The differences between Chinese and English Humor and the reasons from a cross cultural perspective

1、黄山学院毕业论文黑体初号题目：the differences between chinese and english humor and the reasons from a cross-cultural perspective学生姓名：-系 别：外国语学院专 业：英语学 号：20802013006班 级：08英本3班指导老师：李瑜二一二年四月iacknowledgementsfirst of all, i want to express my heartfelt thanks to li yu , my supervisor, for all the time and energy he h

2、as put into training me as a student of english when i studied at huangshan university. without his painstaking supervision and help, this thesis could never have been finished. the faculty is knowledgeable and rigorous towards research and tireless in teaching. they have influenced me a lot and hel

3、ped me not only establish academic goals, grasp basic research methods but also learn how to communicate with others. here i want to express my great respect and sincere thanks to them.i am also grateful to my classmates at foreign language department at our college. abstracthumor plays a significan

4、t role in peoples daily life. it can make us happy and relive our anxiety and stress. it is just because of its functions that humor is widely used in many aspects. however, due to different cultures, chinese humor is different from english humor. what is thought funny in one country might be consid

5、ered nonsense or misunderstood in another country. thus we need to know the differences so as to understand the humor better. by using the comparative and descriptive approaches, this essay compares the differences between chinese and english humor and analyses the causes. researches show that chine

6、se humor differs from english humor in many aspects such as origin, style, content, function, skills and technique, the way of producing. different values, different ways of thinking, different ideology and culture background all account for these differences.key words： chinese and english humor; di

7、fferences; causes摘要幽默在人们的生活中有着非常重要的作用。它能给人们带来欢乐，减轻忧虑和压力。正因为幽默的重要作用，它在各方面都被广泛应用。然而，由于不同的文化差异，中国幽默和英语幽默存在差异。一个国家中被认为有趣的事在另一个国家就会被认为没有意义或者被误解。因此我们需要了解其中的差异以便可以更好地领悟幽默。本文比较了中西方幽默的差异并分析了原因。研究表明中西方幽默在源流，风格，内容，作用功效，技巧和表现手法和产生方式等方面存在差异。不同的价值观，思维方式，意识形态和文化背景是造成这些差异的重要原因。关键词：中西方幽默；差异；原因15contentsacknowledgeme

8、ntsiabstractii摘要iii1. introduction11.2 significance of the research11.3 methods11.4 general organizations22. literature review22.1 definitions of humor22.2 the characteristics of humor32.3 classification33. differences between english and chinese humor43.1 different origins of humor43.2 different ev

9、aluation towards humor53.3 different styles of humor in china and western countries63.4 different contents of chinese and western humor63.5 different techniques of expression73.7 different culture background of chinese and english humor84. causes of differences between chinese and english humor94.1

10、different national characters94.2 different ideologies and aims94.3 different ways of thinking104.4 different culture115. some suggestions to understand english and chinese humor125.1 improving cultural sensitivity125.2 see things from the point of view of others125.3 one cultures meat is another cu

11、ltures poison136. conclusion13bibliography15the differences between chinese and english humor and the reasons from a cross-cultural perspective1. introduction now i will give a brief introduction about the objective, significance, methods and organization of my research on the chinese and english hu

12、mor. 1.1 research objectivehumor plays an important role in our life. it can reduce the influence of our bad mood and brings happiness to us. it is also good for our interpersonal communication. to some extent, it is an important part of our life. since it is so important, many psychologists, lingui

13、sts and anthropologists at home and abroad have made significant contributions to humor studies such as s.frued, lin yutang, gong weicai , a.a.berger, hu fanzhu and so on. humor can reflect a countrys culture. however, there are few researches about cross-culture humor. it is interesting and importa

14、nt to find out the differences between china and english humor. this thesis is to find the differences in order to better understand and appreciate humor and avoid misunderstanding.1.2 significance of the research because the reform and opening up policy, china has more communication with other coun

15、tries. however, humor in one country may be misunderstood in another country. so it is urgent to do the study and find out the differences. the economic globalization has brought more and more multinational corporations to china. however, there may be misunderstandings of humor due to culture differ

16、ences. the current research hopes to solve this problem.moreover, there is a lot of literature on humor from the perspectives of linguistics, philosophy, psychologies and aesthetics. because few researches are from a cross-culture perspective, this research hopes to intrigue peoples interest.1.3 met

17、hodsin this thesis, descriptive method is used to give you a brief understanding about the definition, classification, characteristics of humor. comparative approach and explanation are used to compare the differences between chinese and english humor and explain the causes. other methods such as su

18、mming up experience and reading documents for reference are also used.1.4 general organizationsthis paper is made up of six parts. part one is the brief introduction about the objective, significances, methods and the general organization of this study. part two is a brief survey concerning the defi

19、nition, classification, characteristics of humor. part three summarizes the differences between chinese and english humor. part four explains several aspects that cause these differences. part five gives some suggestions on how to understand cross-culture humor and enhance our cultural sensibility.

