Deliberate Misinterpretation In Discourses Based On Relevance-Adaptation Model

Deliberate Misinterpretation (short for DMI), is defined as the hearer deliberately misinterpreting the significance of speaker’s utterance on the basis of a correct understanding, so as to achieve a certain communicative aim or communicative effect. So, DMI is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a pragmatic strategy.The thesis chooses the hosts’discourse in Day Day Up as research material, adopts the Relevance-Adaptation Model as the theoretical framework. Detailed analysis will be made in terms of the generative causes, the generative process and the pragmatic effects of misinterpretation. The purpose of this study is to answer the following three questions:(1) What are the triggers of deliberate misinterpretation?(2) What is the generation mechanism of deliberate misinterpretation?(3) What are the pragmatic functions of deliberate misinterpretation as a pragmatic strategy?Firstly, a review of the previous literature on deliberate misinterpretation is presented. This chapter points out the limitations of previous research. And it introduces the advantages of adaptation-relevance model and its wide range of application. Relevance theory is put forward by Sperber&Wilson,which is largely concerned with the discourse understanding in verbal communication, especially the inference of pragmatic information. Adaptation theory is put forward by Verscheren, which mainly involves the selection of language forms and strategies in verbal communication---that is, the major concern is the generation of discourse. Deliberate misinterpretation means that listeners select a pragmatic strategy to achieve a certain communication intention on the basis of correctly understanding the discourse of the other side, which not only involves discourse comprehension but also the selection of language forms and strategies. Therefore, there must be some deficiencies if it is analyzed through using a single theory. The relevance-adaptation model organically integrates the relevance theory with adaptation theory, which provides a completely new perspective for the study of deliberate misinterpretation. Hence, the relevance-adaptation model is taken as the theoretical framework of the essay to analyze the generation mechanism of deliberate misinterpretation from the perspective of addressees, which mainly contains three stages, including the discourse-understanding stage, strategy-choosing stage, and the discouse-responding stage.The linguistic data are selected from the famous talk show program Day Day Up in2012-2014, the program’s rating remained high these years. So the data are novel and interpretable. The author analyzes the main triggers and implementation methods of deliberate misinterpretation in the Day Day Up program through watching the video of the program, recording the conversation in which deliberate misinterpretations occur, collecting and classifying the linguistic data. The triggers of deliberate misinterpretation contain two aspects:the external cause and internal cause. The external cause usually lies in the first speaker’s utterance:the uncertainty of the first speaker’s utterance, the economy of the first speaker’s utterance and dialect and accent. The internal cause of deliberate misinterpretation refers to the intention of the addressee. Moreover, the means to actualize deliberate misinterpretation are mainly classified into four points:creating new meanings, being overliteral, shifting points and disregarding the speech situation.At the end of the thesis, the pragmatic effects of deliberate misinterpretation have been concluded. The positive effects of deliberate misinterpretation are classified as creating special communicative effect, protecting face and manipulating information and so on. It also points out the negative effects of deliberate misinterpretation, such asstraying away from the topic and manipulating information.This study contributes to a better understanding of the language phenomenon of deliberate misinterpretation. The study based on the relevance-adaptation model which has a wide range of application helps to guide our daily communicative activities in real life by analyzing the discourses of hosts in Day Day Up program,and it also enlightens communicators and language users on different occasions.