作者：罗丽琴
　　【Abstract】Humorous language is a very important part of language communication. This paper analyzes the causes of humorous language from the perspective of cooperative principle， and helps people to further perceive verbal humor in film and television works by taking the humorous dialogues from American sitcom Desperate Housewives as an example.
　　【Key words】verbal humor； cooperative principle； Desperate Housewives
　　Humor， as a language phenomenon， frequently appears in the literature， film， television and daily exchanges. Desperate Housewives is a mirror which is a reflection of the American life. In order to better understand American culture， we need a better understanding of the typical humor in the United States. This article try to analysis the verbal humor from the principles of Grice’ Cooperation Principle.
　　Cooperative Principle
　　American philosopher Grice first proposed this principle in his speech of logic and conversation in 1967. Grice’s cooperative principle includes four maxims：the maxim of the quantity. The utterance should contain the information which is needed for the purpose of the conversation and should not contain the information which is beyond the needs；the maxim of quality. Speakers should not say false words and speakers should not mention lack of sufficient evidence words；the maxim of relation. The utterance should be relevant；the maxim of manner. The conversation contribution is to avoid obscure， avoid ambiguity， and is concise， well-organized （戴煒栋， 何兆熊， 2002：77） .
　　If everyone in the conversation is strict and compliance with these four maxims， they can carry out the most efficient and reasonable language communication. The reason for the highest efficiency is that the speakers say straightly that what they want to say. The listeners do not have to do any reasonable explanations so that it can be the most convenient and most quickly ways to understand each other’s words. In the communication， if one part intentionally or unintentionally violates one or several maxims， the communicative effect is bound to be affected. It easily leads to the speaker’s subjective intention and objective effect is inconsistent. And this inconsistency is caused by humor.
　　An Analysis of Verbal Humor in Desperate Housewives Caused by the Violation of Cooperative Principle
　　Desperate Housewives is a soap opera that the United States ABC radio station launched in 2004. The TV series is about the life of the four housewives who are representatives of American middle class women in Wisteria Lane. The play has been well received by the audience since the play broadcast. So far， It has been photographed the eighth season. One of the reasons is that the characters in the play are humorous and the words are hilarious. From the pragmatic point of view， this humor violates the principle of cooperation， but creates a humorous effect. Here， we use the theory of cooperation to analyze some humorous languages in the play.