Andriyenko T. Speech act of irony in the English language (on the material of the belletristic literature of the XVI and XX centuries)

The object of this thesis is Ironic Speech Act (SA) in the English language of XVI and XX centuries. The aim of the research is defining the theoretical basis of studying irony as a speech act and reveaving its diachronically stable and variable aspects. The methods used in the research are: speech act analysis, aspect modelling of the SA, intentional analysis, component analysis, context-situational analysis, structural-semantic and pragmalinguitic description, analysis of discourse strategies and tactics, methods of reconstruction and comparison of synchronic periods, elements of statistic analysis. In the paper the status of ironic SA is defined, as well as direct and indirect ways of its realization, diachronically stable and variable aspects are revealed. The set of politeness strategies used in the ironic SA is discovered. The obtained results may be appied to teaching academic courses of Stylistics, Grammar, history of the English language, special courses on text interpretation and SA theory.