An Echoic Study Of Verbal Irony: A Relevance-Theoretic Perspective

This thesis is to propose a theoretic analysis of irony from the relevance-theoretic perspective. The main achievements of the thesis are that the thesis presents an attentive systematic analysis of echoic types of irony and further puts forward an echoic inferential procedure of irony comprehension; thus it surpasses to a certain extent the previous relevance-theoretic accounts of irony, which understand the echoic nature of irony too generally. Moreover the thesis carries out a formula for processing effort involved in irony comprehension. This work is based on a classified understanding of contextual information sources involved in irony comprehension. This formula can be perceived as an instructive grope in the field of psycholinguistic study of irony. The echoic inferential procedure and the processing effort formula are closely connected from an echoic view and differ from other echoic approaches to irony. They make up a new echoic account of irony.The thesis is made up of the following parts:Firstly, the thesis clarifies the term irony and verbal irony. It presents a classification of irony to assert the meaning of verbal irony and testify the reason why among all irony varieties only verbal irony is subject to relevance-theoretic analysis (and afterwards the ironic cases presented in the thesis are all verbal ones).Secondly, the thesis makes an overview of a few representational claims on irony interpretation and enumerates their respective weak points to highlight the explanatory power of relevance theory. Then it further demonstrates the framework of relevance theory concerning irony interpretation. However, the thesis does not boast of the view that relevance-theoretic account of irony is perfect. Relevance theory treats irony as dissociative echoic use, but the previous relevance-theoretic approaches to irony do not surpass the limitation of general echoic understanding. Therefore the thesis carries out an analysis of specific echoic types of irony, aiming to make complements to both relevance theory and a relevance-theoretic approach to irony.Then the thesis illustrates how the notion irony is accessed according to echoicaccount, i.e., irony is perceived as implicit interpretive echoic use with a dissociative attitude. All the features of irony, "implicit", "interpretive", "echoic", and "dissociative", are elaborated and exemplified to distinguish irony from other language uses. Furthermore the thesis puts forward a systematic analysis of echoic types of irony, which depends heavily on the guidance of relevance theory and which is important for irony interpretation, especially for irony target identification. The thesis claims that relevance principles act as the channel between the utterance and the context, and the hearer of the utterance observes the principle of relevance so as to clarify the echoic type of the very ironic utterance (if it is one) in the context and further infers the attitudes and implications of the utterance. So far the thesis reaches a postulation of an echoic inferential procedure of irony comprehension: the hearer, observing the principle of relevance, decides the echoic type of the utterance via the combination of the utterance and the context. Then if the echoic type carries a dissociative attitude, the utterance is interpreted as an irony; and the attitudes, implications, and other elements attached to the ironic utterance can be inferred. A trait of this inferential procedure finds its demonstration in the study of irony target identification, which was beyond research on a formal level before. The thesis exemplifies that the target of irony is usually the originator of the echoed utterance or thought unless the echoed part has an already attributed specific individual that is manifest to both the speaker and the hearer. Then the very individual is the target of irony.Finally, an inferential procedure is not enough for a total understanding of irony because it neglects the processing effort involved in recognizing and interpreting irony. Therefore, the thesis proposes a formula estimating the processing effort made in understanding irony. As the term suggests, processing effort refers to the amount of effort made in mental process, which is at present beyond linguistic and pragmatic ken. Relevance theorists can only work out the factors affecting processing effort instead of making a precise evaluation of the amount made. Cognitive researchers hypothesize that human beings have an inherent capacity of accessing simultaneously the information provided by different contextual sources, and in reality, hearers areconstantly accessing multiple contextual sources throughout any exchange. Therefore the hearer often has already activated much contextual information a long time before an irony-like utterance shows up. In another word, what takes place in the processing is not so much an "ad hoc activation" as a previously activated contextual source. The thesis then, in the formula, labels the processing effort involved in the previous activation of contextual information and the utterance proposition as amount "E", the effort involved in irony recognition as amount "ER", and the effort involved in irony interpretation as amount "El". Here "E", "ER", and "El" are all abstract labels of processing effort amount instead of precise calculation. They are the variables and constant in the formula.It may be elusive to distinguish "irony recognition" from "irony interpretation" without clear explanation. Here the thesis divides irony comprehension into two stages: irony recognition and irony interpretation. "Irony recognition" refers to the stage where the hearer detects a certain attitude in the utterance to stimulate him for further process. Strictly speaking "irony recognition" does not make clear an ironic use. "Irony interpretation" refers to the overall task of both echoic type judgment and irony target identification, thus it refers to the final understanding of irony. This differentiation paves the way for the further research.The thesis alters Yus's classification of contextual information into two groups, namely, dominant contextual source (labeled as Ii) and auxiliary one (I2), each with respective subordinate types. In the formula the thesis labels each subordinate type of contextual source as one unit of information. When in context there are N subordinate types of the dominant contextual source contradicting utterance proposition, then the dominant contextual source group has N units of information and Ii=N. When in context there are M subordinate types of the auxiliary contextual source, then the auxiliary contextual source group has M units of information and I2=M. The division of contextual sources into two groups means to claim that the dominant contextual source functions in both irony recognition and interpretation, while the auxiliary group only contributes to irony recognition. Afterwards, the thesis puts forward aprocessing effort formula: ER = E + a / (Ii+ h)> El = E + a / Ii(when in context there is dominant contextual source or both dominant and auxiliary ones) and ER = El = E (when in context there is no dominant or auxiliary contextual source). The aim of the formula is to testify that contextual information plays a significant role in irony recognition and interpretation, and different sources of information function to different extent and in different aspects. In the formula, "Ii" and "I2" are independent variables, "ER" and "El" are dependent variables, "E" and "a" are constants. The formula shows: 1) The more "Ii" and "I2", the less ER. Then irony is easily recognized. 2) The more "Ii", the less El. Then irony is easily interpreted. 3) If Ii=0 and 12=0, ER = El = E. Then the utterance is understood as its proposition. The point should be made that the "a" in the formula intends to testify that even if the units of information in the dominant group and/or the auxiliary group are equal in two respective ironic utterances' contexts, the processing efforts required by the two utterances may not be the same (i.e., the "a" in different contexts may be different). By the way, the extra processing efforts other than E, a / (Ii+ I2) and a / Ii in the formula, are warranted by the extra contextual effects induced by ironic understanding of an utterance other than its explicit comprehension (which costs processing effort E). Thus the formula is concordant with the effort-effect illumination in relevance theory.Relevance theory is proposed from a pragma-cognitive perspective. Therefore the relevance-theoretic study of irony presented here not only contributes to the pragmatic research on irony, but also provides some meaningful suggestions for studying irony from a cognitive and even psycholinguistic viewpoint. The thesis puts forward a new echoic account of irony, which consists of an echoic inferential procedure and a processing effort formula. The inferential procedure pays special attention to the systematic analysis of the echoic types of irony. Therefore it overcomes the limitations of previous relevance-theoretic accounts of irony. The processing effort formula testifies the relationship between contextual information sources and processing efforts involved in irony comprehension. It does supply some clues for future psycholinguistic research on irony.