In: L. Cummings (ed.), Pragmatics Encyclopedia. London: Routledge.
IRONY
Rachel Giora
How do we go about interpreting an ironic utterance such as You’re sharp, aren’t
you? (Flesh 2004). Given the speaker’s ostensive ironic intent, does that guarantee
that we activate the appropriate interpretation initially or even exclusively? Or could
the process also involve the literal (‘piercing’) and metaphoric (‘smart’)
interpretations of the utterance, regardless of their inappropriateness?
An unresolved issue within pragmatics and psycholinguistics is whether our cognitive
machinery is adept at swiftly and accurately homing in on a single, contextually
appropriate interpretation (Gibbs 1986, 1994; Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995) or
whether it is less efficient at sieving out interpretations based on salient (coded and
prominent) word and phrase meanings which might be derived irrespective of
contextual information and speakers’ intent (Giora 1997, 2003). Within the field of
nonliteral language, this translates into whether accessible but incompatible messagelevel interpretations are involved even when contextual information is highly
supportive of an alternative interpretation. The debate within irony research thus
revolves around the role of salience-based yet incompatible interpretations in shaping
contextually compatible ironic but non-salient interpretations in contexts strongly
benefiting such interpretations.
What kind of contexts may benefit ironic interpretations? On one view, titled ‘the
direct access model’ (Gibbs 1986, 1994, 2002), a context displaying some contrast
between what is expected (by the protagonist) and the reality that frustrates it, while
further conveying negative emotions, will both predict and facilitate ironic
interpretations (Colston 2002; Gibbs 1986, 2002: 462; Utsumi 2000). On another
view, titled ‘the constraints-based model’, a context involving contextual factors
inviting an ironic interpretation (such as speakers known for their nonliteralness) will
raise an expectation for an ironic utterance which, in turn, will facilitate irony
interpretation exclusively (Pexman et al. 2000). (For a detailed review of the existing
models of irony, see Giora 2003: 61-102).
However, experiments in which one varies characteristics deemed effective by the
direct access or constraints-based models have not demonstrated an increase in irony
predictability or observed facilitation of irony interpretation (Giora et al. in press).
Although findings in Gibbs (1986) can be viewed as demonstrating similar processing
times for ironies and equivalent salience-based (literal) interpretations, they may also
be viewed as demonstrating quite the opposite, namely, that irony is more difficult to
derive than salience-based interpretations (Dews and Winner 1997; Giora 1995).
Another way to induce an expectation for an ironic utterance has been studied by
Giora et al. (2007) who increased uses of ironies in contexts preceding ironic targets.
Still, while these contexts gave rise to an expectation for another ironic utterance (as
might be also envisaged by Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989), this expectation did not
facilitate ironical interpretations of those utterances compared to their salience-based
(e.g. literal) interpretations. In spite of their contextual inappropriateness, only
salience-based interpretations were facilitated initially, even when comprehenders
were allowed lengthy (1000 msec) processing time.
Another environment privileging ironic interpretation is that shared by intimates who
rely on a rich common ground and who are willing to join in the fun (Clark 1996;
Clift 1999; Eisterhold et al. 2006; Gibbs 2000; Kotthoff 2003; Pexman and Zvaigzne
2004). However, a check of the way friends respond to their mates’ ironic turns
shows that they mostly respond to the salience-based (e.g. literal/‘what is said’)
interpretation of the irony, either by addressing it directly or by extending the ironic
turn on the basis of the salience-based interpretation (Eisterhold et al. 2006; Giora and
Gur 2003; Kotthoff 2003). For instance, the irony cited above (You’re sharp, aren’t
you?) is followed by an utterance (I like my men to have “brains” and a “bit of
class”) that elaborates on the salient (metaphoric) meaning of the irony. Such
response patterns testify to the high accessibility of irony’s salience-based
interpretations which may therefore lend themselves to further elaborations.
Indeed, most of the behavioural evidence in irony research argues in favour of a
salience-based-initial rather than contextually-compatible-initial model of irony
interpretation (Colston and Gibbs 2002; Dews and Winner 1999; Giora 1995; Giora
and Fein 1999; Giora et al. 1998, 2007, in press; Katz et al. 2004; Katz and Pexman
1997; Ivanko and Pexman 2003; Pexman et al. 2000; Schwoebel et al. 2000). Corpusassisted studies too support the view that salience-based interpretations are highly
functional in irony interpretation (Partington 2007). Among other things, it is, in fact,
the initial activation of incompatible, salience-based interpretations that makes irony
interpretation a complex and error-prone process (Anolli et al. 2001; Lagerwerf
2007), as also demonstrated by some notorious misunderstandings (e.g. taking Swift’s
A modest proposal, literally; see Booth 1974).
