Echoic Mention Theory:A Relevance-theoretic Approach To Verbal Irony

This paper attempts to investigate the echoic mention theory of verbal irony, a relevance-theoretical approach to verbal irony. The main goal of this paper is to prove the explanatory adequacy and completeness of the theory both theoretically and empirically. The paper begins with a brief review of the literature, which shows that traditional and contemporary approaches to and accounts of verbal irony have run into serious problems. Then a comprehensive introduction to the theory and to some of its important theoretical claims is presented in chapter two, followed by a defense of the theory against its dissenters and the empirical investigation of the theory. Later on, the paper tries to explain the linguistic phenomenon of verbal irony in practical language use with the application of the theory under discussion.The conclusion is quite a positive one that the echoic mention theory successfully unifies the three general goals of linguistic theories, namely describing linguistic phenomena, explaining linguistic phenomena, and understanding the cognitive basis of language.