Cover not available
Part of
The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter
Edited by Manuel Jobert and Sandrine Sorlin
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 30] 2018
► pp. 1–17

Chapter 3
Deconstructing the myth of positively evaluative irony

| University of Łódź, Poland

Adopting a neo-Gricean perspective on the figure of irony, this chapter critically examines the species of irony that communicates in its implicated meaning. A critical overview of the existing scholarship on this type of irony is performed, with the focus being on the rationale for its intermittence and on the available examples. Further support is thus given to a view that irony must implicate . In the case of irony couched in overtly untruthful negatively evaluative expression of one referent, a negatively evaluated (another referent) is necessary. The speaker’s intention to convey the latter form of evaluative lies at the heart of irony, whilst the positively evaluative is just an optional concomitant.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Infrequency of positively evaluative irony
  • 3.Positively evaluative irony
  • 4.Negatively evaluated
  • 5.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.30.03dyn
References
Alba-Juez, Laura
1995 Irony and politeness. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada 10: 9–16.Google Scholar
Alba-Juez, Laura & Attardo, Salvatore
2014 The evaluative palette of verbal irony. In Evaluation in Context [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 242], Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds), 93–116. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore
2000 Irony as relevant inappropriateness. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 793–826. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barbe, Katharina
1995 Irony in Context [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 34]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bousfield, Derek
2008 Impoliteness in Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 34]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Robert L. J.
1980 The pragmatics of verbal irony. In Language Use and the Uses of Language, Roger W. Shuy & Anna Shnukal (eds), 111–127. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Burgers, Christian, van Mulken, Margot & Schellens, Peter Jan
2012 Type of evaluation and marking of irony: The role of perceived complexity and comprehension. Journal of Pragmatics 44: 231–242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chiaro, Delia
1992 The Language of Jokes: Analysing Verbal Play. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert & Gerrig, Richard
1984 On the pretense theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113: 121–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colston, Herbert
1997 Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism. Discourse Processes 23: 25–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 On necessary conditions for verbal irony comprehension. Pragmatics and Cognition 8: 277–324. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Contrast and assimilation in verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics 34: 111–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colston, Herbert & Gibbs, Raymond
2007 A brief history of irony. In Irony in Language and Thought. A Cognitive Science Reader, Raymond W. Gibbs Herbert Colston& (eds), 3–21. New York NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Colston, Herbert & O’Brien, Jennifer
2000 Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: Anything understatement can do, irony can do better. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1557–1583. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creusere, Marlena
1999 Theories of adults’ understanding and use of irony and sarcasm: Applications to and evidence from research with children. Developmental Review: 19: 213–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan
2011 Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dews, Shelly & Winner, Ellen
1995 Muting the meaning: A social function of irony. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10(1): 3–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dews, Shelly, Kaplan, Joan & Winner, Ellen
1995 Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony. Discourse Processes 19: 347–367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Marta
2013a When does irony tickle the hearer? Towards capturing the characteristics of humorous irony. In Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 210], Marta Dynel (ed.), 289–320. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013b Irony from a neo-Gricean perspective: On untruthfulness and evaluative implicature. Intercultural Pragmatics 10: 403–431. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Isn’t it ironic? Defining the scope of humorous irony. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 27: 619–639. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016a. Pejoration via sarcastic irony and sarcasm. In Pejoration [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 228], Rita Finkbeiner, Jörg Meibauer & Heike Wiese (eds), 219–240. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016b Conceptualising conversational humour as (im)politeness: The case of film talk. Journal of Politeness Research 12(1):117–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016c Two layers of overt untruthfulness: When irony meets metaphor, hyperbole, or meiosis. Pragmatics & Cognition 23(2): 259–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017a Academics vs. American scriptwriters vs. academics: A battle over the etic and emic “sarcasm” and “irony” labels. Language & Communication 55: 69–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017b Is there a tumour in your humour? On misunderstanding and miscommunication in conversational humour. In Doing Intercultural Pragmatics: Cognitive, Linguistic and Sociopragmatic Perspectives on Language Use. Festchrift for Istvan Kecskes, Rachel Giora & Michael Haugh (eds), 55–78. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017c But seriously: On conversational humour and (un)truthfulness. Lingua 197: 83–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garmendia, Joana
2010 Irony is critical. Pragmatics and Cognition 18: 397–421. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 She’s (not) a fine friend: “Saying” and criticism in irony. Intercultural Pragmatics 8: 41–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Irony: Making as if we pretend to echo. In Linguistic Aspects of Intercultural Pragmatics, Istvan Kecskes & Jesus Romero-Trillo (eds), 85–104. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2015 A (Neo)Gricean account of irony: An answer to Relevance Theory. International Review of Pragmatics 7: 40–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond
1986 On the psycholinguistics of sarcasm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 115: 3–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol 15: 5–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Are ironic acts deliberate? Journal of Pragmatics 44: 104–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond & Colston, Herbert
2012 Interpreting Figurative Meaning. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giora, Rachel
1995 On irony and negation. Discourse Processes 19: 239–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Irony and its discontent. In The Psychology & Sociology of Literature [Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Literature 35], Gerard Steen & Dick Schram (eds), 165–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 On our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glucksberg, Sam
1995 Commentary on nonliteral language: Processing and use. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10: 47–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, Herbert Paul
1989a Logic and conversation. In Studies in the Way of Words, 22–40. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. (Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and Semantics, Vol.3: Speech Acts, Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (eds), 41–58. New York NY: Academic Press; Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In The Logic of Grammar, Donald Davidson & Gilbert Harman (eds), 64–75. Encino CA: Dickenson).Google Scholar
1989b Further notes on logic and conversation. In Studies in the Way of Words, 41–57. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. (Grice, Herbert Paul. 1978. Further notes on logic and conversation. In Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed.), 113–112. New York NY: Academic Press).Google Scholar
Hamamoto, Hideki
1998 Irony from a cognitive perspective. In Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 37], Robyn Carston & Seiji Uchida (eds), 257–270. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hancock, Jeffrey, Philip Dunham & Kelly Purdy
2000 Children’s comprehension of critical and complimentary forms of verbal irony. Journal of Cognition and Development 12: 227–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, Melanie & Pexman, Penny
2003 Children’s perceptions of the social functions of irony. Discourse Processes 36: 147–165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hartung, Martin
1998 Ironie in der gesprochenen sprache. Eine gesprächsanalytische Untersuchung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael & Bousfield, Derek
2012 Mock impoliteness in interactions amongst Australian and British speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1099–1114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haverkate, Henk
1990 A speech act analysis of irony. Journal of Pragmatics 14: 77–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holdcroft, David
1983 Irony as trope, and irony as discourse. Poetics Today 4: 493–511. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jorgensen, Julia
1996 The functions of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal of Pragmatics 26: 613–634. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kapogianni, Eleni
2011 Irony via ‘surrealism’. In The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domain [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 210], Marta Dynel (ed.), 51–68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaufer, David
1981 Understanding ironic communication. Journal of Pragmatics 5: 495–510. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kotthoff, Helga
2003 Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1387–1411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, Roger & Glucksberg, Sam
1989 How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of verbal irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 118: 374–386. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, Roger & Link, Kristen
2002 Asymmetries in the use of verbal irony. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 21: 127–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, Roger
1996 The use of verbal irony: Cues and constraints. In Metaphor: Implications and Applications, Jeff Mio & Albert Katz (eds), 23–38. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Kreuz, Roger, Long, Debra & Church, Mary
1991 On being ironic: Pragmatic and mnemonic implications. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 6: 149–162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kumon-Nakamura, Sachi, Glucksberg, Sam & Brown, Mary
1995 How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 124: 3–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey
1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2014 The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matthews, Jacqueline, Hancock, Jeffrey & Dunham, Philip
2006 The roles of politeness and humor in the asymmetry of affect in verbal irony. Discourse Processes 41: 3–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Muecke, David
1969 The Compass of Irony. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Myers Roy, Alice
1978 Irony in Conversation. Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Norrick, Neal
1993 Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Partington, Alan
2006 The Linguistics of Laughter. A Corpus-assisted Study of Laughter-talk. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
2007 Irony and the reversal of evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics 39: 1547–1569. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roguska, Magdalena
2007 Echo and mention in the Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilsons’s theory of irony. Linguistische Berichte 211: 309–330.Google Scholar
Schwoebel, John, Dews, Shelly, Winner, Ellen & Srinivas, Kavitha
2000 Obligatory processing of the literal meaning of ironic utterances: Further evidence. Metaphor and Symbol 15: 47–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan
1984 Verbal irony: Pretense or echoic mention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113(1): 130–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan & Wilson, Deirdre
1998 Irony and relevance: A reply to Seto, Hamamoto, and Yamanashi. In Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 37], Robyn Carston & Seji Uchida (eds), 283–293. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1981 Irony and the use–mention distinction. In Radical Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed.), 295–318. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charlotte
2016 Mock Politeness in English and Italian: A Corpus-Assisted Metalanguage Analysis [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 267]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toplak, Mary & Katz, Albert
2000 On the uses of sarcastic irony. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1467–1488. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Utsumi, Akira
2000 Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1777–1806. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre & Sperber, Dan
2012 Explaining irony. In Meaning and Relevance, Deirdre Wilson & Dan Sperber, 123–145. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 9 other publications

