【正文】 help the learner of these two languages to overe cultural barriers and promote cultural exchanges. It is based on the content of above studies that this thesis includes three chapters. The first chapter is a generally reflects the study of humor, which includs the difinition of humor。 the theories of humor, the origin and the development of humor in Chinese and English. Chapter two attempts to examine the linguistic formation — mechanisms of humor in English and Chinese, by giving some examples to explain how humor is produced and why the humor is laughable. Chapter three focuses on the analysis of the relationship between culture, thought, religion, history, and social system。 21 Acknowledgements Origin of Chinese Humor 錯(cuò)誤 !未定義書簽。根據(jù)中西方文化的不同，本文又進(jìn)一步探究了影響我們理解中英文幽默的語(yǔ)言與文化障礙。 Development of English Humor…………………………………………… .12 Development of Chinese Humor… .……………………………………… .12 4 Linguistic Formationmechanism of Humor in English and Chinese Humor and Pragmatics…… .……………………………………………………… 13 Linguistic Features of English and Chinese……………………………………… .13 5 Different Cultural Factors in English and Chinese Humor…………………………… ..14 Different Cultural Values………………………………………………………… .14 Value System………………………………………………………… ..… 14 Value Contrast…………………………………………………………. ....15 Differert Patterns of Thoughts…………………………………………………… ..15 Different World Wiew…………………………………………………………… ..15 Different Histories………………………………………………………………… 16 Different Social System…………………………………………………………… 17 6 Conclusion s first poetry collection.[4] And we can find that these early wokrs shows the nature of Chinese humor which is characterized by tending to make full use of symbolization and allegory, with the purpose of giving some educations to the people and satirizing the social evils at that time. 3. 4. 3 Development of English Humor To understand the development of English humor, we have to pay attention to the earliest form of English humoredy. In his poetry (4th), Aristotle said that the edy originated with the komos, which is a curious scene in which a group of festive males sang, danced and cavorted around the masses. And it seems that edy has closely related to some kind of ic ritual or festival of mirth. In essence, edy usually shows us a story of the protagonist rise from humble or disadvantaged backgrounds who prove themselves through various ordeals. The most mon plot of a edy often goes like this: a young man longs for girl but his desire is frustrated in one way or another but ending in a party or festive ritual. American humor has a short history, only started from the 19th century. And blackamoor played an very important role in the history of American, thus there is a special humor named “black humor”. Contrast with Europe, Americans have a gift for humor that they can accept the worst possible with a nod and a wink and face the future in good spirits. In 1974, Jack Meathenia, a Professor of the Southwest Texas State University, proposed the idea of a society dedicated to the study of American humor in all its various aspects, including belleslettres, popular ic papers, and various subliterary media, and circulated a draft constitution.[4] In 1975, in the wake of the unanious adoption of the constitution and the American Humor Studies Association came into being. Mark Twain is one of the most important writers in the history of American humor. The language he used in his work is not only forming a circle in which people can do research on him and his works, but also leting the stuy of humor bees a hot topic. 3. 4. 4 Development of Chinese Humor The period of Wei and Jin Dynasty was said to the second blooming period of Chinese humor. Forests of Jokes, was the first collection of jokes in China because this book is intented to satirize the society by applying exaggeration, humor and jests. Ming and Qing Dynasties was an another blossom for Chinese humor. Apart from play, humor was used in many other kinds of literary works, such as short stories, prose, poem, etc. [4] For a long time, the develop the humor means very much to Chinese people, and theory on humor is ignored. From 1980s, not only the humor in China began to develop fleetly. The study and theory of humor bees more diverse and goes deep into various fields and absorbs some foreign theories. Chinese scholars not only studying Chinese humor, but learning humor in other languages. 4 Linguistic Formationmechanism of Humor in English and Chinese Humor is everywhere. It is just like the seasoning in our food, making our conversation and life interesting, joyful and colorful. Palmer saids, a mechanism of humor may be concluded as follows: 1) knowledge that the occasion is ?entertainment? which would act both as a humor stimulus and a brake on the sense of threat. (Here, the audience should be alert to the linguistic and paralinguistic form of the utterance which would signal the intention to joke.) 2) The incongruity is itself sufficiently acute to cause arousal but insufficiently acute to provide a threat. 3) Locating the ic meaning reveals retrospectively that the incongruity was not threatening. Verbal humor is achieved mainly through language. People may use the rich variations of language elements to elicit humorous effect. In this chapter, through the analysis of some mon types of humor, the author tries to discover what makes a joke or humorous story funny from various linguistic aspects such as syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. 4. 1 Humor es from divergence If a language form