1 Introduction 1
1.1 Preamble 1
1.2 Rationale of the study 2
1.3 Objectives of the study 5
1.4 Scope of the study 6
1.5 Methodology and data collection 10
1.6 Organization of the study 11
2 Study of Humor and Pragmatic Strategy:An Overview 14
2.1 Study of humor 15
2.1.1 Disagreement on humor and humor study 15
2.1.2 Social-psychological theories of humor 20
2.1.2.1 Relief theories 21
2.1.2.2 Superiority theories 22
2.1.2.3 Incongruity theories 23
2.1.3 Linguistic theories of humor 26
2.1.3.1 Semantic script theory of humor 27
2.1.3.2 General theory of verbal humor 28
2.1.3.3 Audience-based theory of verbal humor 30
2.1.4 Other prevalent approaches to humor 31
2.1.4.1 Pragmatic approaches 31
2.1.4.2 Cognitive-linguistic approaches 40
2.1.4.3 Chinese scholars on humor 41
2.2 Study of pragmatic strategy 42
2.2.1 Pragmatic theories and pragmatic strategy 42
2.2.2 Sporadic studies of pragmatic strategy 44
2.3 Summary 46
3 Humor in Communication 48
3.1 Basic notions related to humor in communication 49
3.1.1 Humor and laughter 49
3.1.2 Sense of humor 53
3.1.3 Joke similarity and variation 58
3.1.3.1 Joke similarity 59
3.1.3.2 Joke variation 62
3.1.4 Canned jokes and spontaneous humor 68
3.1.4.1 Canned jokes in communication 69
3.1.4.2 Transferability between canned jokes and spontaneous humor 73
3.2 Humor as a communication mode 76
3.2.1 Serious and humorous modes of communication 76
3.2.1.1 Serious mode of communication 76
3.2.1.2 Humorous mode of communication 79
3.2.2 Mode-switching in communication 84
3.3 Summary 91
4 Joke Teller's Strategies 93
4.1 Macro-strategies 95
4.1.1 Script 96
4.1.2 Script overlap 101
4.1.3 Script oppositeness 104
4.2 Micro-strategies 109
4.2.1 Orthographic strategy 112
4.2.2 Phonological strategy 116
4.2.3 Lexical strategy 120
4.2.4 Syntactic strategy 125
4.2.5 Discourse strategy 128
4.3 Summary 131
5 Interlocutor's Strategies 134
5.1 Interlocutor as humor producer 135
5.2 Macro-strategies 139
5.2.1 CP-related strategies 139
5.2.2 PP-related strategies 145
5.2.3 Speech-act-related strategies 154
5.3 Micro-strategies 161
5.3.1 Presupposition-related strategies 161
5.3.2 Deixis-related strategies 166
5.4 Summary 171
6 Signaling Strategies and Responding Strategies 173
6.1 Signaling strategies 174
6.2 Responding strategies 178
6.2.1 Nonverbal responses 179
6.2.2 Verbal responses 181
6.2.3 Lack of response 183
6.2.4 Implicatures of responding strategies 185
6.3 Summary 187
7 Conclusion 189
7.1 Major findings of the study 190
7.2 Implications of the study 192
7.3 Limitations of the study 195
7.4 Suggestions for further study 196
Bibliography 198