反讽话语是一种常见的、特殊的言语现象，是指意与言相反的矛盾语，即话语的方面意义与作者内心真正想要表达的意义正好相反。本书在语用学、话语分析、认知语言学和功能语言学等多门学科研究成果的基础上对反讽话语进行了认知语用研究，**是运用认知语用学中的关联理论研究反讽话语的理解、系统、功能及其运用等语用问题。其中有历史的回顾，有大胆的前瞻，有逻辑推理，也有哲学思辨。

Acknowledgements
Foreword
1 Introduction
1.1 Ironic utterance as a topic of discourse Understanding
1.2 Types of irony
1.3 Historical review of irony
1.4 Irony and some related figures of speech
1.5 Significance of studying ironic utterances
1.6 Methodology and corpus
1.7 Organizationa of the book
2 Interpretation of ironic utterances
2.1 Semantic study of irony
2.2 Pramatic study of irony
2.3 The necessity of cognitive study on irony
3 Cognition and ironic utterances
3.1 Relevance theory and discourse understanding
3.2 Relevance theory:the basis of cognitive pragmatics
3.3 Understanding ironic utterances within the framework
3.4 Summary
4 Echoic irony:system and function
5 Contextual cues and constraints in the use of ironic utterances
6 Conclusions
Bibliography