The Evasive Answer In English TV Talk Show:a Relevance T Theoretic-based Approach

Evasive answer is a kind of speech act with unique function. This language phenomenon possesses a more distinct feature and richer variability especially in the TV Talk Show than that in daily communications. The Relevance Theory, as a hot issue in the linguistic field these years, provides us a new point of view on the research of evasive answer. On the basis of many scholars’study and conclusion about the strategies of evasive answer, the author makes a redefinition and classification of it. Based on the relevance of evasive answer to the question’s foci, this thesis classifies it into four categories:answering relating to the foci of the question indirectly or directly, answering relating to the foci of the question in the same pragmatic frame or by hedges. Meanwhile this thesis analyzes the features of evasive answer from three new points of view, that is, the communicative intention, linguistic form and conversational implicature. The focus of this thesis is that the generating process of evasive answer’s fraudulence and cognitive psychological process are revealed. The author analyzes the strategies of evasive answer responding to the aggressive questions according to theoretic frame work of Relevance Theory, such as ostensive-inferential communication, code model, and relevance. The causes of fraudulence of evasive answer and the cognitive psychological process of it are also analyzed in this thesis. Meanwhile, according to theory of code model and relevance, this thesis analysis the cognitive process of the four types of evasive answer in detail. This thesis is significant in aspects of promoting communicative competence of people and furthering researches on deceptive utterance.