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建立人际资源圈《老友记》中使用的幽默修辞手法--Essay代写范文
2016-12-26 来源: 51Due教员组 类别: Essay范文
修辞是幽默的主要来源之一，修辞的技巧的巧妙使用可以扩大和加强语言的表现力以及活跃谈话气氛。下面主要分析《老友记》中那些巧妙的幽默修辞手法。
Rhetoric is defined as an art of using language impressively or persuasively, especially in public speech. In daily communication, rhetoric could be one of major sources for humor. The skillful and ingenious employment of rhetoric can expand and strengthen the expressive force of speech with the aim to enhance the interest of language as well as enliven the atmosphere of talking. As a figure of speech, rhetoric contains rich devices during its long development. After analyzing the corpus of Friends, it can be concluded that plentiful rhetorical means are adopted intentionally to generate the humorous effect which convinces the audience that it is a classical comedy presenting the special American humor. It is impossible to give full explanation for each rhetorical means, so I just choose six most frequent-used ones, according to their accounting proportions ranking among the whole data, as the focus of discussion. As the following table shows
Table 6(Frequency Distribution of Rhetorical Means)
Rhetorical Means Quantity Percentage
(1)Humor Created by Irony
The most remarkable rhetorical means employed in Friends is irony for which these six friends have a preference to express their thoughts and emotions. Among them, Chandler, the character with a most sarcastic, witty and humorous disposition, contributes a lot of ironic remarks in this comedy. Irony is an expression of one’s meaning by saying the direct opposite of one’s thoughts in order to be emphatic, amusing, sarcastic, etc.There are a lot of types such as verbal irony, dramatic irony, situational irony, socratic irony, cosmic irony, romantic irony, tragic irony, stable irony and unstable irony (WenXu,2004:3).The present study focuses on verbal irony, a figure of speech in which the actual intended meaning is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. It is really at the tips of people’s tongue in everyday life and used to heighten the humorous effect in sitcom. Consider the following instances:
1. Joey: Yeah, or you can teach him a lesson You know? What you could do is you could rub something that really smells on your butt, all right? Then, when he goes to smack ya, his hand will smell.(thinking aloud)Now what could you rub on your butt that would smell bad?
Chandler :( to Ross and Monica)What if Joey were president?
------Episode 24, Season 3
Euphemism refers to the use of pleasant, mild or indirect words in place of more harsh, rude, unfriendly or more accurate or direct ones. People usually use euphemism on some occasions when talking about some sensible topics, taboos or something else that is not good if expressed in the direct way for considering other people’s feelings and emotions. In this comedy, euphemism is usually used on the situation which needs to soften the embarrassing atmosphere and make the speech more vivid, vigorous and amusing. For instance,
Rachel: Cats, how long do they live figuring you don't...y' know, throw' em under a bus or something?
Monica: Um, maybe 15, 16 years.
‘Throw them under a bus or something’ is a euphemistic expression to indicate that ‘a cat dies of an accident or something else’. In order to avoid the unpleasant word ‘die’, Rachel chooses to express in an indirect and mild way which weakens the grieved aspect and enhances the humorous aspect.
(3)Humor Created by Distracting From Subjects
While lexical and semantic ambiguity resulted from the misinterpretation of meanings of words, which belong to linguistic reasons, the distracting from subjects refer to the deliberate misunderstanding of the speaker’s real intention in conversations. The humorous effect created by this means counts on the listener’s deliberate misinterpretation. The huge gap between the speaker and the listener in respect of semantic meaning usually leads to t novelty, wisdom and amusement.
Phoebe: Awe, this is so sweet of you! But you know what? I won't be needing a veil, I actually won't be wearing a dress at all!
Monica: I told you! I am not coming to a naked wedding!
Phoebe: No, no, no, we're not having a big reception, we took the money we were gonna spend on a wedding and we donate them to the children charity.
------Episode 7, Season10
Here phoebe donated all her wedding fund to children charity, so when she mentions “I won't be needing a veil, I actually won't be wearing a dress at all!” she is indicating that she won’t have a big and expensive reception, and she won’t even wear luxury wedding dress. But Monica get the wrong information that it’s gonna be a naked wedding ceremony, making it sound really absurd and ridiculous. The divergence here makes the audience turn to an unexpected side on the path of thinking and experience the humor.
(4)Humor Created by Metaphor
As we know, metaphor is to use of a word or phrase to indicate something different from(though related in some way to)the literal meaning.Metaphorical means can be easily found in Friends and frequently used to create humorous effect.
Monica: Chandler! What is the matter with your face?!I mean this picture is supposed to say" Geller and Bing to be married, "not" Local woman saves drowning moron”!
------Episode 5, Season 7
Chandler is pretty nervous and unnatural when he and Monica take their engagement photos. Monica’s words ‘Local woman saves drowning moron’ is a metaphor vividly figuring Chandler’s dull and awkward facial expression.
Rachel: I don't gossip! (They all laugh.)
Rachel: Well, maybe sometimes I find out things or I hear something and I pass that information on you know kinda like a public service, it doesn't mean I'm a gossip.
Rachel rejects the truth she is very gossip, so she uses a witty metaphorical expression ‘a public service’ to make a good excuse for her gossip. From the above discussion, it’s obvious that these witty, imagery and in speech are widely accepted in communication and elicit laughter.
(5)Humor Created by Transferred Wording
Every word, phrase or other wording usage has its own already established or conventional context with the stable stylistic characteristic widely realized by people. Transferred wording is to use a word, phrase, etc. in an unconventional context by changing its established context or stylistic flavor. It is also called borrowing wording, simply signifying borrowing a word, phrase, etc. between different fields and thus generates humor.
[Scene: The Hallway, Chandler and Joey are just leaving Monica and Rachel's.]
Joey: Night, you guys.(They notice that a woman is sitting by their door)
Chandler: Oh look, it's the woman we ordered.
------Episode 13,Season 1
Chandler notices a woman is sitting by the door, so he makes fun by using the word ‘order’ which should be used in its established context---requesting food, drink, etc. from a shop, hotel, or restaurant, etc. The willful borrowing a word from the ‘ordering food’ context presents Chandler’s humorous sense.
Kristin: That's funny. Who are they?
Ross: The blond woman is my ex-wife, and the woman touching her is her...close, personal friend.
Kristin: You mean they're lovers.
Ross: If you wanna put a label on it.
The word ‘label’ is usually used in commercial context referring to a piece of paper, cloth, metal, etc. on or beside an object and describing its nature, name, owner, destination, etc. But here, Ross borrows it to lessen the awkward and embarrassing atmosphere when talking about his ex-wife is a lesbian.
Go back to the start point of writing this essay, which is to solve the problem that why I as a Chinese can be fascinated by such an American culture-based sitcom, and why I can never express the humor to my parents in Chinese, the answer comes out is that I understand English and American culture, at least some, while my parents know nothing about them. Therefore, humor is culture-based and language-based, sometimes not universal and shared by different races and nations.
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