A Study Of Misinterpretation In Verbal Communication: From The Perspective Of Relevance-Adaptation Model

In the process of verbal communication, on the basis of correct understanding of the speaker's utterances, the hearer deliberately misinterprets the speaker's intention by making use of some special context or the ambiguity and uncertainty of the first speaker's utterances in order to achieve certain communicative purposes. This kind of phenomenon is called misinterpretation. Misinterpretation as a common language phenomenon is widely used in verbal communication. It is of crucial importance to promote successful verbal communication. However, the systematic and comprehensive studies of it are relatively rare in previous studies.The present study selects misinterpretation in verbal communication as the research object. Based on the combination of Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory and Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, adopting the Relevance-Adaptation Model as the theoretical framework, detailed analyses will be made in terms of the generative causes, the generative process and the pragmatic effects of misinterpretation. The purpose of this study is to reveal the generative and operative mechanism of misinterpretation and thus promote successful verbal communication. Therefore, this study will achieve both theoretical significance and practical significance. Theoretically, it will make a valuable contribution to deepen and enrich the understanding of the Relevance-Adaptation Model; practically, it will be conducive to improving the communicators'competence of using language and thus enhance the efficiency of verbal communication. The present study is a qualitative analysis of misinterpretation, and the data mostly come from daily conversation, dialogues in mass media and examples in previous studies.This thesis is composed of seven chapters. Chapter One is the introductory part, which mainly describes the background information, the motivation and significance of the study, and the organization of the thesis. Chapter Two provides a literature review of misinterpretation in the aspects of logic, rhetoric and pragmatics at home and abroad. Chapter Three focuses on the theoretical framework of the thesis: the Relevance-Adaptation Model. Chapter Four offers a detailed description and discussion of the generative causes of misinterpretation from two factors: the first speaker's utterances and the second speaker's psychology. Chapter Five elaborates on the generative process of misinterpretation which is divided into three stages: the expressing stage, the understanding stage and the strategy-choosing stage. Chapter Six presents the pragmatic effects of misinterpretation including both the positive aspects and the negative aspects. Chapter Seven is the conclusion of the thesis, in which the author makes a brief summary and points out the major findings of the present study. Then some limitations of the study are discussed and a few suggestions are given for further studies in this area.