates these principles to create humorous effects.

Literature Review

1.The definition of humor

The Chinese word '幽默' was first coined by Lin Yutang in 1924, and was half transliterated from the English word 'humor'. Humor is either happy, funny behavior or speech. Humor is a kind of language art, and it adds a lot of fun to our lives. The generation of English humor is the produced process of humor in the conversational implicature. In a humorous conversation, it often appears that communication on both sides of the party violates a certain rule in the cooperative principle, which leads to the inconsistencies between the speaker''s subjective intention and objective effect and the hearer''s understanding of, thus producing a sense of humor.

2. General review of humor

2.1 Three basic conventional theories of humor

2.1.1 Superiority Theory: which is also called disparagement theory.

2.1.2 Incongruity Theory

2.1.3 Relief Theory

3.Research on humor in China

Lin Yutang believes that humor is an attitude to life. He says that #8220;The citizens without the moisturizing of humor, the culture must be hypocritical, the life must be full of cheat, the thought must be pedantry, and what#8217;s more the soul will be stubborn gradually#8221; (Lin Yutang, 1994)

4.The Grice#8217;s Cooperative Principle

4.1 The origin and its Four Maxims of cooperative principle

Grice put forward the theory of cooperative principle in the William James lectures at Harvard University in 1967.This notion is #8220;one of the single most important ideas in pragmatic#8221; (Levinson, 1983). Grice(1975) defines cooperative principles as follows:

Make your conversational contribution as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange in which you are engaged (Cole and Morgan, 1975:45). In discussing the cooperative principles, Grice subdivided this general principle into more detailed and explicit maxims. There are four maxims under this general principle: Quantity Maxim, Quality Maxim, Relation Maxim and Manner Maxim.

(1).Quantity

a. Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose of the exchange.

b. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

(2).Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.

a. Do not say what you believe to be false.

b. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

(3).Relation: Be relevant.

(4).Manner: Be perspicuous.

a. Avoid obscurity of expression.

b. Avoid ambiguity.

c. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

d. Be orderly

4.2.Violation of the Cooperative Principle

Grice put forward that, in order to ensure the smooth progress of conversation such as verbal communication, both speakers and hearers must abide by some basic principles, especially cooperative principle. Also, he thought people always cooperate in speech communication, and both sides have a common desire; both words and mutual cooperation can be understood between each other. But he also pointed out that in the real communication people do not always adhere to the principle of cooperation, which is sometimes because of the need of politeness or specific context.

In fact, these maxims are often violated. Then here comes another question: under what situations will cooperative principle be violated? Grice also lists four possible situations where cooperative principle can be violated: The speaker may violate cooperative principle deliberately but without making the hearer realize it; The speaker may avoid cooperation in an explicit way by telling the hearer that he is unwilling to cooperate; The speaker may face a dilemma; The speaker may deliberately violate one of the maxims or fail to fulfill it. Here are violations of the cooperative principle:

a. violation of Quantity Maxim

b. violation of Quality Maxim

c. violation of Relation Maxim

d. violation of Manner Maxim

5.Significance of the study

From the perspective of pragmatics, this article will combine with the dialogues in the movie to discuss violation of the cooperative principle and its maxims, and I hope I can help you better understand and appreciate the humor.

Outline

1.Introduction

1.1 A brief introduction of this famous movie.

1.2A brief introduction of humor and the definition of the humor.

2. The Content of Cooperative Principle and its Four Maxims:

2.1 Quantity Maxim；

2.2 Quality Maxim；

2.3 Relation Maxim；

2.4 Manner Maxim

3.Violation of Cooperative Principle

4.How the Violation of These Principles Created Humorous Effects

4.1 Violation of Quantity Maxim

4.2 Violation of Quality Maxim

4.3 Violation of Relation Maxim

4.4 Volation of Manner Maxim

5. Conclusion

References

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[5]Paul, Grice（1975）. Logic and Conversation [M]. New York: Academic Press.

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