TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
Título
Understanding verbal irony: a cognitive-linguistic
approach
Autor/es
Leticia Bravo Matute
Director/es
Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez
Facultad
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
Titulación
Grado en Estudios Ingleses
Departamento
Curso Académico
2013-2014
Understanding verbal irony: a cognitive-linguistic approach, trabajo fin de grado
de Leticia Bravo Matute, dirigido por Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (publicado
por la Universidad de La Rioja), se difunde bajo una Licencia
Creative 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.
©
©
El autor
Universidad de La Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2014
publicaciones.unirioja.es
E-mail: [email protected]
TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
UNDERSTANDING VERBAL
IRONY: A COGNITIVELINGUISTIC APPROACH
AUTOR: LETICIA BRAVO
TUTOR: FRANCISCO JOSÉ RUIZ DE MENDOZA
AÑO ACADÉMICO: 2013/2014
INDEX
1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 5
2. Understanding Irony ....................................................................... 9
3. A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach ................................................. 11
3.1. Grice’s Conversational Maxims ................................................ 11
3.2. Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor................................13
3.3. Clark and Gerrig’s Pretense Theory ......................................... 15
3.4. Sperber and Wilson’s Echoic Account of Irony ......................... 16
3.5. Ruiz de Mendoza: Echoing, Contrasting, and Attitude .............. 17
4. The Complementariness of Theoretical Approaches .................. 23
5. Analyzing Verbal Irony ................................................................ 27
6. Results ............................................................................................ 43
7. Conclusions .................................................................................... 47
8. References ...................................................................................... 49
1
RESUMEN
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
2
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 cognitivelinguistic 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;
3
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.
4
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
5
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.
6
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.
7
8
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.
9
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
corresponding literal utterances […]” (Wilson 2013: 46).
This chapter began by describing the difference between the classical and current
approaches to irony and then it has gone on to review the three distinctive features of
this trope which arise from the classical view. The chapter that follows moves on to
describe the four different theories that will later be used for the empirical analysis in
chapter five.
10
3. A COGNITIVE-LINGUISTIC APPROACH
The previous chapter has explained how the idea of verbal irony has developed
from its traditional view as a literary trope until now, when it is studied as a linguistic
tool used to make meaning in everyday verbal communication.
This chapter will describe some of the theories that address verbal irony from a
linguistic perspective. The first section focuses on Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle
along with his Conversational maxims. In the second part, Attardo’s General Theory of
Humour will be addressed. The third section focuses on the explanation of Clark and
Gerrik’s (1984) Pretense Theory. The fourth section describes in greater detail Sperber
and Wilson’s (1995) echoic use of language within the framework of Relevance Theory.
Finally, in the last section of this chapter, Ruiz de Mendoza’s (2011) approach, based on
an account of cognitive operations, will be laid out. We will argue, on the basis of our
corpus of examples, that this last theory provides the most encompassing explanation of
verbal irony, which will be discussed in chapter five.
3.1. Grice’s Conversational Maxims
Herbert Grice (1975) found that speakers try to convey more meaning than what
they actually utter (Renkema 2004: 18). If the receiver is unsuccessful in decoding the
utterance, communication fails. Conversational implicature is the name Grice gives to
this communicative phenomenon. As Renkema (2004:19) observes, implicatures make
sense in the context of the flow of conversation but they do not follow the rules of logic
as studied by classic logicians. This happens because the logic of conversation is linked
to particular contexts rather than to universal truths.
Grice further argued that conversation can only be successful if the listener
cooperates. That is why Grice formulated the Cooperative Principle which states:
“Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the state at which it
occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are
engaged” (Grice 1991: 307-308).
11
Four conversational maxims were derived from the Cooperative Principle which,
as Grice recognized, are taken from the philosopher Immanuel Kant (cf. Huang 2011:
25). The first three maxims, quantity, quality and relation are related to the content of
the utterance whereas the fourth one, manner, deals with the way in which the speaker
constructs the message.
The first maxim, Quantity, focuses on how much information the speaker gives. It
is divided into two sub-maxims: (i) “Make your contribution as informative as is
required (for the current purposes of the exchange)”, and (ii) “Do not make your
contribution more informative than is required” (Grice 1991: 308).
