Leticia Bravo Matute Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez Facultad de Letras y de la Educación Grado en Estudios Ingleses 2013-2014 Título Director/es Facultad Titulación Departamento TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO Curso Académico Understanding verbal irony: a cognitive-linguistic approach Autor/es
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Leticia Bravo Matute
Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
Grado en Estudios Ingleses
2013-2014
Título
Director/es
Facultad
Titulación
Departamento
TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
Curso Académico
Understanding verbal irony: a cognitive-linguistic approach
Understanding verbal irony: a cognitive-linguistic approach, trabajo fin de gradode Leticia Bravo Matute, dirigido por Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (publicado
por la Universidad de La Rioja), se difunde bajo una LicenciaCreative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 3.0 Unported.
Permisos que vayan más allá de lo cubierto por esta licencia pueden solicitarse a los titulares del copyright.
Tradicionalmente, la ironía ha sido relegada a los ámbitos de la retórica y la
literatura. De hecho, hasta hace unas décadas la ironía se ha considerado como una
figura retórica más y ha sido incluso menospreciada en comparación con otras figuras
literarias como la metáfora o la hipérbole. Sin embargo, estudios recientes aseguran que
tanto la ironía como otras muchas figuras retóricas se utilizan en el discurso diario para
conseguir un fin específico en la comunicación tanto hablada como escrita; de hecho,
estos elementos son utilizados incluso como herramienta de persuasión.
Resulta interesante que, a pesar de no haber despertado el interés de los lingüistas
hasta hace bien poco, esta figura retórica no ha llegado a explicarse de una manera
coherente y objetiva hasta que la lingüística tomó parte en su estudio ya que los
elementos clave parecen no ser precisamente literarios. A pesar de ello, hasta el
momento los pragmatistas se consideran incapaces de explicar con detalle cuáles son los
factores que convierten una situación en irónica o por qué sólo funciona en
determinados contextos. Probablemente, la razón sea la necesidad de incluir en el
análisis modelos cognitivos, como son los postulados por los lingüistas cognitivos.
En este trabajo se presentarán cinco teorías diferentes cuyos objetivos son el
análisis y la explicación del discurso irónico así como de los elementos que lo
conforman. Las teorías utilizadas serán las siguientes: el Principio de Cooperación de
Grice, la Teoría General sobre el Humor Verbal de Attardo, el Principio de Pretensión
de Clark y Gerrig, la Teoría Ecoica de Sperber y Wilson, desarrollada a partir de su
conocida Teoría de la Relevancia y, finalmente, las Teoría de las Operaciones
Cognitivas, desarrollada por Ruiz de Mendoza.
Con el fin de poner a prueba las mencionadas teorías, en el capítulo 5 se han
analizado un total de nueve ejemplos de ironía, obtenidos de diversos artículos, páginas
web, películas, libros e incluso creados por la autora de este trabajo siguiendo la
práctica de otros autores en este campo, con el fin de realizar propuestas teóricas
específicas.
Tras el análisis, se ha procedido a la explicación de los resultados obtenidos
gracias a él y se han establecido diferencias entre distintos tipos de discurso irónico
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según la cantidad de información previa necesitada. A raíz de estas pequeñas
diferencias, ha quedado patente que las cuatro teorías pueden operar de manera conjunta
aportando información al análisis y arrojando un resultado más completo. Sin embargo,
también queda probado que la teoría postulada por Ruiz de Mendoza es capaz de
ofrecer un análisis lo suficientemente completo por sí misma.
Finalmente, se ofrece un resumen de las conclusiones obtenidas tanto en el
análisis como en los resultados logrados gracias a él junto con una visión global del
trabajo en su conjunto.
ABSTRACT
Traditionally, irony has been relegated to the fields of literature and rhetoric. In
fact, until a few decades ago irony was considered another trope, i.e. a figure of thought
or of speech; it has even been underrated in comparison with other literary figures such
as metaphor or hyperbole. However, recent studies argue that irony, along with many
other literary tropes, is used by people daily in their discourse in order to achieve very
specific and predictable communicative goals. In fact, these tropes could also be used as
a persuasive tool.
Strikingly enough, despite not having called the attention of linguists until
recently, this figure of thought has not achieved a coherent and objective explanation
until the field of linguistics, especially within the domain of pragmatics, has taken
active interest in it. One of the reasons could be that the key elements for understanding
irony are not to be found within the field of literature but outside it. Despite this,
pragmaticians have not yet been able to explain in detail the ins and outs of irony nor
why it only works in certain situations. In our view, the reason is the fact that
pragmatics focuses its attention on meaning effects to the detriment of cognitive
mechanisms. For this reason, we argue for the need of a complementary cognitive-
linguistic approach to the phenomenon.
