2.1.2 Definition of Humor

Humor is a form of communication with laugh functions, which plays an important role in people's communication. ( Li Ping, 2007:10)

In Collins English Dictionary (2006), humor is defined as follow: 1) a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter. 2) the trait of appreciating(and being able to express) the humorous. 3) a characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of feeling. 4) the quality of being funny. 5) (Middle Ages) one of four fluids in body whose balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical state. 6) the liquid parts of body. Here we regard humor as a linguistic phenomenon.来~自^751论+文.网www.751com.cn/

According to the relationship between humor and language, humor can be pided into verbal humor and non-verbal humor.  However, the main target of linguistics and translatology is the former. In the medium of language, verbal humor uses writing styles of satire, exaggeration, puns and other tactics to criticize and expose the social reality, in order to achieve the results of expressing minds and provoking thought.