A Study Of Deliberate Misinterpretation In TV Plays And Movies From A Pragmatic Perspective

Deliberate misinterpretation is a special pragmatic strategy in verbal communication. On some occasions, the hearer may deliberately choose the interpretation diverging from the speaker’s intended meaning to achieve certain communicative effects. This kind of linguistic phenomenon is defined as deliberate misinterpretation (Hereafter DMI for short).Based on some important pragmatic theories, such as the Cooperative Principle, Relevance Theory, Speech Act Theory, Face Theory, the Politeness Principle and Adaptation Theory, the present thesis makes a systematic analysis of DMI. Through the analysis of the conversations in TV plays and movies at home and abroad, this paper mainly analyzes the prerequisites, realization means and pragmatic functions of DMI in TV plays and films.The results of the research shows that the uncertainty of S1, the conversational implicature of S1, the minimal information of S1, S2’s personal intention and the common knowledge of both S1and S2are the prerequisites to DMI. Specifically speaking, DMI can be realized on phonological, lexical, syntactic, pragmatic and rhetorical levels. As a pragmatic strategy, DMI can perform some special communicative functions. This study discusses the pragmatic functions of DMI, including creating humor, harmonizing interpersonal relationship, refusing a request or withholding information, and showing S2’s attitude.DMI is widely used in the conversations in TV plays and movies, and the study of this linguistic phenomenon in terms of prerequisites, realization means and pragmatic functions will be of both theoretical value to linguistic studies and practical significance to successful daily communication.