Quality, which is the second maxim, deals with the speaker’s truthfulness in his
speech. It is globally formulated as “Try to make your contribution one that is true.” But
Grice divided it into two: “Do not say what you believe is false” and “Do not say that
for which you lack adequate evidence” (Grice 1991: 308). This maxim not only refers to
lack of veracity but also to lack of evidence.
The third maxim, Relation, is defined as “Be relevant” (Grice 1991:308). This
maxim is a matter of consistency with the context and of thematic coherence.
Finally, the maxim of Manner is defined as “Be perspicuous.” This maxim is
divided into four sub-maxims: (i) “Avoid obscurity of expression”; (ii) “Avoid
ambiguity”; (iii) “Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)”; (iv) “Be orderly” (cf. Yule
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
12
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.
13
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
14
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
15
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
16
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 tacitly 2 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;
“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).
2
17
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 highlevel 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
18
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 mentionbased 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!
19
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:
20
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).
21
22
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 CPviolating 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.
23
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
24
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.
25
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.
26
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.
5
http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CEY4R&Funny_Jokes=Irony
(Accessed 25 March 2014)
27
With this context in mind, let us now make a close examination of example (4).
With respect to the Cooperative Principle, (4) violates the maxim of Manner because
the statement is ambiguous. However, (4) is not a flouting of the second maxim of
Quality, as Grice argues is the case with irony. The speaker does not seem to be saying
something false, much less in a blatant manner.
In the GTVH it is assumed that a flouting of the maxim of Manner could occur;
as we saw in the above paragraph, (4) embodies one of these cases. Furthermore, the
LDP is needed to achieve a better explanation of (4) than the one Grice could provide.
The listener recognizes the speaker’s hidden intention, and assuming that he wants to be
relevant, puts the principles at work again. The receiver will encounter many possible
interpretations but he needs to choose the one that could work with this particular
context; the speaker is not happy with the piece of advice that his father gave him.
Regarding Pretense, this account would explain that Alex is pretending to perform
a speech act (acceptance) that is different from the intended one (a complaint), which
gives rise to a particular attitude. In this case, the speaker’s attitude could be one of
sarcasm and anger. Alex’s father is supposed to be able to derive the extra meaning his
son is trying to convey. Moreover, Alex gives some clues to him that this is the case
through linguistic signaling when he exclaims Great dad and adds that he had a two in
the exam.
Let us consider the echoic account from two different perspectives. On the one
hand, in the context given above, the first part of the sentence, Say NO to, has the
function of announcing a following echo, since the audience is expecting a positive
statement to which they need to say NO. Nevertheless, the word “negativity,” the echo,
clashes with the saying scenario because of its meaning, Say NO to saying no, which at
the same time cancels the echo. Accordingly, the clash gives rise to a contrast operation
that produces the ironic effects (Tabernero 2013: 43). In other words, the contradiction
in (4) relies on ‘NO’ and ‘negativity’ because in language “negating” usually involves
the adverbs “not” and ‘no.’
On the other hand, if the utterance is contextualized as in previous paragraphs, the
echo is on the utterance itself; the son echoes his father’s advice by repeating it.
Moreover, this echo carries a particular attitude in the speaker, which is probably one of
anger or frustration. Furthermore, following Ruiz de Mendoza (2011), we could add that
28
there is a contrast with reality. This clash arises from the father’s advice not to be
negative (as was echoed by his son), which contrasts with his son’s real attitude, which
is visibly negative. Figure 2 below represents the cognitive activity described above for
sentence (4).
Figure 2. Cognitive Modeling in Just say NO to negativity
Our second example works in a very different manner:
(5) As I said before, I’ll only say this once.6
As far as the Cooperative principle is concerned, the speaker who uttered (5) was
being ambiguous and therefore, he was violating the fourth sub-maxim of Manner.
Interestingly, this example does not seem to be flouting the usual sub-maxim of Quality
since here the ironist is evidently not lying. In this particular case, a violation of the
maxim of Manner provides a better explanation to the extent that we can argue that the
speaker is being ambiguous.
