作者：谢璐
　　【Abstract】Verbal humor as the main form of humor is commonly seen in daily life. This paper focuses on verbal humor in American sitcom Big Bang Theory based on Grice’s cooperative Principle and its maxims. The research question are as following： 1.How does verbal humor generate through the violation of CP and its four maxims？ 2. Do people violate the CP unconsciously or on purpose？
　　【Key words】Cooperative principle； Verbal humor； Situation comedy
　　【作者簡介】谢璐（1993-），女，汉族，江西赣州人，海南大学，外国语言学及应用语言学专业在读硕士，研究方向：语用学。
　　1. Introduction
　　Since Grice put forward cooperative principle， many scholars have applied this principle in daily conversation. Humor， as a very common language feature， can also be found in daily communication. With the development of pragmatics， people try to connect humor with CP. This paper focuses on how does humor generate through the violation of CP and its four maxims.
　　When we talk， we not always try to cooperate with listeners， and we may violate the cooperative principle. Hence， the significance of the research are as following：1. By analyzing the violation of CP in American Sitcom The Big Bang Theory， the thesis will help Chinese audiences fully understand how humor is generated and then enjoy watching other American sitcoms and American humor. 2. The thesis may inspire people to talk in a humorous way in our daily life and make the conversation atmosphere happier and more relaxed.
　　The first season of Big Bang Theory was thought to be the most typical one， so the data resources are randomly selected from it. The standard of choosing suitable data from the first season is that when it comes to a humorous point in the sitcom there will be background audiences’ laughter so the conversational discourse will be collected as data of this paper.
　　2. Theoretical Foundation
　　Cooperative Principle， In 1975 the language philosopher H. P. Grice published a seminal article entitled “The Cooperative Principle”. Grice noticed that in daily conversations people do not usually say things directly but tend to imply them.
　　Grice’s CP， in which he develops the concept of implicature，， is essentially a theory about how people use language（Levinson， 2001）. Grice（1975） believes that there are some mechanisms governing the production and comprehension of our utterances. He suggests that there is a set of assumptions guiding the conduct of conversation， which is what he calls the Cooperative Principle， or CP for short. Grice（1975：45） proposed that participants in conversation should “ Make your conversational contribution as is required， at the stage at which it occurs， by the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange in which you are engaged.”