關(guān)聯(lián)理論對反諷言語的解讀【畢業(yè)論文】

1、<p><b>　?。?0_ _屆）</b></p><p><b>　　本科畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)</b></p><p>　　On Verbal Irony from the Perspective of Relevance Theory</p><p>　　關(guān)聯(lián)理論對反諷言語的解讀</p><p>

2、;　　英語 </p><p><b>　　摘要</b></p><p>　　在日常言語交流和書面文體中，人們經(jīng)常使用反諷，反諷是言語交際中一種常見的語言現(xiàn)象。然而比之于對隱喻、幽默的研究，人們對反諷的研究卻少之又少。反諷可以分為三類：言語反諷, 情景反諷和戲劇反諷。本文將言語反諷作為研究的

3、對象，嘗試用斯泊伯和威爾遜(Sperber＆Wilson)的關(guān)聯(lián)理論(Relevance Theory)來分析和解釋反諷這一語用現(xiàn)象。關(guān)聯(lián)理論摒棄了傳統(tǒng)的交際代碼模式，提出了明示一推理模式，認(rèn)為交際是一個(gè)涉及信息意圖與交際意圖的明示推理過程；關(guān)聯(lián)原則包括關(guān)聯(lián)的認(rèn)知原則(即：人類認(rèn)知傾向于同最大關(guān)聯(lián)相吻合)和關(guān)聯(lián)的交際原則(即：每一個(gè)明示的交際行為都應(yīng)設(shè)想為它本身具有最佳關(guān)聯(lián)性)。接著通過一系列的例證來揭示反諷其本質(zhì)，并闡述如何在關(guān)聯(lián)理論

4、框架下辨別和理解反諷。得出較之于傳統(tǒng)的反諷研究，關(guān)聯(lián)理論反諷觀的合理性以及其對反諷本質(zhì)和反諷理解機(jī)制的強(qiáng)大解釋力。</p><p>　　關(guān)鍵詞：反諷；關(guān)聯(lián)理論；本質(zhì)；識別；闡釋</p><p><b>　　Abstract</b></p><p>　　In our speech and writing, people often use iro

5、ny. Irony is a kind of linguistic phenomenon commonly seen in our daily communication. However, compared with the studies on metaphor or humor, the study on irony is far from enough. Irony can be generally divided into t

6、hree types: verbal irony, situational irony, dramatic irony. This thesis takes verbal irony as the focus of research and tries to make a pragmatic study on irony from the perspective of relevance theory, which was put fo

7、rwarded by Sp</p><p>　　Key word: irony; relevance theory; nature; recognition; interpretation</p><p><b>　　Content</b></p><p>　　Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….…I

8、I</p><p>　　1. Introduction……………………………………………………..………………..……...1</p><p>　　2. Irony Cognition and Relevance Theory………………………………………………..2</p><p>　　2.1 Mutuality: the precondition for iro

9、nic communication………………….......…....…..3</p><p>　　2.2 Main points of relevance theory…………...................................................................4</p><p>　　2.2.1 Ostensive-inferential

10、 communication…………………………..................…....4</p><p>　　2.2.2 The principle of relevance.………………………………….………………….5</p><p>　　3. Irony within the framework of relevance theory……………………………….……..6<

11、;/p><p>　　3.1 The nature of irony from the perspective of RT…………………………....…….......6</p><p>　　3.1.1 Irony as interpretative use………………………………………..………..…....6</p><p>　　3.1.2 Irony as echo

12、ic use……………………………………….………………....….7</p><p>　　3.2 The recognition of irony from the perspective of RT…………………………......….8</p><p>　　3.3 The interpretation of irony from the perspective of RT…………………

13、...…….…..10</p><p>　　4. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………11</p><p>　　Bibliography.………………………………………………………………………………13</p><p>　　Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..14<

14、;/p><p>　　Introduction</p><p>　　Irony is a kind of linguistic phenomenon which was frequently used in our daily communication. Each of us may have such kind of experience as making or hearing an ir

15、onic utterance in our daily communication. For example, your friend plans to meet you at 3:00 pm, but you arrived at 3:30pm, your friend might complain: “you are so punctual!” In this circumstance the speaker is making a

16、n ironic utterance and trying to ridicule the hearer. Indeed, irony is such a ubiquitous phenomenon that it has bee</p><p>　　In rhetoric, verbal irony is treated as a rhetoric device which the literal meanin

17、g of the words conveys or suggests an opposite meaning called figurative meaning. In another word, an ironic utterance has two meanings: the literal meaning and the figurative meaning. In the course of irony communicatio

18、n, the hearer chooses the figurative meaning and rejects the literal meaning. Generally, in classical rhetoric, irony is seen as a kind of speech figures, which makes the context more pleasant and c</p><p>　

