美剧台词中的修辞学分析以《生活大爆炸》为例.docx

1、美剧台词中的修辞学分析以生活大爆炸为例A brief analysis of the rhetorical devices in American situation comedies- A case study of The Big Bang TheoryTime: 29/05/13 ID: 王小亚 1015010302Abstrast: Rhetorical devices are widely used in American dramas, especially in The Big Bang Theory, a well-known American sit-com (situati

2、on comedy). The comedy focuses on “science talent”, and it is full of dialogues with thousands of science words. The diction and sentence variety of difficult dialogues contribute to the humorous plots in the comedy. This paper aims at analyzing the rhetorical devices frequently used in The Big Bang

3、 Theory, such as irony, metaphor, euphemism, repetition, rhetorical questions and so on, in order to find out the reasons for the humorous factors in this comedy.Key words: The Big Bang Theory, rhetorical devices, American sit-coms, humor摘 要：修辞手法广泛应用于美国情景喜剧中，且在著名美剧生活大爆炸中尤为常见，生活大爆炸以“科学天才”为话题，其对话中包含无数

4、科学名词，该剧对话中的词语和句型多样性丰富了剧情的幽默色彩。本论文旨在通过分析该剧中常用的修辞手法，如反讽、隐喻、委婉、反复等，分析出生活大爆炸幽默因素背后的原因。关键词：生活大爆炸；修辞手法；美剧；幽默. Introduction1.1A brief introduction about The Big Bang Theory1.2A brief introduction about the main characters1.3Language features of the dialogues in The Big Bang Theory. Literature review2.1 Pre

5、vious studies on American sit-coms2.2 Previous studies on the linguistic features of The Big Bang Theory. Methodology. Typical rhetorical expressions in The Big Bang Theory4.1 Irony 4.2 Euphemism4.3 Metaphor4.4 Repetition. Conclusion. Introduction:1.1 A brief introduction about The Big Bang TheoryA

6、sit-com, a shortened word of situation comedy, is a genre of comedy which has a storyline and ongoing characters in, essentially, a comedic drama. The situation is usually that of a family, workplace, or a group of friends. The Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular American dramas around the wo

7、rld. It is a situation comedy made by CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System). There are six seasons and 142 weekly episodes in total, and all of them have achieved high audience rating, not only in the USA, but also in other countries in the world. This comedy describes the daily life of four scientists

8、 and one waitress. They live on the same floor in an apartment block and they are neighbors with close relationship.1.2A brief introduction about the main characters The main character, Sheldon, is a talented physical scientist, whose IQ is as high as 187. However, this science genius is not so smar

9、t in his daily life. He is a mysophobia, and he is afraid of being disturbed. Sheldons dorm mate, Leonard, is also a brilliant physical scientist. Both of them have extreme high IQ and poor EQ. They can easily explain the science theories in their own research filed, but hardly know how to communica

10、te with others. Another important character is Howard, and he is one of the best friends of these two bookworms. Howard regards himself as a perfect combination of wisdom and appearance, and he has a masters degree in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rajesh is also their best friend. He is an

11、astronomer who comes from India. He is so shy that he does not dare to talk to a girl without the help of alcohol. The main female character in this comedy is a simple girl named Penny. She dreams to be a famous actress, but can only be a waitress in a fast food restaurant. Penny is brave and outgoi

12、ng, and her characteristic is totally different from the four physical scientists. These people always gather together at Sheldons apartment, and their lives are full of laughter.1.3 Language features of the dialogues in The Big Bang TheoryThere are many dialogues in this comedy. The four scientists

13、 words are complex and difficult to understand. Because of their special position, their dialogues are full of science words. Sheldon speaks logically and directly. Leonards words are always reasonable but ambiguous. Howard talks about dirty words frequently, while Rajesh speak in Indian English. Wi

14、th regards to penny, as a waitress, she uses simple words and informal sentences all the time. Their dialogues are humorous and vivid. Every five minutes the audience will be cheered up by their funny words. They use irony, repetition, metaphor and so on to mock and satirize against each other. . Li

15、terature review2.1 Previous studies on American sit-comsSituation comedy id considered as “the most well-informed artistic form to audience of contemporary American and the world” (David Mare, 1984).Mu Bing (慕冰，2010) has mentioned that，American sit-coms are found almost exclusively on television as

