Abstract: As a special linguistic art, humor plays an important role in our daily communication. The American situation comedy 2 Broke Girls has enjoyed great popularity due to its original plots, vivid characters and facetious dialogues since 2011. The comedy describes how the two girls became friends and create interesting episodes based on life. Grice’s cooperative principle is one of the most significant theories in pragmatics. The strikingly humorous effects in it are the results of violating the four maxims of the cooperative principle, which contains the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, relation and manner. This paper, based on the theory of Cooperative Principle, analyzes the humor in 2 Broke Girls with the violation of four maxims. This paper aims at improving English learners’ ability to understand and appreciate humor in the foreign language so that they can have their language communicative competence improved.

Key words: verbal humor; Cooperative Principle; 2 Broke Girls

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction1

2. Literature Review1

2.1 Previous Study to Verbal Humor 

2.2 Previous Study to 2Broke Girls 

3. Cooperative Principle.3

4. Analysis of the Verbal Humor in 2 Broke Girls from the Perspective of Cooperative Principle4

4.1 An Introduction to the American Drama2 Broke Girls

4.2 Humor Created by Violating the Cooperative Principle

4.2.1 Violation of Maxim of Quantity

4.2.2 Violation of Maxim of Quality

4.2.3 Violation of Maxim of Relation

4.2.4 Violation of Maxim of Manner

5. Conclusion12

Bibliography.13

Acknowledgements14