Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 24:2 (2017) ► pp.186–211

When language bites

A corpus-based taxonomy of sarcastic utterances in American television series

| Université Paris 8, EA1569 TransCrit

This article focuses on sarcasm, for which the definitions have often been loose and confusing, integrating it into the concept of irony. My approach is based on a large corpus of examples taken from two contemporary television-series, which help identify the wide range of linguistic processes at the core of sarcastic utterances. I present a quantitative and descriptive analysis of the main processes found in two American television-series: House M.D. and The Big Bang Theory. The results show the intricate meanings created in sarcasm through various linguistic mechanisms, such as repetition, explicitation, metonymy, metaphor, shift of focus, reasoning, and rhetorical questions. This more holistic analysis, including a broad corpus of instances and a more detailed analysis of the examples, aims to fill the unexplored gaps in more classical analyses, emphasizing the complexities and implications that can be drawn in interaction.

Keywords: sarcasm, taxonomy, irony, interaction, discourse, humor
Article outline
  • 1.A review of the literature on sarcasm
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Sarcasm: Means and meanings
    • 3.1Saying the opposite (incongruity)
    • 3.2Repetition
    • 3.3Explicitation
    • 3.4Metonymy
    • 3.5Metaphor
    • 3.6Shift of focus
    • 3.7Reasoning
    • 3.8Rhetorical questions
  • 4.Sarcasm and exaggeration
  • 5.Discussion: Sarcasm as defined by a target
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.17027.tab
References