19、　(1). A mother asked her son to clean up his messy room, but he was busy playing computer games. After a while, the mother discovered that his room was still messy, and said to her son: You are so diligent!</p>&l

20、t;p>　　Here the figurative meaning of “diligent” is lazy from the perspective of traditional rhetoric. This example shows that irony is a wonderful rhetorical device to make our speech and writing more vivid and effect

21、ive. However, rhetorical approach has many limitations: First it fails to explain what exactly the opposite meaning is. Second it doesn’t give a mechanism for deriving the figurative meaning of an utterance. Third it doe

22、sn’t illustrate why the hearer prefers the figurative meaning to the </p><p>　　Under Grice’s approach, irony is a case of violating the Cooperative Principle (CP), which consists of four categories: the maxi

23、m of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of relevance and the maxim of manner. Grice, who first introduce the study of irony in the field of pragmatics, “treats irony as a special kind of conversational implicature

24、 and believes that a word means something because the speaker intends it to do so.”(Grice, 1975) Thus, ironic utterances would conversationally implicat</p><p>　　(2) A says to B: “What a good job you have do

25、ne!”</p><p>　　Suppose in (2), B has just broken a precious vase. Obviously this utterance violates the Maxim of quality. So the intended meaning of this utterance is “What a mess you have done.”</p>&

26、lt;p>　　However, Grice’s theory of irony has its deficiencies: First utterances that follow all four maxims or violate other maxims can also be ironic. Second it has limited explanatory power. Let’s see the following e

27、xamples:</p><p>　　(3) Before liberation, there were a lot of taxes to be charged. After liberation, there are a lot of meetings to be held. (Zeng Yantao, 2006)</p><p>　　Apparently the utterance

28、(3) follows the four maxims of CP for the speaker’s utterance is precise, unambiguous and efficient, but it is still ironic. </p><p>　　In Allusional pretense theory, Clark and Gerrig claim that a speaker who

29、 pretends “to be an injudicious person speaking to an uninitiated audience; the speaker intends the addressee of the irony to discover the pretense and thereby see his or her attitude" (qtd. in Ma Chunrong, 2007). &

30、lt;/p><p>　　(4): (Suppose Ann hates raining day) </p><p>　　In a raining season, she says: “See, what a lovely day it is: rain, rain, rain.” </p><p>　　According to the allusional preten

31、se theory, Ann is turning a blind eye to the fact. In such raining weather, the speaker couldn’t make the utterance on her own behalf, she intends the addressee to discover the pretence that she is ridiculing the person

32、who would accept it.</p><p>　　However, it still has some problems. First, it fails to explain the fact that hearers interpret ironic utterances without recognizing their violations. Secondly, the notion of a

33、llusion is not clear enough to make a distinction between irony and non-irony. Thirdly, it does not address the function of ironic cues in interpreting irony</p><p>　　From the account above we can see that a

34、lthough the previous approaches have more or less contributed to the study of irony, there still have some flaws or deficiencies. So next we’ll try to study irony by applying Sperber &Wilson’s relevance theory, which

35、 has a stronger explanatory power than the previous approaches.</p><p>　　2. Ironic Cognition and Relevance Theory</p><p>　　In this part, we are going to discuss the role and status of mutuality

36、in the process of recognizing ironic communication. With the help of the cognitive environments, the hearer is able to recognize whether the utterance made by the speaker is irony or not. This provides a precondition for

37、 ironic communication. Then it is to discuss the main factors that governing the whole process of ironic recognition and how these factors govern the process of the recognition of ironic utterances.</p><p>　

38、　2.1 Mutuality：The Precondition for Ironic Communication</p><p>　　Stalnaker states that “Communication, whether linguistic or not, normally takes place against a background of beliefs or assumptions which a

39、re shared by the speaker and his audience. The more common ground we can take for granted, the more efficient our communication will be. And unless we could reasonably treat some facts in this way, we probably could not

40、communicate at all.”(qtd. in Zeng Yantao, 2006) In other words, mutuality is viewed as the cognitive precondition in the process of understa</p><p>　　Here mutuality refers to the shared background knowledge

41、between the speaker and the audience, which including the knowledge of participants’ relation, the knowledge of some social conventions and the awareness of some communicative principles. The speaker who makes an ironic

42、utterance may assume that the hearer share some assumptions about what is likely to be ironic and can pick out the enough relevant contextual information in the processing of irony understanding. The hearer also believes

43、 th</p><p>　　(5) It is an unsavory meal, isn’t it?</p><p>　　Under this circumstance, Tony was being ironic to Kate, but not to Zack. Without knowing that they enjoyed the food, Zack could not be

