Speaker’s Intention And Verbal Irony

This paper sets its background against Grice’s theory of meaning and highlightsthe role of speaker’s intention in the generation and interpreting of verbal irony. Itfocuses on two questions:(i). How to identify verbal irony from non-irony?(ii).What is the role of speaker’s intention in the generating and interpreting of verbalirony?Based on the previous study of verbal irony and inspired by Grice’s (1989)psychological account of meaning, I define verbal irony as an utterance in an ironicenvironment from which a particularized conversational implicature is generated toexpress the negative emotions of the speaker to the present situation.There are three key factors in this definition: particularized conversationalimplicature, an ironic environment, and negative emotions. Ironic environment is thecore of this definition. This concept takes Akira’s (2006) expounding for reference:the speaker has an expectation but the expectation failed before he speaks and at thesame time the speaker bears negative emotions in the present situation. An ironicenvironment is the precondition for an utterance to be judged as ironic. Byexamining the relationships between speaker’s intention and what is said in verbalirony; speaker’s intention and what is implicated in verbal irony as well as speaker’sintention and context, I reach the conclusion that speaker’s intention penetratesthrough the generation and interpretation of verbal irony. Speaker’s intentiondetermines the form of what is said. The conversational implicature of verbal ironyis always generated by the speaker’s intentionally violating or observing the maximof quality in cooperation principle as well as violating the maxims of quantity,manner and relation. Verbal irony can be understood correctly only when thespeaker’s intention is properly inferred. Hearers rely heavily on context to infer what is meant in verbal irony, but in essence context has no role to play in the finalsettlement of the ironic meaning of the utterance other than speaker’s intention.This paper is basically a qualitative research. In this research, the criterionsampling will be mainly adopted. The data are from video materials, daily life andliterary works. By exploring the relationship between speaker’s intention and verbalirony, this study is expected make a ‘spare part’ for the whole intention-based‘machine’ of verbal communication. In addition, the study can help to draw people’sintention to the psychological concern of Grice’s theory of meaning and providenovel support to the argument that anything independent of speaker’s intention is notwhat is meant.