16、one of its dominant narrative forms which possess some of their own features: First, as one of the closet forms of art to our life, sit-coms pursue not only the realness of art, but the authentically of life. So sit-coms usually consist of recurring characters in a common environment such as a home

17、or workplace and its contents are closely related to peoples everyday life.Second, most American sit-coms are generally half-hour programs in which the story is written to run a total of 22 minutes in length, leaving 8 minutes for commercial. American sit-coms typically have long season runs of more

18、 episodes due to the way they are produced.Third, sit-coms usually include laugh tracks. A laugh track, also known as laughter soundtrack, laughter track, LFN (laughter from nowhere), canned laughter or laughing audience, is a pre-record effect inserted into most sit-coms not taped in front of a liv

19、e audience. The laugh track is generally added in post-productionthat is, during editing after the show is taped. Laugh tracks have the same effect with studio audiences, with the purpose of telling the audience when it is time to laugh. 2.2 Previous studies on the linguistic features of The Big Ban

20、g TheoryBeing so successful and popular, The Big Bang Theory has won the audiences favor. As a result, studies and researches are carried out in many ways from various perspectives by many researchers.Xu Liyan (徐丽艳，2010) has written a paper, in which Euphemism is explored to figure out the effective

21、ness in sitcoms. She pointed out that many euphemisms are adapted in this sit-com, and this rhetorical device has played an important role in building humorous atmosphere. Besides, Gao Hui (高辉，2010) has studied this sit-com from the perspective of pragmatic theory in order to find out humor, and he

22、explained the power of language cooperative principle in his paper.At the same time, Zhang Dongbin (张东宾，2011) has studied the contractive analysis of humor in sit-coms Friends and The Big Bang Theory from the perspective of grammatical metaphor. He compares the two successful sit-coms with each othe

23、r and finds out that grammatical metaphors are widely used in the dialogues of these two comedies.Zhang Xue (张雪，2012) has written a paper in which she focuses on the study on metaphors in The Big Big Bang Theory from the cognitive perspective, which has contributed to the study of the linguistic fea

24、tures in this sit-com.In addition, some scholars have adapted the relevance theory to explore verbal humor in this sit-com, as well as the linguistic humor, cultural humor and universal humor, so as to have a better understanding on the linguistic beauty of the dialogues. . MethodologyAll of the dia

25、logues in this term paper are collected from the famous sit-com The big Bang Theory. Firstly, I chose some episodes which are full of funny dialogues, and then I watched these episodes as well as the subtitles carefully, in order to find the most representative examples for this research. Because of

26、 the special positions and personal preferences of the main characters, there are plenty of words and phrases which come from various science theories, computer games, Western culture and history, etc. therefore, a functional dictionary is really useful and necessary. At the same time, resulting fro

27、m culture difference, some of the dialogues are difficult for us Chinese people to understand. In order to have a better understanding of every sentence, I also surfed on the internet to look into the symbolic meaning of some complicated words and vernacular language.Many English learners and schola

28、rs have studied the linguistic features, choice of words, sentence structures of the dialogues in American situation comedies. Nevertheless, few of them have managed to analyze the rhetorical devices in sit-coms, especially in The Big Bang Theory. Therefore, I focus on the analysis of typical rhetor

29、ical devices used in this sit-com, and try to find out the linguistic reasons for the popularity of the successful TV series. Typical rhetorical expressions in The Big Bang TheoryRhetorical devices have been widely used in poetry, novel, drama, lyrics and so on, which can strengthen the meaning and

30、enhance the feeling as well as leaving a unforgettable impression to the reader. Nowadays, the terms that have been used for centuries to describe figurative language in traditional writings can also be applied to everyday language and even to American sit-coms. In this term paper, I will focus on t

31、he typical rhetorical expressions used in The Big Bang Theory. I will specifically illustrate the use of irony, euphemism, metaphor, parallelism, hyperbole, repetition and rhetorical questions. 4.1 IronyMu Bin (慕宾，2012) pointed out that, in irony the transfer is to the opposite meaning within a sema

32、ntically linked set. Thus ironically, “bad” means “good”. The use of irony is primarily to convey to the audience an incongruity that is often used as a tool of humor in order to deprecate or ridicule an idea or course of action. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an irony is a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually talking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt. Example 1, Episode 2, Season 1(Penny has