【正文】 neither maxims nor principles that the speaker should obey during speaking. It only describes people39。s intention. Correct cognition is based on searching for relevance. The relevance theory does not believe that the speaker makes the audience prehend the intention by deliberately floating certain maxims. However, the contextsensitiveness of Relative Theory is not concrete sufficiently, namely the standard of context identification is vague and general. Moreover the theory has a trend to simplify pragmatics, ignoring the peculiarity of things. The Pragmatic Inferential Model based on the Relevance Theory is raised in the thesis, 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. The proposal of a relevancebased pragmatic inferential model can either be applied as a whole, or can be divided into parts with each part practicing a certain function, that is, each of the pragmatic principles can stand on its own and work to explain linguistic and cultural phenomena.With the rapid development of pragmatic study, the scope and depth of pragmatics are increasingly wider and further, new disciplines across pragmatics and other disciplines such as cognitive pragmatics, crosscultural pragmatics and interlanguage pragmatics occur, the obstacle will be removed. The area that pragmatic study of rhetorical devices involves in is wild. If we prehend it from a broad sense, we need to regard pragmatics as an approach to language study that bines context and process of usage.T39。s own points of view, for example, in Chapter 3, irony is divided into two parts: positive expression of the negative meaning and negative expression of the positive meaning, FaceSaving Theory is adopted to further analyze each separately, which is different from the conventional method that analyzes irony by treating it as a whole. Literature reviewA domestic and overseas view on relevant studies: rhetoric and pragmatics are the two marginal disciplines, each respectively having a wild study area. Rhetoric is an ancient learning that has a history of over 2500 years since its birth. And pragmatics is a new discipline that has merely a history of more than 30 years as an independent and systematic discipline. Pragmatic study of English rhetorical devices is also a new and developing topic. At domestic, the study of such a topic is mainly focused on the study of each of them independently. Rhetoric is more often considered the learning of appreciating the art of language. Pragmatic study of English figures of speech in China has been carried out in recent years. Much research, however, remains somewhat stale and for one reason or another lags behind the corresponding foreign studies for a few decades. A few rhetorical devices such as metaphor and irony have been much explored from different aspects (as from the perspective of cognition) by domestic linguists like Shu Dingfang in his Studies in Metaphor WHJ 2002 while many other devices have seldom been dealt with. Overseas study remains more on rhetoric and pragmatic study of a few figures of speech such as irony and hyperbole, much research focus on the study of metaphor Such study is generally conventional. Let39。s intentions may not be precise. Metaphors approximate the speaker39。Theory is adopted to analyze each of them respectively.The last part is the conclusion. It first sums up the achievements of the thesis and argues that English figures of speech are not absolutely independent of each other by giving some examples and then prospects for the future of this study field.II Chapter Two Hyperbole Definition of hyperboleHyperbole es from the Greek word hyperbole, which means a throwing beyond, or excess. It is a mon figure of speech popularly known as exaggeration or overstatement. As Geoffrey N. leech defines in his Principles of Pragmatics, hyperbole refers to a case where the speaker39。s Maxim of Quality and Quantity: Accordingly, a hyperbole like It made my blood boil constitutes a violation, in some degree, of the Maxim of Quality: But hyperbole, which distorts the truth by saying too much, is not the same as telling lies. With hyperbole, there is no intent to deceive the audience. In fact, in the speaker39。 He was all ears.。ll cost the earth. and I39。m pletely broken。s ersonal rhetoric consists of not only Grice39。 it is yet to obey other principles ofthe interpersonal rhetoric. Sperber D.amp。 hold that when people use the rhetorical device, they aim to pass their viewpoints to others effectively and do not require their partner to prehend in accordance with the literal meaning rigidly, but only get close to it. J. R. Gibbs argues that many rhetorical devices reflect people39。s daily language, rhetorical devices are everywhere, which proves that human39。s interest of munication, produce an effect of humor or show politeness. The use of hyperbole also concerns the question of presupposition. The presupposition refers to the cognition of the context of the speaker.Example : I lov39。s so kind of you to take so great trouble to e here The examples above produce an effect of humor and politeness through exaggerating the facts. Their presuppositions are respectively: It is a mon sense and I appreciate your ing here. It is easy to see that the basis for this kind of rhetorical device is fact. Hyperbole is apparently untrue and beyond the fact. It is however true in reality. Hyperbole consequently does not violate the Maxim of Quality in essence, which guarantees the cooperation during the conversation. While exaggeration exists in conversation, dialogue may continue to car