A Relevance-Theoretic Approach To Deliberate Misinterpretation In The Big Bang Theory

Deliberate misinterpretation is a language phenomenon as well as a pragmatic strategy employed in daily communication. Research of deliberate misinterpretation derived from studies of misunderstanding. As the researches move along deeper and deeper, deliberate misinterpretation now has been studying from various academic fields, which has shaped some views and acquired certain achievements. Domestically, the researches of He Ziran and Shen Zhiqi on deliberate misinterpretation are the most prominent.On the basis of previous studies, this thesis analyzes the generative and operative mechanisms of deliberate misinterpretation with the guide of Sperber and Wilson’s relevance theory. Meanwhile, both the positive and negative pragmatic functions of deliberate misinterpretation are discussed. The corpus of this thesis comes from the American situation comedy The Big Bang Theory. Many examples are extracted to illustrate the triggering mechanism and operative mechanism of deliberate misinterpretation.This thesis finds that the speaker’s discourse is the trigger while the hearer’s inference is the operation process in deliberate misinterpretation. The generative mechanisms of deliberate misinterpretation lie in language ambiguity and the speaker’s economic language; the operative mechanisms of deliberate misinterpretation are the deviation to ostentation, sabotage to mutual cognitive context and the minimum value of optimal relevance. The pragmatic functions of deliberate misinterpretation include both positive ones and negative ones.Founded on relevance theory, this research of deliberate misinterpretation has achieved preliminary results which could make contribution to replenishing and expanding the study of this language phenomenon. Meanwhile, it helps to guide people how to conduct a smoother communication and build a better interpersonal relationship in daily communication...