The Humor Feature and Pragmatic Function of Verbal Irony 英语专业(毕业论文).docVIP

PAGE PAGE 15 The Humor Feature and Pragmatic Function of Verbal Irony Contents Acknowledgements = 1 \* roman i TOC \o 1-1 \u Abstract（English） = 1 \* roman ii TOC \o 1-1 \u Abstract（Chinese） = 2 \* roman iii TOC \o 1-2 \u 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction to irony 1 1.1.1 Definition of irony 1 1.1.2 Classification of irony 2 1.2 Introduction to verbal humor 3 1.3 Introduction to this thesis 3 TOC \o 1-2 \u 2. Irony and the cooperative principle 3 2.1 The cooperative principle 3 2.2 Irony as violation of CP 4 TOC \o 1-3 \u 3. Irony and verbal humor 5 3.1 Verbal humor 5 3.2 The humor feature of irony 6 4. Pragmatic functions of irony 7 4.1 Discontent function 7 4.2 Satire function 8 4.3 Polite function 8 4.4 Affection function 9 4.5 Emphasis function 9 4.6 Humor function 10 5. Conculsion 11 Works Cited 12 Abstract Verbal irony, as a widely used figure of speech, has received considerable attention from cognitive psychologists and linguists. The traditional study of verbal irony from rhetorical and aesthetical approaches has been shifted to current cognitive and pragmatic investigation. In this paper, focus will be laid upon the humor feature of verbal irony from the perspective of pragmatics. First, through the comparison of different kinds of definitions of irony, a general idea about what is irony is established. Then, this paper examines the Cooperative Principle (CP for short) of American linguist Grice which put forwards that irony acts as a violation of CP. Finally, with the analysis of the pragmatic functions of irony, the humor feature of verbal irony can be well displayed. Irony can be classified into six types from the perspective of pragmatic functions as follows: irony for discontent, irony for satire, irony for polite, irony for affection, irony for emphasis and irony for humor. This paper makes a summary that the humor feature of irony is its basic feature, also well reflected in the pragmatic functions. Key