浙江大学新编大学英语4 第二版 Unit1Unit5 课文原文.docx

1、浙江大学新编大学英语4 第二版 Unit1Unit5 课文原文XX大学新编大学英语4 第二版 Unit1-Unit5 课文原文 Entertining Humor Whts Funny? Donld M. Huffmn1 The joy of lughing t funny story is universl, probbly s old s lnguge itself. But, wht is it tht mkes story or joke funny?2 s one who hd enjoyed humor since I first recognized it, Ive mde n

2、ttempt to explin nd discuss humor with students in such diverse cultures s Ltin meric nd Chin. Ive done some serious thinking bout funny stories. It hs been lbor of love!3 why is it tht severl students in clss will fll out of their chirs lughing fter I tell joke while the rest of the students look s

3、 if Ive just red the wether report? Obviously some people re more sensitive to humor thn others. nd, we recognize tht some people tell jokes very well while others struggle to sy something funny. Weve ll herd people sy, I like jokes, but I cnt tell one well, nd I cn never remember them. Some people

4、hve better sense of humor thn others just s some people hve more musicl tlent, mthemticl tlent etc. thn others. truly funny person hs joke for every occsion, nd when one is told, tht triggers n entire string of jokes from tht persons memory bnk. humorless person is not likely to be the most populr p

5、erson in group. It is resonble to sy tht the truly humorous individul is not only well liked, but is often the focus of ttention in ny gthering.4 Even some nimls hve sense of humor. My wifes mother often visited us for extended stys. She normlly didnt like dogs, but she fell in love with Blitzen fem

6、le Lb we hve, nd the reltionship ws mutul. Even when young, Blitzen would tese Grndm by very selectively crrying one of her bedroom slippers into the living room where Grndm st in her fvorite, comfortble chir. Blitzen prnced just beyond the rech of Grndm until Grndm ws tempted to leve her chir to ge

7、t the slipper from Blitzen. When Grndm left her chir, Blitzen would quickly jump into the chir, flshing her Lb smile from sprkling brown eyes which clerly sid, h, I fooled you gin.5 Typicl jokes or humorous stories hve three-prt ntomy tht is esily recognized. First is the SETUP (or setting), next is

8、 the BODY (or story line), nd these re followed by the PUNCH LINE (n unexpected or surprise ending) which will mke the joke funny if it contins some humor. Usully ll three prts re present, nd ech must be clerly presented. It helps if the story/joke teller uses gestures nd lnguge which re well known

9、to the udience.6 Humor, s form of entertinment, cn be nlyzed in order to discover wht mkes funny story or joke seem funny. Here, for exmple, re some of the most common types of humor. They rnge from the most obvious humor to the more subtle types.7 SLP-STICK is the most obvious humor. Its lnguge is

10、simple, direct, nd often mkes fun of nother person or group. Slp-stick ws nd is the technique of the stnd-up comedin nd the clown. It ppels to ll ges nd ll cultures. Nerly every English-speking comedin in this century hs used the following joke in one form or nother. One mn sks nother, Who ws tht ld

11、y I sw you with lst night? The other replies, Tht ws no ldy, tht ws my wife. The humor lies in the fct tht the second mn is sying tht his wife is not ldy. In other words, she is not refined womn. The joke is no less funny becuse it is so often used. The udience knows in dvnce wht will be sid, becuse

12、 it is clssic humor, nd ny udience vlues it even more becuse of its fmilirity. 8 Chinese cross-tlk is specil type of slp-stick in which two Chinese comedins humorously discuss topics such s bureucrts, fmily problems, or other personl topics. Cross-tlk cn be herd nywhere from smll villge stges to the

13、 lrgest Beijing thetres, nd to rdio nd television. It is clerly trditionl form of humor well understood by Chinese people.9 PLY ON WORDS is not so obvious s slp-stick, but it is funny becuse of misused or misunderstood lnguge. My fvorite exmple is the story of three elderly gentlemen trveling by tri

14、n in Englnd. s the trin slowed for stop the first mn sked, Is this Wembley? No, sid the second, Its Thursdy. So m I, sid the third mn. Lets stop for beer. We know tht older people often do not her things clerly, so the misunderstnding of both Wednesdy (for Wembley) nd thirsty (for Thursdy) mke nice

15、setup for the punch line delivered by the third mn.10 The fmous Chinese crtoonist nd humorist Ding Cong is mster of word ply. In one of his funny crtoons, techer sys, How come you completely copied somebody elses homework? The young student replies, I didnt completely copy it. My nme on the pge is d

16、ifferent. In nother clssic Ding Cong crtoon, n irritted fther sks, Tell me, whts one plus two? The son sys, I dont know. The imptient fther then sys, For exmple, you, your mother, nd I ltogether re how mny, you idiot? The son proudly nswers, Three idiots. Whether these stories re crtoons, jokes told

