Analysis of Speech Humor in Crosstalk From Principles of Cooperation and Relevance Theory

Cross talk is one of the unique performing arts in China, and most crosstalk gives the audience happy feelings through the delivery of humorous language. This paper interprets the generation of humor in crosstalk through the cooperation principles and the relevance theory, and the generation of the humorous results comes from the contrast between ostensive-inference model and the contrast between maximal relevance and optimal relevance.

Kerelevanan Optimum dalam Terjemahan Sifat Allah dalam Al-Quran ke Bahasa Inggeris: Analisis Baseer dalam Surah Al-Isra’

Al-Quran adalah teks suci yang mengandungi ciri-ciri linguistik dan retorik yang adakalanya menjangkau kemampuan aspek semantik untuk menerangkannya. Sifat Allah merupakan istilah khusus Al-Quran yang tidak dapat diterjemahkan hanya dengan melihat makna semantik semata-mata, kerana mengandungi makna khusus yang merujuk kepada sifat Ketuhanan. Dalam fenomena seperti ini, penterjemah disaran menggunakan pendekatan pragmatik yang menafsirkan makna ujaran dan menyampaikan maklumat berdasarkan konteks ayat untuk memberi pemahaman yang jelas tentang makna sebenar ujaran tersebut kepada pembaca bahasa sasaran, agar dapat mencapai tahap kerelevanan optimum. Kajian ini bertujuan mengkaji terjemahan salah satu sifat Allah dalam Al-Quran, Baseer untuk melihat sama ada terjemahannya mencapai kerelevanan optimum atau sebaliknya. Teori Relevan (TR) yang lazimnya diaplikasi dalam bidang komunikasi dijadikan landasan teori untuk menganalisis terjemahan perkataan Baseer dalam surah al-Isra’ untuk melihat bagaimana makna Baseer dinyatakan dalam teks terjemahan al-Quran yang dipilih iaitu teks terjemahan Al-Quran terkenal dalam bahasa Inggeris oleh Abdel Haleem, Pickthall dan George Sale. Kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa terdapat perbezaan dalam terjemahan sifat Baseer antara tiga teks sasaran. Sekiranya dilihat dari sudut Teori Relevan pula, kebanyakan terjemahannya tidak mencapai kerelevanan optimum, kerana makna yang diberikan oleh penterjemah tidak menyokong makna yang dimaksudkan oleh sifat Allah. This study aims to investigate the translation of one of the Devine Attributes in Quran, the word Baseer whether its translation achieves optimal relevance or otherwise. It employed a qualitative method using content analysis technique based on Relevance Theory, which is basically applied in communication field, in analyzing the translation of the word 'baseer' in surah al-Isra’ to investigate how the meaning of Baseer is rendered in in three well-known Quran translations in English language by Abdel Haleem, Pickthall and George Sale. This study shows that there are differences in the translation of Baseer among the three target texts. If viewed from the point of Relevance Theory, most of its translations do not achieve optimal relevance, because the meanings given by the translators do not support the meaning meant by the nature of Allah. This indicates that absolute equivalence could never been achieved when translating specific words of the Quran and in this study, the translation of Devine Attributes sometimes does not achieve optimal relevance. Therefore, the translator may select the closest natural equivalence of the meaning of the attribute.

A Relevance Theory Prospective to the Twelfth Chapter of Cousin Henry

Anthony Trollope, the British realist writer in the 19th century, writes Cousin Henry and this book is published in October 1879 without Chinese version yet. This work develops around the “will” dispute, presenting the conflict between the widespread social climate and the loft morals. With the guidance of the Relevance Theory, this report consists of the analysis and summary after the translation practice of the twelfth chapter of Cousin Henry, namely, Mr. Oven. This report adopts case-by-case analysis, based on the three principles of relevance theory, that is, ostensive-inferential communication, context and cognitive environment, optimal relevance. In the translation practice, it uses many translation methods, including addition method, domestication method, free translation method, segmenting method, adjusting-word-order method. These translation techniques are analyzed specifically when they are applied at the lexical and syntactic levels. By doing above-mentioned practices intend to enable the reader to get the optimal relevance and better the reading experience when he or she is reading the translation.

On the English Translation of Color Words in Tang Poetry

<p>The color word “青” frequently appears in Tang poetry and is deeply loved by poets because of its ambiguity. However, the multiple meanings of “青" also bring difficulties to translation activities. What color does it mean? Thus, from the perspective of Relevance Theory, this study discusses the three basic meanings of the color word "青", taking as examples the misunderstood words that contain "青” in several classical poems by Li Bai. To achieve the accurate translation of the color word “青", the key is to achieve the optimal relevance, and thus the greatest contextual effect can be obtained.</p>

Chinua Achebe’s Girls at War and other Stories: A Relevance-Theoretical Interpretation

Relevance Theory (RT), which is a theory that takes the Gricean approach to communication as a starting point of linguistic or literary analysis, is an influential theory in Pragmatics that was developed by D. Sperber and D. Wilson (1986, 1995). As a cognitive theory of meaning (which claims that semantic meaning is the result of linguistic decoding processes, whereas pragmatic meaning is the result of inferential processes constrained by one single principle, Principle of Relevance), its main assumption is that human beings are endowed with a biologically rooted ability to maximize the relevance of incoming stimuli. RT unifies the Gricean cooperative principle and his maxims into a single principle of relevance that motivates the hearer’s inferential strategy. Based on the classic code model of communication and Grice’s inferential model, RT holds that ‘every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance’. Literary texts which present us with a useful depth of written data that serve as repositions of language in use can be analyzed linguistically. This is because writers use language in a particular way in their works to reveal their concerns. A literary work, just like the spoken language, contains information that enables the reader or hearer to get the intended message. The use of language is therefore not mode specific. It can be in a text or can be spoken, and either mode can portray the practices, values and aspirations of a particular speech community. With the analysis of Achebe’s Girls at War and Other Stories in the frame of RT, this paper shows that literary text communication ‘communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance’. The deployment of the relevance theory in the interpretation of Achebe’s Girls at War and Other Stories will certainly yield new insights in the understanding of the language and literary elements of the works. Chinua Achebe is regarded as the father of African modern literature.His works are being read in many schools and universities. It is therefore important to open new doors of interpretation for a better understanding of these works.

The Analysis of Cold Jokes Based on Relevance Theory

Cold joke, a neologism popular in recent years, is worth noticing. This paper gives a comprehensive definition of cold joke according to definitions claimed on the Internet and by other scholars. Thus, the attributes of cold joke different from ordinary joke is conspicuous. Then, based on Relevance Theory, the cause of cold humorous effect is analyzed in detailed examples. The ostensive-inferential communication, the factors to assess the degree of relevance, gap between optimal relevance and the biggest relevance as well as the weakest relevance are applied to explain the cause of laughter generation from the perspectives of the cold joke itself, the speaker, and the listener. The analysis helps readers to have a deeper understanding of humorous effect caused by cold jokes.

Parenthetical Clauses in the Qurʼān

In the few traditional Arabic grammatical sources that address the term parentheticals it is usually defined as the insertion of a clause between two other clauses, or between two syntactic components, for taʼkīd “emphasis.” In this article I examine Qurʼānic parenthetical clauses in the theoretical framework of relevance theory. It transpires that the parenthetical clause is placed where it achieves optimal relevance and therfore the conveyed utterance does not require the addresses to waste any efforts trying to procees the information and correctly interpret it. Optimal relevance also means having a contextual effect. The Qur’ānic parenthetical clauses have one of the following contextual effects: They serve to affirm God’s omnipotence, indicating that only God produces suras, created heaven and earth. He is the forgiver and all depends on His will; to explain what it meant by a specific statement or to explain the reason behind a certain action; to qualify, to highlight a specific characterization, for example, one of the parenthetical clauses modify the Qur’ān as the truth from God; to provide background information, which could explain further developments in the narrative.

A cross-linguistic puzzle and its theoretical implications: Norwegian jo, German doch and ja, and an advertisement

It has long been recognised that at least some linguistic expressions —such as the connectives but in English and mais in French, and the particles doch in German and jo in Norwegian— function to affect the audience’s inference or reasoning processes rather than, or in addition to, provide conceptual content. There is a debate, however, whether the inference procedures triggered by these linguistic expressions function primarily to affect the audience’s recognition of the communicator’s arguments or primarily to guide the audience’s comprehension process. I discuss this question with reference to an instructive example from an advertisement in Norwegian. The advertisement is an argumentative text where the modal particle jo achieves subtle argumentational and stylistic effects that differ from those achieved by the corresponding German modal particles doch or ja. I demonstrate how the procedural semantic analyses independently developed by Berthelin & Borthen (submitted) of jo and Unger (2016a, 2016b, 2016c) of ja and doch support a pragmatic-semantic account of the argumentational effects of these particles. Although the semantics I propose for the respective particles does not directly relate to argumentation, it is specific enough to affect argumentation in predictable ways. The reason for this is that comprehension procedures and argumentation procedures closely interact in processing ostensive stimuli (such as verbal utterances) for optimal relevance.

The Elicitation of Verbal Humor in Total Women: Conversational Implicature and Relevance

This research examines how conversational implicature and relevance in communication contribute to the elicitation of verbal humor in Total Women, and it discusses whether the pragmatic theoretical analysis of verbal humor can eventually be induced to a hierarchical two-stage processing like Incongruity-resolution. It is shown that (1) The fun-making character Fannie’s statements which flouted different maxims of conversation all built up and led to the elicitation of verbal humor; (2) Relevance-eliciting verbal humor resembled to Incongruity-resolution with the oppositeness between the first interpretation and the retrieved one communicating the presumption of optimal relevance on the one hand and the humorous inference on the other hand.