Study On Irony Within The Framework Of Speech Act Theory In Pride And Prejudice

Jane Austen is the most successful female novelist in19th century. Her success is not only attributed to her delicate writing, but to her flexible application of irony in her literature works. Jane Austen can be called as a master of irony, who applies irony in her different works. And irony becomes characteristic of Jane Austen and her literature works. Humorous language derived from irony makes the relationships among characters more colorful and the characters’inner activity becoming more vivid.The development of Speech act theory (SAT) is based on the theories put forth by Austin and Searle respectively, which is a strong push to other linguists’characteristic study on it. Irony is not only a generally-used communicative skill, but also a hot language phenomenon in literature which aroused linguists, writers and even philosophers’interest. The speech act theory and the irony have one thing in common, which is the illocutionary act they both have. Accordingly, the combination of both can enable readers have a better understanding of the literature works. So, the thesis aims to elaborate on the function of irony in Pride and Prejudice within the framework of speech act theory.Ranging from the literal irony and structural irony of macro ironic speech act to the micro ironic speech acts including assertive irony, directive irony, expressive irony and commissive irony, Jane Austen applies them all to her famous work Pride and Prejudice. The application of these ironies not only improves the characters level of being human, but also make the novel stand out as a classic work. Based on the collected data, the thesis combines quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze and study the application of irony. It can be concluded that different ironies account for different percentage in the novel for their specific properties and characteristic. Comparing to structural irony, literal irony is more frequently used in the novel. And among the four categories of micro ironic speech acts, assertive irony ranks the top for its simple application. While as a result of their limitations, directive irony, commissive irony and expressive irony can only be used particular situations and context.