A Study On Irony Within The Framework Of Adaptation Theory

Irony,a universal phenomenon of natural languages used in our daily communication,has been the research focus in the fields of philosophy,psychology,literature,rhetoric and aesthetics.The thesis is expected to reconsider the linguistic phenomenon from a pragmatic perspective,in an attempt to solve some problems the previous studies didn't deal with and thus to provide a more plausible explanation of irony.Through a brief literature review of irony,such as Grice's Violation-based View,Sperber & Wilson's Echoic Mention Theory and Clark & Gerrig's Allusion Pretense Theory,this thesis respectively points out their limitations of these theories and the necessity of this study on irony within the framework of Adaptation Theory.After discussing limitations of previous researches,the thesis takes Verschueren's Adaptation Theory as the theoretical framework of interpretation of irony. As for the fundamental research question of why the people choose the indirect way of ironic expressions rather than direct ways,the thesis attempts to offer a pragmatic analysis of irony utilizing the Adaptation Theory proposed by Verschueren,which views linguistic phenomenon as a process of choice-making in terms of variability,negotiability and adaptability for the purpose of successful communication and survival in the long run.From the functional perspective on language use,the thesis discusses definitions and classifications of irony,and then presents a series of functions that are mainly involved in irony.In this thesis,focus will be laid upon the functions of irony from the perspective of pragmatics.These functions are classified into satire,criticism,humor, sarcasm,intimacy,negation,expectation,surprise,compliment,etc..In fact,in many cases different functions are mingled with each other in one ironic utterance,bringing a marvelous effect for the situation.The people choose the indirect way of ironic expressions rather than direct ways,the study attributes the choice of irony mainly to the speaker's negative emotions,his or her motivation,the interlocutors' hierarchical relationships or their close or intimate relationships,etc..What's more, since indirectness preserves face,the ironic nature of implicit display naturally leads to the ambiguous strategy in speakers' ironic expressions for the purpose of preserving the relationships between interlocutors.In short,the choice of irony in given contexts is a good adaptation to the interlocutors' social,mental world and physical world,which may intervene in determining the distinct patterns of the ironic behavior for a given speech community.The process of ironic interpretation is the realization of adaptation to communicative contexts and linguistic reality.To perceive and understand irony in the real communicative world, two suggestive strategies are mainly laid stress on training pragmatic competences and avoiding pragmatic failures.The thesis is made up of five chapters.An introduction is briefly made about the study on irony in history.The first chapter is a literature review of irony.This chapter mainly reviews Grice's Violation-based View,Sperber & Wilson's Echoic Mention Theory and Clark & Gerrig's Allusion Pretense Theory.After commenting theses theories,the necessity of the thesis within the framework of Adaptation Theory is made.The second chapter is the theoretical framework of the thesis,which introduces some main concepts of the Adaptation Theory in four aspects: choice-making,three key notions of language,four angels of investigation and contextual correlates of adaptability.According to Verschueren's theory,the choice of language use is in fact the process of making choices of linguistic reality which adapts to the contexts of social, mental and physical world.The third chapter,after reviewing the original studies of irony from the perspective of rhetoric,psychology and pragmatics,first lists different explanations of the definitions of irony,and then presents classifications of irony.The methodology adopted in the thesis is introspection supported by some functions of irony:to keep face,closeness or intimacy, to keep the relationship between the speaker and listener,to show satire, criticism,to express strong negation or disapproval,to add the sense of humor to the utterances or writings,and to increase joking spice,etc.. Why the people choose indirect ironic utterances rather than direct ways mainly utilizes major pragmatic functions of irony.The fourth chapter is on interpretations of irony within the framework of Adaptation Theory based on vast examples.Through analyzing these examples,we can understand that the choice of irony is in fact the process of making choices consciously or unconsciously in terms of variability,negotiability and adaptability which adapt to the contexts of social,mental and physical world.The fifth chapter emphasizes the main strategies of some famous theories for comprehensions of irony in the real communicative activities. To perceive and understand irony more successfully,it is necessary to lay stress on training pragmatic competences and avoiding pragmatic failures of the communicators as possible as they can.A conclusion is drawn in the end.