研究生英语阅读教程Unit11.pptVIP

Unit Eleven Why We Laugh By Janet Spencer Questions 1. Do you usually smile or laugh? Why or why not? 2.Tell a joke that you enjoy most. 3.There are many kinds of laughs in the world. Would you please name and imitate some of them? Text Are you a quiet giggle? Or can you let loose with hearty laughter? Your ability to laugh may mean more than you think. Picture this cartoon: A man is watering his lawn just as an attractive blonde walks by. As he ogles her, he accidentally turns the hose on his dowdy wife, who is sitting on the porch. Men usually think the cartoon is funny. Women do not. And there is a good reason for the difference in opinion. We start finding things laughable—or not laughable—early in life. An infant first smiles at approximately eight days of age. Many psychologists feel this is an infant’s first sign of simple pleasure—food, warmth and comfort. At six month or less, the infant laughs to express complex pleasures—such as the sight of Mother’s smiling face. When we find ourselves alone in a humorous situation, our usual response is to smile. Isn’t it true that our highest compliment to a humorous book is to say that “it made me laugh out loud”? Of course, we do occasionally laugh alone; but when we do, we are, in a sense, socializing with ourselves. We laugh at a memory, or at a part of ourselves. Practically every philosopher since Plato has written on how humor and laughter are related, but Sigmund Freud was the first to evolve a conclusive theory. Freud recognized that we all repress certain basic but socially “unacceptable” drives, such as sex and aggression. Jokes, not accidentally, are often based on either sex or aggression, or both. We find these jokes funny because they provide a sudden release of our normally suppressed drives. We are free to enjoy the forbidden, and the energy we normally use to inhibit these drives is discharged in laughter. Part of the integral p