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2. Literature Review
2.1 Previous Studies on Humor from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory
In china, from the period of 1980s with the publication of Humorous Linguistics, some studies on language and humor have sprang out in different perspectives, ranging from vocabulary, pronunciation, pragmatics, semantics, to cognitive psychology, rhetoric style and so on. Jin Guangyu has studied on humor focusing on the Zhao Benshan sketches with the implications of speech acts. (Jin Guangyu, 2008:41) Xiang Dan studies the humor in advertisements. In her opinion, “Verbal humor in advertisements is locutionary act which uses language to realize the functions of representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations” (Xiang Dan, 2009:108). So, the humor has been realized to reach the perlocutionary acts, attracting people’s attention and fulfilling amusement in communication.
2.2 Studies on Joe Wong and His Talk Show in White House
Joe Wong has a doctor degree on biochemistry, but later he becomes a famous and influential comic master, especially when he takes the stage of White House and presents his humorous art to so many leading people. His talk show in White House only lasts over ten minutes, but has exerted great influences on the audience and the progress of language art. The targets of his fun talk consist of president Obama, vice president Biden and some other politicians, which actually impresses the audience a lot. It also includes lots of current hot issues, such as today’s environmental problems, political conflicts and so on, which are all quite close to people’s life and concern.
Jiang Chengxia has studied Joe Wong’s talk show based on the view of Relevance Theory. He explains, “Humorous language is not actually coming from the language itself, but from people’s choice, adjustment and conformation to the situated context to the process of seeking the best relevance” (Jiang Chengxia, 2012:243). Jin Shengxi and Wang Bin think that the mutual cognitive environments of addresser and addressees form the preconditions for the successful realization of humor (Jin Shengxi, & Wang Bin, 2012:44). In their studies, Relevance Theory is applied to the study of the talk show and the result of their study is focused on the mutual cognitive environments of addresser and addressees, Xuan Jing studies this talk show in light of Cooperative Principle, Conversational Implicature and substitution. She says, “Humor can be pided into verbal and nonverbal humor and is a kind of ridicule appealing to reason (Xuan Jing, 2012:96).” She demonstrates the humor of Joe Wong’s talk show with details on these three aspects respectively. OuYang Qiaolin studies Joe’s talk show based on the view of intertextuality. She says, “Intertextuality is a prominent characteristic of talk show and intercultural intertextuality is the leading element to the success of a talk show” (OuYang Qiaolin, 2012:239). These scholars have made a lot of researches on Joe’ talk show from different perspectives, which inspires the author a lot in this study.