【正文】 n between objects. They are also called a referentialist view and have been traced back to Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. Interaction theories claim that there is a verbal opposition between the content of the expression used metaphorically and the content of the literal context. They are also called a descriptivist view, in the sense that descriptive information is said to determine the interpretation of a metaphorical expression. Both views, Searle argues, are incorrect. Comparison theories are incorrect because, a metaphorical expression actually gets the truth conditions of the metaphor, not of the literal meaning, and because similarity between objects need not be the case. Interaction theories are also incorrect because they locate metaphor in sentence meaning rather than speaker meaning and because the opposition between the literal context and the metaphor may not be the case. There may not be any literal context. In recent years, there is a trend towards the reconciliation of truthconditional and cognitive semantics in the study of metaphor. Cognitive theories stress the conventionalization of metaphors because metaphors are mechanisms of conceptualization. Hence, cognitive theorists diminish the role of live metaphor. Others, like Searle emphasize live metaphors to show that their meanings are openended. Similarly, relevance theory stresses that a metaphor may municate an indefinite number of feelings and beliefs. Just as in nonverbal munication, in metaphorical munication speaker39。he significance of the thesis lies in exploiting the inseparable relationship between figures of speech and pragmatics. The thesis intends to study the English rhetorical devices at the pragmatic level paratively thoroughly and systematically by means of bining theories quoted from both home and abroad. The thesis also raises its own points of view: With a synthetic analysis of the three major pragmatic principles, namely, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the Relevance Theory. The Pragmatic Inferential Model based on the Relevance Theory is raised, which holds that pragmatic studies can basically be embodied in the concept of relevance and the process of human verbal munication is none other than a process of searching for the optimal relevance under a certain concrete context. This process, with cooperation as its presupposition might use unusual relevance out of consideration for politeness and other factors. This Inferential Model embodies the bination of the advantages of different pragmatic principles, and can more scientifically probe into the psychological process of human munication. This is a new trial since in the past most discussions on inference of conversational implicature are based on a single pragmatic principle. It also raises a few opinions from the author39。s cognitive process in prehending every utterance, namely, the relevance between utterance itself and context, enabling the audience to make reasonable inference to the speaker39。 The audience will merely concern and process the information that is closely relevant to the speaker39。s Cooperative Principle. Sperber D. amp。 Sperber D. amp。 Levinson who hold interlocutors should cooperate to save faces for each other while interacting in conversation. Face means honor, selfesteem, public selfimage. People are governed by two desires: to be unimpeded in actions and to be approved of. The first is dubbed the negative politeness, the other positive politeness. Positive politeness can be realized as suggesting monality, understanding, and joint action. Negative politeness is expressed in showing respect and maintaining social distance. Face is said to be a universal notion, there is no faceless munication. Whether a person loses face or not relies much on others. If one does not want to lose face, he/she should not damage others39。s out of the consideration of politeness. The Politeness Principle is said to save the Cooperative Principle。s conversation could be possibly carried out is that the two sides of the conversation should all obey a principle called the Cooperative Principle that consists of four maxims and some submaxims。 figures of speech adopting syntactic devices, ., inversion, repetition. Because of the limited condition for the present writing task, only some mon rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, irony, personification, oxymoron and metaphor are handled。 ., inversion and repetition. Some mon rhetorical devices such as metaphor, hyperbole, personification, pun, irony and oxymoron are dealt with in this thesis. Purpose, approach and significanceThe intention of writing this thesis is to explore English rhetorical devices from the perspective of pragmatics and to promote the optimal prehension and application of English figures of speech in language munication. The main issues in studying the topic are as follows: 1) English rhetorical device is numerous, and there are no definite categories of English figures of speech. 2) Current pragmatic theories are conventional and lack )The area that pragmatic study of figures of speech covers is so wide that it is not only associated with such branches of linguistics as rhetoric, pragmatics, phonetics, semantics, syntax, grammar, psychological linguistics, cognitive linguistics, functional linguistics, applied linguistics and crosscultural munication but also related to psychology, aesthetics, literature, philosophy and logics. Pragmatic analysis alone seems to be insufficient to be persuasive. Current conditions and solutions to these issues are the following:In accordance with devices of usage of English figures of speech, they are classified into three categories in the thesis: 1 .1 figures of speech adopting phonetic devices, ., alliteration and assonance。 ., metaphor, hyperbole, personification。s world. There is no definite conclusion about how many figures of speech there are in English. There are no promising methods to spec