A Cognitive Study On Irony

Irony is a kind of mysterious language phenomenon. Speakers always present utterances in an opposing way, but hearers could understand it correctly. Most scholars have been painstakingly exploring the hidden secrets behind this kind of process. Although lots of researchers have made great ironic research, they rarely made detailed analysis on the trigger mechanism of irony. So the dissertation will analyze triggering and promoting mechanism of ironic interpretation--encyclopedic knowledge, context, reverse thinking and mutuality from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. These triggers cause the space contrast and then hearers could reconstruct their understanding to utterances and finally realize the ironic intention.The dissertation will use the theory of conceptual blending to interpret irony from the cognitive linguistics. Cross-space mapping and conceptual blending networks will be used in interpreting some relevant ironic examples. The five types of blending networks are--simplex networks, mirror networks, single-scope networks, double-scope networks and multiple blends. According to the above analyses, we could see that irony is relevant to following four kinds of networks--mirror networks, double-scope, single-scope networks, and multiple blends, and three types of cross-space mappings-- mapping in sharp contrast, analogical mapping, and metaphorical mapping. With the help of analytical process of network models, we could clearly observe the operation of the trigger mechanism.The exploration of the on-line meaning construction of irony can make the cognitive operation explicit and further prove that conceptual blending is a universal cognitive operation in our mind. What’s more, we can better realize and understand this invisible and unconscious mental process and solve some language problems with this theory. Through this study, it can be proved that the conceptual blending theory can completely explain the internal cognitive work in ironic understanding and provide an alternative perspective for the ironic study.