A Pragmatic Analysis Of Deliberate Misinterpretation In Verbal Interactions

The present study, from pragmatic perspective, attempts to make a qualitative analysis on the deliberate misinterpretation (short for DMI) in verbal interactions in details, mainly based on the Linguistic Adaptation Theory proposed by Verschueren (1999) and the Relevance Theory proposed and developed by Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995).Deliberate misinterpretation and misunderstanding are two concepts which people often feel confused. Misunderstanding is defined as a conversational phenomenon in language understanding in which the hearer does not understand the meaning of an utterance in a way by the speaker (Zong Shihai, 2000). Misunderstanding is the accidental transmission of information. It is different from the deliberate misinterpretation. The essential difference is the hearer's"deliberateness". Deliberate misinterpretation occurs when the hearer correctly understands the intended meaning which the speaker expresses via an utterance. However, in order to satisfy certain communicative need of his own, the hearer deliberately makes use of the speaker's fuzzy indefinite expression and the specific context to deliberately misinterpret the speaker's utterance meaning in light of the hearer's cognitive inference for his benefit. So deliberate misinterpretation is a pragmatic strategy adopted by the hearer to fulfill his communicative purpose. This phenomenon is called Deliberate Misinterpretation which is actually known as a pragmatic strategy in certain verbal interactions.With Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory and Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory, we concentrate on the prerequisites and communicative functions of deliberate misinterpretation. By analyzing the data from home and abroad, the communicative functions of deliberate misinterpretation in verbal interactions are showed. There are mainly four prerequisites for deliberate misinterpretation. The first one is the fuzziness of utterance. The speaker's fuzzy utterance often offers numerous potential options for the hearer's cognitive inference. The second one is the context of situation. Deliberate misinterpretation is the result of linguistic choice originating in the hearer's adaptation to the contextual correlates. The third one is pragmatic presupposition which is conducive to people's verbal interactions. Ample knowledge in presupposition is a necessity for successful verbal interactions. And felicitous use of presupposition can contribute greatly to one's verbal interactions. The fourth one is cognitive inference of the hearer. There are always intentions within people's interactions. The hearer, in his own way, consciously cognitively infers and misinterprets the speaker's utterance meaning to fulfill his communicative purposes. Generally speaking, when the speaker makes choice of utterance, he always unconsciously chooses and adjusts himself communicative strategies according to the context of situation and communicative purposes. Deliberate misinterpretation is a pragmatic strategy often used to improve interpersonal relationship, create special communicative effects and avoid disadvantage or embarrassment, etc.Though we have made a preliminary qualitative study of the deliberate misinterpretation, the present study improves our knowledge of the pragmatic strategy, and may instruct and enlighten our daily communication.