Abstract: Irony is one of the most important rhetoric devices and writing techniques using words that are the opposite of what you really mean to convey a special meaning. Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austin’s masterpiece featured with witty, humorous and ironic language. This study adopts Cooperative Principle as its theoretical framework to study the ironic speech acts in the novel Pride and Prejudice from four aspects: irony achieved violating the maxim of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of relevance and the maxim of manner. It aims to help the readers to have a better appreciating the writing art, theme and characters of this literary works. Also it proves that it is feasible to apply the pragmatic theory to the appreciation of literary works so that the novel can achieve a stronger interpretation.

 Key words: Cooperative Principle; Pride and Prejudice; irony

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction1

2. Literature Review.2

  2.1 Previous Study on Irony 

2.2 Previous Study on Pride and Prejudice 

3. Theoretical Framework: Cooperative Principle.3

4. Analysis of Irony in Pride and Prejudice from the Perspective of Cooperative Principle.4

  4.1 Irony Created by Violating the Maxim of Quality

4.2 Irony Created by Violating the Maxim of Quantity

4.3 Irony Created by Violating the Maxim of Relevance

4.4 Irony Created by Violating the Maxim of Manner

5. Conclusion.9

Bibliography10

Acknowledgements.11