1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

Humor is an ancient and interdisciplinary research subject, which could be traced to Plato and Aristotle era during the ancient Greece, and kept sustainable development in the next two thousand years. Humorous phenomenon has aroused many scholars#8217; interests in different areas#8217; subjects in the world. Lots of achievements have been obtained both in theory and methodology. The cross disciplinary and cross cultural nature of humor determines that humor research is universal. Therefore, numerous proposed theories of humor will be not at all surprising in the long history of humor research. At the same time, since having the same foundation of research-humor and many similarities between results of the research in different fields, it is advisable we can learn from each other.

Different countries have different kinds of humor. Compared with American humor, Chinese humor has longer history. According to historical records, Chinese humor could be traced back to the Qin Dynasty, the king called Fei You was the earliest ”humorist”. ”Fei” was also called Haiku. It took on the form of acrobatics; ”You” was called farce, which represented the ancient best actor#8217;s name. Humor had experienced several stages of development in history. In modern times, Lin Yutang (1924) first published in Morning New. In his paper, he was the first who translated the word ”humor” into ”幽默”. Humor is not related to the ancient Chinese words ”humor” (silent). Just as a new word ”humor” spread, humor as the original meaning of ancient Chinese words was gradually replaced by the new connotation of aesthetic concept. Lin Yutang and Lu Xun created many widely known works in the development of humor, such as Ah Q, Kong Yiji, and the like. They put forward some creative opinions on humor from theory to practice and provide a paradigm for the healthy development of Chinese humor. American humor begins in nineteenth Century with a relatively short history. In the history of American humor, the black people play an important role. At first, a special kind of humor is called ”black humor”. It is said that everyone has a habit of humor and talent. Compared with Europeans, they can accept the fate of the turning point. Mark Twain is a famous writer in the history of American humor. His language is not only full of humor but also full of wisdom. Humor plays a very important role not only in the ancient times but also at present around the world.

Situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, consists of a large quantity of humorous utterances. It represents significantly one of the most styles of humorous expression. In fact, sitcom has a long history in China and America. As the original place of sitcom, America has achieved rather remarkable success after nearly fifty years of development. In 1947, a new television pattern which latter was called sitcom emerged in America. Then with the increasing development and improvement of sitcom, sitcom in America became more and more mature and gradually developed into black humor. In 1994, an important situation comedy Friends was put on on NBC. In 1992, Ying Da, a scholar in China, brought the sitcom art from the United States to China. Since then in order to satisfy the constant demands of people, sitcom in China got greatly improved. And later, sitcom became more and more popular in China and many sitcoms sprung up instantly. One of the most popular and representative sitcoms is Love Apartment. Friends and Love Apartment are all greatly popular among audiences and get a big praise. Love Apartment is a popular and successful sitcom. It is a good case to show how humor comes out in the communication of Chinese people. Love Apartment successfully realized the effect of humor. There are a lot of unexpected and funny humorous performances. All these humorous performances provide the latest data for my paper. Friends, a famous sitcom, is selected for its much conversational humors. Friends has been one of top television series since its debut on NBC. It has been nominated for American Comedy Reward for many times and actually won the reward in 2000. It is a typical American sitcom. The two sitcoms are actually similar in the whole situation.

Nowadays, sitcom is more and more popular. At the same time, humor is the core attractiveness in sitcom. However, China and America own different humorous styles. And those differences are caused greatly by the different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, under the modern age of globalization, to have a well recognition on each other#8217; s differences of humorous styles is rather significant.

1.2 Need for the study

The research is generally concerned about the differences between Chinese and American humorous styles from the perspective of culture. And the thesis makes a case of Friends and Love Apartment.

Recently, sitcom has tremendously attracted audiences#8217; eyes in the world. Friends, at that time, was so sought-after in America and China even in the world. The show focused on the lives of a group of six friends: rich, spoiled ”daddy#8217;s girl”; Rachel Green, learning to make it on her own; neurotically clean chef Monica Geller; wise-cracking office drone Chandler Bing; simple minded actor Joey Tribbiani; nerdy paleontologist Ross Geller, who goes through three failed marriages; and quirky, optimistic masseuse and folk singer #8211; song writer Phoebe Buffay. They taste all kinds of flavors of life together. Love Apartment, a very popular sitcom in recent years, is considered as the Chinese version of Friends, a typical American sitcom. However, though Love Apartment is greatly influenced by Friends, there must be differences in humor expressions due to the differences in language and culture. Love apartment become so popular because firstly the humorous and love stories make the audience happy and relaxed; secondly because the stories are close to people#8217;s life and can help people to reflect their life better. In the apartment there are seven people: Lu Zhanbo, who returns after graduating from abroad, is an intelligent boy but not good at dealing social activities relationship with girls. Lin Wanyu, whose father is a millionaire banker, was born in a rich family. Zeng Xiaoxian is an announcer in the late-night talk show Your Moon, My Heart. Hu Yifei, Lu Zhanbo#8217;s stepsister, is a lecturer in a university and the other characters in the sitcoms are Chen Meija, Lv Ziqiao, Tang Youyou, Guangu and Zhang Wei. Everyone in the sitcom gives people much happiness with their humor. The two sitcoms play a very important part in delivering humor but the way of delivering humor in the two sitcoms are greatly different.