论文总字数：32308字

摘 要

幽默在人们的生活中有着非常重要的作用。正因为幽默的重要作用，它在各方面都被广泛应用。然而，由于两种文化的不同文化背景，中国幽默和西方幽默存在差异。那么在交流过程中就可能会出现交际障碍和产生不必要的误解。本篇论文旨在对中英语言中的幽默表达的不同进行研究。基于这一点，首先要对幽默有基本了解和分析，致力于找出中西方幽默的差异，进而结合跨文化交际的例子分析导致这些不同的原因。

关键词：幽默；中西文化；差异和原因；

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Comparison between Chinese and English Humor 4

3.1 Differences in topics 4

3.2 Differences in interlocutors 5

3.3 Differences in functions 6

3.4 Differences in expression forms 8

4. Causes of Differences between Chinese and English Humor 9

4.1 Differences in social and historical backgrounds 9

4.2 Differences in religious influence 10

4.3 Differences in individualism and collectivism 10

4.4 Differences in hierarchy concepts 11

4.5 Differences in ways of thinking 12

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

With the fast development of the society, it is quite common to keep contact with the outer world in today’s world. By studying the humorous differences in language expression, we can learn western culture better and avoid needless misunderstanding. Humor is not easily understood, but humor should be used in a correct way. Thus it can help bring joy and pleasure for people. It can avoid embarrassment when people are suddenly in an awkward conversation. Moreover, it can give people a kind of wise impression .

Humor is a kind of language art and the product of development of humor culture. Humor, as a kind of linguistic treasure, has many types of expression forms, such as literal humor, language humor, physical humor. And among all kinds of these, language humor is the main form. Both Chinese and Western countries have their own humorous expressions. Due to the differences in the background of the two cultures, there exist distinctions between Chinese and English. By studying the differences and the causes between them, we can get better understanding of the cultures. Thus we are able to carry out intercultural studies better via taking the advantages of the outcome of this thesis .

This paper, by analyzing differences of language humor carefully, is intended to solve the following problems:

1. What are the differences in humor between Chinese and English?
2. What are the causes of these differences from cross cultural perspective.

The whole article is divided into five parts. The first part is brief introduction. In this part, it generally introduces what the topic is about and the importance of humor. Meanwhile, it puts forward the problems to be solved in this paper. Then it analyses the whole structure of this paper.

In the second part, here is about literature review. In previous researches, many scholars have made much efforts in humor from different perspective. This part may list some of them and study their theories and viewpoints carefully. It may use them for preference and present new angle.

In the third part, the thesis goes to a contrastive study of Chinese and English humor. It includes differences in topics, interlocutors, functions and expression forms. Among these, functions and expression forms may account for the most part. As a result, examples are very important and used to explain the differences between them.

In the fourth part, emphasis is paid on causes of differences of Chinese and English humor. There may be various reasons why humors are different between Chinese and English, for example, social historical backgrounds, religious influence, individualism and collective, hierarchy concepts and ways of thinking.

In the fifth part, it is also the last part. It comes to conclusion. After researching on this topic, much may be gained about knowledge and awareness. Solutions need to be put forward, since the most important thing is not solution but mutual understanding.

2. Literature Review

Humor is very important in daily communication. Humor has a long history both in China and western. In English, the word humor is derived from “humor” in Latin, which is originally a physiology term in ancient Greek and means “Body fluid”. Body fluid consists of blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile. The doctor believes that a man’s health and temperament depends on the proportion of composition of the four portions. The theory of temperament has a big influence in ancient Greek, middle ages and the renaissance. When a man is in depression, it indicates that black bile is excessive in body and the best solution is laughter in a big smile. Then the word is evolved into the meaning of “interesting”, and is widely used owing to Ben Jonson, English humanism dramatist.

In China, humor is first mentioned and translated by Wang Guowei. In 1924, Lin Yutang, an famous writer, confirms “幽默” as the translation of humor. Although this version has controversial debate at first, it is finally accepted by people and has been in use until now. Lin Yutang advocates humor in his book and mentions that humor is a flash of wisdom and all humor is derived from the wisdom of the people. (Lin 38)

There are differences between Chinese humor and western humor, such as in topics, purposes, forms, contents and so on. There are obvious cultural distinctions between the English and Chinese humor due to different values, customs, life styles and traditions. These all belong to cultural differences. Many scholars have made great contributions to humor research and humor literary works, such as Chinese famous writer Lin Yutang, Lu Xun and so on, and there are authors whose writing styles are humorous, such as western famous writer Mark Twain, O.Henry, etc. Their articles are witty and peppered with good one-liners. From the past times to recent years, there are many scholars, philosophers, sociologists and linguists who have done many studies and discussions about this issue from various perspectives.

