A Lexical Pragmatic Study On Teasing Utterance

Based on lexical aspect and combined with pragmatic mechanism, contextual knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge, the lexical meanings in teasing utterance are described and interpreted theoretically.Teasing refers to the uses of words to mock or scoff. The speaker utters something that is clearly untrue and seems offensive to the hearer on the surface meaning. But deep inside, the speaker transmits friendly messages in fact. It belongs to a particular type of banter and plays an important role in communication.Lexical pragmatics is a newly-emerging and vibrant discipline in the field of pragmatics. The related principles and expressions of lexical pragmatics have already been discussed and studied; however, they are seldom applied into the analysis of teasing utterance. Therefore, it is meaningful to analyze the teasing utterance from the view of lexical pragmatics.In the paper, the basic principles in lexical pragmatics, such as non-compositional, non-representational and economy principles and so on, are employed to analyze teasing utterance. The pragmatic characteristics and functions of teasing are also discussed to explore the production and interpretation of teasing from the performative devices, such as narrowing, broadening and anomaly.Besides, the informative intention and the communicative intention in teasing should be distinguished from each other. It is offensive or attacking on the level of informative intention, but conveys the amicable message on the level of communicative intention, which aims at making fun of each other and strengthening the mutual relationship. Teasing can be categorized into self-teasing and teasing others. It owns the pragmatic functions of creating harmonious atmosphere and entertainment, keeping the positive face for the hearer, satirizing friendly, reminding sincerely, and shortening the psych-distance.A cognitive model on teasing utterance (CMT) for its understanding and interpreting is proposed by means of lexical pragmatic analysis. The basic elements of CMT would include: participates (speaker, hearer and audience), propositions, key words (literary meaning and implied meaning in utterance), context and cognitive intention. CMT takes the context as the basis to reach the interpretation of the speaker's communicative intention through pragmatic processing. The context mainly involves the mutual relations between the speaker and the hearer, and their identities, discourse circumstance and background information. Processing of the lexical pragmatics refers to using the relative knowledge.According to CMT, the explanation of teasing can be expressed as follows: firstly, the hearer is confined to the literal meaning of the key words in utterance, which would lead to the misinterpretation of the speaker's real intention. The hearer may hold that he is being laughed at and attacked which would result in the deterioration of their relations and even cause conflict. Secondly, considering specific situation of the utterance, the hearer comprehends the speaker's communicative intention, and realizes that the speaker is pretending to attack him with no malice. But in fact, the speaker transmits a friendly message and aims at creating a relaxed atmosphere and shortening each other's psychological distance. CMT can not only make an interpretation for teasing utterance, but also contributes to the explanation for other discourses, such as irony, sarcasm and so on.