Triggers of Deliberate Misinterpretation from the Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

Based on the data collected from the conversations in three American TV plays, this paper analyzes the triggers of deliberate misinterpretation in English daily conversations. Two major categories of triggers are explored in the present study, namely indeterminacy of contextual meaning and indeterminacy of force in Speaker One’s (S1’s) utterance. Specifically, homophones, homonyms, deictic expressions, minimal information, structural ambiguity and conversational implicatures are the factors that trigger DMI. Those triggers provide potential alternative interpretations which make it possible for Speaker Two (S2) to deliberately choose an interpretation diverging from the one intended by S1. This is the first study carried out specifically on the linguistic phenomenon of DMI in English daily conversations in terms of its triggers. And it is hoped that the present study may shed light on English teaching and learning.