Abstract:

This thesis is aimed at giving a brief analysis of verbal irony from the perspective of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, using corpus in The Big Bang Theory, one of the most popular English sitcoms in the world at present. In the process of analysis, this thesis will focus on using echoic-interpretation theory of irony and the relevance-theoretic approach to context and mutuality to explain the realization and understanding of verbal irony. Through analysis of verbal irony in The Big Bang Theory, some conclusions can be made: Relevance Theory has strong explanatory power and feasibility to verbal irony in sitcoms. It provides a new perspective for verbal irony study. In addition, the Relevance Theory plays an important role in explaining the realization and understanding of verbal irony. Based on the study, we can gain a better understanding of verbal irony and the Relevance Theory. The thesis will help people ,in the final analysis, know how to use verbal irony better in daily communication and understand why verbal irony are frequently used and the motives for people to use it.

Key words: Verbal irony; Relevance theory; English sitcom: The Big Bang Theory

摘要：

本论文将从关联理论出发，以当今世界深受欢迎的英语情景喜剧《生活大爆炸》为语料，对言语反讽的产生与理解进行解释。在分析过程中，本论文将重点运用关联理论中的回声解释理论和语境原则解释言语反讽的实现方式和理解。通过对《生活大爆炸》中言语反讽的研究，得出了以下结论：关联理论在言语反讽方面极强解释性和实用性，并为言语反讽的研究提供了新的视角，在解释言语反讽的实现方式和理解方面发挥着重要作用。基于本文的研究，人们可更加有效地理解和运用反讽进行交际，这样不仅有利于人们更好地从本质意义上掌握言语反讽使用的真正过程,而且也有利于人们更深刻地了解言语交际中反讽意欲表达的动机和频繁出现的原因。

关键词：言语反讽；关联理论；英语情景喜剧：《生活大爆炸》

1. Introduction
Verbal irony, as a simple and common language phenomenon, plays an important role in daily communication. People use it quite often to convey their meaning and attitudes. The study of verbal irony has a long history. Scholars from a variety of fields pay great attention to it. Verbal irony is regarded as a rhetorical device for many years. It is not until recent years that verbal irony has been studied from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics. With the introduction of the relevance theory, a heat discussion has been aroused within scholars studying verbal irony. The relevance theory receives a lot of support as well as much criticism. This thesis will focus on explaining the nature, realization and operative mechanism of verbal irony under the framework of the relevance theory, which gives great power to the interpretation of ironical utterance in verbal communication.