The Interpretation of the Irony in Pride and Prejudice from the Perspective of Speech Act Theory

董天++牛敬敏

Abstract：The employment of irony makes Pride and Prejudice become one of the most significant novels in the world. The paper tries to make a application of speech act theory to the analysis of irony in Pride and Prejudice.

Key words：speech act theory; irony中圖分類號：G648文獻標識碼：B文章編號：1672-1578（2014）16-0012-011.Introduction

Austin is one of famous British realistic critic. Pride and Prejudice is her masterpiece. Her works display such shrewd wit, delicate irony, and accomplished characterizations that Jane Austen now ranks as a master of the English novel and contributes a lot to literary world. To analyze literary works by way of linguistics is seldom. In this paper, the novel is analysed in terms of speech act theory.

2. Irony and Speech Act Theory

The term irony is derived from the greek iron. It means that the appearance of things differs from their reality, whether in terms of meaning, situation, or action. It is ironical when there is a difference between what is spoken and what is meant. Irony is the most important symbol in Jane Austen's novels.

Speech act theory is the core theory in Pragmatics. Its theory is applied to the interpretation of words and the analysis of the relationship between rhetoric and human speech-act. Assertives, directives, commissives, cxpressives, declaratives are speech acts in illucutionary act. Here, we just focus our analysis on the Illocutionary Act: an act which is to show the speaker's intention.

3. Analysis of Illocutionary Acts and Irony in Pride and Prejudice

3.1Analysis of assertive irony. Assertives are the kind of speech acts that commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed propositions, such as the statements of facts, assertions, descriptions, and conclusions. The verbs used, such as assert, state, claim, affirm, deny, inform, notify, remind etc.

In the first chapte Mr. Bennrt said to his wife:

"I see no occasion for that. … Mr . Bingley may like you the best of the party ."

Actually Mr. Bennet intends to kill his wife's idea about visiting their neighbour and to some extent make fun of his wife. Therefore, this is Mr. Bennet's assertion of irony objecting to his wife's idea. The implied meaning is that Mr, Bennet does not want to visit his neighbour and marry one of his daughters to him.

3.2Analysis of directive irony.Derectives are the kind of speech acts which are attempts to get the hearer to do something such as ordering, commanding, requesting, advising. The verbs, for instentce, request, ask, urge, demand, order, advise, beg and so on.

In chapter seven, when Jane received a letter from Miss. Bingley, Jane intends to have a dinner with her and wants to have a carriage. But her mother does not agree and says:

"No, my dear … stay all night "

"That would be a good scheme …send her home."

"Oh! I am not afraid of her dying."

The last sentence of Mrs. Bennet belongs to directive irony. As parents , they are concerned with their children carefully and selflessly. But Mrs. Bennet says she is not afraid of Jane's dying. It is obviously an absurd order.

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3.3Analysis of commissive irony.In the case of commissives, the speakers are committed to some future course of action such as promising, offering, threatening, refusing and pledging. The verbs such as promise, commit, vow, offer, refuse, guarantee, undertake express the speaker's intention.

To take a conversation between Mr Bennet and Mrs Bennet as example:

Mr．Bennet："You are over scrupulous surely．I dare say Mr．Bingley will be very glad to see you；andl will send a few lines ?"The words performed by Mr Bennet was descriped as "send a few lines". This action is a classicial commisive ironic speech act. Throgh the sincereless promise, Mr Bennet was ridiculing his wife again. One could clearly understand what Mrs Bennet always thinking about was looking for rich bachlors.

3.4Analysis of expressive irony.When Searle uses expressives, the spearker expresses what he feels, a kind of psychological state such as thanking, liking, disliking, blaming, pardoning and praising.

In chapter three of the book, after Lydia eloped with Wickham, to one's surprise, Lydia says：

"?You (Mrs．Bennet) and papa，and my sisters，mustcome down and see us．We shall be at Newcastle all the winter，and l dare say there will be some balls… I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over."

"I thank you for my share of the favor．"said Elizabeth；"but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands"

In this way, she criticised Lydia's immoral behaviour, no wonder Elizabeth can not help to throw out innuendoes against her "I thank you for my share of favor". It is not hard for us to imagine Elizabeth's tone for Lydia.

3.5Analysis of declarative irony.Declarations are the kind of speech acts that effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and that tend to rely on elaborate extralinguistic institutions. The verbs used to express are: declare, nominate, appoint, name, christen, bless, resign and so on. There is the conversation between Elizabeth and Mrs. Catherine in chapter in chapter fourteen. Lady Catherine is proud. She declares:

"…Do not expect …by any of us."(Austen,2008:325)

Lady Catherine here performs declarative act, through which she hopes to change the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy. But ironically her declaration doesn't receive the result she wants.

4. Conclusion

In the whole novel, one can find many ironies and try to analyze them both from different aspects. The results of the study not only show that the real intentions of the dialogues illustrated from the perspective of linguistic analysis. Last but not least pragmatic theories can also be used to analyze other novels.

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