Analysis of Sheldon Cooper’s Odd Utterances in The Big Bang Theory with Adaptation Theory

摘要

As one of the leading roles in TV series The Big Bang Theory,Sheldon Cooper is very popular among young people.One of thefactors that have contributed to his popularity may be his odd utterances.What he says usually makes people around him feel award anduncomfortable,which yet makes audience laugh.That happens when he neglects the application of adaptation theory in conversations.Sheldon’s odd utterances are going to be analyzed from the perspective of communicative context and linguistic context in context adap-tation which is a part of adaptation theory.Specifically,Sheldon neglects the social world as in hearers’ status and culture,and mentalworld as in hearers’ emotion and belief in conversations,and he also neglects the discourse cohesion.All these factors make his utter-ances odd and inappropriate.