In this dissertation five different theories will be addressed and tested against real
data. Their main objectives are: on the one hand, the explanation of ironic discourse;
4
and, on the other hand, the analytical dissection of all its components. The theories will
be the following: Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP), Attardo’s General Theory of
Verbal Humour, Glark and Gerrig’s Pretense account, Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance
Theory (RT), which is focused on its echoic use, and, finally, Ruiz de Mendoza’s
account of cognitive operations.
In order to achieve the goal of showing how the theories mentioned above are able
to explain irony and how it works, nine examples will be analyzed in chapter 5. These
examples have been chosen from different articles, websites, films and books. Others
have been created by the author of this dissertation, following common practice in the
field, in order to make specific theoretical claims.
After the analysis, a discussion of results will follow and differences between the
various types of verbal irony will be determined according to the quantity of previous
knowledge required for their understanding. As a result of these differences, it has
become clear that the first four theories mentioned above could operate together, each
of them accounting for different aspects of the phenomenon under analysis and assuring
a more complete result. However, this dissertation also supports Ruiz de Mendoza’s
account as providing the most encompassing explanation of verbal irony on its own.
Finally, a summary of analytical results will be offered along with an overview of
the main achievements of the present dissertation.
5
1. INTRODUCTION
Statistics suggest that in popular TV talk shows, there are four ironies every half an
hour. So if one watches TV two hours a day, he/she shall enjoy the effect of 5,800
ironies a year. And in British and American literary works, there are one irony
every four pages. (Miao and Zhu-hui 2012: 1220)
Irony has been traditionally studied as a figure of speech or thought in which the
speaker utters just the opposite of what he wants to convey. Moreover, it has been
studied as another literary trope: utterances in which figurative meaning, which is
contrasted with literal meaning, should be decoded. Wilson explains that “in metaphor,
the figurative meaning is a smile or comparison based on the literal meaning; in irony,
[...] it is the opposite of the literal meaning” (2006: 1723). However, this concept has
recently been challenged by inferentialist approaches to language use. In fact, as the
previous quotation explains, it has been demonstrated time and again that rhetorical
devices are used in everyday communication not only for ordinary speaking but also to
achieve persuasion.
Aristotle was probably the first philosopher to study humor. He pointed out the
higher sophistication needed for ironical utterances to be adequately understood (c.f.
Aristole 2010: 157). Interestingly, this idea is reinforced by the assumption that “the
ability to understand simple forms of irony is thought to be present from around the age
of six or seven [and not earlier] […]” (Wilson and Sperber 2012: 1); moreover, Wilson
argues that verbal irony could be impaired in people whose right hemisphere is
damaged (i.e. autism) (2006: 1723). In fact, the receiver needs to recognize the
speaker’s intentions; if the hearer fails to do so, misunderstanding will arise and
communication will not be successful. Wilson (2006: 1723) also argues that recognition
of the utterance as ironic is essential: if the ironist has reservations about the hearer’s
ability to understand the irony just on the basis of the context, the speaker will generally
supply additional clues (an ironical tone of voice, wry facial expression, exaggeration).
Within this context of research, the purpose of the present dissertation is to review
and assess the explanatory potential of some of the most recent and well-known theories
of verbal irony. So far, however, there has been little discussion on this subject. Until
very recently linguists have preferred to deal with other fields of language and verbal
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communication. However, as Tabernero (2013: 6) has noted, “The accounts of irony
provided by pragmatics have offered a solid base for more comprehensive and accurate
research on linguistic phenomena where non-literariness is the key element for
understanding.” In any event, Tabernero also notes that pragmatic approaches have
generally failed to account for the mental mechanisms underlying the production of
ironical effects in utterances (i.e. why irony only works in specific situations even with
the same utterance). As will be shown later on, for irony to work speakers need to
perform a number of cognitive operations (cf. Ruiz de Mendoza & Pérez 2003, Ruiz de
Mendoza & Peña 2005, and the applications to irony in Ruiz de Mendoza 2011, Ruiz de
Mendoza & Galera 2014, and Ruiz de Mendoza 2014) that can be recognized as such by
hearers when interpreting ironic utterances.
It is worth mentioning that the interest on irony has increased over the last decade
and it is now widely used even in advertisements. Legerwerf (2007: 1702) has pointed
out that there has been a recent “[…] increase in the use of incongruent elements in
advertisements [irony and sarcasm] because advertisers are convinced that these
elements will provoke a positive reaction in consumers.” This practice is becoming so
common that a new term has been designed for it, shockvertising, a portmanteau word
created by combining ‘shock’ and ‘advertising.’ Pérez-Sobrino (2014: 1) argues that the
end of these advertisements is to attract audiences to a particular purpose by combining
elements in odd scenarios.
This dissertation will try to illustrate the power of the theories discussed herein.