20、the last part is a summary for the whole thesis.2. literature reviewit is necessary to have some basic knowledge of humor before we discuss and compare chinese and english humor. this chapter will make a brief survey on humor about its definitions, classifications and characteristics. then this essa

21、y will do a further survey to compare the differences between chinese and english humor from a cross-cultural perspective.2.1 definitions of humorhumor is always used in our daily life, but few people can give a satisfactory answer of such questions like “what is humor? ” or “what is the definition

22、of humor?”. so first a brief survey will be made on the definition of humor.according to the online longman english dictionary, the definition is like this.a. the ability or tendency to think that things are funny, or funny things you say that show you have this abilitycollocations b. the quality in

23、 something that makes it funny and makes people laughhumor is, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determine human health and temperament. hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) resulted in pain and disease, and

24、that good health was achieved through a balance of the four humors; he suggested that the glands had a controlling effect on this balance.the english word humour derived from the latin word humor. originally, it is a medical term, meaning liquid which controls human health and emotion. humor is the

25、tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.2.2 the characteristics of humorwhile it is clear that “sense of humor” varies widely among individuals and groups, it is the presence of one or more of the universal characteristics of humor that makes events mor

26、e likely to be perceived as funny by the observer. among the universal characteristics that may produce a humorous response are the experiences of: incongruity, absurdity, ludicrousness, or ridiculousness, an unexpected future, a pleasant surprise, being startled, and emotional chaos remembered in t

27、ranquility. 2.3 classification just like the definition of humor, the classification is also various.here are some classifications by different scholars.bergson holds that based on comic effects, humor can be divided into expressed humor and created humor. while according to koestler, there are verb

28、al humor and situational humor on the basis of the expressions of the text. tan daren believes that documentary humor (anecdotes of famous persons) differs from make-up humor(humor created by a humorists imagination).(a comparative study of chinese and english advertisement humor from a cross-cultur

29、al communication)what is interesting is that humor can be divided into different colors. white humor is like pure paper triggered by naive children. black humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor is used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the mod

30、ern world. pink humor is related to the amorous feelings between men and women. gray humor triggers shallow and vulgar laughter, reflecting peoples dissatisfaction and resentment towards society. yellow humor is related to sex.humor can be classified into gallows humor, surreal humour, jewish humour

31、 and vitreous humor. gallows humor is the type of humor that manages to be funny in response to a perfectly hopeless situation. it arises from stressful, traumatic, or life-threatening situations, often in such circumstances that death is perceived as impending and unavoidable. surreal humor is also

32、 known as absurd humour or nonsense humour. on the basis of violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent, surreal humor is a form of humour involving bizarre juxtapositions, irrational situations, and other displays and expressions of nonsense. jewish humo

33、ur is the long tradition of humour in judaism, referring to the more recent stream of crude, verbal, self-deprecating, and often anecdotal humour originating in eastern europe. the vitreous humour is the clear gel which fills the space between the lens and the retina of the eyeball of humans and oth

34、er vertebrates. it is often referred to as the vitreous body.3. differences between english and chinese humor3.1 different origins of humorthe english word humour originated from the latin word humor. in ancient greece, “humor” was a medical term which means “liquid” or “fluid”, having something to

35、do with medicine. in the fifth century b.c. the famous scholar as well as doctor hippocrates created a theory, holding that human body consisted of four fluids. these four fluids (humor) are blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. it is the variant mixture of these “humors” in different persons t

36、hat determined their physical and mental qualities as well as their dispositions. during the renaissance period, humor referred to a persons mood or temperament in a very general sense. the prominent english writer ben johnson advocated that when describing a person we should put disposition and tem

37、perament as a priority such as the passion, greed, sinister and so on. his plays everyman in his humor and everyman out his humor first introduced the concept of humor in the field of art. his plays are called comedy of humours. the meaning of humor at that time is similar to the meaning of humor no

38、wadays. humor as a literature and aesthetical term first appeared in britain at the end of 17th century. at that time capitalist economy was greatly developed in britain and made britain home of humanism and the home of humor. in poetics william first mentioned english humor. he thought that due to

39、britains wealth, freedom and complex natural environment british people are healthy, brave, beautiful, intelligent and most importantly humorous. western humor originated from the literary form of comedy.humor in our country originated from jokes and jocularities. it manifested in folk joke shows an