According to the GTVH (5) the hearer would assume that the speaker is trying to
be relevant and therefore the utterance has a particular meaning. However, in this
example both context and speaker’s attitude are needed for the irony to be understood. It
is true that, as already noted in the previous paragraph, it could be considered a flouting
of the Manner maxim, but without a particular context (5) could perfectly be interpreted
literally, which is one of the main problems that both Grice’s and Attardo’s accounts
have.
6
http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CEY4R&Funny_Jokes=Irony
(Accessed 25 March 2014)
29
The Pretense account is not able to explain (5) either, since the ironist is not
pretending to express another message than the one uttered, i.e. the act of refusing to
say something more than once. The irony is in the fact that the speaker, in saying (5), is
invalidating his own refusal, but not producing a different speech act.
Sperber and Wilson’s account is needed to improve on our explanation of (5).
First, there is an echo, which is explicitly announced in the first part of the utterance (as
I said before). The speaker is expected to complete his utterance with information that
he has already said. A clash is also created with the second part of the utterance: I’ll
only say this once. There is a contradiction between the saying scenario and the echo
itself. Moreover, (5) is assumed to be produced in a humorous context in which the
speaker is trying to make their listeners laugh. The way cognitive modeling proceeds in
(5) is illustrated in figure 3 below.
Figure 3. Cognitive Modeling in As I said before, I’ll only say this once.
Figure 3 is a good visual illustration of how this example works, but more
information about why there is a clash could be expected. In the second part of (5) the
speaker claims that what he is saying has not been said before because “only once”
means “no more times either before or after.” However, the previous part states just the
opposite by means of the verb ‘said’ and the conjunction ‘before.’ The ironic effects
rely on the cancellation of the echoed part because it also clashes with reality.
In this case all the elements Ruiz de Mendoza (2011) distinguishes in his account
are required: an echo that involves a clash with reality and that, at the same time,
30
reveals a particular attitude in the speaker. However, the attitude is not one of
skepticism but of jocosity.
Let us now turn to a new example:
(6) I can resist everything except temptation.7
In terms of Grice’s Cooperative Principle in (6) we have the same “problem” as in
example (5): the speaker is not following the fourth maxim of Manner, which involves
the speaker being perspicuous. In fact, the speaker is not avoiding obscurity of
expressions and therefore, this is the particular sub-maxim which is being flouted. If
someone is proud of being able to resist everything, this person is expected to resist
every temptation. On the contrary, this is what the speaker explicitly admits to be
unable to resist.
For this utterance to be correctly understood the term ‘temptation’ will be defined.
In the Cambridge Dictionaries Online it is defined as “something that makes
you want to do or have something that you know you should not.”8 This definition
should be known by the hearer in order to understand where the irony lies because the
word temptation itself involves “lack of resistance.” As in (5), there is a clash between
the first and the second part of the utterance; the speaker seems to be very proud of
being able to “resist everything”, i.e. to avoid temptation. Interestingly, the exception is
temptation.
In this case, the echo is based on I can resist everything, which is what other could
ideally expect of the speaker. However, the speaker denies the validity of the thought
echoed by the listener when he mentions an exception in the second part of the
sentence. In fact, this exception cancels out what the hearer previously thought (that is,
the echoed thought). Besides this, a particular attitude is reflected by the speaker, as was
shown in (5). The ironist is probably trying to be amusing and the attitude conveyed in
this case is, again, one of jocosity, but not one of sarcasm or any other negative attitude.
Figure 4 below captures the essentials of the foregoing analysis.
7
http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CEY4R&Funny_Jokes=Irony
(Accessed 25 March 2014)
8
Definition taken from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/temptation?q=temptation
(Accessed 6 April 2014)
31
Figure 4. Cognitive Modeling in I can resist everything except temptation
Let us take another example:
(7) “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” 9
However, here the contrast of situations (forbidding to fight in a ‘war room’) is
based on using the term ‘war room’ ambiguously, i.e. as a place where one can control
war action against other countries (its conventional meaning) or as a room where one
would ‘war’ with other people. There is thus a breach of the Manner sub-maxim (avoid
ambiguity). But this explanation is insufficient since there is an echo, constructed on the
grounds of our general knowledge about what wars are like, which is contradicted by
means of the prohibition of fighting, an idea intrinsically linked to the first concept.
