1. Fundamental Concepts 1.1 Humor and Verbal Humor A great number of studies of humor from different perspectives have been made and many definitions are given by different scholars. Plato expressed the idea that humor is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others. People now generally regarded humor as something interesting that is provocative of mirth in interpersonal communication. Humor can be divided into scene humor and verbal humor. In this dissertation, we will focus on the later one, which is a usual phenomenon in human communication. Verbal humor is a common form of our daily communication. Since that verbal humor contributes to releasing feelings and resolving contradictions, it is of great significance to make a study of humor, which will help people to cultivate communication competence and keep a sound interpersonal relationship. 1.2 Cooperative principle Cooperative Principle was firstly proposed by H. P. Grice, an American linguistic philosopher. He pointed out that in every verbal communication, both of the speaker and hearer have to abide by a certain principle in order to achieve specific goals. In other words, the content of each conversation should be consistent with the goal and direction accepted by both sides. Grice called this principle Cooperative Principle or CP for short. Cooperative Principle includes four specific maxims: Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of Relation and Maxim of Manner. The Maxim of Quality includes two basic requirements. On one hand, what the speaker has said should contain the required information which is consistent with the conversational purpose. On the other hand, the speaker shouldn#8217;t provide more information than what they need. The Maxim of Quantity means that the speaker shouldn#8217;t tell lies or provide information short of evidence. The Maxim of Relation and Maxim of Manner require that the words should be related to the conversational topic and easy to understand. Abiding by the four maxims, people will have more efficient and rational conversations. In other words, when we speak, we try to make our statement truthful, pertinent, informative and easy to understand. However, it doesn#8217;t mean that people must obey the rule all the time. Conversational implicature will be generated by apparent violation of the above maxims. 2.Studies of Verbal Humor Verbal humor, an art of a language, is almost everywhere in our life. It is a interdisciplinary subject which has long been studied by both national and foreign scholars. This dissertation will give a brief introduction of the relevant theories and offer a comprehensive overview of national and foreign research on verbal humor. As an integrated and unique ability of human being, verbal humor is beneath the attention of scholars from various fields, including linguistics, literature, sociology, psychology, philosophy, etc. Next I will introduce three traditional theories which is the basis of the development of the research on verbal humor and the studies of verbal humor from different perspectives. 2.1 Three Traditional Theories Dating back to the age of Aristotle, there are three traditional theories : Superiority Theory, Relief Theory and Incongruity Theory. Superiority Theory dates back to the Classical Rhetoric in ancient Greek. Aristotle expressed that humor was an imitation of men worse than the average. According to this statement, Thomas Hobble added that laughter was a kind of sudden glory. Although Superiority Theory plays an important role in the following studies, apparent disadvantages still exist for that it can not be applied to interpret all types of verbal humor. Relief Theory is generally associated with psychology and psychoanalysis. Producing humor is regarded as a good way to help people release pressure from social constraint. Freud believed that humor was a mean of outwitting the internal inhibition which prevent us from giving rein to many of our national impulses. This theory makes emphasis on the mental and physical factors, ignoring other important elements that affect verbal humor. A definition of humor from the perspective of Incongruity Theory was firstly given by Kant in the 18th century. Koestler was one of the representatives and his Bisociation Theory made great contribution to the development of the Incongruity Theory. To sum up, each of the three theories has both advantages and disadvantages. As far as I am concerned, these three traditional theories are insufficient to interpret how is verbal humor generated. 2.2 Studies of Humor in Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics According to Raskin#8217;s(1985) Script Theory of Humor, humor is the production of script opposition. Raskin believed that script opposition is one of the most significant elements of humor. However, he overlooked other important factors that affect verbal factors. Attardo(1994/1997) proposed the General Theory of Verbal Humor. According to this theory, there are six hierarchically ordered Knowledge Resources, including Language, Narrative Strategy, Target, Situation, Logical Mechanism and Script Opposition. Then Attardo also use the General Theory of Verbal Humor to explain the Incongruity Theory. However, it can not be applied to interpret the lack of information under some circumstances. In China, Wang Jinlin(2002) concluded that verbal humor was produced by the skillful use of grammar and vocabulary and should be understand through analyzing its logic. Wang Wenbin and Lin