A Comparative Pragmatic Analysis Of Verbal Irony In Chinese Putonghua And American English

Verbal irony is an intelligent, witty figure of speech evident in many language activities. Even though people may have a rough intuitive notion of what the concept stands for, such a notion has been approached from a great variety of perspectives.The present writer is intended to conduct a cross-cultural comparative pragmatic study of typical cases of verbal irony between American English and Chinese Putonghua in two TV series called Friends and Aspiration. This case study of ironical lines chosen from Friends and Aspiration is done under the framework of CP and PP which are not perfect in explaining the complicated language phenomenon of verbal irony, aiming at finding out the features of the occurrence of verbal irony, some similarities and differences of pragmatic functions of verbal irony by means of examining the ways of responding to verbal irony in each language, and in turn justifying the effectiveness and validity of CP in explaining the occurrence of verbal irony.To ensure the validity and reliability of the present research,200 cases of verbal irony have been carefully chosen from each of the two TV series. Adopting the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, the present writer has put the use of these ironic utterances under a detailed and overall discussion.The major findings are:1) Within the framework of CP, most verbal irony occur out of the violation of the maxim of the quality, which, in turn, shows that Grice's claim is effective in most situations though the production of verbal irony is also due to the violation of other maxims besides the maxim of quality; 2) In Friends, "face-saving" covers the largest percentage whereas in Aspiration the expression of negation and critical attitude ranks No.1 followed by "amusing & expressing wit"; 3) The function of showing power and establishing solidarity covers the smallest percentage in both TV series; 4) Regarding the way of responding to verbal irony, in Friends, "serious response" covers the largest percentage whereas in Aspiration "no response" ranks No.1. Compared with Americans, Chinese people tend to react in a mild way in face of the irony from their friends; 5) On "No Response", most cases in Chinese involve keeping silent while the majority of the cases in English involve changing the topic. Finally, the possible cultural reasons leading to these findings are discussed. One possible cultural reason is that compared to Americans, Chinese people tend to be more conservative and indirect in the aspect of expressing one's feeling.