Relevance-theoretic Research On Verbal Irony In Pudd'nhead Wilson

As a general linguistic phenomenon in verbal communication, verbal irony has drawn many scholars'attention. Especially with the development of pragmatics, more and more linguists have started to research the cognitive-pragmatic mechanism of verbal irony. In actual research, however, people prefer to study the verbal irony phenomenon in daily life, and most of the examples are created by the researchers themselves, who would subconsciously, at least in part, choose the needed utterances and contexts to cater to their own demands. The study on verbal irony in literary work is relatively less.The thesis, based on the echoic-interpretation theory of irony within the framework of Relevance Theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson, applies the method of qualitative analysis and studies the specific verbal irony cases in the novel Pudd'nhead Wilson written by Mark Twain. As the essential theory of the cognitive-pramatics, Relevance Theory holds that verbal communication is a process of mutual manifestness from cognition to inference. The purpose of communication is to achieve the optimal relevance. Verbal irony is also governed by the principle of relevance as other verbal communications. The echoic-interpretation theory of irony within the framework of Relevance Theory holds that verbal irony can be classified into three types: direct and immediate echoes; echoes (real or imaginary) of attributed thoughts and opinions; echoes of social norms or standard expectations. At the same time, the user of verbal irony expresses his rejecting or disapproving attitude so as to achieve the sarcasms. The thesis, taking the specific verbal irony phenomenon in the literary work Pudd'nhead Wilson as examples, studies the verbal irony in chapter four according to the three echoic types by the different attributed contents from the perspective of verbal irony users. In chapter five, it proposes an echoic inferential model together with the contextual activation in terms of verbal irony receiver, which helps the verbal irony receiver comprehend verbal irony better. And then the readers understand the whole literary work deeply.Therefore, on one hand, the study on the verbal irony cases in Pudd'nhead Wilson proves the feasibility and the strong explanatory power of echoic-interpretation theory of irony within the framework of Relevance Theory in the literary text; on the other hand, this theory provides a new perspective on the unique charm of Mark Twain's art of verbal irony.