Persuasive goals of Irony
in a political trial.
Isabella Poggi*
Federica Cavicchio**, Emanuela Magno Caldognetto**
* Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Educazione
Università Roma Tre, Roma
** Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione del CNR
Sezione di Fonetica e Dialettologia, Padova
Humaine: WP8 Workshop
Trento – November 17-18, 2005
A trial as a case of
persuasive discourse
• According to classical rhetoric, which distinguished among
deliberative, judiciary and epideictic rhetoric, a trial is a typical
case of persuasion.
• In a judicial debate, the goal of punishing the guilty is shared by
the judge and the attorneys
• The job of the attorneys is to persuade the Judge, through
argumentation, about the truth of some beliefs concerning the
events and the responsibility of the accused in them
• a subgoal of this is, for all of them, to assess the credibility of the
accused and of the witnesses.
How believable are the
accused and the witnesses
• As to witnesses, the Judge must assess if they tell the truth
about events, mainly by assessing how certain they are of what
they say (if by direct witnessing, or only by having heard, or by
their own inferences), and checking possible contradictions
• As to the accused, a judge must assess not only factual states
of affairs (events), but also, and more importantly, the
accused’s intentionality and awareness of committing a
misdeed.
• The civil attorney, for example, must persuade the judge that the
accused did know that he was committing some transgression,
while the accused aims, in turn, to convince that, even if he
caused some damage to someone or he transgressed some
norm, he was not aware of this.
“Clean Hands”:
An Italian political trial
• A famous trial, held in Italy in 1993, of very high political import,
in which many politicians were charged of corruption, and were
subject to a “degradation ritual” (Garfinkel, 1995; Giglioli et al.,
1997)
• In this trial, both the accuser, Antonio Di Pietro, and one of the
attorneys, Spazzali, often use irony while interrogating the
accused and the witnesses
• Their interrogations also provide examples of humor and
ridiculization
Our research Goals
• To define the notion of Irony in terms of a goal
and belief model of communication
• To analyse examples of Irony in the “Clean
Hands Trial”, to single out
- their goals
- their multimodal cues
A model of communication in
terms of goals and beliefs
(Castelfranchi & Parisi 1980; Conte & Castelfranchi 1995; Poggi & Magno
Caldognetto 1997; Poggi & Pelachaud 2000)
• People communicate through communicative acts
• A communicative act is a behavior performed or a
morphological trait exhibited by a Sender in order to
have an Addressee believe some belief
• A communicative act can be perfomed through a
sentence, a gesture, a gaze, a facial expression
Communicative acts
• A communicative
act always has a
literal meaning,
• but it may also
have, in addition,
a non-literal
meaning
•
The goal of the
communicative act
•
The beliefs the Sender
wants the Addressee to
understand through the
lexical and syntactic
rules of the shared
communication system
•
The(communicative)
supergoal of the
communicative act
•
The beliefs the Sender
wants the Addressee to
draw by inference
Irony
•
Irony is a communicative act in which the literal meaning is opposite to
the non-literal meaning (antiphrastic irony)
•
Generally the literal meaning (and hence the non-literal one) has an
evaluative import, in that it directly bears, or makes one infer, some
evaluation about some event, object or person
•
Irony is a Rhetorical Figure in that the Sender wants the Addressee to
understand the non-literal meaning: a case of “recitation” (Castelfranchi &
Vincent, 1977; Castelfranchi & Poggi, 1998)
•
Recitation = I say something I do not believe, but I want you to
understand I do not believe it
•
As well as any communicative act, also an ironic act can have supergoals
How to understand irony
(and how to have others understand it)
•
To understand the non-literal meaning of irony, the Addressee must
- understand that the Sender wants to be ironic (ironic alert:
Jacovoni & Poggi, 1998; Attardo et al., 2003)
- understand the non-literal meaning of the communicative act
•
In order to make the Addressee understand he’s being ironic, the Sender may
lean on
- metacommunication: a “blank face”, a wink, an a-symmetric smile,
by itself a signal “dedicated” to alerting to irony
 S performs a signal that means: I am being ironic
- paracommunication, namely an utterly contrasting belief, drawn from
contextual knowledge or from a contradictory signal (e.g., a bored face while
uttering an enthusiastic utterance; hyperbole or understatement ) (Attardo et
al., 2003)
 S performs two signals meaning rexpectively X and not X
Di Pietro’s irony
in the “Clean Hands” trial
•
The accuser Di Pietro is trying to demonstrate that the accused, the
politician Cirino Pomicino, received 5 billions Lire from Dr. Ferruzzi for
political elections.
•
Cirino Pomicino says that
- the day after the elections he received Ferruzzi at his home at
7.30 in the morning
- he did so just because seven months before he had promised
to Sama that he would meet Ferruzzi
•
Di Pietro ironically remarks it is quite strange that Cirino Pomicino
received Dr. Ferruzzi at his home at 7.30 in the morning, and,
moreover, that this was only because, 7 months before, he had been
committed to meet Ferruzzi, and not because he was to thank Ferruzzi
for granting 5 billions for the elections
•
He does so to argue that Pomicino did know he was doing an illicit
thing.