To this end, different up-to-date examples have been sampled from a larger selection on
the basis of their intrinsic interest and the different ironical effects they show. In the
analysis, the following methodology will be used: firstly, the context in which the
example has occurred will be discussed (if necessary); this will be followed by a
description of how the different theories (to be discussed in chapter 3) operate in each
case of verbal irony. In the same vein, the reader will realize which of these theories
need to be complemented by others in order to provide a good enough explanation, and
which is able to account for a specific case of ironical use of language (but not
necessarily others) by itself. The reader will thus discover the extent to which each
approach can deal with irony and evaluate its adequacy to deal with this important
communicative phenomenon.
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The overall structure of the present study takes the form of eight different chapters
including this introduction. The second chapter is concerned with the development of
the central term of this essay, irony, and the distinctive features for this traditional trope.
Chapter three begins by laying out the theoretical aspects of this dissertation. Here, five
different theories that have attempted to analyze verbal irony will be described: firstly,
Grice’s conversational maxims; secondly, Salvatore Attardo’s General Theory of
Verbal Humor; thirdly, Clark and Gerrig’s Pretense Theory; fourthly, Sperber and
Wilson’s echoic account within Relevance Theory; and finally, Ruiz de Mendoza’s own
development of the echoic account from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. The fourth
chapter will focus on the complementariness and usefulness of the accounts discussed in
the previous chapter as far as irony is concerned. Chapter five analyses ironical
utterances by means of the theories discussed in chapter four. The sixth chapter will
draw upon the entire dissertation, tying up the theoretical and empirical strands in order
to discuss the results of the previous analytical work. Finally, in chapter seven, the
conclusion will offer a brief summary of the main findings in this dissertation.
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9
2. UNDERSTANDING IRONY
This second chapter is divided into two different parts: the first one provides a
brief overview of the notion of irony as was used by rhetoricians and discusses how
linguists have changed its definition; in the second part, the three essential elements of
verbal irony are described.
Until recently, there has been little interest in irony and other so-called literary
tropes among linguists.1 Furthermore, it is a term generally used in the field of
literature. That is why, as pointed out in the introductory chapter, irony has been studied
as a rhetorical device and has been defined as a clear sharp opposition with reality.
In contrast to rhetoricians, many linguists now argue that verbal irony is not only
used in literature but also in everyday language, and therefore, it is used by ordinary
people who may not be aware of it. Interestingly enough, rhetoricians were not
completely capable of describing irony or of explaining how it works. By contrast,
pragmatics is the field that has offered a more complete and coherent explanation of this
so-called trope. It is also worth emphasizing that this more accurate explanation has
been produced when non-literary processes were studied as the key for understanding
this phenomena (Tabernero 2013: 6).
Let us now describe the three distinctive characteristics of ironical utterances.
According to Wilson (2013), these are the following: (i) the role of attitude; (ii) the
normative bias; and (iii) the ironical tone of voice.
Wilson’s first characteristic looks at the fact that irony is uttered with a special
attitude; what is more, the ironist’s attitude has a particular role in the achievement of 1 The reason for this is that linguists have generally taken tropes to be ornamental deviations from the
norm. However, this situation has gradually changed as some linguists have started to note that such
phenomena as metaphor and metonymy are quite common in everyday language use. A now classic
example of this approach is found in Lakoff and Johnson (1980). Within post-Gricean inferential
pragmatics, Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995), has also underlined the idea that tropes are
ordinary uses of language. They are a matter of interpretive, to be distinguished from descriptive or literal
uses of language. However, the relevance-theoretic approach rejects the idea that there are any cognitive
devices, such as Lakoff and Johnson’s “mappings” of domains, involved in understanding metaphor and
metonymy. They claim that these uses of language are a matter of inference regulated by the search for
relevance within ostensive communication.
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irony. Neither Grice nor classical rhetoricians seem to find this important. Irony and
metaphor were studied as almost equal tools. However, metaphor does not involve a
particular attitude. The characteristic ironical attitudes are usually: mocking, scornful, or
contemptuous (Wilson 2013).
As regards the normative bias in irony, Wilson (2013) points out that despite
being widely noted, it is not clear either in the classical or in the Gricean approach. It
has already been mentioned in the introduction that the normative bias in the use of
irony is to criticize or complain about a situation that has proved to be just the contrary
of what was previously expected. Wilson also adds that it is unusual to use irony in
order to praise or reassure.
Turning now to the third feature, the ironical tone of voice, Wilson argues that it
is also missing in the classical and Gricean accounts. It is similar to the first
characteristic; there is no ironical tone of voice in metaphors. According to Wilson, it is
an optional hint to the ironist’s attitude that is “ […] characterized by a flat or deadpan
intonation, slower tempo, lower pitch level and greater intensity than are found in the
2011: 37). Grice assures the existence of more maxims but he does not give further
explanations (1991:308).
According to Grice, his account has something missing. Wilson and Sperber
(2012: 130) can be quoted in this respect: “Grice suggests that what is missing may be
the fact that irony involves the expression of a ‘hostile or derogatory judgment or a
feeling such as indignation or contempt’ [and not only the speaker saying or making as
if to say something]”. However, Grice did not introduce this idea into his account,
which thus remains incomplete.
