Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Objective of the Research
Communication has been playing a crucial role in social development. As theprincipal part of social development, human needs to communicate with each otherin every field. It is widely accepted that language is the most important tool forcommunication, and language communication has been the key word and essentialskill in daily life. Language communication is a kind of cognitive activity in the fieldof cognitive linguistics. Moreover, Sperber and Wilson (1986) regard languagecommunication as the ostensive-inferential communication. During thecommunication process, the hearer focuses on optimal relevance and tries to obtainmaximal effects with least efforts. Such feature of language communication inspiresthe production of some speech figures, among which there is a typical one --syllepsis. In general, syllepsis conforms to this feature of language communication,that is, “more content with less form”. To have a deep study of such a typicallanguage communication skill, this thesis aims to present a detailed analysis ofsyllepsis from the pragma-rhetoric perspective.Syllepsis is a quite frequently used rhetorical device in Chinese and in English.However, up to now, studies on syllepsis are of a late start. After Chen Wangdao(1932) where rhetoric formally came into being, studies on syllepsis flourishesgradually. Many monographs and papers have laid their emphasis on this subject. Indifferent language fields, syllepsis has been frequently used while the academicresearch on it is quite limited. Actually, few researchers provide a comprehensiveand unified study of syllepsis. Thus, it is necessary to have a scientific study ofsyllepsis that should be objective, reasonable and convining. What’s more, thecurrent studies mainly focus on some typical syllepsis and stressed their characteristics most. As a result, people cannot have correct cognition for syllepsisand vitality of such expressions loses. So, studies of syllepsis still need to go afarand it’s necessary to give a deep and rational study of this figure.
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1.2 Rationale of the Research
After Sperber and Wilsosn proposed the Relevance Theory (RT) framework in1986, a great number of scholars came to realize the importance of cognitive studiesin pragmatics and RT’s application into some practical studies. RT can be said themost proper theory to analyze syllesis because syllepsis conforms to RT’s basic rules.Syllepsis first was just a rhetoric concept and in this thesis the study is from apragmatic perspective, in this way, it is also a pragma-rhetoric viewpoint.Pragma-rhetoric is a newly derivational discipline of pragmatics, originating fromWang Dechun and Chen Chen (2002). Briefly speaking, rationale of this studyincludes: 1) this thesis will make contributions to the present study on syllepsiswithin the framework of RT. Sofar, besides Sperber and Wilson, many other scholarshave also devoted themselves to the study of RT. RT has been revised for severaltimes and has quite a long history; 2) this thesis emphasizes the significance of the pragma-rhetoric analysis of syllepsis and tries to study this rhetoric device withseveral pragmatic classical topics to marry pragmatics to rhetoric; 3) this thesis willprovide some seasoning for the lovers of Benshanian humor. This thesis not onlyhelps people to better understand the syllepsis but also provides a useful way toappreciate such TV programs.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Definitions and Classifications of Syllepsis
What is “syllepsis”? According to Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (5th ed),“syllepsis, late Latin from Greek “Sullēpsis” meaning ‘taking together’, formed asSYN- + lēpsis; grammar & rhetoric, a figure of speech in which a word, or aparticular form or inflection of a word, is made to cover two or more functions in thesame sentence whist agreeing grammatically with only one (a single verb serving aspredicate to two subjects, sing. and pl.), or is made to apply to two words in differentsenses (literal and metaphorical).” Besides, based on Merriam Webster Dictionary(2001), syllepsis, “Latin, from Greek syllēpsis, from syllambanein, first known usecirca 1550. Firstly, the use of a word to modify or govern syntactically two or morewords with only one of which it formally agrees in gender, number, or case; secondly,the use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two adjacent words in thecontext with one literal and the other metaphorical in sense”. In accordance withsyllepsis in English, in Chinese we have nianlian. According to Cihai (1999),nianlian is a figure by which we post the modifying word to party b by exploitingthe situation while the word only suitable for party a when the two parties arementioned together. In this case nianlian agrees the first use of syllepsis above. Then,when scholars discuss the features of nianlian, most of them agree that party a andparty b differ in meaning, that is, one should be literal or concrete and the other bemetaphorical or abstract. What they call “supernormal/anomaly collocation” actuallyrefers to the metaphorically collocated item. In this case, nianlian agrees the seconduse of syllepsis. Thus, we hold that syllepsis and nianlian are the same figure, andthere is no East-West divide for syllepsis.
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2.2 Characteristics of Syllepsis
From what we have discussed we can summarize the following typicalfeatures of syllepsis. These characteristics reveal the nature of syllepsis. Generally speaking, when talking about syllepsis’ grammatical characteristics,analysis should mainly focus on its structure or sentence pattern. In the first place,the abstract item of a syllepsis should follow the concrete item according to human’scognition order. Secondly, the two collocations must form a coordinate structure,either explicit or implicit. Thirdly, the governing word only agrees grammatically orlogically with just one of the other two or more items. In other words, there is atleast one basic or normal collocation. The other collocations, either metaphoricallyused or there is a grammatical rule, that is, principle of proximity. Fourthly, theflexibility of verb to form verb phrases can be used to create a syllepsis. Fifthly, boththe two collocations can be accepted, though they may not be equal in functions.Sixthly, the two parties are equal in status, especially, in the sentential or logicalaspects.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework....... 23
3.1Relevance Theory (RT)...........23
3.1.1An Overview of RT..........23
3.1.2 Important Concepts..........24
3.2 Basic Elements for Theoretical Model.......27
3.3 Pragmatic Markedness Value Theory (PMVT).........31
.3.1 Markedness Value (M-Value).....31
3.3.2 Pragmatic Markedness Value (PMV)........32
3.4 Incorporation of PMVT with RT......33
3.5 Summary............36
Chapter Four TentativeApplication with Syllepsis in Benshanian SCS...... 38
4.1An Overview of Benshanian SCS.........38
4.2 Pragma-Rhetoric Interpretation of Syllepsis........46
4.3 Summary............53
Chapter Five Conclusion..............54
5.1 Major Findings of the Research.......54
5.2 Limitations of the Research........ 55
5.3 Implications of the Research.......56