Bo(2003) are representatives of cognitive linguistics. The Conceptional Blending Theory and Relevance Theory were applied to explode the psychological mechanism in the process of the interpretation of verbal humor. They expressed the idea that correct understanding of verbal humor was not only dependent on inference, but also related to conceptual blending and emergent structure. The study of Liu Naishi and Xiong Xueliang(2003) focused on how to utilize words to maintain the faces of both sides in a conversation. They believe that humor is functional in maintaining faces. In western research, theories like Frame Theory, Schema Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory are all applied to do research on verbal humor. Raskin and Attardo regarded verbal humor as the result of script opposition. Attardo applied the Set Theory and Graph Theory to interpret the laugh-making mechanism. Therefore, the study of verbal humor in linguistics and cognitive linguistics has achieved great development during these years. As an analytical tool of verbal humor, cognitive linguistics has many advantages over the theories of other fields. To some degree, the research on verbal humor from the perspective of cognitive linguistics as well as the corresponding theories has achieved relative maturity. 2.3 Studies of Humor in Pragmatics The research on verbal humor from the perspective of pragmatics is a hot spot both abroad and home. In western countries, there are two major kinds of cases. For one thing, scholars apply the basic theories of traditional pragmatics to interpret the humor mechanism. For another, scholars usually try to figure out the relation between humor and pragmatic parameters. According to Austin(1962), many statements are more than pseudo-statements. He created a new pattern, which includes locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act, and then he pointed out that sometimes humor was created by misunderstandings of the different speech acts. The Relevance Theory, which was proposed by Sperber and Wilson(1896) is another important theory in this field. Sperber and Wilson believed that communication was an activity of recognition. In order to achieve a success of communication, both sides must abide by the Optimal Relevance. As a result, humor will occurs if the hearer fails to understanding or deliberately twisted the intention of the speaker. In China, Li Lanping(2002) found that humor was internally related with pragmatic principle. She explored their relations from the perspective of the Cooperative Principle, conversational implicature, etc. These scholars make great contributions to the study of verbal humor. However, their studies only apply specific theories to explore the nature of verbal humor, ignoring practical situation in our daily life. Many scholars have pointed out that the research of humor, especially verbal humor, should be conducted by the collaboration of different kinds of theories and subjects. Although many theories of verbal humor have been developed, few of them associate specific theory with verbal materials in real life. Recently, few studies aim to help people understand and apply verbal humor in daily conversations and daily activities. Therefore, more studies of humor in this angle should be made to make up for the deficiency. Content Abstract Introduction Chapter One Literature Review 1.1Fundamental concepts 1.1.1 Humor and Verbal Humor 1.1.2 Cooperative Principle 1.2Studies of Verbal Humor 1.2.1 Three Traditional Theories 1.2.2 Studies of Humor in Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics 1.2.3 Studies of Humor in Pragmatics Chapter Two Research Methodology 2.1 Data Collection 2.2 Research Procedure 2.3 Subject 2.4 Research Instrument Chapter Three Analysis of verbal humor in Fresh Off the Boat from the perspective of CP 3.1 CP and Verbal Humor in Fresh Off the Boat 3.2 Violation of Quality Maxim in Fresh off the Boat 3.3 Violation of Quantity Maxim in Fresh Off the Boat 3.4 Violation of Relation Maxim in Fresh Off the Boat 3.5 Violation of Manner Maxim in Fresh Off the Boat Conclusion Acknowledgements Bibliography Reference [1]Attardo, Salvatore. Linguistic Theories of Humor. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter,1994. [2]Attardo, Salvatore. ”The Semantic foundations of cognitive theories of humor.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 4(1997): 395-420. [3]Austin. J. L. How to do things With Words. edited by Umson. J. O. Oxford University Press, New York, 1962. [4]Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. New York: Penguin,1976. [5]Ge, Lingling. [戈玲玲]，论幽默文本中本源概念的翻译模式. 外语学刊，2011. [6]Grice, H.P. ”Logic and conversation.” New York: Academic Press(1975). [7]Grice, H.P. ”Studies in the way of Words.” Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press(2002). [8]Jiang, Jingyang. [蒋景阳]，溯因推理对幽默的解读. 外语与外语教学（3）：21-24。

[9]Koestler, A. The Act of Creation. London: Hutchinson Co. , 1964. [10]Li, Lanping. [李兰萍]，语用原则与英语幽默. 天津外国语学院学报，2002（2）。

[11]Liu, Fuchang. [刘福长]，从”合作原则”看英语幽默的产生. 现代外语，1987，（2）：32-36。

[12]Liu, Naishi, and Xiong Xueliang. [刘乃实 熊学亮]，浅析言语幽默的维护面子功能. 外语教学，2003（6）。

[13]Lu, Guangdan. [吕光旦]，英语幽默的语用分析. 上海外国语学院学报，1988，（1）：53-57。

[14]Raskin, V. Semantic Mechanism of Humor. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985. [15]Sperber, D and D. Wilson. ”Relevance: Communication and Cognitive.” Oxford: Blackwell. [16]Wang, Jinling. [王金玲]，论幽默语言的特征与技巧. 外语学刊，2002（3）。

[17]Wang, Wenbin, and Lin Bo. [王文斌 林波]，英语幽默言语的认知语用探究. 外国语，（4）。