As far as this dissertation is concerned, there are two important consequences of
Grice’s proposal on conversational maxims: first, an expectation is created in both
speaker and receiver; second, Grice assumes that these maxims are violated as a way to
achieve a particular communicative effect on the hearer. In fact, the hearer needs to
13
decode the message in order to understand it since it is encoded in an implicature. In
this context, Grice argues that irony is to be understood as a flouting, or blatant breach,
of the maxim of Quality (Grice 1975: 30).
3.2. Salvatore Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor
In 1991 Attardo and Raskin proposed a revised version of Raskin’s (1985)
Semantic Script Theory of Humour (SSTH); this broadened SSTH’s theory was called
the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH).
It should also be emphasized that the GTVH, on which this dissertation will
focus on is a further expansion that Attardo (2001) proposed in Humorous Texts: A
Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. As the author explains, he does not alter the main
tenets of this theory but he includes all humorous texts, as for example those in which
irony is involved (Attardo 2001: 28).
In his Script Theory of Humor, Raskin (1985: 99) puts forward the following
hypothesis on jokes:
A text can be characterized as a single-joke-carring-text if both of the conditions are
satisfied:
i)The text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different scripts.
ii)The two scripts with which the text is compatible are opposite [...]. The two scripts
with which some text is compatible are said to overlap fully or in part in this text.
Attardo (2001) explains that the scripts mentioned in the previous quotation are
also known as frames or scenarios. This author also argues that a script is “[...] a
cognitive structure internalized by the speaker which provides the speaker with
[prototypical] information on [...] a given entity [...]” (Attardo 2001: 2). We can
therefore assume that Attardo regards verbal irony as a matter of cognitive activity.
In 1991, Attardo and Raskin proposed, not a semantic theory, as the SSTH was,
but a whole linguistic account. For this purpose, five new knowledge resources (KR)
were introduced appart from the SSTH’s script opposition. The first KR is language
(LA). It deals with how a text is verbalized. As Attardo has observed (2001: 22): “It [i.e.
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LA] is responsible for the exact wording of the text and for the placement of the
functional elements that constitute it.” In this connection, Attardo has put special
emphasis on the notion of paraphrasing because jokes can be worded in a huge range of
ways while maintaining their meaning. The second KR is narrative strategy (NS): “[...]
any joke has to be cast in some sort of narrative organization [...]” ( Attardo 2001: 23).
Target (TA), which is the third KR, refers to the receiver or victim of the joke.
The fourth one is situation (SI) in which all the contributors to the joke are
introduced (objects, participants, instruments, etc.). Logical mechanism (LM) is the fifth
KR for Attardo and Raskin. This KR is introduced by Attardo (2001) as the most
problematic one. After much research he argues that “[...] the LM parameter
presupposes and embodies a ‘local’ logic [...] that does not necessarily hold outside of
the world of the joke” (Attardo 2001: 25). Finally, this scholar observes that every joke
is based on script opposition (SO), which may differ depending on the time and place in
which the joke is retold.
At this point, mention should also be made to the particular case of irony. Attardo
(2001: 112-113) highlights the necessity to extend Grice’s Cooperative Principle. He
contends that the first important point is the presupposed hearer’s ability to recognize
the innapropriateness of an utterance. After that, as Attardo memorably observes, when
the receiver recognizes both the violation of a cooperative maxim and the real intention
of the speaker, the maxim becomes operational again. In consonance with his argument
Attardo (2001: 112) postulates a super-maxim named the least disruption principle
(LDP). This super-maxim, which is introduced to minimize floutings of Grice’s
maxims, is worded as follows:
(i) Limit your violation of the CP to the smallest possible conversational unit (one
utterance, one conversational turn, one speech exchange);
(ii) Try to link the entire CP-violating unit to the rest of the interaction, for example by
finding a certain appropriateness to the CP-violating unit;
(iii) Limit your violation of the CP to smallest possible distance from its
requirements;
(iv) Lie in the direction of your audience’s expectations. (Attardo 2001: 112)
Attardo (2001: 114) points out Grice’s own feeling that his proposal was not
thorough enough to account some important phenomena that were common in
15
communication. As far as irony is concerned, Grice’s account falls short of supplying an
adequate explanation because an evaluation of the speaker’s intention is needed, and
floutings can be understood as literal on some occasions. He also introduces the idea of
the existence of a particular attitude in the ironist along with the importance of Grice’s
relevance maxim.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Attardo explains irony not only as a
flouting of the second maxim of quality but also as a violation of either the maxim of
relevance (Attardo 2001: 114) or the maxim of manner (Attardo 2011: 113).
