Abstract: Humor, as a special language phenomenon, is a unique carrier of culture, which plays an irreplaceable role in our entire cultural life. The magic power of humor can help create a pleasant communicating atmosphere, which will help eliminate the obstacles and make communication go smoothly. This study firstly gives a detailed account of humor including the definition, types and characteristics of humor. Then it explores similarities and differences between Chinese and English verbal humor so as to provide help for cross-cultural communication. 

Keywords: humor, cross-cultural communication, similarities, differences

摘要：幽默是特别的语言现象，它是特殊的文化载体，在我们的文化生活中发挥着无可替代的作用。幽默的魔力在于愉快的交流环境能够减少障碍，从而使的交流更顺畅。本文首先对幽默做了一个详细的描述，包括幽默的定义，种类和特征，然后探寻了汉语语言幽默和英语语言幽默的共同点和不同点，为跨文化交流提供帮助。

关键词：幽默，跨文化交流，相似之处，相异之处