Di Pietro : Irony 1
•
il vero impegno che aveva
preso questo signore era di
ringraziare, di sdebitarsi di un
impegno che aveva preso col
dottor Sama a giugno di sette
mesi prima
•
The true commitment of this
gentleman was to thank, to pay
off his debt of something he had
been committed to with
Dr.Sama in june of seven
months before
Paracommunication of irony
• Words
Un impegno che aveva preso col dottor
Sama a giugno di sette mesi prima
(= a commitment with Dr.Sama that he
had been committed to in june of
seven months before)
• Gesture
Depicts an oblong shape up in the air =
cloud = vague
• Gaze
Looks up in the sky = cloud = vague
Gesture and gaze paracommunicate a meaning of
vagueness which contrasts with the straight
idea of a commitment
Commitment vs. Vague
Gesture and gaze paracommunicate a meaning
contrasting with words and thus alerts to irony
Di Pietro’s strategy
G1: Judge condemns CP
G2: Judge believes CP
had received 5 billions for the elections
G3: Judge believes there was a stronger
reason to receive guests at 7.30
A: DP is ironic about receiving Ferruzzi
at 7.30 only because CP. was committed
to do so 7 months before
Di Pietro : Irony 2
• Oòh, a mme sembra, e le
chiedevo a lei conferma, se
lei si sia sentito in dovere di
svegliarsi alle sette e mezza
perché le avevano dato
cinque miliardi o perché
aveva preso un impegno
sette mesi prima di
ricevere… Ferruzzi
• Well, it seems to me, and I
was asking you to confirm, if
you felt a duty to wake up at
7.30 because they had given
you 5 billions or because you
had been committed seven
months before to receive…
Ferruzzi
Irony in gesture and trunk
• Words
Ooh, a mme sembra, e le chiedevo a lei
conferma
Well, it seems to me, and I was asking you to
confirm
• Gesture
hands palm up move forward up in curve line
= I offer you kindly
• Gaze (somewhat later)
Wide open eyes, raised eyebrows, horizontal
wrinkles on the forehead = I am
perplexed, doubtful about this hypothesis
• Trunk
Trunk bends down, bows = I submit to you
Gesture and trunk show an exaggerate politeness, like in truly asking
to confirm (but in a hyperbolic way, ironic in itself)
gaze shows a contrasting perplexity
I trust your confirmation (I believe you) vs.
I am perplexed (I don’t believe you)
The whole communicative act then results ironic
Di Pietro’s strategy
G1: Judge condemns CP
G2: Judge believes CP
knew he was transgressing
G3: Judge believes
receiving guests at 7.30 is strange
A: DP is ironic about
receiving people at 7.30
Di Pietro’s strategy
G1: Judge condemns CP
Judge believes CP knew : G2
he was transgressing
G3: Judge believes CP received
5 billions for the elections
Judge believes receiving : G4
guests at 7.30 is strange
G5: Judge believes there was a stronger
reason to receive guests at 7.30
DP is ironic about receiving: A1
people at 7.30 in the morning
A2: DP is ironic about receiving Ferruzzi
at 7.30 only because CP. was
committed to do so 7 months before
Spazzali: self irony
•
•
•
•
•
Sapeva anche, ed è questo che le
chiedo, quali fossero le posizioni di
Grotti e di Bernabè insieme all’Eni
in relazione…?
•
S.: You also knew, and this is what
I ask you, what were the positions
of Grotti and Bernabè with Eni as
to…
C.: Di Grotti e di Sernia vuol dire
•
C.: Of Grotti and Sernia you mean
S.: (Schiocca pollice e medio della
sinistra) C’è qualche ragione: mi
scivola sempre la lingua si
Bernabè. Di Sernia.
•
S.: (snaps thumb and middle
finger) There is some reason for
this: my tongue always slips on
Bernabè. Of Sernia.
Spazzali : Self-irony
•
Words
Mi scivola sempre la lingua su Bernabè
•
Gesture
Reproaches himself with his finger
•
Forehead
Wrinkles show worry
•
Mouth
(= My tongue always slips over Bernabè)
Smiles
The smile paracommunicates a contrasting
meaning :
Mistake – reproach – worry
vs.
Amusement
The smile paracommunicates
self-irony
Spazzali’s strategy
Spazzali’s ironic self reproach has a further indirect meaning
G1: You should talk about Bernabè
G2: You never talk about Bernabè, but I inadvertently
mentioned him, because I really think this is relevant
G3: I am ironic about my slip of the tongue
Also in this case Irony is a means to unmask the truth
Conclusion
In the “Clean Hands Trial”…
Irony is generally exploited to persuade the Judge that
the Accused is not credible
Irony in this case has an important function within
judiciary persuasive discourse