The corollary of all these claims is that once the listener recognizes the ironical
attitude of a text or utterance, he “[…] assumes that the maxim of relevance holds and
that the relevance of the irony lies in the direction of an antiphrastic meaning […]”
(Attardo 2001: 114). In other words, the hearer realizes his need to decode a hidden
implied meaning in order to come to terms with the task of deriving the real meaning
that the speaker is trying to convey.
3.3. Clark and Gerrig’s Pretense Theory
The central idea proposed by Clark and Gerrig in 1984 is that the ironist is not
trying to perform a speech act but pretending to do it; moreover, the ironist’s intention
is to express a particular attitude to both the speech act and those who understand it as
serious (Wilson 203:49). In fact, as Wilson points out, according to Pretense theory, the
speaker of an ironical utterance pretends to be another person performing it (Wilson
2006: 1734).
Following Clark and Gerrig’s account, the receiver should have the ability to
understand that the speaker is pretending to give more information than what is said and
expressing a particular attitude towards his utterance. However, this theory does not
take in account other possible attitudes that the ironist could try to express, such as
skepticism, stoic acceptance, indifference or impassiveness.
It is important to note that this theory does not provide more information in the
explanation of verbal irony. On the one hand, Clark and Gerrig’s account does not
foresee other possible attitudes the speaker may have; on the other hand, it does not
16
solve the problems raised by Grice’s account in which irony is only explained as a
flouting of the second sub-maxim of Quality according to which the speaker should not
give any false information. The Gricean account cannot explain what differentiates
irony from other tropes, since all tropes break the same maxim and in the same way. For
example, a metaphor like You are a pig is not literally true (except in the rather
humorous context of the speaker talking to a real pig), and it is neither intended to
deceive. In the pretense account, we have the same problem: the speaker “makes as if”
both when accusing someone of being “a pig” and when showing skepticism about a
situation which is evidently different from what he thought it would be (e.g. by saying
Yeah, nice weather today when it is evidently cold and rainy).
3.4. Sperber and Wilson’s Echoic Account of Irony
The notion of echo is a very important one in Relevance Theory, which, as their
main proponents, explain “[...] is an inferential approach to pragmatics [...] [whose] goal
is to explain how the hearer infers the speaker’s meaning” (Wilson and Sperber 2002:
1). Relevance Theory starts from Grice’s assumption that human communication cannot
take place without the recognition of speaker’s intentions by the hearer. Relevance
theorists argue that their account is based on the Gricean central claim that all the
utterances automatically create expectations, guiding the receiver to achieve the real
(literal or non-literal) meaning his speaker is trying to convey (Wilson and Sperber
2002: 1). However, unlike Grice, who explains these expectations by means of his four
cooperative maxims, relevance theorists argue that the expectations an utterance itself
verbalizes are “[...] precise enough, and predictable enough, to guide the hearer towards
the speaker’s meaning” (Wilson and Sperber 2002: 2).
Returning to the subject of echoic uses of language, these theorists defend that
verbal irony and the notion of echo are closely related. In fact, Relevance Theory claims
that both terms are mutually dependent. Furthermore, according to this theory, irony
involves “[...] a basic use of language, INTERPRETIVE USE, and a specific form of
interpretive use, ECHOIC USE” (Sperber and Wilson 2002: 19; emphasis in the
original). Wilson (2006: 1729) further explains that language use can be either
descriptive, when its use is to represent states of affairs that are possible or actual or
17
interpretive if it is used to word another representation. Moreover, she mentions that a
higher degree of metarepresentational ability is needed in interpretive uses because the
receiver needs to recognize the speaker’s further intentions.
As regards the echoic account, the factor which distinguishes verbal irony from
other echoic uses of language is that the ironist “[...] rejects a tacitly2 attributed thought
[...]” (Wilson 2013: 47) as if it were false or inadequate. However, this theory has a
serious drawback. Sperber and Wilson do not go further in their explanation of irony
nor do they develop their echoic approach for one reason; they do not want to assume
that irony is the result of the activity of cognitive operations. Moreover, they admit the
existence of a clash but, as far as they are concerned, it is irrelevant in the production of
ironic meaning.
Remember the three distinctive elements mentioned above: the speaker’s attitude,
his normative bias (what the world should look like), and tone of voice. In sharply
departing from traditional approaches, relevance theorists have failed to preserve a real
definitional feature, i.e. the fact that there cannot be irony if whatever opinion or
thought is echoed does not contrast with the observed situation. Consequently, the
echoic account is incomplete.
In the section that follows, it will be argued that verbal irony is based on cognitive
operations and that two more factors are needed in order to entirely construct ironical
utterances: a clash or contradiction, and the speaker’s attitude, which arises when faced
with such a clash.
3.5. Ruiz de Mendoza: Echoing, Contrasting, and Attitude
First of all, it is necessary to clarify exactly what is meant by cognitive operations.
