本研究旨在探討美國情境喜劇幽默之特色。研究中以美國影集六人行的對話內容作為語料，以劇中的罐頭笑聲作為笑點之指標，並採取觀眾之角度，將六人行的笑點所採用之語言策略分成三大類: 第一大類為「說話者用語之偏差」(10589, 75.61%)，包含「違反語言模式」、「違反Grice的合作準則」、「違反禮貌原則」、以及「社會期望之偏差」。第二大類為「聽話者詮釋之偏差」(1011, 7.22%)，包含「聽話者詮釋錯誤所造成之誤會」，以及「缺乏上下文或背景認知所造成之誤會」。第三大類為「說話者與聽話者互動之偏差」(2405, 17.17%)，包含「對比」、「巧合」以及「矛盾」。
研究結果顯示，由第一大類「說話者用語之偏差」所造成的笑點出現機率最高(10589, 75.61%)。換言之，說話者基於Chomsky的衍生語法，可創造出無限的新句子和文字遊戲。說話者也藉由違反Grice的合作準則來欺騙聽話者，或製造笑料。在第一大類中，「違反Grice的合作準則」佔最高的百分比(5164, 36.89%)。由於Grice的合作準則本是為了對所有的溝通層面做解釋說明，因此它出現的高頻率是在預期之中的。在Grice的四個原則中，「違反真實原則」是最常用的語言策略(4198, 29.98%)。由於本研究採取觀眾之觀點，因此較容易發現「違反真實原則」的現象。在第一大類中，第二常用的語言策略為「社會期望之偏差」(3538, 25.26%)。由於情境喜劇通常以揭發日常生活的不協調以及不正常事件來製造笑點，此結果也是合理的。
由於六人行中，大部分的笑點皆具備失階與解惑之結構，本研究支持「失階-解惑」理論 (Jones,1970，Schulz,1972，Suls,1972)。根據結果，在六人行中，說話者與聽話者談話間的誤會，常常是由於雙方對於同一句話的最相關詮釋之定義不同所造成。因此本研究也支持Sperber and Wilson (1995)的「相關理論」。另一方面，從本研究中可看出，所有的笑點皆是以違反規則或常態為基礎，因此本研究不支持Raskin針對笑話模式所提出的新言談準則，因為違反常態本為笑話之特色。
本研究期望對於情境喜劇之幽默提出更深入的見解，並希望藉由研究笑點之特質，對幽默本能的構成及重要性之探討有所貢獻。

This study aims to investigate the linguistic characteristics of the humor in American sitcoms. All 240 episodes of the popular sitcom Friends were analyzed. The canned laughter in the TV show was used as the indicator of funny lines. The present study is a data-driven analysis. It took the audience’s perspective and categorized the linguistic strategies used in the funny lines in Friends into three main categories: Deviation in the speaker’s use of expressions (10589, 75.61%) included violating linguistic norms, flouting Grice’s (1967) maxims of CP, violating politeness principles, and deviating from social expectations. Deviation in the hearer’s interpretation (1011, 7.22%) consisted of misunderstandings due to the hearer’s misinterpretation, and misunderstanding due to lack of background knowledge. Deviation in the interaction between the speaker and the hearer (2405, 17.17%) included contrast, coincidence, and contradiction.
Based on the result of this study, deviation in the speaker’s use of expressions contributed to the most linguistic strategies. With the knowledge of Chomsky’s (1972) generative grammar, the speakers may create an infinite number of new sentences and play on words. They also flouted the maxims of CP in order to deceive the hearers or create humorous effects. Under this main category, the exploitation of the maxims of CP had the highest occurrence (5164, 36.89%). Since Grice’s maxims were intended to account for all aspects of communication, the high frequency of its violation was expected. Among the four maxims, flouting the maxim of quality was the most frequently used linguistic strategy (4198, 29.98%). Since the present study was conducted from the perspective of the audience, the violation of the maxim of quality was easily perceived. The second most frequently used linguistic strategy in this main category was deviation from social expectations (3538, 25.26%). Since sitcoms often create humor by displaying incongruous events and a loss of normalcy in daily situations (Paolucci and Richardson, 2006), this result was also predicted.
The current study supports the Incongruity-Resolution Theory (Jones 1970, Schultz 1972, and Suls 1972) by revealing that most of the funny lines in Friends contained an incongruity and a resolution structure. It also corroborates the Relevance Theory since most of the misunderstandings in Friends resulted from the fact that what the hearer retrieved as the most relevant interpretation was different from the speaker’s intended meaning. On the other hand, this study considers Raskin’s (1985) new maxims of CP for joke telling as unnecessary since deviation from norms and violation of rules are properties of jokes, which can be accounted for by Grice’s (1967) maxims of CP.
The current study intends to gain a more comprehensive insight into a different but popular genre of humorous text, the genre of television sitcom discourse. By exploring the linguistic triggers in sitcoms, this study also sheds some lights on the constituents and the significance of humor competence.

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