40、d ballads and so on. throughout the history of chinese humor, we cant find out exactly when chinese humor was originated. however, there were four upsurges of chinese humor. the first period is the qin dynasty. according to the historical records, it was a trend for royal court to hire “pai you” (pe

41、ople who perform funny sideshow to earn a living). humor in qin dynasty is not an accidental phenomenon. humor appeared on the basis of the rise of atheism, the increasingly awakening of peoples consciousness, individual liberty and the competition among different schools of thoughts. during wei and

42、 jin dynasty period, the political situation was unsteady and feudal moral is challenged to a large extent. if spring and autumn and the warring states period was the first period of great awakening, then the wei and jin dynasty was the second awakening period of thoughts, which was characterized by

43、 rebelling the feudal moral. in ming dynasty the social atmosphere changed a lot because of the development of commodity economy. once humor gets rid of the bond of feudal moral, it will get a new chance to develop. according to records, from the wei dynasty to qing dynasty, there were 98 people who

44、 edited jokes. in the fictions of qing dynasty, there were characters like sun wukong, zhu bajie, li kui, ji gong. in opera, legends and poetry, there were also humorous examples. the xinhai revolution put an end to feudalism which constrained personality development. may fourth movement advocated t

45、o pursue science and technology and freedom, democracy and beauty that promoted the development of humor. during this period, humor was manifested in various kinds of art. essays about humor and irony, crosstalk and comic came into being. the concepts and theory of western humor were introduced to c

46、hina. the humor masters lu xun, qian zhongshu and lao she turned up that symbolized the new peak of chinese humor.3.2 different evaluation towards humorhumor in china is not as highly evaluated as in western countries. in western countries, people think humor can not only bring us happiness but also

47、 plays an important role in social intercourse. so lacking sense of humor is thought to be a deficit in personality. western people used to be informal in conferences and the atmosphere is a relaxing one. humorous communication is an indispensable part of conferences. but in china uncontrolled laugh

48、ter and humorous talking is thought to be only a means to make people laugh. thus it is disdained by gentlemen. because of the different evaluations of humor, the theory and practice of humor is different in chinese and english humor. in china, the research of humor restarted until the “gang of four

49、” was defeated. in modern times except that lin yutan and lu xun made some contributions to the theory of humor, there was no further development in china. humor in china is not as widely spread among people as in western countries in artistic practice and daily life.3.3 different styles of humor in

50、 china and western countrieswestern humor has different styles while chinese humor doesnt have many styles. from a broad perspective, western humor is divided into positive humor, negative humor and humor in between i.e. the pure humor. negative humor such as ironic humor disapproves the negative ph

51、enomenon in our life. positive humor approves the positive aspects in our life. humor in between just reflects some interesting phenomenon in our life to make people enjoy wit and beauty. the style of chinese humor is single and has the character of satire. that is to say there is more a negative hu

52、mor than a positive one. a lot of humorous literature works by lu xun is considered to be a weapon to satire the negative phenomenon of society. those works had to be ironic because of the special social and historical conditions. fictions, films, comics and operas that reflect the relaxed and mild

53、humor of ordinary people are few. thus compared with western humor, this is a big disadvantage of chinese humor.3.4 different contents of chinese and western humorthe contents of humor vary from animals, family trifles, and love stories to religion and festivals. sex is often implicated in west humo

54、r where humorous effect can be generated. in the west “the commonest topics of humor are sex and punning and of course their combination”. whats more, western humor consists of topics that are against social traditions. that is to say, english humor is more open-minded and creative. chinese humor is

55、 more reserved and prudent and always related to trifles in daily life about common people.chinese humor is spread among people for a long time. some fables in qin dynasty are considered to be the origin of chinese humor. the famous fables such as ba miao zhu zhang (it means spoil things by excessiv

56、e enthusiasm) and “shou zhu dai tu”(it means sit back and wait) and zheng ren mail lv (zheng people buying the shoes) all have the characteristics of humor. in three kingdoms period, the first monograph xiaolin that recorded humor came into being. as chinese humor aims to make people laugh, it usual

57、ly describes the silly behavior of a person or several people. it also tells people to learn a lesson. for example the chinese fable 掩耳盗铃tells a story about a man who wanted to steal a bell and covered his own ears, believing that if his ears were covered, other people were also unable to hear.gener

58、ally speaking, western humor is implicit and deep and implies some kind of philosophy. it can not only be used between older people and younger people, higher status people and lower status people but also used in formal speeches of high-raking officials. people who read western humor stories cant be amused immediately if they do not think about the story repeatedly. it is true especially for chinese readers. take the short story second language for example. a mother mouse was out for a stroll with her babies when she spotted a cat crouched behind a bush. she watched the cat, an