A corpus-based study of rhetorical questions in monologic genres in the framework of relevance theory
This thesis takes the form of a pragmatic study of Rhetorical Questions (RQs) in the environment of monologue within the theoretical framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986). Two main research questions are involved. The first is how an addressee manages to identify the rhetorical nature of a question, and infer the possible intended assumptions of the addresser. I aim to show that the Code Model, which holds that communication is achieved by encoding and decoding messages in words, is not sufficient in interpreting RQs. In contrast, I shall show that implicatures (implied propositions) conveyed by an RQ can only be interpreted by an inferential model. The second question is how different types of RQ are used to achieve the addresser's persuasive intention in monologic environments. My study consists not only of theoretical argumentation but also of a qualitative analysis of corpus data, in an attempt to extend corpus study to rhetoric and pragmatics, beyond the recent concentration (Sinclair, 1991; Biber et al., 1999; Stubbs, 2001a; Hunston, 2002; Renouf, 2013 etc.) on the lexical, semantic, and syntactic domains. The corpora consulted are the BNC and FLOB, complemented by two self-compiled
Yang, Zhixia
Q100 Linguistics ; Q300 English studies
A corpus-based study of rhetorical questions in monologic genres in the framework of relevance theory. This thesis takes the form of a pragmatic study of Rhetorical Questions (RQs) in the environment of monologue within the theoretical framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986). Two main research questions are involved. The first is how an addressee manages to identify the rhetorical nature of a question, and infer the possible intended assumptions of the addresser. I aim to show that the Code Model, which holds that communication is achieved by encoding and decoding messages in words, is not sufficient in interpreting RQs. In contrast, I shall show that implicatures (implied propositions) conveyed by an RQ can only be interpreted by an inferential model. The second question is how different types of RQ are used to achieve the addresser's persuasive intention in monologic environments. My study consists not only of theoretical argumentation but also of a qualitative analysis of corpus data, in an attempt to extend corpus study to rhetoric and pragmatics, beyond the recent concentration (Sinclair, 1991; Biber et al., 1999; Stubbs, 2001a; Hunston, 2002; Renouf, 2013 etc.) on the lexical, semantic, and syntactic domains. The corpora consulted are the BNC and FLOB, complemented by two self-compiled
corpus_based study rhetorical question monologic genre framework relevance theory take_form pragmatic study rhetorical questions environment monologue within_theoretical_framework relevance_theory sperber_wilson two_main question involve first addressee identify rhetorical nature question infer possible intended assumption aim_show code model hold communication achieve encode decode message word sufficient interpret contrast shall show implied proposition convey interpret inferential model second question different_type use achieve persuasive intention monologic environment study_consist theoretical argumentation also qualitative_analysis corpus_data attempt_extend corpus_study rhetoric pragmatic beyond recent concentration sinclair etc lexical_semantic syntactic domain corpus consult bnc complement self