Analyzing Metalinguistic Negation From The Pragmatic Approach

As an important part of negation and natural linguistic phenomenon, metalinguistic negation has drawn more and more attention of researchers in recent years; however it is noteworthy that much attention has been contributed to describe MN from semantic and cognitive point of view, few endeavors have been made on explaining MN from pragmatic perspective. This paper is therefore to provide a comprehensive description of MN from a pragmatic angle.The thesis employs main theories of Relevance Theory and Neo-Gricean Pragmatic Apparatus to illustrate this phenomenon. It is found that distinction can be drawn between DN and MN in terms of relevant degree, normally DN enjoys a much higher level of relevant degree. Through dividing the whole inferential process of decoding MN into five stages which arrange from decoding the linguistic form to inferring the true intention of the speaker, a clear picture of inferential process of MN is exhibited. Another important theory which is adopted to explain MN is Neo-Gricean Pragmatic Apparatus. Emphasis is laid on explicating the famous three principles: Q-principle, I-principle and M-principle. Priority here will be given to Q-principle and I-principle since they play a major theoretical role in explaining MN. Also great importance will be attached to the concept'Horn scale'and'Stereotypical relation'. In addition, insights are offered on explaining two categories of MN:'Horn Scale Metalinguistic Negation'and the other sort'Stereotypical Relation Metalinguistic Negation'. It is expected that the internal mechanism of MN can be revealed via analyzing MN within framework of Neo-Gricean Pragmatic Apparatus. In this thesis, some attentions are also given to pragmatic functions of MN which can be divided into two categories: generalized pragmatic function and specific pragmatic function. As a matter of fact, MN can serve as a special linguistic device to realize unexpected pragmatic functions. Apart from the main body of this dissertation, a research of definition, form, classification and properties of MN together with distinction between MN and DN are undertaken.