Some Views on Incongruity

Abstract：The use of the mode of prominence in the texts can produce psychological salient to attach the attention of readers.The Prominence mainly concludes deflection and incongruity.This essay mainly presents some views on incongruity.

Key words：Prominence；Views；Incongruity

Halliday acknowledged Leechs point about the presenting mode of prominence.He agreed that the modes of prominence can be classified into two groups.One is deflection attaching significance to the quantitative deviation，and it is the positive prominence.Another one is incongruity emphasizing the qualitative deviation，which is the negative prominence.Besides，the prominence reflects the deviation from the norm.The deflection reflects the intensification of the norm，while the incongruity mainly indicates the disapproval of the norm，that is，it violates the norm of standard.

The congruity can be dived into three modes，including the over regularity，the deviation from the logic and the semantic transference.As the first one，there are so many examples about it，such as the use of capital and small letter，italic，the arrangement of the words.Take one of Cummings poetry as an example：

a poisoned mouse

who still alive

does Stare quietly

out of the floor

up at Me

is asking “What have i done that

You wouldnt have”

---e.e cumings

The usage of capital and small letter reflects authors unique writing ways.The poet uses the capital letter of “Me” to show that Human being is self-centered and despises the poisoned mouse.And the direct speech of the mouse，“i”，which stands for mouse itself，should be used capital letter，but the author uses the lowercase to express modest and courteous of mouse.And at the last line，“You” which represents human being was written with capital letter to show its respects for human being，From the perspective of grammar，mouses speech is grammatical and logical，while the humans expression is illogical and unacceptable satirizing mans ignorance and highly praising mouses humility.Besides，in the authors signature，he uses the small letter to show the disappearance of personality in American industrialized society.From this example，the author concludes that even though the use of incongruity can attract readers attention，yet it also causes the misunderstanding of the authors real intention.Readers may not understand the potential meanings or intentions.Illrregularity is an innovative expressing way，whereas it cannot be applied in various styles.The italic is used for the name of books and magazines，tiles，newspapers，foreign language.Provided that we use it for a line of a poem or fiction，it may mislead the reader to consider it as a book or a magazine.In fact，the author wants to emphasize this phenomenon.Therefore，the use of incongruity also need to consider the frequency of utilization.The lower frequency of utilization may lead to misunderstandings，while the high frequency may cause other problems.

The author also has some views on the semantic transference.Comparing the definition of incongruity with deflection，the author finds that there are some cross meanings.Deflection means that the frequency of occurrence of some language features exceed the predicated or expected frequency of occurrence.Given that the frequency of occurrence exceeds the regularity and even deviating from the norm，which will cause the occurrence of incongruity.Whats more，according to the definition of congruity，the mode of prominence of some language features will transfer from congruity to deflection，on the condition that this language feature was overused.The author will take some examples to discuss this phenomenon.Considering the grammatical incongruity，sometimes，writers preferring using the inversion structure to signify some special meanings.Writers prefer to putting the temporal adverbial，adverbial of place or manner adverbial at the beginning of the sentence to manifest chronic order and spatial sequence.Given that the inversion is applied in various style and accepted by ordinary people，it will become a norm.Concerning the lexical incongruity，there are variety of modes of incongruity，including puns，taboo，euphemism，cant and so on.Sometimes，these stylistic features have been generally used.In regard to taboo and euphemism，Chinese is a group stressing team and collectivism，therefore，they prefer to using euphemism and avoiding taboo.Hence，taboo and euphemism are not the deviation from the norm.Consequently，the high frequency of occurrence of metaphor may cause to be the norm.

To conclude，it is difficult to define the norm.And provided that the deflection of language features was conducted excessively，the qualitative deviation will arise.On the contrary，given that the incongruity of language phenomenon was widely used in our daily life，it means that it will be a norm in the future.

參考文献

[1] 张德禄.语言的功能与文体.高等教育出版社.2005.

作者简介

李晓娅（1994.08-今），女，土家族，四川成都，硕士研究生，研究方向：商务英语研究。

（作者单位：西南财经大学经贸外语学院）