According to Ruiz de Mendoza (2011), there can be two different definitions of the term
depending on the field in which we are. In psychology, a cognitive operation is any
cognitive activity that has an identifiable effect in terms of how the brain responds to
the human need to interact with the world (see also Ruiz de Mendoza and Pérez 2003;
2 “The audience is left to infer that the thoughts they represent are being attributed to some source other than the speaker” (Sperber and Wilson 2012: 12).
18
Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña 2005; Ruiz de Mendoza and Galera 2014). In this view,
cognitive operations have nothing to do with meaning representation; they are only seen
as properties of the human brain. On the contrary, if we take the perspective of
Cognitive Linguistics a cognitive operation can be defined as any mental mechanism
that is used to create a mental representation that can be expressed linguistically.
Throughout this dissertation, the term cognitive operation will be used to refer to:
“[…] any mental mechanism whose purpose is to contribute to the inferential processes
that are necessary to derive a full semantic representation out of a linguistic expression or
any other symbolic device (e.g., a drawing) in order to make it fully meaningful in the
context in which it is to be interpreted.” (Ruiz de Mendoza 2011: 104)
Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña (2005) make a distinction between two different kinds
of cognitive operation: formal and content. They argue that the former deal with high-
level processes and the latter with lower-level ones. Content operations “[…] are used
to make inferences on the bases of cues provided by the linguistic expression and its
context” (Ruiz de Mendoza 2011: 104). Additionally, Ruiz de Mendoza maintains that
these latter operations are clearly distinguishable from the former because they directly
contribute to the communicative impact of messages, while formal operations are
simple pre-requisites for content operations to be possible.
Ruiz de Mendoza (2011) further differentiates two basic organizational forms for
cognitive operations: A IS B and A FOR B. Depending on their form, different
operations are distinguished: domain expansion, domain reduction, parameterization,
and saturation fall into the A FOR B pattern, while correlation, resemblance
strengthening, mitigation, echoing and contrasting belong to the A IS B organizational
form. Let us briefly describe the two sets of cognitive operations.
We start first with the A FOR B pattern, which involves substituting one concept
for another to which it relates. Domain expansion and reduction are involved in
metonymy. Domain expansion involves affording access to a whole concept by
mentioning one of its components (We need to hire a new hand, where hand means
‘manual worker’). Through domain reduction one of the components of a concept
becomes highlighted by mentioning the whole concept itself (She broke the window,
where window means ‘window pane’). Parameterization is the result of applying the
high-level metonymy GENERIC FOR SPECIFIC in order to pin down the exact nature
19
of a concept: I’ll do the dishes (‘wash’). Finally, saturation consists in completing an
underdeveloped semantic representation (I’ll be ready soon for ‘I’ll be ready to go with
you to the party soon’).
The A IS B pattern involves reasoning in the form of understanding aspects of a
concept in terms of, or in connection to, aspects of another concept. Correlation
generally underlies experiential metaphor, i.e. metaphor where source (vehicle) and
target (tenor) are domains of experience that tend to co-occur (e.g. the metaphor MORE
IS UP, as in Prices are going up, is based on our experience of seeing levels go up as
substances accumulate). Resemblance is typical of simile, but also of non-experiential
metaphors (Her teeth are pearls/like pearls/as bright as pearls). Strengthening is central
to the production of hyperbole (This suitcase weighs a ton) and mitigation to
understatement (It’s just a scratch, said of a bad wound). Echoing is necessary for
irony. This operation involves repeating someone’s thoughts or beliefs, and it can also
happen in reported speech. For this reason, to distinguish irony from other mention-
based uses of language, it is necessary to combine echoing with contrasting, which
allows the speaker to create a clash between the echoed belief and what is the case in
the world.
Since irony is based on echoing and contrasting, irony adopts the A IS B pattern,
where A designates any entity or state of affairs that matches someone’s either actual or
attributed thoughts. As mentioned in the previous section, where Sperber and Wilson’s
echoic account was discussed, these authors already argue that irony is an echoic use of
language. But, unlike Ruiz de Mendoza (2011), they make no mention of the possibility
of echoing having the status of a cognitive operation, thereby going beyond being a
mere “use” of language. Of course, this is the view that one can expect of pragmatists.
Ruiz de Mendoza’s cognitive-linguistic perspective, by contrast, tries to make the views
of inferential pragmatics and cognitive semantics compatible, much in the line of Gibbs
and Tendahl (2006).
Additionally, Ruiz de Mendoza (2011: 113) distinguishes two different types of
irony by using the following examples:
(1) Nice day today!
(2) Yeah, right, Mary is an angel!
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In example (1) contextual clues are needed in order for irony to be understood.
We can think of a speaker who previously uttered, thought or even heard someone else
saying that Sunday would be a sunny day, but then he finds out that it is raining. In this
particular case, A represents the real state of affairs (raining), which contradicts a
previous thought or utterance (either by the same speaker or someone else, for example,
a forecaster). Conversely, Ruiz de Mendoza explains that B, by imitating (echoing)
these previous thoughts or utterances “[…] is used to suggest that the situation is the
exact opposite of the one that it describes, with the additional implication that the
situation is annoying and the speaker feels he was derisively wrong” (Ruiz de Mendoza
2011: 113).