17、 by slpstick comedin, or cross-tlking tem, they ppel to people everywhere s funny stories becuse they hve note of relity to them, nd the unexpected punch line is quite funny. 11 PUNS re even more subtle forms of word ply. They use the technique of similr sounding words or lterntive menings of the sm

18、e word. Puns re thought by some critics to be the lowest form of humor, but I disgree with this. Puns require more subtle nd sophisticted lnguge skills thn most humor forms, but even the very young cn use them in their simpler forms. For exmple, the riddle or trick question often uses pun in the set

19、up, the story line, or, more often, the punch line. Puns re the first type of humor I lerned, nd t bout 5 yers of ge I remember hering the following riddle. One person sks, Wht is blck nd white nd red ll over? The other person usully cnnot nswer the riddle, so sys, I give up. Wht is the nswer? The r

20、iddler replies, newspper. This is the obvious nswer if one knows tht red is pronounced the sme s red in English, but the menings re clerly different. 12 DOUBLE-ENTENDRES (French for double menings) re specil vritions of puns in which words or phrses hve double menings. Frequently the two menings re

21、very different, nd one is quite proper while the second is often, but not lwys, vulgr. I like the somewht mild story of school techer nd principl of high school who re concerned becuse some boys nd girls hve been seen kissing on the school plyground. The techer sys to the students, The principl nd I

22、 hve decided to stop kissing on the school plyground. Hering some lughter, she senses her messge ws not ltogether cler, so she dds, Wht I men to sy is tht there will be no more kissing going on under our noses. This clrifiction, of course, does nothing to correct the first sttement nd the double men

23、ing of the joke becomes even more lughble.13 Some professionl humorists think too much of todys humor is not very intelligent or sophisticted. They dislike the suggestive or vulgr lnguge used too frequently, nd they feel tht most humorists re not very cretive. It is true tht some of todys humor is r

24、ther shocking, but I dont think humor is to be blmed for tht. Humor is live nd well, nd it will persist simply becuse there re funny things hppening every dy. Some humorous people see nd her these funny things nd re ble to mke them into funny, entertining jokes nd stories.Ftl ttrction1 The Queen of

25、British murder mystery writing is, without doubt, gth Christie. lthough the writer herself died over 20 yers go, her 78 Whodunit novels continue to sell in huge numbers. They hve been trnslted into more thn hundred lnguges nd they hve sold over two billion copies.2 The ppel of gth Christies books, b

26、oth in Britin nd brod, is not hrd to understnd. Ech book is cleverly constructed. She uses chrcters tht re esily recognizble nd her plots develop lmost like clockwork. But most importntly, ll her stories set puzzle for the reder.3 Nerly ll of Christies books strt with murder, forcing the reder to sk

27、 the question, whodunit?, nd ll of them end with solution. The fun for the reder is in following the clues hidden in the story nd trying to rech the correct solution before the uthor revels it. This formul ppels to the strongest of humn instincts curiosity nd its populrity shows no sign of going wy.

28、4 Mny of the mysteries re solved by one of the Christies regulr investigtors, like the very confident Belgin, Hercule Poirot, or the pprently hrmless little old ldy, Miss Mrple. She lso creted specil setting for her stories which hs become s fmilir s some of her c hrcters. It is Englnd between the t

29、wo World Wrs, where close-knit communities live in quiet villges or rich city folk ssemble for weekends t grnd country houses. 5 This world is ruled by rigid socil hierrchy. The owners of the country houses, probbly members of the ristocrcy, re t the top, then there re the professionl clsses: doctor

30、s, lwyers nd businessmen. t the bottom re the common people, who normlly pper in the books s servnts, cooks nd grdeners. When murder is committed, theres no shortge of suspects to be investigted.6 gth Christies world is not quite rel world, which is one of the resons why her books hve not become dte

31、d. This is world which is sfe nd predictble until murder shtters peoples lives. The crime must be solved so tht the murderer cn be rrested, but lso, so tht clm cn be restored.7 During most of gth Christies life, Englnd hd the deth penlty for murder. So, once the crime in her books is solved nd the m

32、urderer identified, tht is the end for him or her. There re no loose ends nd the reder cn sleep pecefully in his or her bed.8 In the rel world, of course, things dont hppen quite like tht. Criminls go unpunished, people re wrongly convicted nd there re miscrriges of justice. In short, the rel world is not sfe plce. It is for this reson tht so mny reders like to bury their heds in n old-fshioned detective story with sfe nd predictble ending.9 The kind of whodunit gth Christie wrote is certinly old-fshioned. Few contemporry crime writers re producing this