A Study Of Deliberate Misinterpretation In The Big Bang Theory From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Deliberate misinterpretation appeals commonly in our daily communication aswell as in literary works. It occurs when the hearer understands the speaker correctlybut gives utterances which are different from the speaker’s point of view intentionallyin order to acquire certain communicative goals.The current study performs a qualitative approach to deliberate misinterpretationwhich occurs in day-to-day communication in accordance to Relevance Theory.Relevance Theory is a new theory introduced to pragmatics; it attempts to answer notonly philosophical propositions about the innate character of communication but alsopsychological topics about how the interpretation course operated in the hearer’sthought. Generally speaking, the Relevance Theory provides a general explanation ofutterance interpretation since it regards human communicative interaction as dynamicinteraction rather than static state between the addresser and the addressee. Because ofits general applicability and high explanatory power, Relevance Theory is engaged inexplaining the particular phenomenon of deliberate misinterpretation.With Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory as the general theoreticalframework and based on the research results of related studies at home and abroad，this study attempts to answer the following two questions：(1) How many kinds ofdeliberate misinterpretation in The Big Bang Theory? And (2)What is the realizationmechanism of deliberate misinterpretation?The English situation comedy The Big Bang Theory is chosen as the data sourcefor this study. With the video version and the transcripts of this play at hand,conversations containing deliberate misinterpretation are labeled, collected andanalyzed systematically.Deliberate misinterpretation can be classified into deliberate misinterpretation of explicit meaning and deliberate misinterpretation of implicit meaning based on thedistinction between explicature and implicature conveyed in the speaker’s utteranceproposed by Relevance Theory. Deliberate misinterpretation of explicit meaning canbe further categorized into deliberate misinterpretation of propositions, deliberatemisinterpretation of deictic expressions and so on. And deliberate misinterpretation ofimplicit meaning can be classified into deliberate misinterpretation of indirect speechacts, of conversational implicature and of figurative language.The realization mechanisms of deliberate misinterpretation can be studied fromthe perspective of the speaker and the perspective of the hearer based on RelevanceTheory’s ostensive-inferential communication and cognitive context. The speaker’sutterance provides the prerequisite for the hearer to realize deliberatemisinterpretation, so it can be regarded as the external factors；the hearer, who utilizesthe triggers contained in the speaker’s discourse, can make use of various means toachieve the effect of deliberate misinterpretation, so the hearer’s utterance can beregarded as the internal factors for the realization of deliberate misinterpretation. Theexternal factors for deliberate misinterpretation are categorized into explicitindeterminacy in the speaker’s utterance and implicit indeterminacy in the speaker’sconversational utterance.The study of deliberate misinterpretation in the English situation comedy TheBig Bang Theory from the perspective of Relevance Theory expands the researchscope of the pragmatic study of this linguistic phenomenon. Hopefully, it will helppromote the conduction of everyday interlocution as well as cross-culturalcommunication and the sound interpersonal relationship．At the same time, it providesenlightenment for English language teaching and learning.