According to Ruiz de Mendoza, example (2) uses not only irony but also a
resemblance metaphor in which ‘goodness’ is represented by an angel. The traditional
explanation of this example would have argued that irony arises from the discrepancy
between what the speaker says and reality.
However, this explanation cannot separate irony from other uses of language
where there is also a (blatant) clash with reality. This is the case of understatement. An
example is the utterance I live a bit far from here in a context in which it is clear that the
speaker lives very far, rather than just somewhat far. Here there is a blatant clash with
the real situation but the speaker’s intention is to minimize the importance of the
distance. So, a better explanation of irony, which goes beyond merely noting the
existence of a clash, is needed.
The echoic use is what directs the hearer’s attention to the existence of a special
attitude in the speaker about what he says. Why would the speaker restate something
that was obviously wrong (to him and other people) unless there is extra meaning that
he wants to convey? Besides this, there can be linguistic markers like Yeah, right in (2),
which reinforce the presence of irony since they help the hearer to identify the existence
of a skeptical attitude.
The figure presented in the following page captures the essence of Ruiz de
Mendoza’s (2011) analysis:
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Figure 1. Cognitive modeling in the ironic use of “Yeah, right, Mary is an angel!”3
Summarizing, Ruiz de Mendoza proposes that verbal irony consists of three
different parts: (i) an echoed opinion; (ii) an ostentatious clash between the echoed
opinion and reality, which indicates the existence of (iii) negative speaker’s attitude,
usually one of skepticism.
3 Taken from Tabernero (2013).
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4. THE COMPLEMENTARINESS OF THEORETICAL APPROACHES
Before employing these theories to examine verbal irony, it will be necessary to
determine how the accounts discussed in chapter three could complement one another,
in order to produce a total and accurate explanation of how irony is constructed. An
example will be used in order to better illustrate the explanations, and the method which
will be used in the analysis chapter:
(3) Nice day today, yeah! (on a pouring day)4
Grice’s approach explains an example like (3) as involving a flouting of the
second maxim of the Cooperative principle, i.e. Quality. Going further, example (3)
breaks the first Quality sub-maxim. In a conversation it is assumed that the participants
want to communicate a message. That is why, if the hearer finds something confusing,
he will try to solve the dilemma. Consequently, the speaker who uttered (3) wanted to
communicate something else by means of flouting a maxim. However, a Gricean
account cannot explain why the speaker violates this maxim, and therefore, a more
developed theory is needed.
Let us now focus on Attardo’s GTVH which, as noted already in the previous
section, is regarded by its proponent as an extension of Grice’s violation of maxims; the
Least disruption principle (LDP) was formulated with this intention. First of all, it is
assumed that the listener believes in the speaker’s relevant intention and, therefore, that
he wants to convey something beyond the literal meaning of the utterance which fully
contradicts the real scenario – it is important to notice that Attardo does not introduce
the idea of contradiction or clash in the explanation of irony. At this point the hearer
understands the speaker’s real intention, and then he activates all the possible
implicatures to decode the utterance.
As the LDP requires, the speaker should “Try to link the entire CP-violating unit
to the rest of the interaction, for example by finding a certain appropriateness to the CP-
violating unit” (Attardo 2001: 112). In (3) the hearer will probably reach the conclusion
that, for some reason, the speaker desired to have a wonderful day, but the actual
weather is awful (which bothers him).
4 This is a made-up example created for convenience by the author of this dissertation.
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Following Pretense theory, the ironist pretends to perform a speech act while
expressing an attitude (Wilson and Sperber 2012: 23). Nevertheless, this theory argues
that the listener must have the ability to recognize the speaker’s intention. Accordingly,
if the receiver does not understand the ironist’s intention, communication fails. In this
case, the Pretense account would work, but later on it will be shown that echoic uses are
also needed. In fact, some Hybrid Attributive-Pretense Accounts have been stated as for
example: Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg and Brown (1995), Kendall Walton (1990),
Currie (2006) or Recanati (2007). These pretense theorists believe in the tacitly
attributive component of irony but they also maintain that it is a case of pretense.
However, a full discussion of these theories lies beyond the scope of this study. Some
would say that pretense by itself is a sufficient explanation; however, it is not, for two
reasons: firstly, as is the case with Grice’s account, it could apply to other figures of
thought like, for example, simile; secondly, irony does not rely on pretending to
perform a previous speech act while expressing non-illocutionary meaning of the
attitudinal kind because the former could never be cancelled out by the later.
As far as the echoic account is concerned, (3) is a clear example of irony because
it echoes a previous thought from which the speaker dissociates himself. This previous
thought could be tacitly attributed to the speaker himself or to another person such as a
broadcaster. That is, according to relevance theorists, what is missing in both Grice’s
and Clark and Gerrig’s scenario is the fact that the echo is “[…] used to dissociate the
speaker from an attributed thought” (Wilson and Sperber 2012: 33). It has already been
mentioned that even though Wilson and Sperber recognize the existence of a
contradiction in verbal irony, they argue that it is immaterial.
Regarding Ruiz de Mendoza’s theory, example (3) is clearly a case of echoing
where the speaker is repeating a previous thought. Context is also an important subject
for irony to be understood. Imagine that the speaker organized a picnic on Saturday and
the weather forecast said it was going to be a lovely sunny day. However, Saturday
came and it is raining. The speaker echoes the weather forecast whether he uses the
same phrasing as in the forecast or just the speaker’s version of it. For irony to take
place, something else is needed because echoes can also occur, for example, in reported
speech where irony is not necessarily involved. Example (3) is not only an echo but also
a contradiction. There is a clash between the forecast report and reality. This clash is a
pointer to the speaker’s attitude, which in a sentence like (3) will generally be one of
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skepticism. Moreover, the use of yeah reinforces the ironical attitude giving more clues
for the receiver to understand the utterance as being ironic.
Taken together, this chapter indicates that all the theories discussed in chapter
three could provide a partial explanation of verbal irony. If a full description is wanted,
relevant aspects all of them are in fact needed. Grice offers the idea of flouting social
norms, which indeed happens in irony, although also in other figures of thought.
Attardo could not clearly explain why the ironist decides to express just the opposite of
what the real scenario shows.
Clark and Gerrig reinterpret the notion of flouting the maxim of Quality in terms
of pretense. This notion has basically the same problems as Grice’s flouting of Quality:
there can be pretense, but this is not the only ingredient in irony.
Sperber and Wilson bring the pragmatic notion of echo into the picture, together
with other ingredients that are characteristic of it: the normative bias, the (usually
skeptical) speaker’s attitude, and tone of voice. However, the attitudinal elements are
signaled by the tone of voice or by linguistic markers like yeah or yeah right, and the
tone of voice if not an absolutely necessary condition for irony (as evidenced by the fact
that we can interpret irony from written messages). And the idea of a normative bias
(what the world should look like) is a side effect of the clash between the echoed
thought and reality, which is the missing ingredient that can be recovered from the
traditional accounts of irony in rhetoric.
The cognitivist approach does take the clash into account through its postulation
of contrasting as a cognitive operation to be combined with echoing. What the
cognitivist approach misses is the consideration of irony as a question of language use
motivated by the various cognitive processes that it proposes.
This discussion therefore suggests that the different theories examined could be
seen to a large extent as complementary of one another, with some theories putting
elements of others in a better perspective or adding some missing element. Nonetheless,
the cognitivist approach seems to provide a fuller and more complete explanation and
only needs to be improved in the direction of a better account of language use. This
could be done by correlating the symbiosis of cognitive operations with meaning effects
in a systematic way.
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In the next chapter, this dissertation will move on to analyzing a sample of cases
of verbal irony in terms of the theories introduced in chapter three and then developed
in the present one.
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5. ANALYZING VERBAL IRONY
So far, this dissertation has been focused on the explanation of the term irony and
the various theoretical accounts that have been developed by linguists in recent years in
order to understand its intricacies. Now we will analyze both real and constructed
examples of verbal irony from the perspective of the accounts discussed in the two
previous chapter, especially in chapter 3.
Verbal irony can be classified into two different groups according to whether
there is an explicit echo or not. According to Tabernero (2013), in the former case there
is no need for more information and the irony is constructed at the linguistic level.
However, in the latter case more information is needed. The latter case is, therefore,
more demanding because it can also be taken literally thus producing misunderstanding.
However, in the present dissertation most of the examples will have an explicit echo; if
the echo is not explicit, more contextual information will be specified.
As previously mentioned, it will be assumed that in all the examples the ironist is
trying to communicate a true message. In the first example the echo is explicit and no
background information is required; nevertheless, some previous context is needed in
order to consider this example an ironical utterance.
(4) Just say NO to negativity.5
Not all echoes give rise to irony and example (4) is one of those cases. That is
why, as was mentioned above, it is necessary to contextualize (4). Imagine the
following scene: Alex is very worried because of an exam that he has just done.
According to him, it was very difficult and he thinks he is going to fail. Alex talks about
it with his father, who repeats his usual two pieces of advice about being negative and
overly concerned. First, Alex’s father remarks: You always have to cross that bridge
when you reach it. Then, he adds that Alex should Say NO to negative thoughts. When
Alex’s grade is published, he sees that he has failed the exam with two points out of ten,
a very low grade. After that, his father asks him about the grade and Alex answers:
Great dad, I had a two, but I will always say NO to negativity.