Can humour and politeness be combined?

Analysis of the series 'Friends'

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Drama, Anthologies
Cover of the book Can humour and politeness be combined? by Steffanie Bauer, GRIN Publishing
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Steffanie Bauer ISBN: 9783640677122
Publisher: GRIN Publishing Publication: August 6, 2010
Imprint: GRIN Publishing Language: English
Author: Steffanie Bauer
ISBN: 9783640677122
Publisher: GRIN Publishing
Publication: August 6, 2010
Imprint: GRIN Publishing
Language: English

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, Bielefeld University, language: English, abstract: Introduction This paper deals with an analysis of one episode of the American comedy series Friends and the question whether the constructed conversation used there can be regarded as polite or not. Since this series is very comic, I will look at how politeness and comedy can be combined. Concerning the notion of politeness, I will mainly stick to the theories of Brown and Levinson and Goffman, give brief summaries of their theories and discuss whether the characters in Friends violate the rules mentioned there in order to gain laughter from the audience. I have chosen one single episode and will look deeply at several smaller parts of it in order to answer the question if humour can be used with polite behaviour or if they are not able to coexist. My thesis is that, if you are strict in keeping the rules, is not possible to be polite and funny at the same time because funny utterances can only occur in cases of violation of politeness rules. I will not give a film analysis in this paper. I took the script of this episode and watched it in order to see where laughter is supposed to come, that means to see which phrases are supposed to be funny. These passages are marked in the script (which can be found in the appendix) by an asterisk.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, Bielefeld University, language: English, abstract: Introduction This paper deals with an analysis of one episode of the American comedy series Friends and the question whether the constructed conversation used there can be regarded as polite or not. Since this series is very comic, I will look at how politeness and comedy can be combined. Concerning the notion of politeness, I will mainly stick to the theories of Brown and Levinson and Goffman, give brief summaries of their theories and discuss whether the characters in Friends violate the rules mentioned there in order to gain laughter from the audience. I have chosen one single episode and will look deeply at several smaller parts of it in order to answer the question if humour can be used with polite behaviour or if they are not able to coexist. My thesis is that, if you are strict in keeping the rules, is not possible to be polite and funny at the same time because funny utterances can only occur in cases of violation of politeness rules. I will not give a film analysis in this paper. I took the script of this episode and watched it in order to see where laughter is supposed to come, that means to see which phrases are supposed to be funny. These passages are marked in the script (which can be found in the appendix) by an asterisk.

More books from GRIN Publishing

Cover of the book Individual Website Analysis by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book A Comprehensive Overview of Criteria Defining a Third-World-Country and an Exemplification of the Development of AIDS in the Sub-Saharan African State of Zambia by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Kinderfernsehen und Medienkompetenzen by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book The siege of Khe Sanh. An extreme case of crisis journalism? by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Speech as Interface in Web Applications for Visually Challenged by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Digital Signal Processing using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Psycholinguistics - Speech errors by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Male protagonists and their marital situation in Katherine Mansfield's short stories 'The Stranger', 'At The Bay' and 'A Birthday' by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Restrictions of Internet provided services in the People's Republic of China by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Today's Political Landscape in Northern Ireland as an Aftermath of the Troubles by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Applied Research Methods for Business and Management - Job Satisfaction by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Critical Success Factors For New Businesses by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Prehistoric Islanders. Community Life, Nature and Religion in William Golding's 'The Inheritors' by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Funktion und Bedeutung der ersten Verfassungen Haitis (1801-1805) by Steffanie Bauer
Cover of the book Structure and Chaos: Binary Pairs in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Steffanie Bauer
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy