4.5.4　Expressive Irony

The illocutionary point of expressive is to“express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the prepositional content.”（Searle，2001d，p.15）For expressives，the essential requisite is the speaker should express his or her psychological state about some objective affairs，so as to establish certain social and psychological relations between conversing parties.The ironic meanings of the speaker can be inferred from the context.As for expressive irony，its main goal is to devalue or praise the performance of the listener.

Example 29

“Other great and inevitable expenses too we have had on first coming to Norland....You may guess，after all these expenses，how very far we must be from being rich，and how acceptable Mrs.Ferrars's kindness is.”（John Dashwood）

“Certainly，”said Elinor；“and assisted by her liberality，I hope you may yet live to be in easy circumstances.”

The last sentence“I hope you may yet live to be in easy circumstances”is an example of expressive irony.Being afraid of giving a hand to his relatives，no matter in money or in something else，John was trying his best to make his poverty clear to Elinor.Here，Elinor，with her coolness ofjudgment，didn't want to show her disgust of her brother's selfishness directly with some radical words；instead，she showed her disgust by ironically expressing her“hope”.Between the lines we can feel Elinor's teasing tone and her wisdom.