In foreign countries, many scholars have written books to do research and propose theories about humor. De Bono, in his book called Serious Creativity, argues that humor twists into the unexpected best describe the mind’s process of forays and interventions that we commonly call “creativity”. From Norman Cousins, he describes how he cured cancer by laughing a lot everyday and thus appreciated the functions of humor in his book Anatomy of an Illness. According to S.Freud, in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, it discusses the techniques of jokes and relation to unconscious and dreams. In National Styles of Humor, it discusses traditional and prevalent forms of humor in literature, performance, visual arts and mass media. According to Arthur koestler, in her book, it put forwards that humorous language plays on sounds, words and sentences, covering jokes, anecdotes, comic verses, proverbs and satires by meanings of allegories.

In China, there are also many discoveries. From An appreciation of Humorous Language written by Mao Ronggui, it analyses and appreciates the translation of humorous language. Zhao Zhiwei has written a book called Humorous Chinese People in which the author elaborates different humorous stories in every historical period at the first volume of the book. At the second volume, it analyses several characteristics of Chinese humor. In a book called Principles of humor, author Li Xiaoke expounds humor logic in simple term. Zeng Zhennan has written an article called Theory of Lu Xun and Lin Yutang’ s Sense of Humor in which he analyses their different views on humor and admires their influence on social struggles with their humorous works. According to Jiang Xuejun, he thinks that one should have the ability to identify humor before he translate humor language. In his book Theory of English Humorous Language Translation, he lists various translation strategies.

All in all, they concentrate on translation, humor theory, influences of humor on advertisements or communication, verbal aspects or other angles. However, Chinese and Western humor are different in many ways. The previous researches do not discuss too much on their differences and on the contrast of cross-cultural humor,. This essay is going to discuss cross-cultural differences. It analyses differences between Chinese humor and western humor and the causes of differences from a cross-cultural perspective. Mainly it is about influence of culture and their relationship. This topic has been rare so far and few people have a deep research on this topic. After this theory, maybe we can know much about this topic.

Comparison between Chinese and English Humor

Humor , which plays an immeasurable role in public life with its unique artistic style as well as fun and thought-provoking artistic conception, is a symbol of civilization and wisdom. It is hard to define exactly what is humor. According to Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language(1997:563), it defines humor as “a form of entertainment and a form of human communication, intended to make people laugh and feel happy”. From Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary of Current English(1988), it generalize simply to “capacity to cause or feel amusement”. However, Lin Yutang (2000) describes that “humor is a state of mind, a point of view and a way of looking at life”. It embodies national characteristics and long history of national cultural development. Nevertheless, there apparently exits cross-cultural differences between Chinese humor and western humor in topics, functions, language styles and expression forms.

3.1 Differences in topics

Western humor has profound cultural connotation. It can be said that western people are born with a sense of humor. There is saying that one can not be a good person but you can not be a person who does not understand humor. Compared with topics of Chinese humor, the most important difference is to include the topic about “sex” which Chinese people usually avoid talking. Someone believes if without sex, western people do not really have sense of humor. Though a little exaggerated, from this we can see that sex plays a very important role in western humor. Because of ideological emancipation, people are open to sex. According to William(1990:3), “Much American humor is racist and sexist”.

In contrast, Chinese people are more conservative. Chinese thinking modes are affected deeply by traditional Confucian thought. Thus, the topic of humor is within the scope of Confucian thought and is subjected to certain ethics constraints. As a result, it is immoral for Chinese people to mention “sex”. On this issue, people usually remain mute as if mouth’s were sealed or avoid mentioning. It is not allowed to mention at any case, because it is regarded as a coarse and unrefined thing.

3.2 Differences in interlocutors

The feature of western traditional culture is external expansion. It can be seen, throughout the history, that western countries invaded other countries or areas beyond count. The expansion influences western people’s thinking modes and thus forms open and optimistic attitudes towards life. In addition, whether invading or being invaded, it enables two cultures to intermingle gradually. Taking “Westward Movement” as an example, at that time, harsh natural environment in western United State and social instability enabled American people in that movement to inspire themselves by means of finding joy from themselves. This makes most of their own main objects of ridicule.

The American president Obama is acknowledged as a great orator. He is good at teasing anything, anyone and even himself. At the White House Correspondents’ dinner, he still brought down the house and won applause from time to time. He referred to vice president and thanked for his accompany. “I tease Joe sometimes, but he has been at my side for seven years. I love that man. He is not just a great vice president, he is a good friend. We have gotten so close in some places in Indiana. They won’t serve us pizza anymore.” Besides, one pizza shop in Indiana rejects selling pizza to homosexuals. So president Obama makes fun of himself with this. This is American humor and they do not mind teasing themselves.

