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Study of Irony on Principle of Relevance

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DOI: 10.23977/langl.2024.070815 | Downloads: 11 | Views: 154

Author(s)

Sun An 1

Affiliation(s)

1 Humanities School, Shanghai Open University, Shanghai, 200433, China

Corresponding Author

Sun An

ABSTRACT

This paper shows how irony is explained as echoic mention by following the principle of relevance. According to this analysis, ironic utterances are essentially concerned with the speakers' attitudes. A listener does not finish understanding irony until he is reminded in an echoic way of some familiar proposition, and of the speaker's attitude about it. Empirical research shows that the analysis of irony as echoic mention better captures the psychological process of understanding irony. The paper first introduces the explanation of irony as echoic mention on the principle of relevance; then it tells the reader how to detect irony; finally it points out there are three kinds of ironic utterances: an ironic utterance consisting solely of propositions, one carrying suggestions of attitude, and one carrying suggestions of images. Compared with traditional methods, it is possible for the framework of echoic mention to describe a wider range of examples of irony in more detail.

KEYWORDS

Irony; Echoic mention; Principle of relevance

CITE THIS PAPER

Sun An, Study of Irony on Principle of Relevance. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2024) Vol. 7: 107-113. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2024.070815.

REFERENCES

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