References

Attardo, Salvatore
2000 Irony as relevant inappropriateness. Journal of Pragmatics 321. 793–826. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore & Victor Raskin
1991 Script theory revisited: Joke similarity and joke representation model. Humor: The International Journal of Humor Research 4 (3/4). 293–347.Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore, Christian F. Hempelmann & Sara Di Maio
2002 Script oppositions and logical mechanisms: Modeling incongruities and their resolutions. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 15(1). 3–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Averbeck, Joshua M.
2013 Comparison of ironic and sarcastic arguments in terms of appropriateness and effectiveness in personal relationships. Argument and Advocacy 501. 47–57.Google Scholar
Averbeck, Joshua M. & Dale Hample
2008 Ironic message production: How and why we produce ironic messages. Communication Monographs 751. 396–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barbe, Katharina
1995 Irony in context. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barnden, John A.
2010 Metaphor and metonymy: Making their connections more slippery. Cognitive Linguistics 21(1). 1–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Black, Max
1993 More about metaphor. In Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought, 2nd edn., 19–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Booth, Wayne C.
1974 A rhetoric of irony. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bowes, Andrea & Albert Katz
2011 When sarcasm stings. Discourse Processes 481. 215–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brône, Geert
2008 Hyper- and misunderstanding in interactional humor. Journal of Pragmatics 401. 2027–2061. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Bedeutungskonstitution in verbalem Humor: Ein kognitiv-linguistischer und diskurssemantischer Ansatz. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.Google Scholar
2012 Humor and irony in cognitive pragmatics. In Hans-Jörg Schmid (ed.), Cognitive pragmatics, 463–504. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Cognitive linguistics and humor. In Salvatore Attardo (ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and humor, 250–366. New York/London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brône, Geert & Kurt Feyaerts
2003 The cognitive linguistics of incongruity resolution: Marked reference-point structures in humor. University of Leuven, Department of Linguistics preprint No. 205.Google Scholar
Bryant, Gregory A. & Jean E. Fox Tree
2002 Recognizing verbal irony in spontaneous speech. Metaphor and Symbol 17(2). 99–117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burgers, Christian, Margot van Mulken & Peter Jan Schellens
2012 Verbal irony: Differences in usage across written genres. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 31(3). 290–310. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burgers, Christian & Margot van Mulken
2017 Humor markers. In Salvatore Attardo (ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and humor, 385–399. New York/London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H.
1996 Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. & Richard J. Gerrig
1984 On the pretense theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology 1131. 121–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colston, Herbert. L.
1997 Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism. Discourse Processes 231. 23–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
CORINTH, Corpus Interactionele Humor
2007–2009 Kurt Feyaerts & Dirk Speelman, K. U. Leuven. [URL]
Coulson, Seana
2005 Sarcasm and the space structuring model. In Seana Coulson & Barbara Lewandowska-Tomasczyk (eds.), The literal and the nonliteral in language and thought, 129–144. Berlin: Lang.Google Scholar
Croft, William & D. Alan Cruse
2004 Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dress, Megan L., Roger J. Kreuz, Kristen E. Link & Gina M. Caucci
2008 Regional variation in the use of sarcasm. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 27(1). 71–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Marta
2011 Stranger than fiction: A few methodological notes on linguistic research in film discourse. Brno Studies in English 37(1). 41–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Academics vs. American scriptwriters vs. Academics: A battle over the etic and emic “sarcasm” and “irony” labels. Language & Communication 551. 69–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fägersten, Kristy Beers
(ed.) 2016 Watching TV with a linguist. NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Fauconnier, Gilles
1984 Espaces mentaux. Aspects de la construction du sens dans les langues naturelles. Paris: Les Editions de minuit.Google Scholar
1994 Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feyaerts, Kurt
1999 Metonymic hierarchies: The conceptualization of stupidity in German idiomatic expressions. In Klaus-Uwe Panther & Günther Radden (eds.), Metonymy in language and thought, 309–332. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Tackling the complexity of spontaneous humorous interaction. An integrated classroom-modeled corpus approach. In Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo & Maria Belén Alvarado Ortega (eds.), Irony and humor, 243–268. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feyaerts, Kurt, Dirk Speelman, Geert Brône & Bert Oben
2011 Corinth: Corpus Interactionele Humor. University of Leuven.Google Scholar
Feyaerts, Kurt & Geert Brône
2005 Expressivity and metonymic inferencing: Stylistic variation in non-literary language use. Style 39(1). 12–35.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond
1994 The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond W.
2000 Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol 15(1–2). 5–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giora, Rachel
1995 On irony and negation. Discourse Processes 191. 239–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glenwright, Melanie & Penny M. Pexman
2010 Development of children’s ability to distinguish sarcasm and verbal irony. Journal of Child Language 37(2). 429–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, Paul
1975 Logic and conversation. In Jerry Morgan & Peter Cole (eds.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 31: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1989 Studies in the way of words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haiman, John
1998 Talk is cheap: Sarcasm, alienation and evolution of language. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hancock, Jeffrey T.
2004 Verbal irony use in face-to-face and computer-mediated conversations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23(4). 447–463. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hanks, Patrick
2013 Creatively exploiting linguistic norms. In Tony Veale, Kurt Feyaerts & Charles Forceville (eds.), Creativity and the agile mind: A multidisciplinary study of a multifaceted phenomenon, 119–138. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Havertake, Henk
1990 A speech-act analysis of irony. Journal of Pragmatics 141. 77–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kihara, Yoshihiko
2005 The mental space structure of verbal irony. Cognitive Linguistics 16(3). 513–530. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koshik, Irene
2005 Beyond rhetorical questions: Assertive questions in everyday interactions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kotthoff, Helga
2003 Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 351. 1387–1411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Oral genres of humor. On the dialectic of genre knowledge and creative authoring. Journal of Pragmatics 17(2). 263–296. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 An interactional approach to irony development. In Neal R. Norrick & Delia Chiaro (eds.), Humor in interaction, 49–77. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lagerwerf, Luuk
2007 Irony and sarcasm in advertisements: Effects of relevant inappropriateness. Journal of Pragmatics 391. 1702–1721. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson
1980 Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Christopher J. & Albert N. Katz
1998 The differential role of ridicule in sarcasm and irony. Metaphor and Symbol 13(1). 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mesing, Joslyn, Danielle Williams & Dawn Blasko
2012 Sarcasm in relationships: Hurtful or humorous? International Journal of Psychology 471. 724–724Google Scholar
Muecke, Douglas C.
1970 Irony. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Nunberg, Geoffrey
2001 The way we talk now: Commentaries on language and culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Nuolijärvi, Pirkko & Liisa Tiittula
2011 Irony in political television debates. Journal of Pragmatics 43(2). 572–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peirsman, Yves & Dirk Geeraerts
2006 Metonymy as a prototypical category. Cognitive Linguistics 17(3). 269–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quaglio, Paulo
2016 The one based on 738,032 words: Language use in the Friends-corpus. In Kristy Beers Fägersten (ed.). Watching TV with a Linguist, 307–334. NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Radden, Günter & Zoltan Kövecses
1999 Towards a theory of metonymy. In Klaus-Uwe Panther & Günther Radden (eds.), Metonymy in language and thought, 17–59. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raskin, Victor
1985 Semantic mechanisms of humor. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Rockwell, Patricia
2000 Lower, slower, louder: Vocal cues to sarcasm. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 29(5). 483–495. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schechter, Joshua
2013 Deductive reasoning. In Harold Pashler (ed.), Encyclopedia of the mind, London: SAGE Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan
1984 Verbal irony: Pretense or echoic mention? Journal of Experimental Psychology 113(1). 130–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan & Deidre Wilson
1981 Irony and use-mention distinction. In Peter Cole (ed.), Radical pragmatics, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tabacaru, Sabina
2015 Uma visão geral das teorias do humor: aplicação da incongruência e da superioridade ao sarcasmo. EID & A Revista electrônica de estudos integrados em discurso e argumentação 91. 115–136.Google Scholar
Tabacaru, Sabina & Maarten Lemmens
2014 Raised eyebrows as gestural triggers in humor: The case of sarcasm and hyper-understanding. European Journal of Humor Research 2(2). 11–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tabacaru, Sabina & Kurt Feyaerts
2016 The power of metonymy in humor: Stretching contiguous relations across different layers of meaning. European Journal of Humour Research 4(2). 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Leonard
1972 Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi. PhD dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
1983 How language structures space. In Herbert L. Pick & Linda P. Acredolo (eds.), Spatial orientation: Theory, research and application, 225–282. New York: Plenum Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tobin, Vera & Michael Israel
2012 Irony as a viewpoint phenomenon. In Barbara Dancygier & Eve Sweetser (eds.), Viewpoint in language: A multimodal perspective, 25–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre
2006 The pragmatics of verbal irony: Echo or pretence? Lingua 1161. 1722–1743. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber
2004 Relevance Theory. In Laurence R. Horn & Gregory Ward (eds.), The Handbook of pragmatics, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yuldashev, Akmal Gulamjanovich
2016 Metaphtonymy as the main cognitive mechanism in the formation of idiomatic compound words. ANGLISTICUM. Journal of the Association for Anglo-American Studies 5(7). 30–35.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Airaksinen, Timo
2020. Irony and Sarcasm in Ethical Perspective. Open Philosophy 3:1 ► pp. 358 ff. DOI logo
Airaksinen, Timo
2020. Mimetic Evil: A Conceptual and Ethical Study. Problemos 98 ► pp. 58 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 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.