However, Chinese culture is based on Confucian thought. It results in a kind of code of ethics that the inferiors should respect seniority. Therefore, people need to pay attention not to offending seniority.

3.3 Differences in functions

Humor has many general functions: releasing stress, adjusting interpersonal relationship, establishing superiority and defending psychological injuries. Humor can cheer people up and keep them pleasant and positive. Moreover, humor can also make interpersonal relationship more harmony. Humor can eliminate contradictions and misunderstanding. When people are in trouble or in awkward situation, humor can help to get out of the trouble and solve problems peacefully. Just as Harvard says, the importance of humor in people’s lives is as much as sunshine, water and air. Humor has a significant effect on not only people who plays a role of recipient, but also people who produce humor.

Since humor is of great importance in communication, both Chinese humor and western humor have the same functions between. Firstly, it is an expression of personality. It can reveal that you are an outgoing, confident and wise person. In a sense, humor can be a method to attract friends or get better jobs. Shakespeare once said that the humor and wit is the flash of wisdom. Language style of humor is an external manifestation of internal temperament. It requires a wide range of knowledge and language competence. Secondly, it is a way to ease pain. In some conditions, humor is also explained simply to “positive”. The cause and motivation of true “positive” is contradiction and pain in life. One famous American writer has said “Comedian’s start is misfortune and destination is happiness. Happiness is a great and exciting advance”. One person will have no sense of humor, if he does not experience pain and grief. In psychological defense mechanism, a sense of humor is a kind of high-level one. Just as James Pam said, a success person is a sense of humor to deal with setbacks. Thirdly, humor is good for physical and psychological health. People can achieve happiness from person who is humorous. At the same time, People who is humorous may gain confidence and satisfaction by bringing joy to others. Fourthly, humor is of great benefit to interpersonal communication. Or we can say, humor is a kind of lubricant between people. Everyone must get on with people. The relationship between people is sometimes complex. If only there is people, there is fraction. For example, someone wants to seek help from his friends, but he is not sure that his friend is able to or is willing to help. If his friend is in hesitation or even refuses, no matter he or his friend is embarrassed. To protect their friendship, humor is the best way to solve this problem. He can ask for help by playing a trick. If his friend wants to refuse, he can also use the same way tactfully. Neither of them will take it seriously. This is just for sounding out the possibility. Also, humor can be used to criticize. This can avoid shame and is able to distinguish between right and wrong in laughter. According to Apte(1985:38), “it is the close contact and intimate knowledge of one another that form the basis of a joking relationship. Humor for most part functions to indicate or establish a light relationship between the addresser and the addressee.”

Even so, they also have differences. Chinese humor and English humor attach importance to different angles. Western humor is mostly for entertainment. In terms of its function, most play a role in pleasure and relaxing. This is a distinct characteristic formed from the bud, since western humor is produced in a friendly environment in its infancy period.

American writer Mark Twain is a master of humor. Once, he dated with his girlfriend without wearing a tie. It was considered as a impolite behavior at that time. A few days later, his girlfriend received a package in which there was a tie and note saying that “This is a tie. Please take it out and have a look carefully. I stayed with you for half an hour without wearing a tie last time. Now you can watch it for half an hour and then please send it back to me. After all, this is the only tie I have.” This humor is a little trick, but it is truly embodies the function of pleasure and entertainment. It is not alarming but just for fun.

Chinese humor is for educating and admonishing. People gain inspiration through interesting stories.

3.4 Differences in expression forms

There are obvious differences in the expression forms as a result of different thinking modes and cultural connotations. Chinese humor is expressed by means of language. The most typical form is cross talk. In the whole process, artists make audience laugh many times just all by his mouth. They talk of everything and comment on big news or life bagatelle with the help of extensive and profound Chinese characters. For example, from a famous TV show called MR.ZHOU LIVE SHOW, in terms of the problems that people are difficult to buy a house in China, the artist humorously express his ideas. In Beijing, if one has a salary of more than 3 million a year, he can buy a house he likes within second ring road; if between 1 and 3 million a year, he can buy a house he likes from fourth ring road to second ring road; if between 0.5 million and 1 million, he can buy a house he likes from six ring road to fourth ring road; however, if less than 0.1 million, he can find a place he likes to dig as his grave. These words cause the resonance of audiences. The artist uses outstanding eloquence to play a small joke.

