Literary Pragmatic Study On Irony In "Sense And Sensibility"

The 70s of the last century saw the thriving development of both Linguistics and Literary Criticism. The new introduction of Reader-Oriented Theory facilitates the development of many interdisciplinarities, such as, Literary Pragmatics. Literary Pragmatics explores the socioculture affiliation of writer and readers from the pragmatic perspective. And its essence maintained by literary pragmaticians highlights that the process of writing and that of reading could be considered as the conversation between writer and readers. In such a conversation, on the one hand, the literary text acts as an access which enables writer to convey his or her intention to readers; on the other hand, readers would analyze the text and infer the true meaning of the writer as what the listener always does in daily conversation. In this way, readers could have a review on the social reality. Literary Pragmatics is a powerful tool to do the discourse analysis. It could testify and verify its effectiveness in text interpretation. And the most marvelous quality is that Literary Pragmatics could directly and indirectly reveal the theme of a literary work from macro and micro perspectives. However, nowadays, especially in China, Literary Pragmatics is a stranger to many scholars. For this reason, this thesis commits itself to apply Literary Pragmatics to carry out a speech act analysis of irony in British female writer Jane Austen's"Sense and Sensibility", to unveil her intention and the themes of this novel. At the same time, this thesis would also offer the readers hard evidence that in addition to the capacity of interpreting the utterances; of revealing the theme of a work; of assisting readers to have a deeper understanding and perception on the work, Literary Pragmatics also owns the capacity to touch readers'psychological process and mental mechanism.This thesis consists of six chapters.The first chapter is the introduction of the whole thesis. It begins with the history and the current status of Literary Pragmatics in the world, and then it quotes the definition of Literary Pragmatics and points out the significance and aims of this thesis, and then it briefs on Jane Austen's works and her art of irony. At last, it introduces the material origins and the organization of the thesis.The second chapter is literature review. It expounds on the interrelation between writer and readers, and details on the marriage between the essence of Literary Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory. Since the conversation between writer and readers could reflect the social and psychological reality, the essential description on it is indispensable. In the field of Literary Pragmatics, Literature, with its own appropriate conditions, becomes a specific speech act which would be classified into two types: Macro-Speech Act and Micro-Speech Act. The former ones defined from a macro perspective refer to the speech acts done by the writer as he or she communicates with readers through the text. To certain extent, Macro-Speech Acts reflect the theme of the work; the latter ones defined from the micro perspective are done by the characters in the novel as they are talking with each other. These two types correlate and cooperate with one another.The third chapter is also the literature review. Different from the previous one, it focuses on the overview of theories of speech acts: the first is J. L. Austin's three kinds of speech acts, i.e. the locutionary act, the illocutionary act and perlocutionary act; the second is about Austin's felicity conditions and Searle's development on it; the third embarks on the details of Searle's direct speech acts and indirect speech acts; the last is the intrinsic relation between Speech Acts and Irony. The narration on all these basic theories is to pave the way for the analysis in the next two chapters, and at the same time, they all together cohere with the previous chapter.The fourth chapter carries out the macro speech act analysis of macro irony (situational irony or dramatic irony) in"Sense and Sensibility". To Marianne Dashwood, Lucy Steele and Robert Ferrars, there are strong contrast and converse between their final fate designed by Jane Austen and their own imagined one (as well as contrast with readers'predictions on the plot). It is the very converse and contrasts that enable the writer's ironical attitude to come to the spotlight and it is just the converse and contrasts that enable the readers little by little to trace the writer's intention behind the irony. One the one hand, such a design on characters'fate by writer not only aims to show the ironic illocutionary force to the readers, but also wish to make them unveil the two themes of"Sense and Sensibility": the first is to criticize and to deny the Gothic-Romantic literary trend in Austen's time; the second is to disclose the hypocrisy and darkness in the bourgeoisie society of the late 18th century. On the other hand, during the reading, readers follow the writer's writing speed, and repeatedly give up their predictions on the structure of novel and characters'fate. When they come to the end of the novel, their heart and soul are both shocked and blown by the strong contrast, and they try to put themselves into the writer's time and society with their existing knowledge in their mind to interpret writer's arrangement. In this way, the themes are clearer and clearer for readers. The thinking process could be considered as the perlocutionary act which is the response to the writer's illocutionary force. Consequently, Macro Irony reflected in the macro conversation between writer and readers is very powerful to interpret the writer's intention.The fifth chapter is occupied by the speech act analysis of micro irony (verbal irony) in"Sense and Sensibility". This chapter is made up of two sections. The first one analyzes the conversation between characters in the novel to discover the irony delivered from one character to another. The second section selects the typical characters'speeches and analyzes the alternation among the five types of speech presentations: Direct Speech, Indirect Speech, Free Direct Speech, Free Indirect Speech, and Narrative Report of Speech Acts. By this means, the character's ridicule is revealed. At the same time, the studies on the alternations among different speech presentations make readers get insight into the revelation of the two themes of the novel once again.The sixth chapter is the conclusion of this thesis. After the analysis of both macro and micro irony in chapter four and five, this thesis shows that Literary Pragmatics has the function to interpret utterance and text, and what is more important is that it could dynamically reveal the theme of the literary work. In addition, this thesis also displays Jane Austen's language art and her ability in portraying character.