Psycho-Pragmatic Study of Sarcasm in Selected Quranic Verses

Abstract

The present study investigates the recognition and comprehension of sarcasm in some selected verses of
Al Quran Alkarim from a psych-pragmatic perspective. The aims at tracing the steps of understanding the
sarcastic implicatures in utterances, specifically, the selected Quranic verses. To achieve this aim, the
present study employs the Relevance Theory of Sperber and Wilson (1986, 1995) to analyze ten verses in
terms of sarcasm. Thereby, the study addresses the question: How does the Relevance Theory contribute
to the interpretation of sarcasm in the selected verses. The analysis reveals that the Relevance theory
plays a significant role in interpreting sarcastic utterances. However, Quranic verses are miraculously
organized with a highly complex structure that needs specific encyclopedic knowledge of Quran
language and content to process the relevance in interpretation.