The Analysis On The Identity Procedure In Irony

Irony, a unique and attractive language phenomenon, exists everywhere. It is regarded as not only a rhetorical device but also a means of communication. For a long time, the research on irony evolve from rhetorical field to the field of psychology, linguistics, etc. Some research focused on rhetoric, some paid more attention to structure and others thought pragmatic functions were important. In order to interpret irony deeply, among various schools of irony theories, this paper attempts to re-examine irony in the specific mode of operation from the perspective of discourse properties and its opposite expression using the principle of “identity”as the overall program and cognitive attributes operation as specific model.This paper made an analysis and explanations of irony following Leibniz's principle of “identity”. By virtue of the deficiency of the irony research in cognitive linguistics, the aim of this paper is to conduct a meticulous and in-depth investigation of the so-called Attribute-Connectivity-Transmission model in the interpretation process of irony, which is taken as the cognitive operation model of the latter. Generally speaking, irony holds the trait of the contrast between the whole expression and its relevant attributes, in the procedure of which identity between the above two should be needed. This is the process of attribute transmitted to the expression, forming the connectivity of the two under particular circumstances.This paper consists of six parts. The first part is the introduction, in this part the research background, problems and research purposes were discussed, then research hypothesis were introduced. Then research hypothesis were introduced. The second part is the theoretical framework and literature review. In this part, the author first makes a brief description of the cognitive linguistics, and discusses the Gestalt theory and Leibniz's identity, which is the theoretical basis of this paper. Then the study of irony at home and abroad are described in brief. In this part the advantages and disadvantages of some representative theoretical research were also analyzed, which provide a theoretical background and the platform for the research of irony in this paper. In the third part the research methods and data sources of the research were presented. The fourth part is the main content of this paper, in this part, irony is regarded as a cognitive pragmatic phenomenon. The cognitive features of irony were listed, and the property connectivity-transmission model of irony is constructed by the analysis of examples. Then in the fifth part, the influence of context on irony were discussed as a question. Finally, the sixth part makes a brief summary of the significance and the deficiency of this study.