ABSTRACT：Humor is everywhere in people's daily life, and the humor culture is an important part of social communication culture. With the frequent trade and increasing relationship between the U.K. and China, understanding the humor culture in Britain has contributed to the exchange of people from different cultures. This paper discusses the British humor culture from an English drama Sherlock, and then studies the characteristics and forming reasons of the British humor culture in detail. It analyzes the Briton's ways of expressing humor in their daily lives through the main characters, which, as a result, gives the reader a taste of humorous style that differs from China.

Sherlock is a typical drama which reflects the British people’s daily life. This paper adopts the method of content analysis to explore the manifestations and formations of the British humor culture.

As a kind of manifestation of culture, humor is not only the carrier of culture, but also be influenced and restricted by various kinds of cultural factors, that is to say, a country’s humor culture is the true embodiment of cultural background and connotation. Among three features of the humor culture, self-deprecating is the most relative to the British people. A country’s humor culture is influenced by the people of the country, their personalities and genes are essential to the formation of the country’s humor culture. Moreover, the geography of the country results to its culture, and then comes to humor culture. As a main character of a conductive serial produced by BBC, Sherlock Holmes is welcomed by people all over the world. The British humor has attracted much attention due to its unique way of expression, it is not difficult to figure out that the humorous ways of British people is influenced by culture and geography, at the same time; it is inseparable from the Britons’ personalities and the hidden genes of the whole nation.

Keywords: Britain; Humor Culture; Sherlock; Features

摘  要：幽默在人们的生活中无处不在，幽默文化更是社会交流文化的核心。随着中英两国的贸易深入和文化往来，了解英国文化尤其是交流中的幽默文化显得日益重要。本文以BBC所出品的英剧《神探夏洛克》为例，剖析剧中台词和剧情，深入探讨了英式幽默的三个主要特征以及其表现形式。剧中，夏洛克.福尔摩斯凭借其敏锐的思维，无懈可击的推理能力以及与其助手约翰.华生的幽默风趣的对白得到了广大剧迷的喜爱。通过对剧中对话和情节的分析，使读者更直观地了解到英式幽默的特殊性。究其成因可以发现，英国人的幽默方式受到本土地理环境和文化影响，并且与英国人性格中的宽容息息相关。幽默作为文化的一种表现形式，它既是文化的载体，同时又受到各种文化因素的影响和制约，可以说，一个国家的幽默文化是其文化背景的真实体现。

关键词：英国；幽默文化；夏洛克；特征

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study 1

2 Literature Review 3

3 Analysis on the British Humor Culture from Sherlock 4

3.1 The Definition of Humor 4

3.2 Features of the British Humor Culture from Sherlock 5

3.2.1 Self-deprecate 5

3.2.2 Exaggerative Behavior 6

3.2.3 Irony 7

3.3 The Formation of the British Humor Culture 8

3.3.1 Culture 8

3.3.2 Personality 9

3.3.3 Genes 10

3.3.4 Geography 11

4 The Affection British Humor Culture Brings to the Characters 11

5 Conclusions 12

References 14

A Brief Analysis on British Humor Culture from Sherlock

1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Humor is a kind of culture; it is an art which embodies talent and intelligence in laughter. It plays an important role in people's daily life. Lin (2007) once had explained humor in his book as "Humor is a type of wisdom which can stimulate the people's emotions." (2007, p.22) As a species of culture, the formation of humorous style is a combination of economy, civilization, geographical environment and the like. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a multi-cultural and open-minded country, and the British people are generally regarded as the best producers for humor language. The humor culture in the United Kingdom is universally acknowledged. The English humor highlights the performance of self-deprecating in order to achieve spiritual resonance, it is implicit, restrained and of unique feature, therefore, it has a very clear esthetic property and the research value.