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A Relevance-Theoretic Analysis of Communication in Catch-22

Author: ChenChunZuo
Tutor: WuJun
School: Shandong University
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: Relevance theory Echoic use Irony Metarepresentation Relationship Catch-22
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 135
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Abstract

This thesis provides a relevance-theoretic analysis of communication in the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. As a representative literary work of black humor, the novel presents to the reader a fictional absurd world. To explore the mechanism involved in the communication between writing and reading is the main aim of the study. The relevance-theoretic account of communication as a cognition-based process of pursuing relevance, as well as the role of metarepresentation in the interpretive dimension of language use, is the basis for the theoretic framework of the study.According to relevance theory, the process of communication creates an expectation for relevance, that is, the hearer’s processing effort offset by the contextual effects. The relevance of an utterance is determined by the creation of any of the following three contextual effects: the derivation of contextual implications; strengthening of the assumptions already present in the context; contradiction of the present assumptions leading to the erasure of premises from the context. Correspondingly, if none of the three types of effects occur, the utterance is irrelevant. Relevance is also a comparative concept, whose strength is determined by the amount of processing effort and the contextual effects yielded. If unnecessary processing effort is expended, or the contextual effects yielded are insufficient, then the utterance is less relevant. According to the principle of relevance, the basis for every act of ostensive communication is a presumption of its optimal relevance. In communication, if the hearer reaches an interpretation inconsistent with the principle of relevance, then misunderstanding occurs and communication fails.Description and interpretation are the two dimensions of language use. The former represents some state of affairs, while the latter represents some other representation. The ability to represent another representation, called metarepre- sentation, is indispensable in communication for the interlocutors. Reporting and echoing are both cases of interpretation. Reporting generally achieves relevance through the reported content, while echoing is relevant due to the speaker’s attitude to the attributed representation. But the borderline is not clear-cut: a reported utterance may incidentally convey the speaker’s attitude, and thus acquires an echoic nature.Literature is a communicative event between writing and reading, which also creates an expectation of relevance. According to Leech and Short, in fiction the conversation between characters is a way the writer conveys message to the reader. Within the relevance-theoretic framework, the micro-level communication, seen as the writer’s direct reporting of the characters’ speech to the reader, together with indirect reporting of speech and thought, is integrated into the macro-level communication. Consequently, the exploration of the relevance of reporting to the reader, as well as its relation to other ways of macro-level communication can provide a clearer account of the communicative activity between writing and reading.The analysis begins with the micro-level communication in Catch-22. The approach used is based on the research of communication failure by relevance theorists Sperber and Wilson, Yus, and He Ziran. Every category can be supported by typical examples. The analysis reveals that the whole micro-level communication is characterized by irrelevance and absurdity. The exchanges themselves are uninformative, and thus irrelevant to the reader. However, the writer’s implicit ironical attitude toward them is where relevance is achieved. This is a point where the two levels of communication are integrated.At the macro-level, the analysis reveals that, verbal irony, as a variety of echoic use, is the main pattern adopted by the writer to communicate with the reader. As the identification of the writer’s dissociation and the sources of the attributed representations shows, the various types of characters are all the targets of irony. In verbal irony, the interpretive resemblance between the writer’s utterance and the attributed representation is exploited. Its counterpart, parody, exploiting the metalinguistic resemblance, is also a vehicle for achieving an ironical effect by the writer. Reporting as a way of macro-level communication, achieves relevance not through the reported contents, but through the writer’s implicit ironical attitude. So reporting in this novel comes nearer or is equivalent to echoing. The thesis further analyzes the rhetorical garden-path effect achieved through the implicit nature of echoic use. The reader expends extra processing effort, which is offset by the extra contextual effects, and hence optimal relevance is achieved.The analysis of communication in the novel is framed within a broader stylistic analysis. The objective is to explore how communication contributes to the treatment of major themes. Given the implicit nature of echoing, the guarantee of relevance is the writer’s assumption of a mutually manifest context between him and the reader, as well as the reader’s inference guided by the principle of relevance. The mutuality suggests an emotional closeness and an affective communion between them, which further contributes to the contextual effects, and hence the relevance of communication. Relevance theory views the style of communication from the perspective of the relationship between the interlocutors, which adds a new dimension of the stylistic analysis.

A Relevance-Theoretic Analysis of Communication in Catch-22

Abstract

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