Once again, some general knowledge is indispensable for (7) to be understood
successfully. Moreover, some cognitive models need to be activated. The cognitive
model of ‘war’ is closely linked with the idea of fighting in our minds. However, the
most relevant issue in (7) is the clash just mentioned between two ideas: ‘fight’ and the
‘War Room’. These two concepts are supposed to be closely related since fighting is
what usually happens in every war. Contrarily, in this particular case, fight and War
Room are not linked because of the addition of the term ‘room.’ Both speaker and
listener are in a room where war strategies are studied. Interestingly, in this room
9
Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove, 1964.
32
fighting is not allowed probably because wars are supposed to be headed by very
intelligent and well-mannered people who will never be on the front lines. It is very
interesting that this is the contradiction which gives rise to irony.
Now two very similar examples will be analyzed:
(8) I left my bag in the restaurant, and someone kindly walked off with it. 10
(9) As I reached the bank at closing time, the bank clerk helpfully shut the door
in my face. 11
Following Grice in both examples there is a violation of the second maxim of the
Cooperative Principle, i.e. Quality, since the speaker is not trying to make a true
contribution. What is more, the ironist is not adhering to the first sub-maxim of Quality.
It is obvious that both speakers are unhappy about the behavior they are referring to
despite speaking positively about it. In order to interpret (8), we assume that no one
wants his bag to be stolen, so the speaker in (8) does not really think that the person
who walked off with his bag was kind at all. A very similar explanation holds for (9): if
someone shuts the door in someone else’s face, the latter person will not be pleased but
angry; moreover, that person will not accept this act as helpful but as rude.
As far as the GTVH is concerned, after the hearer recognizes the speaker’s
intention, and after violating the maxim previously mentioned, the Cooperative
Principle will be put to work again for an adequate interpretation to be possible. In this
case, the receiver does not probably need any further contextual information but only
common world knowledge as called upon in the above paragraph.
Apart from Grice’s traditional vision, Wilson and Sperber (2012: 123) would
argue that the main purpose of irony in (8) is “[…] to indicate that a proposition the
speaker might otherwise be taken to endorse […] is ludicrously inadequate (here,
because of its falsity)”. The same point could also be made for example (9).
In the previous statement the Pretense account can also be introduced because the
speaker is pretending to give some information of his opinion about the person who
10
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. 2012. “Explaining Irony”. Meaning and Relevance. Chapter 6. Cambridge
UP. 123.
11
Wilson, D. 2006. “The Pragmatics of verbal irony: Echo or pretense?”. Lingua. 116, 1722-1743.
33
took her bag by uttering just the opposite. In addition, Wilson and Sperber also
underscore how vital it is that the hearer does not fail to recognize the irony, otherwise
misunderstanding will arise and communication will be impaired.
In these cases, the key point resides in the receiver and his ability to understand
what the ironist is trying to convey. That is probably why Wilson and Sperber argue that
if the speaker doubts about the hearer’s ability, he must introduce some additional clues
in order to assist him; for example the speaker could provide an ironical timbre or a wry
facial expression (2012: 123).
Let us examine example (8) I left my bag in the restaurant, and someone kindly
walked off with it. The first part of the utterance, I left my bag in the restaurant activates
some background knowledge about this particular issue and how this person could feel
about it. For example, if a woman forgets her handbag in any place, she will probably
feel frustrated and worried. Furthermore, if she knows that someone has stolen her
belongings, she will probably be completely angry. Nevertheless, the speaker in (8) says
that this person ‘kindly’ took it. In this second part and especially with the adverb just
mentioned a contradiction arises.
The adverb ‘kindly’ usually activates knowledge about positive actions but
stealing someone’s bag is neither a generous nor positive one. Therefore, the clash
appears giving new clues to the hearer who makes use of his background knowledge in
order to decipher the utterance and to find the as many meaning implications as it is
intended to convey.
