ABSTRACT:The thesis tries to discuss the application of verbal humor in business negotiation. With the development of economy, business negotiations become very common all over the world, while verbal humor, as one of the important strategies in communication, can be very helpful in business negotiations. Many studies on business negotiation and verbal humor have been carried out respectively. This thesis aims to make a comprehensive study of the application of verbal humor in business negotiations by analyzing its characteristics, functions and methods to create humorous effect during business negotiations. By using verbal humor, humorous effect could be achieved in business negotiations, which can help the negotiators to mitigate the negotiating atmosphere and help to solve some problems in business negotiations in practice.

Key words: verbal humor; business negotiation; function; humorous effect

摘要:本文对商务谈判中幽默语的实际应用进行研究。随着经济的发展，商务谈判在世界各地很常见，而幽默语作为沟通的重要策略之一，有助于解决商务谈判中的问题。但很多学者对商务谈判和幽默语分开地进行研究。本文旨在通过分析幽默语的特定、作用及在商务谈判中创造幽默效果的方法，对幽默语在商务谈判的应用进行深入研究。通过运用幽默，让谈判人员在谈判中取得幽默的效果，从而缓和谈判气氛，有助于解决商务谈判中的实际问题。

关键词：幽默语；商务谈判；作用；幽默效果

Negotiators hope to get benefit from business negotiation. It is very significant for people to master the skills of negotiation. And verbal humor plays an important role in negotiations. It helps to relieve tension and solve problems in negotiations. Therefore, the thesis tries to combine both verbal humor and business negotiation in order to find methods to create humorous effect in business negotiation.

　　　In this thesis, first of all, the characteristics and the functions of verbal humor have been discussed. According to the previous studies on verbal humor, verbal humor has five characteristics, including being amusing, having deeper meanings, having a good intention, expressing meaning implicitly and depending on the context. And the functions of verbal humor include helping negotiators to create a humorous atmosphere, eliminating embarrassment, helping negotiators to make tactful criticism, helping negotiators to reject the counterpart in negotiations implicitly and strengthening the power of negotiations

　　　Besides, by combining the previous studies with the characteristics and the function of verbal humor to analyze, there are the five methods to create humorous effect, including making use of pun, utilizing implication to point out errors, utilizing twisted meanings, presetting a scene and making use of overtones. These methods are very useful and practical for business negotiations. 

Verbal humor in business negotiation usually occurs in daily life. They have great influences on each other in practice. Therefore, it is very significant for negotiators to master the skills to create humorous effect in business negotiations so that they can obtain a better and effective negotiating achievement.