Author(s)

Lele Sun

School of Foreign Languages, Jiangsu University of Technology, Changzhou, China.

Co-selection is the core mechanism of language description in corpus linguistics. Within its framework, this study tries to explore the distribution of punchlines in skit-humor and investigates the phraseological features of verbal humor, which is the main part of skit-humor in the skits, to find out the semantic clash. The categories of punchlines in the skits could be broadly classified into verbal humor and nonverbal humor. Verbal humor accounts for the majority of the punchlines in the skits. It is believed that semantic clash is the primary factor for verbal humor which may elicit laughter. Chinese verbal humor in the skit-humor could not be transferred into English because the controversial attitude is lost in the process of conversion. This, in turn, indicates that the semantic clash may contribute essentially to the punchlines in Chinese skit-humor. Relexicalization is one of the fundamental linguistic process in appreciating humor and offers the basis of a powerful and elegant explanatory hypostudy. It describes how humor depends upon the interplay of the phraseological and the open-choice language principles, the sudden shift from the first to the second.

Semantic Clash, Co-Selection, Skit-Humor

Sun, L. (2020) A Study of Semantic Clash in Skit-Humor within the Framework of Co-Selection. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 91-113. doi: 10.4236/jss.2020.85007.