Chapter Four TentativeApplication with Syllepsis inBenshanian SCS

4.1An Overview of Benshanian SCS
Classical rhetoric theory holds that rhetoric and speech are indivisible andrhetoric often can decide the effects and influence of the speech (Xu Peng, 2007, p.58). It is evident that pragmatics can be well related with rhetoric. In such way,certain figures could be applied much more effectively than they are isolatedly used.Syllepsis is such a figure that produces high pragmatic effects with minimal forms.Language’s humorous effects work mainly via the application of rhetorical devices. Short comedy show (SCS8) also called sketches, is a certain kind ofaudience-oriented stage shows -- will be discussed. It is chosen because of itsparticular performing art, that is, text full of pragmatic effects, which contains humorand implicature. Such programs have attracted much attention in and abroad sincethey came out. Supported by many related pragmatic issues and data, application ofrhetorical techniques of syllepsis will be discussed with the case Benshanian SCSs.The discussion is operated mainly within the framework of RT. The contents firstdeal with quite a detailed explanation and description of its syllepsis examples,including their pragma-rhetoric features, their production and their recognition.

Conclusion

As chapter one suggests, this thesis aims to provide a quite full understandingof syllepsis. In this thesis, both qualitative and quantitative methods have beenadopted. The thesis first tries to solve the key problems, which are thepragma-rhetoric analysis of syllepsis. Then the most difficult points of the study arethe production mechanism of syllepsis and the pragmatic inference in understandingsyllepsis. Then, based on the previous studies and after the analysis of data collected,the study offers the following findings.First of all, since the realization of high PMVs on the basis of relevanceacquisition is the motivation of syllepsis, syllepses in this thesis will reveal PMVs atdifferent degrees. When analyzing the examples collected from Benshanian SCSs, itis evident that most left-hand syllepses are unmarked or weakly marked, theright-hand syllepses, the homophonic syllepses, narrow syllepses and the leftsyllepses have much more M-values. Among these marked ones, they have differentPMVs, which can be judged by the vividness, the quantity of the collocations, thequantity of the governing points and the quantity of the syllepsis in a sentence. Inthis thesis, it can also be judged from whether it can produce humor since what havebeen chosen by this the study is the comedy texts.
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