Western humor is performed more often by actions than by utterance. Compared to language, western people tend to utilize various facial expression. They are able to explain everything through their exaggerated and vivid expression. The earliest performance form is silent film in which there is no speaking. The typical example is Charlie Chaplin whose silent films influence people all over the world.

Humorous national characteristics in the history of art gimmick is much less clear than topic content. It often rooted in traditional culture and psychological quality of a nation which has a long history. Chinese humor deliberately seek to the end and the appeal of the progressive transformation. Among all of those humor types, cross talk is one which can most display Chinese humor culture. Four links of cross talk correspond to the four parts of humor structure. Cross talk has multiple suspense from the beginning to the end which makes audience with a keen interest from tense expectation to moderate satisfaction. While western humorous stories have only one suspense. Because comedy requires integrity, consistency and episodic, there are many restrictions to the uses of suspense. However, cross talk is not so. Although it has certain plot lines, it do not never give up the use of suspense for the sake of defending plot. Instead ,sometimes it uses suspense as medium.

4. Causes of Differences between Chinese and English Humor

Any phenomenon has its deep roots. The differences of language is a series of cultural psychology and tradition which a nation or a particular group accumulates down in the long term development. American humor, for example, has its roots of thinking. The earliest pioneers coming to north America need humor to motivate themselves when faced with all the hard, tough and arduous environment. New immigrants also need humor to encourage themselves under the condition of cultural shock. As a result, humor is often the product of people in the case of distress, anger and helplessness. For example, the following dialogue can reflect the differences between Chinese and western humor: “Mother(in a low voice): Tommy, your grandfather is very sick. Can’t you say something nice to cheer him up a bit? Tommy: Grandfather: wouldn’t you like to have soldiers at your funeral?” This is a typical child’s sense of humor in the view of western humor. But many Chinese people are wondering where humor is reflected and how to understand this story. To understand this humor is related to western funeral customs: if a soldier attend the funeral, the funeral means grand. It is different to understand the essence of humor without knowing this. So only people cross chasm between different cultures, then they can avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, understand and create humor better. After induction, the causes of differences between Chinese and western humor lies in following aspects

4.1 Differences in social and historical backgrounds

China is located in the inland region and communication with the surrounding countries is limited. The feudal society was longer than any other country in the west. Self-sufficient small peasant economy in the long term of feudal society creates characters of introspection, patience and humility. So the limitation of this kind of knowledge has made the Chinese people more conservative. To some extend, this can explain the reasons for talking little about sex in public. However, the west is different. Most western countries are near the sea. The spirit of adventure has become an important part of the western tradition. Western countries have communications frequently between each other since ancient times. This kind of communication is not only reflected in constant wars, but also at the same time, accompanied by a large number of cultural exchange. After continuous circle of long term conflict fusion conflict, western people’s characters are known for openness, enterprise and decisiveness.

4.2 Differences in religious influence

There have been a phenomenon that is contention of a hundred schools of thought during the Spring and Autumn period. In order to maintain their rules, Confucianism is gradually revered by subsequent rulers while others deposed. Among all of ideologies, Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian thought has the most influence on China. Confucianism is originally a theory for practical utility of knowledge learned and is finally becoming a foundation of dynasty rule for one thousand. It emphasizes three guides and five virtues and ethics. Taoism lays stress on penance and asceticism. Buddhism advocates not to care for temporal affairs and be free from human desires and passions. This has greatly depressed people’s desires. What’s more, in Chinese religious beliefs, gods are considered sacred and noble. When it comes to god in humor, it is just used to describe people as a her with reverence. Western is different. As is written in ancient Greek mythology, there are many love affairs between Zeus and other gods. The Bible also has a record of adultery between men and women. Boccaccio talked about stories of sex in his book Decameron. Even in modern Christianity, it is clearly stated that punishment by god can be avoided only if one can follow his conscience.

4.3 Differences in individualism and collectivism

Geert Hofstede, Dutch culture master, puts forward five value dimensions. The first one is individualism and collectivism. There is no absolute boundaries between them. Confucian and Taoist culture in China are dominated by intuitive thinking. This means that under the precondition of full preparation, subject has the ability to access to some kinds of knowledge directly without conscious logical thinking and suddenly gets qualitative change and leap in cognition. The feature of intuitive thinking is grasping things as a whole. As a result, Chinese put more emphasis on whole than on individual；put more emphasis on obligation and responsibility than on individual rights. The Chinese people are concerned more with their own bodies in expressing emotions, so intuition thinking is the main feature of their mode of thought, for which people study objects as a whole and emphasize entirety. Chinese philosophy is systematical naturalism.(Mao 420) On the contrary, western traditional philosophy thinking is based on the antagonism between subject and object. People’s understanding of the world forms a series of opposite concepts and categories. The reflection to the external world does not depend on intuitive and perceptual knowledge, but on abstract and rational expression. It is a kind of analytic logical pattern. The result of analytic thinking is putting the individual and part at first, which leads to individualism and liberalism.

