A Multimodal Study on Humor Factors --- a Case Study of The Big Bang Theory

Abstract

With a number of American sit-coms are enjoying an increasing popularity around the world, lots of studies have been done on how the language is used in American sit-coms to realize the humor from linguistic or literature perspective, which is limited to humors involving only language. But people are becoming more and more aware that it is far from enough to only take words in sit-coms into consideration when talking about humor factors in sit-coms. With the remarkable development of the multi-media and computer technology, the thriving multimodal discourse analysis since 1990s has become a hot issue in the linguistic study.
Taking the second episode from The Big Bang Theory’s Season One as an example, the multimodal discourse analysis on the sitcom will be done in such two respects “words and bodily expressions” and “pictures and background sound”.
This study reaches the expectation. Through the case study of the fi lmic discourse The Big Bang Theory, it is found that the theory of multimodal discourse analysis provides the audiences with a new perspective of appreciating the American sit-coms by refl ecting the role of modalities other than language in disclosing the humors of the sit-com and ultimately elevates their appreciation level on humor factors in American sit-coms.