A Cognitive-pragmatic Interpretation Of Tom Swifty

Tom Swifty (abbreviated as TS), is a special kind of humorous utterance by communicating pun meaning, which can have positive effects on listeners by delighting them with humor and wit. Since the rise of its original form—Wellerism shown in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, Tom Swifty has attracted high attention from scholars home and abroad. They have made exploration of TS from various aspects including meaning construction (Yang Xianming, 2008a; Liu Naishi, 2009), psychology (Lippman & Dunn, 2000; Lippman & Tragesser, 2005), cognition (Yang Xianming, 2009), computational auto-generation (Lessard & Levison, 1992; Liu Naishi, 2009), and English-Chinese comparison (Yang Xianming, 2008b) and the research findings emerge in an endless stream. All these research interests in TS demonstrate that it constitutes an ideal subject matter of linguistic humor research. In spite of that, previous researches from cognitive and pragmatic perspectives are limited to the hearer's interpretive process. Furthermore, owing to a lack of examples and detailed illustration of cognitive interpretation procedures, these studies are too general to give a clear and distinct account for the cognitive mechanism of TS.Illuminated by the previous researches, the present study aims at a comprehensive interpretation of TS production and comprehension based on two important theories in cognitive linguistics and pragmatics—Relevance Theory and Model-based Pragmatic Reasoning Theory. We indicate that both participants in communication are guided by the principle of"search for relevance"in"cognitive environment"to derive the explicit expression or infer the intended meaning of TS and finally accomplish the task of grasping the wit and humor in it.The main findings of the thesis are as follows: Firstly, in communication, both speaker and hearer are subject to the law of"search for relevance"either in TS production process analyzed in Framework of Autonomy-dependence or TS comprehension path analyzed in Framework of Explicit-implicit Inference. Secondly, the present study has added some new elements which can strength the explanatory power of the former theory by bringing the key notion"Relevance", which shows the tendency of human cognition to be geared to the maximization of relevance into former Model-based Pragmatic Reasoning Theory. Thirdly, through the interface between cognitive linguistics and pragmatics, the inquiry into the underlying cognitive mechanism of TS production and comprehension in the present study will benefit the analysis of other language phenomena.This present study not only gives a reasonable and all-round explanation of the cognitive mechanism of TS, but also provides us with valuable insights into the cognitive mechanism which underlie other linguistic phenomena.