Irony In Downton Abbey: A Pragmatic Study On Speech Acts

Knowing a language involves much more than learning the rules of the language. It is recognized that the speech acts in a language are much more complex than the language itself. One of the good case in point can be related to the frequent employment of irony strategy in communication than the non-irony. By conducting ironic utterance, the speaker conveys not only the literal meaning but also the emotional information and the real meaning. Ironies, therefore, are more and more widely used in daily communications, diplomatic languages, news reports, literary works and advertising languages. Admittedly, irony attracts scholars’ attention, but most of the research seems to focus on the exploration of its features, definitions and comprehensions. There are others who put emphasis on the descriptive analysis of ironies in novels though, the study on effective factors of irony seems largely neglected. To address this issue, Downton Abbey, as one of the hottest pieces of the British TV series, has been administered to ironic speech act analysis in this research.The purpose of the present study was to explore and validate the Speech Act Theory, particularly focused on ironic speech acts distinguished by Van Dijk and Zhu Xiaozhou. In the context of analyzing and appreciating the TV series Downton Abbey, the author attempts to identify the major effects of irony, the main features of irony; and the underlying factors that might affect the function of irony in the given case.In the thesis, the Speech Act Theory is employed to examine the elements relevant to the study of differences in ironic uses manifested in the first two seasons of Downton Abbey. Four research questions are centered to this study:(1) What types of ironic speech acts can be classified in Downton Abbey?(2) What are the main features of the irony manifested in Downton Abbey?(3) What are the factors that impact the adoption of irony, and how do they work?(4) Why are ironic speech acts employed in given case in Downton Abbey?Presented in a quantitative sketch as well as a qualitative view of speech acts in use, the results of the study indicate that the social status of the speaker and the relationship between the speaker and the hearer are two effective factors of the employment of irony. And the pragmatic meaning of the irony is mostly different from its linguistic meaning. It is an understanding that the reader’s knowledge of these distinctions will help build great effectiveness in both the use of language and appreciation of language. Thus, it is assumed that the pragmatic meaning matters in teaching and needs to be taught in the ESL classroom. Besides, the study validates and explores the Speech Act Theory and it sheds light on the pragmatics.