44、 a party to Tony’s irony, because as far as he could tell, Tony was completely serious. The interpretation is based on their former common ground that none of them liked Chinese food. </p><p>　　The example a

45、bove shows that perception of irony lies in what is mutuality to whom. A hearer or reader may not make judgments accurately if not supplied with the right information. The importance of mutuality in the process of unders

46、tanding irony is commonly acknowledged. In the relevance theory, shared background knowledge forms the basis of Sperber & Wilson’s relevance principle. In order to understand an utterance, there must be one and only

47、one interpretation consistent with the principle of</p><p>　　2.2 Main points of relevance theory</p><p>　　The relevance theory assumes that the essence of communicative activity is cognitive act

48、ivity and relevance theory is an inferential theory of communication and it aims to explain how the audience infers the communicator’s intended meaning. The theory provides a link between the communication and cognition.

49、 This chapter will give a general introduction to relevance theory.</p><p>　　2.2.1 Ostensive-inferential communication</p><p>　　As to the study of human communication process, there are two comm

50、unication models--the code model and inference model. According to the code model, communication is achieved by a process of encoding carried out by the communicator and decoding by the audience. In Sperber and Wilson’s

51、view, the code model focuses on the explicit communication, while the inference model is mainly about the implicit communication. Sperber & Wilson found neither of the two models is satisfactory enough. Thus they d&l

52、t;/p><p>　　“The communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make it manifest or more manifest to t

53、he audience a set of assumptions” (Sperber & Wilson, 2001). </p><p>　　Based on this definition, communication is an ostensive-inferential process consisting of informative and communicative intention. Os

54、tension and inference are one and the same process seen from two different points of view. Ostension means that the communicator’s task is to make his informative intention mutually manifest. Inference means that the aud

55、ience’s task is to infer the communicator’s communicative intention from the evidence. In another word, the communicator intentionally gives the ev</p><p>　　In order to have a successful communication, the c

56、ommunicator must draw the audience's attention. So an act of ostension must draw the audiences’ attention. The principal significance of ostensive communication is that it conveys a guarantee of relevance. People aut

57、omatically pay attention to ostensive stimulus, because they are accustomed to turn their attention to what seems most relevant to them. Since processing information requires effort, the request to undertake the task has

58、 to be accompa</p><p>　　2.2.2 The principle of relevance</p><p>　　The focus of relevance theory is cognition and communication. It holds that relevance governs every aspect of cognition and comm

59、unication. This is expressed in two relevance principles by Sperber&Wilson. The two principles go as follows: </p><p>　　(i). Cognitive principle of relevance: human cognition tends to be geared to the ma

60、ximization of relevance.</p><p>　　(ii). Communicative principle of relevance: every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance. (qtd. in He Ziran, Ran Yongping, 19

61、98)</p><p>　　However the relevance is not a definite notion. It is a matter of degree and a relative notion which is characterized in terms of effect and effort. Sperber and Wilson argue that human informati

62、on processing requires some mental effort to achieve some cognitive effect. In this sense the notion of relevance can be summed up as follows: </p><p>　　(i) Other things being equal, the greater the cognitiv

63、e effect achieved by the processing of a given piece of information, the greater its relevance for the individual who processes it. </p><p>　　(ii) Other things being equal, the greater the effort involved in

64、 the processing of a given piece of information, the smaller its relevance for the individual who processes it. (qtd. in Wenxu, 2004)</p><p>　　According to relevance theory, to communicate is to draw one’s a

65、ttention. It demands some expenditure of effort. People won’t pay attention to something irrelevant unless they expect to obtain enough contextual effects. Therefore, to communicate is to indicate that the stimulus used

66、in the utterance is worth the audience’s attention. Any utterance that addressed to someone automatically contains a presumption of its own relevance, which is called the principle of relevance. </p><p>　　Th

67、e principle of relevance argues that human cognition is tending to pay attention to the most relevant information. In other words, on the one hand people are likely to concentrate on the most relevant information; on the

68、 other hand they organize the most relevant representation of given information and handle the representation in the context that maximizes its relevance. </p><p>　　However, for the following reasons address

69、ers cannot always produce the most relevant information directly: (a) the addresser may not have the information that the addressee perceives most relevant; or he cannot put the most relevant information into words due t

70、o his ability or willingness; (b) the addresser may not have enough time to think of the best expression of the utterance; or he may have his own preferences which prevent him from choosing the most suitable expression.

