Pride And Prejudice Rhetorical Analysis
This paper intends to analyze and interpret the ironic features of the book Pride and Prejudice by using the relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986/1995) in order to prove that understanding verbal irony can lead to a better comprehension of the literature context.
The author, Jane Austen, was an outstanding British woman novelist in 19th century. Her novels are highly prized not only for the humor or the depiction of the 18th and 19th century English country life, but also for the heavy use of sarcastic techniques. Her special writing techniques, especially the use of verbal irony, exist in all her novels, while Pride and Prejudice is considered the most famous and distinctive one among all of them. It is widely known that …show more content…
According to RT, an ostensive-inferential communication involves two aspects of the communication process. Communication (both linguistic and non-linguistic) is a kind of cognitive activity, interpretation of this cognitive activity is essentially a problem of understanding the cognitive environments of one’s communicative partner(s). Alternatively speaking, the success of communication relies largely on whether the communication participants’ cognitive environments can be manifest and mutually manifest to both communicators. So in relevance theory, mutual manifestations of the cognitive environments are regarded as the basis of successful …show more content…
Meanwhile, many studies have already analyzed verbal irony using different theories, but not with the explanation of relevance theory. This paper tries to connect this particular theory with verbal irony together in order to better understand the underline meaning of the conversations in the book Pride and Prejudges, and further, to offer some suggestions to better recognize and understand verbal irony of such books. Applying relevance theory to analysis verbal irony can actually help to facilitate comprehension of the book. As has been mentioned above, since the theory has its obvious advantages in this field, I believe that the study on the application of relevance theory in analyzing verbal irony can be useful to pragmatic studies on literature work. It can help to explain how to study ironic utterances with the help of relevance theory, and to grasp the essence of ironic utterance,finally, have a better understanding of ironic utterance.
In the following parts, the main body will explore the following questions:
(1)Why does verbal irony seen as an ostensive-inferential process of communication?
(2) How can verbal irony serve the purpose of promoting the development of the plot or shaping the character
The author, Jane Austen, was an outstanding British woman novelist in 19th century. Her novels are highly prized not only for the humor or the depiction of the 18th and 19th century English country life, but also for the heavy use of sarcastic techniques. Her special writing techniques, especially the use of verbal irony, exist in all her novels, while Pride and Prejudice is considered the most famous and distinctive one among all of them. It is widely known that …show more content…
According to RT, an ostensive-inferential communication involves two aspects of the communication process. Communication (both linguistic and non-linguistic) is a kind of cognitive activity, interpretation of this cognitive activity is essentially a problem of understanding the cognitive environments of one’s communicative partner(s). Alternatively speaking, the success of communication relies largely on whether the communication participants’ cognitive environments can be manifest and mutually manifest to both communicators. So in relevance theory, mutual manifestations of the cognitive environments are regarded as the basis of successful …show more content…
Meanwhile, many studies have already analyzed verbal irony using different theories, but not with the explanation of relevance theory. This paper tries to connect this particular theory with verbal irony together in order to better understand the underline meaning of the conversations in the book Pride and Prejudges, and further, to offer some suggestions to better recognize and understand verbal irony of such books. Applying relevance theory to analysis verbal irony can actually help to facilitate comprehension of the book. As has been mentioned above, since the theory has its obvious advantages in this field, I believe that the study on the application of relevance theory in analyzing verbal irony can be useful to pragmatic studies on literature work. It can help to explain how to study ironic utterances with the help of relevance theory, and to grasp the essence of ironic utterance,finally, have a better understanding of ironic utterance.
In the following parts, the main body will explore the following questions:
(1)Why does verbal irony seen as an ostensive-inferential process of communication?
(2) How can verbal irony serve the purpose of promoting the development of the plot or shaping the character