A Pragmatic Study On Innuendo Of Novels

This thesis studies innuendo speech act from the angle of pragmatics. Innuendo is here defined as a speech act which intends to disparage given characters indirectly. According to indirect or direct features of the reference and the implication, innuendo can be divided into three types. This thesis just studies the second type, that is, the indirect reference and the direct implication, and only researches on innuendos in novels.This thesis discusses emphatically the constitution of innuendo speech act in novels: reference act, narrative act, disparaging act .The thesis studies the four types of reference act: name-changing reference, general reference, certain-descriptive reference, and pseudonym reference. Basing on the relationship between narration and reference, narration can be divided into two types: the facts that can be identified or reflect the features of the innuendo targets; the facts that are difficult to be identified or do not reflect the features of the innuendo targets. The first kind of narration is intended to establish similarity so as to trigger association between the narration and the innuendo targets, and the other is intended to disparage the targets. The disparaging act of novel innuendo can be divided into three types: disparaging by appraisal, disparaging by description, and disparaging by narration.While performing the innuendo speech act, there are other essential conditions: the possible existent characters, innuendo intention and readers that share the same contexts. The perlocutionary act of innuendo speech act indicates that innuendo speech act has a stronger pragmatic force and obvious later effects.This thesis takes examples from Luxun's novel Lishui, analyzing the innuendo of the novel from the viewpoints of reference, disparaging, innuendo intention and the later effects of perlocutionary act.Finally the thesis explores the judicial identification of novel innuendo torts, and tries to draw supports from pragmatics.