ABSTRACT

In literary pragmatics，Speech Act Theory stands as a dominant theory and has witnessed a wide range of application.Nowadays，people are paying more and more attention to some core theories such as Speech Act Theory and other theories concerning conversational analysis.

As a great satirist，Jane Austen set irony as the most protruding feature and the basic tone in her novels.However，many a scholar focuses on the ideological content of Austen's novels，instead of an extensive and systematic research of her language in novels from the perspective of SAT.Irony bears a close relation with SAT.Their affinities are embodied in four respects：irony and indirect speech acts；irony and sincerity principle；irony and illocutionary force；irony and perlocutionary effect.

This paper tries to make a tentative application of SAT to the analysis ofirony in Sense and Sensibility，as it is believed that irony is the fundamental feature of the novel.This analysis is done in order to demonstrate that irony of various forms in a literary work can be properly described within the frame work of SAT.Thus，it also deepens the understanding of the text as well as the characters in the novel.

Key Words：pragmatics，speech act theory，irony