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According to this maxim, the speaker should offer some relevant information to the topic. In daily conversation, speakers usually say something seems to be relevant, or give an irrelevant answer to the hearer. In this way, always comes the humor.
Hyperbole
The usage of hyperbole always presents a strong feeling or gets the emphasis intention. Nevertheless, in this maxim, the usage of hyperbole has achieved the ironical effect, which will be presented in the following example in Friends.
Example
Chandler: Well, what? What? What is it? That she left you? That she likes women? That she left you for another woman that likes women?
Ross: Little louder, okay, I think there’s a man on the twelfth floor in coma that didn’t quite hear you…
In this context, Ross is not proud of the fact that his ex-wife left him for another woman. He wants some sympathy and comfort, while Chandler repast the fact over and over, with aloud voice. Ross felt terrible, so he answered the irrelevant answer and said a man on the twelfth floor didn’t quite hear, is an evident sentence by using hyperbole. Humorous atmosphere is constructed by hyperbole and so does the ironic effect.
Irony
Here is an example from the sitcom The Big Bang Theory
Example
Sheldon: Are you saying that you think a “Celebration Pie” is even remotely comparable to a Noble Prize.
Penny: Well, they’re pretty tasty.
The background is that Penny attempted to console Sheldon for his failure to apply for the Nobel Price. Sheldon implied that he couldn’t understand penny to take the two things into comparison. However, Penny was still lost herself in the good old days. She answered “they’re pretty tasty”, which was so relevant to Sheldon’s question. Meanwhile, the ironic tone reflected humorous effect.
The findings in this thesis, we can conclude that: firstly, the usage of Hyperbole and Irony in violating the maxim of Relevance can achieve emphasis, exaggeration, and meanwhile can achieve ironic effect as well.
作者简介:田茜蒙(1990-),女,陕西西安人,西北大学外国语学院,2012级翻译硕士。
Hyperbole
The usage of hyperbole always presents a strong feeling or gets the emphasis intention. Nevertheless, in this maxim, the usage of hyperbole has achieved the ironical effect, which will be presented in the following example in Friends.
Example
Chandler: Well, what? What? What is it? That she left you? That she likes women? That she left you for another woman that likes women?
Ross: Little louder, okay, I think there’s a man on the twelfth floor in coma that didn’t quite hear you…
In this context, Ross is not proud of the fact that his ex-wife left him for another woman. He wants some sympathy and comfort, while Chandler repast the fact over and over, with aloud voice. Ross felt terrible, so he answered the irrelevant answer and said a man on the twelfth floor didn’t quite hear, is an evident sentence by using hyperbole. Humorous atmosphere is constructed by hyperbole and so does the ironic effect.
Irony
Here is an example from the sitcom The Big Bang Theory
Example
Sheldon: Are you saying that you think a “Celebration Pie” is even remotely comparable to a Noble Prize.
Penny: Well, they’re pretty tasty.
The background is that Penny attempted to console Sheldon for his failure to apply for the Nobel Price. Sheldon implied that he couldn’t understand penny to take the two things into comparison. However, Penny was still lost herself in the good old days. She answered “they’re pretty tasty”, which was so relevant to Sheldon’s question. Meanwhile, the ironic tone reflected humorous effect.
The findings in this thesis, we can conclude that: firstly, the usage of Hyperbole and Irony in violating the maxim of Relevance can achieve emphasis, exaggeration, and meanwhile can achieve ironic effect as well.
作者简介:田茜蒙(1990-),女,陕西西安人,西北大学外国语学院,2012级翻译硕士。