In (8), a particular attitude in the speaker’s utterance could also be suspected. The
ironist is clearly disappointed with the actual event and not happy at all as it could be
understood literally. In the real scenario, she is showing a skeptical attitude towards the
person who stole her bag and, therefore, towards the utterance itself. In other words, the
clash is between the listener’s expectation after the first part of the utterance and the
second in which an awful action is treated as a kind reaction. The speaker himself
denies the validity of the thought echoed by the hearer when he mentions an exception
in the second part of the sentence
With respect to (9), a similar analysis holds. Starting, as usual, with Grice’s
Cooperative Principle, the ironist is clearly flouting or violating the second maxim of
Quality. The speaker is not uttering a true statement. In terms of socio-cultural
conventions, shutting the door in someone’s face is not a helpful action. If the speaker
in (9) had followed Grice’s Cooperative Principle his utterance would have taken a
34
different form, for example: As I reached the bank at closing time, the bank clerk
unhelpfully shut the door in my face (Wilson 2006: 1723).
Additionally, the speaker “makes as if” he were performing a speech act that is
just the opposite of the real one he wants to perform. He relies on his audience’s ability
to recognize the pretense so they will be aware of the critical attitude he is really trying
to make noticeable. Pretense theory gives us more clues than Grice’s maxims about how
(9) is formed and understood.
In this case, exactly as in (8), the main purpose is not to understand its literal
claim but to detect the discrepancy between the scenario proposed by the speaker and
the actual scenario. According to Ruiz de Mendoza, this discrepancy is a clash,
indispensable in verbal irony.
Besides, the clash gives rise to the third element of irony in terms of Ruiz de
Mendoza’s account, the attitude. In this case, as has already been mentioned, the
attitude could be a critical one because of the officer’s rude behavior but also a skeptical
attitude for the same reason. Moreover, as was the case in examples (6) and (8), the first
part of the utterance creates an expectation in the hearer that is automatically cancelled
by the ironist at the end of the sentence. The speaker cancels the hearer’s previous
thought in which the latter probably ventured that: despite reaching the bank at closing
time, the bank clerk helpfully went out of his way to help him.
Consider now the following situation. Imagine a girl, Mary, asking her mother for
her opinion about the clothes she should buy for a wedding she has been invited to next
August. In fact, it is the first event she is going to attend with her in-laws. She has
doubts about which two different outfits she is going to wear: a sheer cocktail dress or a
wonderful long jumpsuit. The girl’s doubt is mainly because of the weather; if she
wears the dress already mentioned on a windy day, she will suffer a lot. The mother
advises Mary to buy the cocktail dress, although it is more expensive. The reason for
her advice is that, to her mind, it is more usual for women to wear dresses in these
events. Mary is not really convinced and asks her mother how she thinks the weather
will be like on the wedding day. The mother answers that, as the wedding is in August,
the weather should be wonderful and sunny, without any doubt. Finally, the mother
persuades Mary and they buy the expensive filmy dress.
The day of the wedding has arrived. Mary gets up and discovers that she has to
face an awfully windy day. She is very furious but her mother ensures that the problem
can be easily solved by having her wear a blazer. Mary, wonderfully dressed, goes to
35
the church by car but as soon as she gets out of the car her dress starts to rise; moreover,
everybody is looking at her. At this point Mary calls her mother:
(10) Hi mum, thank you very, very much for your advice. As you said, it is a
lovely sunny day and a dress was the best option. Yeah!
As usual in Grice’s traditional view of irony, Mary is not respecting the
Cooperative maxims. In (10) there is a flouting of the Quality maxim because she is not
telling the truth. After this violation, the hearer will probably appreciate the real
speaker’s intention, and then, she will re-activate the Cooperative principles by means
of the GTVH’s least disruption principle. Thanks to it, the hearer will do his best to
establish a link between the speaker’s utterance and its peculiar context; that way, the
receiver will achieve a correct interpretation of (10). At this point, it is worth
mentioning that both theorists, Grice and Attardo, would apply the same explanation to
other speech figures as for example metonymy or smile; however, as has already been
explained, these figures have nothing in common with irony.
With regard to Clark and Gerrig’s Pretense account, Mary pretends to perform a
speech act that is just the opposite of the real speech act that she wants to perform.
Furthermore, it is presumed that Mary’s mother has the ability to understand her
daughter’s intention. In fact, there are clues (linguistic markers) in (10), such as the
repetition of very, the echo As you said or the final Yeah!, which point to an ironic
interpretation..
