The Comparative Analysis of Comic Discourse of The English and Chinese Language (on the Example of Anecdotes and Jokes)

The vast number of publications emerged in the field of comic discourse in modern linguistics. However, there is no profound research in the field of comparison of English and Chinese humor. This paper aims to reveal the similarities and the differences of comic genres, common topics and linguistic features of English and Chinese comic discourse. The study reported in this article employed comparative method, discourse analysis, quantitative analysis, content-analysis and stylistic analysis. We tested the hypothesis that English and Chinese humor has significant differences, using the analysis of articles, books, academic research papers. At the stage of literature review, the concept of comic discourse was examined, linguistic theories of humor were studied, universal and national-specific genres were revealed. We analyzed 287 English jokes and anecdotes and 236 Chinese jokes and anecdotes to identify common and distinctive topics, mechanisms of humor effect creation. The impact of culture on comic discourse is clearly illustrated in the paper. We revealed the comic effect is created at the lexical level in the most of the cases both in English and in Chinese. Humor differs in its form, genres and mechanisms, but common traits are also identified. The theoretical contributions and practical implications which are presented can be used to conduct research in the field of conflictology, political science, cross-cultural communication, as well as to develop courses in English and Chinese languages, cross-cultural communication and stylistics.