A Research On Humorous Utterance In Public Speaking From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Humor, an attitude towards life, brings happiness to people by using its wisdom and sagacity. Humorous utterance plays a vital role in not only daily lives but public speaking. It is a lubricant served for personal communication, and even the tool for success. In recent years, researches on humorous utterance by linguists at home and abroad mainly focus on the humorous utterance in novels, sitcoms and other genres or translation and interpretation of humorous utterance under the framework of semantics and rhetorics of linguistics and relevance theory of pragmatics. Up to now, however, none of the researches on humorous utterance of Chinese or foreign linguists has been published. As we all know, public speaking, in modern society, has already played a decisive role in political, academic and other fields. Nevertheless, the researches on public speeches under the guidance of relevance theory are still restricted to the application of pragmatic markers, the function of parentheses and the use of English inversion, but not on humorous utterance which is frequently utilized. the thesis just discussed the application of rhetorical techniques in humorous utterance of public speaking within the framework of relevance theory.Relevance Theory, proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, aims at explaining the ostensive-inferential model of communication perspectives: one that takes into account implicit inferences. The code model, proposed by Sperber and Wilson, describes and explains communication between the speaker and the hearers from a cognitive point of view, but without the inferential interpretation of the communication. The inferential model, proposed by Grice, provides the inferential process of the communication of both sides. Based on these two complementary models, Sperber and Wilson offered a new model, the ostensive-inferential model, to explicate the relevance in communication. They claim that communicators tend to gear the maximization of relevance and the least effort for successful communication. In ostensive communication, however, both sides tend to pursue optimal relevance. The speakers try to express their ideas in a way that can be easily understood by the audience in public speaking, and the hearers make several assumptions and choose the optimal interpretation rather than the maximal interpretation of the speakers? utterance to achieve the optimal effect of communication.This thesis focuses on the rhetorical techniques in humorous utterance of famous people?s public speaking, within the framework of Relevance Theory, by applying the theory of the ostensive-inferential model and that of the two principles of relevance, to analyse the frequency of the rhetorical devices and the application of relevance theory in public speaking. The thesis consists of three chapters. Following the introduction of the research background, chapter one mainly talks about the literature review of public speaking and the application of Relevance Theory into humorous utterance of Public speaking. Chapter two focuses on the framework of Relevance Theory. In chapter three, the material of the application of rhetorical techniques in humorous utterance from famous people in political and academic field is discussed with quantitative and qualitative method within the framework of Relevance Theory, and after the analysis on the communication process of speakers and the audience, the frequency of the rhetorical devices used in public speaking and the application of Relevance Theory come out in the end.