A Cognitive Approach To The Construal Mechanism Of Irony

The study aims at analyzing the construal mechanism of irony by means ofintegrating two important theories, namely, Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) andReference-Point Theory (RP).Irony, as a unique linguistic phenomenon, has gained its popularity sinceancient Greece. It can be seen in various fields, such as daily conversation, TV series,advertisement, news, etc. Previous studies on irony, however, mainly focus on itsdefinitions, classifications, properties and functions. Most studies on the construalmechanism of irony are limited to the interpretation of verbal irony, having adisregard of other types of irony, such as situational irony. Additionally, theco-occurrence of irony and other tropes also deserve to be mentioned. All these leavemuch room for further studies from different perspectives. Therefore, this thesis putsforward CBT~+to analyze irony from the view of cognition, and discuss the construalmechanism underlying irony.The thesis analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of CBT and RP respectively,and then points out that CBT lacks the demonstration of coherence and theexplanation of the motive force for interpretation, while RP pays inadequate attentionto the process of blending in interpreting irony but has the power of presenting thecoherence of cognition and the guidance on the comprehension process, due to whichan integrated model CBT~+is established, so that irony can be interpreted by thecombination of their advantages. In addition, the thesis, to some extent, paysattention to both verbal and situational irony, as well as the co-occurrence of ironyand other common tropes. Visual ironic situations are also included. Based on thenewly integrated CBT~+model, it is finally found that the interpretation of irony is adynamic cognitive process during which two input spaces are activated and established with the help of cognitive reference points, and the intended meaning isrealized by means of blending and inference.