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Ⅰ.Introduction
Humor is a common phenomenon in human communication of all societies. It brings laughter to people and enriches both their language and culture. However what does the word “humor” refer to? What is the definition of humor?
In fact, ever since its first appearance, the meaning of humor has undergone many transitions. In 500 B.C., it first appeared in the field of medicine as a physiological term in Latin, meaning body fluids, primarily including blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. It was assumed at that time that the mixture of four humors in a person’s body determined his physical appearance, physiognomy and proneness to disease. With the progress of medical science, such an assumption lost its ground but the temperament theory of humor survived and entered into the psychological field. By the end of 17th century, the definition of humor was further extended to include behavior deviating from social norms. Later on, a humor meant an odd, uncommon, and eccentric character and those who behaved in an odd and quaint way were usually subjected to laughter and often known as the humorists. Gradually, people found that the imperfect world and human nature, instead of the peculiarities of human behavior, were more laugh-worthy. Thus humor was more often referred to the amusing things, and such a meaning became stable and came into people’s common understanding as the word’s fundamental meaning.
The attempts to give an exact definition to humor have proved to be thorny. In fact, the variety of disciplines involved in the study of humor, such as psychology, history, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, aesthetics, performing arts, etc., results in the impossibility in giving a fixed and precise definition to the word “humor”. Nevertheless, humor, if viewed from a communicative perspective, invariably involves two ingredients, that is, the sender and the receptor of the humorous action regardless its concrete form and content. In order for a humorous action to be communicated, the sender should be able to cause amusing stimulus and the receptor should have the ability to feel amusement. Furthermore, within the scope of language, the major characteristics involved in humor include the sender’s ability to amuse, a complex trap hidden under the apparent linguistic structure, and the receptor’s sudden realization which ends with laughter. Thus a working definition from the primary concern of language may sound like this: humor refers to the quality of senders’ speech, or writings to excite amusement in receptors because of its absurdity, incongruity or comicality.
Undoubtedly, humor is pervasive in man’s life, and the ignorance of foreign humor in cross-cultural communication inevitably prevents people from fully understanding and appreciating what they hear and read. Therefore, a contrastive study of English and Chinese humorous language is necessary and of great significance for cross-cultural communication. It may reveal some differences and similarities existing between these two kinds of humorous languages. With this knowledge at hand, one can appreciate foreign humor with less difficulty and hopefully be a good humorist himself in cross-cultural exchanges.
 
Ⅱ. The Analysis of the Differences of Humor Expressions between English-Speaking Countries and China
2.1 The Different Expressions of Humor through Language
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