This thesis has two goals. The first is to explain, within a pragmatic perspective,
how figurative language (i.e. metaphor and irony) performs argumentation. Based on
the argumentation theory (AT) of Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyteca (1958), argumentation
is defined as the process of justifying something in an organized or logical way, which
is composed of one or more claims and shows one or more grounds for maintaining
them.
The second goal is to examine the hearer’s interpretation of figurative utterances in
argumentation. The theoretical foundation of this discussion is based on experientialist
epistemology (i.e. experientialism) and cognitive pragmatics in the form of Relevance
Theory (RT).
In pursuit of those goals, I present four main innovations: First, I argue the status
of metaphor should be viewed as ‘what is implicated’, rather than ‘what is said’. Second,
I propose explanation of some exceptional cases of irony, which the standard RT
approach does not treat, which relies on the notion of ‘incongruity’. Third, I propose
integration of AT concepts within RT. Thus, this approach contributes to pursuing more
economical explanation of communication as argumentation, by a single principle of
relevance, but incorporating argumentative concepts such as doxa, topoi and polyphony.
Finally, I apply this integrated approach to analysing real cases of commercial
advertisement by metaphor or irony, or both. This includes explaining connection and
overlapping, two ways in which metaphor and irony can work together