This thesis begins with an introduction of various researchers’ dedication to the field of humor. Theoretically, the research of the humorous effects generated by violating the cooperative principle has a remarkable achievement. But it doesn’t use in communication or work widely. In the view of practice, with the advent of the information age, and the international contacts are growing in frequency. English becomes the universal language. In the development of globalization, the students’ English proficiency level will determine to their competitiveness in the future. Interpersonal skill is also very important, the more comprehensive people have, the better chance of job he can get.   

     The thesis begins with an introduction of the whole passage. The second chapter generalizes the background information of the cooperative principle, humor and the sitcom named Friends. The third chapter analyzes the utterance humor of Friends in season 3 that lines on the theoretical foundation of cooperative principle, which has four maxims: quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim. The fourth chapter describes the application of violating the cooperative principle in microblog, advertisement and entertainment program. The fifth chapter is a conclusion of the thesis; it analyzes the thesis’s findings and deficiency.

2. Literature Review

     This thesis tends to give a comprehensive description of the background information of humor research in this chapter. Firstly, the thesis gives an introduction of the Grice’s cooperative principle. Secondly, the thesis provides a detailed study on humor including the definition and the achievement of humor. And in addition, the thesis represents a short summary of situation sitcom and Friends. 

2.1 Cooperative principle

     According to Grice, in making conversation, there is a general principle which all participants are expected to observe, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. This general principle is called the Cooperative Principle, abbreviated as CP, make the conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.（戴玮栋等 86-87）To be more specific, there are four maxims under this general principle :

—The maxim of quantity

     1. Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purpose of the exchange) .

     2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

—The maxim of quality

     1. Do not say what you believe to be false.

     2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

—The maxim of relation

     Be relevant.

—The maxim of manner

     1. Avoid obscurity of expression. 

     2. Avoid ambiguity.

     3. Be brief（avoid unnecessary prolixity）.

     4. Be orderly. 

     As the objective of pragmatic study is to explain how language is used to effect successful communication, has drawn the attention of many scholars. American linguist Herbert.Paul.Grice put forward the Cooperative Principle at the lecture of Harvard University in 1967. Later in 1975, H.P.Grice published an article called The Cooperative Principle which made a great contribution to the pragmatic study.(Grice 2002: 28) In China, Hu Zhuanglin is the first person who described the cooperative principle theory through Pragmatics in 1988. (胡壮麟 1988)There are lots of discussions about cooperative principle at home and abroad, and they have so many harvest. uy

     However, each theory has its weakness and needs to become perfect in practice. The significance of Grice’s CP lies in that it explains how it is possible for the speaker to convey more than is literally said. As pragmatics focuses on the conveyance of meaning in the course of communication, （戴玮栋等 87-88）Nowadays, technology is developing so fast, the mankind society gets into a network. The microblog, WeChat are full of people’s life. And the application of the cooperative principle grows with each passing day. There are few people having researches on this aspect. So the thesis wants to choose this new field to have a research.