The Generation Of Intended Misinterpretation By Attribution Theory

Intended misinterpretation is a linguistic strategy, which hides the interlocutors' motivation during the conversation. The present research analyzes the generation of intended misinterpretation by Attribution Theory from the perspective of psychology. This research mainly belongs to a qualitative study based on the data collected from daily communications, literary works, jokes and excerpts from some previous studies. Methodologically speaking, this study adopts a research-literature survey, compiling studies that others have conducted, then interpreting those studies from a novel perspective in order to reveal the diversities among the existing studies.Little attention has been paid to intended misinterpretation by scholars at home and abroad. It is only referred to in the field of pragmatics, together with misunderstanding, ambiguity and some other related subjects. It has been investigated from the pragmatic approach, the approach of figure of speech and the approach of logics. However, intended misinterpretation has not been discussed based on Attribution Theory in the theory of Motivation. Therefore, the conceptual framework is constructed on the basis of Motivation Theory; specifically speaking, we have adopted one of its theories, which is Attribution Theory. Intended misinterpretation, with careful observation of the examples, has been discussed mainly from the functions of Attribution Theory, which include the change of expectation, the response of emotion of the speaker and the variety of attitude. This is because this theory can reveal what behind each interlocutor's utterances. At last, three functions of intended misinterpretation will also be concluded in the study.Through study, we achieved some major findings. Firstly, the definition of intended misinterpretation has been concluded in the present study, "intended misinterpretation in general refers to the linguistic phenomenon in which the speaker wants to express A, and the listener understands A well, but the listener consciously misinterprets the speaker's meaning and choose the interpretation diverging from the speaker's intention so as to achieve certain effects." Secondly, intended misinterpretation has already been separated from related concepts, such as misunderstanding, inexplicability and ambiguity. Thirdly, from the present study, we can see that the functions of Attribution Theory can explain the examples of intended misinterpretation. In a word, we successfully apply Attribution Theory to intended misinterpretation, which explains the motivation of interlocutors.Since influent conversation depends upon correct understanding, let alone intended misinterpretation; we think that intended misinterpretation is a good method to relieve tension between speakers, produce humorous effect and also defend one's own interest.