Barnden, John
2021. Metaphor and irony. In Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and Usage [Figurative Thought and Language, 11], ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Barnden, John
2023. Irony, Exaggeration, and Hyperbole: No Embargo on the Cargo!. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 272 ff. DOI logo
Carvalho, Paula, Danielle Caled, Cláudia Silva, Fernando Batista & Ricardo Ribeiro
2023. The expression of hate speech against Afro-descendant, Roma, and LGBTQ+ communities in YouTube comments. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2023. Irony and Humor. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 237 ff. DOI logo
Lehmann, Claudia
2023. Chapter 9. Multimodal markers of irony in televised discourse. In Multimodal Im/politeness [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 333], ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo
Pfeifer, Valeria A. & Penny M. Pexman
2024. When It Pays to Be Insincere: On the Benefits of Verbal Irony. Current Directions in Psychological Science 33:1 ► pp. 43 ff. DOI logo
Skalicky, Stephen
2022. Liquid Gold Down the Drain: Measuring Perceptions of Creativity Associated with Figurative Language and Play. Cognitive Semantics 8:1 ► pp. 79 ff. DOI logo
Statham, Simon & Rocío Montoro
2019. The year’s work in stylistics 2018. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 28:4 ► pp. 354 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Irony, Affect, and Related Figures. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.