Study on the role of cultural context in verbal humor understanding

This thesis aims to explore the effect of cultural context on verbal humor understanding. Based on the pragmatic theory, from the four aspects of the cultural context, which are history, religion, social convention and value system, the research aims to explore functions of cultural context in verbal humor understanding. Carefully studied, the study can confirm that cultural context have two important functions in verbal humor understanding, one is interpretive function. Another is restrictive function.