Understanding English Puns From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Since the early 1990s, more and more researchers have admitted understandability of puns, taking puns more seriously and putting their scholarly efforts in the study of this phenomenon. At the same time, no one denies that puns make an understanding problem.Some scholars employ Austin's Speech Act Theory and Grice's Cooperation Principle to explain English puns. Based on Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (1995), the present thesis employs many examples to explore some characteristics peculiar to puns and the detailed classification of puns. Relevance Theory suggests that communication is a process of ostensive-inference, a cognitive process for the audience to identify the communicator's intention.The study of puns'interpretation is much more developed in the west than in China. This may culturally be due to their different senses of humor. Western culture emphasizes a lot on humor, as a result, understanding of humor and other similar rhetorical devices has been studied in a considerable degree. In contrast, the study of puns'interpretation is quite inadequate in China. This paper attempts to make some contributions in this field.The body of the thesis mainly includes four parts. Before the body, the introduction part generalizes that puns are ubiquitous items of language that express wit and humor in a concise way. The author has deep interest in the understanding of puns, which led to the choice of this topic. As we know, previous attempts at puns'interpretation were almost all in semantic approach, the problems in the use of semantic approach call for new approach of doing the research, and the Relevance Theory which is based on the pragmatics comes to our mind. After the introduction, Chapter One illustrates the related concepts and principles of the Relevance Theory. The concept of"relevance"in this thesis mainly relies on the Relevance Theory of D. Sperber and D. Wilson. What's more, this chapter also includes the cognitive principle, communicative principle and ostensive-inferential communication, the importance of contexts as well as the optimal relevance of the Relevance Theory. And Chapter Two introduces some general knowledge of English puns, including the definition of puns, the characteristics and the categorization of puns. The former two chapters serve as a theoretical foundation of the study. Based on Chapter One and Chapter Two, Chapter Three approaches puns'application in the framework of Relevance Theory, with emphasis on the ostensive-inferential communication process and the relationship between the context and English puns. Chapter Four deals with the methods of understanding English puns. It employs the examples of the interpretation of English puns in the specific environment to illustrate the way of understanding English puns. At the end of the study, the conclusion comes out as follows: although it is a hard work to understand English puns, Relevance Theory provides a complete theoretical framework. When the linguistic meaning is hard to retain, addressees should weigh up the other meanings if necessary and possible. Overall, understanding of puns should be something dynamic with serious consideration of the context and cognition.