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.