Production Mechanism Of Understatement: An AEW Model

Understatement is a common figure of speech in use. It means the speaker statesan event to provide necessary information by use of low-pitched expressions whichconvey certain kind of subjectively emotional overtones, so that the recipient will getinto the information in a much more subtle and euphemistic way accompanying animplication of irony, prudence, humor or other effects respectively according todifferent contexts. Here we must make one point clear that understatement is actuallya means of strengthening the speech effect, from this perspective, the “tone” of thespeaker is not low. Many scholars have long studied understatement in many fieldsfrom various angles, which include rhetorical, semantic, psychological, sociological,pragmatic and cognitive perspective of the related researches, from which we can findthat there is not yet a systematic and comprehensive theory to explain understatementconvincingly, and those taking all the possible factors such as linguistic,extra-linguistic and cognitive aspects into consideration are even fewer.Based on the previous researches and limitations therein, we try to construct ourtheory framework by integrating the Adaptation Theory, the Event-domain CognitiveModel (ECM) and the Windowing of Attention, and get our new model-----AEW,combining with some related data taken from the collected stories meticulouslyselected, we try to give an overall explanation to understatement both from macro-andmicro-perspective: the adaptation of cognitive world is the social and psychologicalcriteria of understatement; ECM constitutes the cognitive basis of understatement; thewindowing of attention becomes the means of construal of understatement.The thesis consists of five parts:Chapter One is a brief introduction, which includes the rationale and significance,objectives, methodology and layout of the research.Chapter Two gives a brief introduction of understatement from the definition,characteristics and manifestations of the expression, and then makes a general reviewof related studies from angles of rhetorics, semantics, psychology, sociology,pragmatics and cognitive researches. In Chapter Three, we put forward our theoretical framework AEW based on thelimitations of the previous studies. The model AEW is integrated by the AdaptationTheory, the Event-domain Cognitive Model (ECM) and the Windowing of Attentionon the basis of careful examination of the three’s respective limitations and overallcomplementation.In Chapter Four, we try to analyze understatement from different linguistic levels,which include lexical, grammatical and semantic perspective. And then the internalcognitive mechanism of understatement is further elaborated and cases studies arenext employed for the application of the new model to further illustrate itscomprehensive explanatory power for understatement.Chapter five draws a conclusion of this paper, in which the major findings andlimitations are summarized, and at the same time the expectations and suggestions arepointed out for further researches on understatement.