4.4 Differences in hierarchy concepts

Due to the influence of the long feudal customs,Chinese pay much more attention to rank sense than western. Even nowadays, the concept of equality has not penetrated into people’s lives. As a result, Chinese people tend to revere heaven, Confucian and ancestors. Youths should be respectful to the elders. In the traditional sense of the majority of Chinese people, disobeying elders is seen as treason; people who show no respect for the gods are going to hell. In this view, when people wants to play tricks to enliven atmosphere, the most thing to notice is not to go against this principle. On the contrary, in western, especially after enlightenment, the idea of universal equality is deeply rooted in the hearts of people gradually. Weather god or president, all of them are equal to ordinary people. Ordinary people’s life can be materials of humor, while presidents are not exceptions. At the last White House Correspondents’ dinner of Obama, he said, “So time passes. In just six short month, I will be officially a lame duck, which means Congress now will flat out reject my authority. And Republican leaders won’t take my phone calls. And this is going to take some getting used to, it’s really going to-it’s a curve ball. I don’t know what to do with it.” By saying this, Obama teasing at himself that after being relieved from office, all people won’t take him seriously. Chinese may not give a speech like this in formal public. Hierarchy concept leads to this difference.

4.5 Differences in ways of thinking

“The way of thinking is quite different, actually, people living in certain area have their own way of thinking. It is related to various kinds of factors, such as geography, history, nation and so on. The way of thinking is the important cause of cultural difference. It includes knowledge, concepts, methods, language and custom and so on.”(Deng 483) The differences in thinking modes essentially is due to differences in cultures. So, thinking modes are different. This is the most important. Compared to western people’s thinking mode, Chinese people are more conservative. They advocate the Doctrine to Mean. As mentioned in the previous, because of Chinese people’s conservative thinking mode and ethical standard, there are many restrictions in people’s humorous conversation. According to Zhao(2001:149), “under the strong influence of the Doctrine of Mean, the basic notion in Confucianism advocating that men should not go to extremes, the Chinese people are expected to constantly be watchful against overdoing and indulgence in their speech or action”. For example, some jokes about sex, some informal words or even some dirty words, about government. Also, it is impolite to play jokes on leaders, elders and seniors.

Foreign people seems more outspoken than Chinese. They prefer to remark on everything straightly and boldly. They don’t mind talking about their scandals, embarrassing disclosures in public.

5. Conclusion

Humor is expressed mainly by language. So language is to humor what water is to fish. To some extend, humor research is humorous language research. Humor helps to oil interpersonal relationships, reduce the friction between people and smooth conflicts. It can help people shrug off all likely predicaments, break the stress environment. It can lighten the atmosphere and shorten the distance between the speaker and the listener. Humor plays very significant roles in many aspects of life. In this study, comparison has be made between Chinese and Western humor. And then, this essay explores differences between them and the reasons lead to this phenomenon. Due to different background of culture, Chinese humor is so different from western humor in functions, topics, expression forms and so on. On the other words, it can be said that cultural differences contributes to this. So, sometimes, there are maybe many misunderstandings among them. people should view jokes correctly and respect and understand each other. Then from the aspect of culture, causes are analyzed. Thus, knowing background and language habits, we can understand better and avoid embarrassment. Humor is so complicated and subtle that the discussion in this thesis is far from exhaustion. The thesis on humor is just a tentative work for the further exploration of language and humor.

Works Cited

Apte, M.L. Humor and Laughter-An Anthropological Approach. New York: Cornell University Press. 1985.38.

邓炎昌，刘润清：《语言与文化—英汉语言对比研究》，外语教学与研究出版社，1997.5：483.

[Deng Yanchang, Liu Runqing. Language and Culture. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,1997.5:483.]

林语堂：《论幽默》，当代世界出版社，1933:38

[Lin Yutang. The Theory of Humor. The contemporary World Press. 1933. 38]

毛荣贵：《新世纪大学英汉翻译教程》，上海交通大学出版社， 2002.8：420.

[Mao Ronggui. A Coursebook on Chinese-English Translation. Profile of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press. 2002.8: 420]

William Keough. Punchlines:the Violence of American Humor. New York: paragon House. pp. 1990. 3, 49, 170-172.

赵志伟：《幽默的中国人》，上海：学林出版社，2001：149.

[Zhao Zhiwei. Humorous Chinese people. Shanghai Xue Lin Press.2001: 149]

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