The view that irony interpretation is a complex process also gains support from
neurological studies. For instance, irony has been shown to recruit the right
hemisphere, which is adept at inferencing and remote associations. Salient meanings
and salience-based interpretations (familiar literals and familiar metaphors), however,
rely more heavily on the left hemisphere, which reduces the range of possible
alternatives to the most salient ones (Eviatar and Just 2006; Giora et al. 2000; Kaplan
et al. 1990; McDonald 1999; Peleg and Eviatar 2008; Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2005;
Wakusawa et al. 2007). Furthermore, neurologically-impaired populations were also
found to fare better on salience-based interpretations than on (non-salient) ironic
interpretations. For instance, populations impaired on theory of mind (the ability to
distinguish between our own mental states and those of others), such as autistic
individuals (including individuals with Asperger syndrome, a high-functioning
variant of autism), individuals with closed head injury, brain damage (especially
right-hemisphere damage) and schizophrenia performed worse than normal controls
on irony compared to familiar (metaphoric and literal) interpretations (Baron-Cohen
et al. 1993, 1997; Channon et al. 2005; Giora et al. 2000; Kaland et al. 2005; Kasari
and Rotheram-Fuller 2005; Leitman et al. 2006; Martin and McDonald 2004;
McDonald 2000; Mitchley et al. 1998; Mo et al. 2008; Stratta et al. 2007; Thoma and
Daum 2006; Tompkins and Mateer 1985; Wang et al. 2006; Winner et al. 1998).
Developmentally, findings which show that irony acquisition occurs rather late,
between 6 and 9 years of age (Bernicot et al. 2007; Creusere 2000; Hancock and
Purdy 2000; Winner 1988), and decays earlier than simpler tasks (Bara et al. 2000)
also support the view that interpreting irony might be a complex process. And while
adults mostly make do with contextual information (Bryant and Fox Tree 2005),
children, in addition, often rely on prosodic cues when detecting irony (Ackerman
1981, 1983, 1986; Capelli et al. 1990; de Groot et al. 1995; Milosky and Ford 1997;
Winner 1988; Winner et al. 1988; but see Attardo et al. 2003 and Bryant and Fox
Tree 2005 who found that there is no specific tone of voice for irony).
This diverse array of findings, coupled with observed scarcity (7 to 10 per cent) of
ironic turns among friends (Attardo et al. 2003; Eisterhold et al. 2006; Gibbs 2000;
Partington 2007; Rockwell 2004; Tannen 1984), elementary-school teachers (Lazar et
al. 1989), and others (Haiman 1998; Hartung 1998) and the failures to detect them
(Attardo 2002; Rockwell 2004) bring out irony’s complex nature. Such complexity is
predicted by theories which assume that salience-based albeit incompatible
interpretations play a major role in irony interpretation (Clark and Gerrig 1984;
Colston 1997, 2002; Currie 2006; Dews and Winner 1999; Giora 1995; KumonNakamura et al. 1995; Récanati 2004; Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995: 242), while
further triggering inferential processes such as implicature derivation (Attardo 2000,
2001; Grice 1975; Carston 2002: 160) and theory of mind (Curcó 2000; Happé 1993,
1995; Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995; Wilson 2006; Wilson and Sperber 1992).
Although by the age of 6 years we can distinguish between our own and others’
mental states, even as adults we often fail to recruit this ability initially (Keysar 1994,
2000; Keysar et al. 2003), although this may vary culturally (Wu and Keysar 2007).
However, theories assuming that context can effect immediate if not exclusive
activation of nonsalient but contextually compatible interpretations (Gibbs 1994; Katz
et al. 2004; Pexman et al. 2000; Utsumi 2000) cannot, at this stage, explain a wide
range of findings accumulated during the last two decades of irony research. Still,
testing the initial effect of a cluster of contextual factors, including their relative
weight, might shed further light on the nature of irony interpretation.
Suggestions for further reading:
Barbe, K. (1995) Irony in Context, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gibbs, R.W. Jr. and Colston, H.L. (eds) (2007) Irony in Language and Thought: A
Cognitive Science Reader, New York, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Martin, A.R. (2007) The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach,
Burlington, MA: Elsevier.
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