71、</p><p>　　Thus addressers try hard to convey a presumption of relevance. That is to say, the addressers express that they have done what was indispensable to produce an adequately relevant utterance. Then th

72、e task of the addressee is to recognize the effects the addressers could have foreseen. </p><p>　　3. Irony within the framework of relevance theory</p><p>　　From the perspective of relevance the

73、ory, irony is defined as “a variety of echoic interpretative use, in which the communicator dissociates herself from the opinion echoed with accompanying ridicule or scorn”. (Sperber&Wilson, 1992) This definition is

74、quite different from those of traditional studies which have been discussed in the first part. Correspondingly, the recognition and interpretation of irony within the framework of relevance theory also differ from other

75、approaches. Therefore, this</p><p>　　3.1 The nature of irony within the framework of relevance</p><p>　　The study of irony has a long history which has been discussed in the first part. However,

76、 it is strange that so little attention has been paid to the nature of irony by linguists and philosophers. Some scholars hold that the nature of irony is something that limiting the direction of irony understanding. In

77、this part, we will show how to understand the nature of irony under the guidance of relevance theory. It accounts for not only the cases that within the reach of traditional accounts, but al</p><p>　　3.1.1 I

78、rony as interpretative use</p><p>　　From the perspective of relevance theory, irony should not be treated as the figurative use of language, and should not be interpreted on the basis of the differences betw

79、een literal meaning and figurative meaning. Sperber and Wilson claim that irony in nature is an echoic interpretation of another assumption, thought or utterance. This suggests that irony is a variety of implicit interpr

80、etative use. In this sense, utterances can represent any other object it resembles, and enter into a variety </p><p>　　As to an ironic utterance, Sperber and Wilson also point out that irony should not be re

81、garded as literal interpretations of an attributed thought or utterance. Instead irony is an expression having an interpretative resemblance to an unexpressed ideas or opinion, according to the principle of relevance. Fo

82、r example:</p><p>　　(6) “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. (Jane Austen, 2008)</p><p>　　(7)Mr. Bennet: “I see n

83、o occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party”. (Jane A

84、usten, 2008)</p><p>　　These two examples are obviously ironic, and we can see that by (6) the author does not express what she believes. Instead, she describes what is going on in the mind of Mrs. Bennet, Wh

85、ich affirms the fact that it is an attributed thought of the people rather than the author’s. The propositional form here shares some interpretative resemblance with the attributed thought, from which the author wants to

86、 dissociate. This is also true with example(7), where Mr. Bennet does not seriously mean that h</p><p>　　So irony involves an interpretative relation between the speaker’s utterances and attributed thoughts,

87、 which means the speaker considers that a certain thought is attributed to the hearer, so that he speaks his mind as an echo of the attributed thought. In this case, an ironic utterance is obviously not an interpretation

88、 of a thought which a speaker has actually expressed. According to relevance theory, ironic utterances are second degree interpretations. </p><p>　　3.1.2 Irony as echoic use</p><p>　　In interpr

89、eting an attributed thoughts or opinions, sometimes the speaker gives no implication of her attitude to the opinions being reported. Sometimes, she does show some indication of her attitude to the opinion she is reportin

90、g, and this contributes to the relevance of her utterance. For instance: </p><p>　　(8) Rose: It’s a lovely day for a picnic. (They go for a picnic and it rains.)</p><p>　　Joey: (sarcastically) I

91、t’s a lovely day for a picnic, indeed.</p><p>　　Joey does give some indication of her attitude to the opinion being reported. Joey’s utterance echoes what Rose has just said. It achieves relevance not by rep

92、eating what Rose has just said, but by indicating to Rose her attitude towards his opinion. Sperber and Wilson regard those utterances, whose relevance partly depends on an expression of the speaker’s attitude to an attr

93、ibuted opinion, as echoic. But not all echoic utterances are ironic. For example:</p><p>　　(9) Andy: The Joneses aren’t coming to the party.</p><p>　　Jenny: They aren’t coming, hum. If that’s tr

94、ue, we might invite the Smiths.</p><p>　　In this example, the relevance of the Jenny’s utterance lies in the information it gives about what Andy has said. It is not ironic although it is echoic, since it in

95、volves no attitude of dissociation or ridicule. The relevance of an echoic utterance only lies in the information it gives about the content of the attributed thought. Therefore, an echoic utterance shall express the spe

96、aker’s attitude or reaction to what is said, and achieves its relevance in this way. From the perspective of relev</p><p>　　It should be noted that the notion of “echo” by Sperber and Wilson is a technical o

97、ne. It covers not only direct and indirect echoes, as in example (8), but also echoes of norms or standard expectations, and echoes of real or imaginary attributed thoughts. Besides, the attributed thought may not be ech

98、oed to any person, but merely to a type of person. In this case, ironic utterances are not easy to recognize. However, there is limit to the notion of “echo”. Under the guidance of relevance theory</p><p>　　

99、The echoic nature of irony explains some of the problems that cannot be solved by other approaches. Since echoic utterances are not normally treated as violating a norm, there is no reason to treat irony differently, whi