As has been already mentioned, there is an echo; in this case this echo is easier to
perceive because it is introduced by as you said which means that the words uttered
after it have already been said by someone else. This is precisely a linguistic marker
which announces an echo, in this case, by Mary’s mother.
Besides the echo, there is a clash between Mary’s description of the weather and
what the weather was actually like (explained in the contextualization of this example).
According to Grice’s account, this clash would be a flouting of his Quality maxim.
According to Ruiz de Mendoza, following Wilson and Sperber, there is a third
attitudinal element in irony. In the particular case of (10), it could be said that Mary’s
attitude is sarcastic, showing frustration and even anger because of her mother’s
erroneous prediction. Figure 6 sketches out the cognitive activity involved in (10).
36
.
Figure 5. Cognitive Modeling in Example (10)
Consider another constructed example. Exactly as in (10) a context will be
provided before going into detailed analysis.
Imagine this scene: Rose has fallen asleep and now she has half an hour to get
dressed and get to an important meeting just on time. She perfectly knows that this is
the peak hour; that is why Rose decides to turn the radio on in order to inform herself
how the traffic is moving. According to the radio broadcaster, the central segment is
currently heavily congested and significant delays in both public and private transports
are being experienced. On the contrary, the radio broadcaster reports that on more
peripheral roads traffic is flowing normally. Rose decides to take a larger but, in the
radio broadcaster’s words, faster road. At the beginning, Rose seems to be very satisfied
with her decision because the roads are completely free. However, her mind changes as
soon as she arrives at a huge traffic jam seven kilometers far from her office. Rose
37
arrives half an hour later at the meeting and as soon as she bursts into the office, her
boss asks her why she has arrived so late. At this point, Rose remarks:
(11) Oh simply because it is a lovely day without traffic at all in the peripheral
area...
It is worth mentioning that this example is very similar to (3) in the sense that in both of
them the speaker is uttering what a previous forecaster said: in (3), the prediction was
made by a weather forecaster whereas in (11) the prediction is stated by a radio
broadcaster who is supposed to have real data of the moment.
According to Grice, the person who has uttered (11), Rose, is flouting one of the
four cooperative maxims; in fact, as is usually the case with irony (as far as Grice’s
account is concerned), she is violating the second maxim, Quality, which establishes
that speakers should tell the truth, or at least, he should not tell what he believes to be
false (Grice 1991:308). Nevertheless, after recognizing the speaker’s intention, the
listener will activate Attardo’s LDP super-maxim. Contrarily to (10), in (11) the speaker
will probably need to explain to the addressee the particular context for this utterance
because if the latter has not listened the radio broadcast, he will probably not understand
the irony.
As far as Clark and Gerrig’s Pretense account is concerned, the ironist in (11) is
not performing the speech act she seems to be. On the contrary, Rose is pretending to
perform another speech act that resembles just the opposite of what she has said. What
is more, according to Pretense theory, Rose’s boss should be qualified to understand
Rose’s real ironical intention; otherwise, if Rose’s boss takes utterance (11) literally,
they will fail in the communicative exchange.
Sperber and Wilson’s echoic account goes further in the explanation of verbal
irony. In terms of these theorists, the speaker in (11) is echoing a previous utterance or
thought either by herself or by another person. In this particular case, Rose is repeating
the radio broadcaster’s previous utterance despite not using exactly the same words.
However, as has already been mentioned, Sperber and Wilson do not admit that verbal
irony and echoing are mental operations. Furthermore, that is also why despite being
aware of the contrast between the utterance and the real scenario, they argue that it is
not important at all with respect to the understanding of irony.
38
By contrast, Ruiz de Mendoza considers the so-called literary tropes and therefore
irony, cognitive operations. According to this cognitive-linguist, in example (11) there
is not only an echo but also a clash between the scenario described by the utterance and
the real scenario. This contrast is the key element thanks to which irony arises.
Additionally, the mentioned clash gives rise to a particular attitude performed by the
ironist, Rose in this case. Rose’s attitude when answering her boss’s question could be
not only sarcasm but also anger or frustration because of the bad information the radio
broadcaster gave to her.
As it could be appreciated, example (12) is inserted in Figure 6. In this case, two
different analysis could be exposed: in the first one, as it happened in example (4) at the
beginning of this chapter, some context will be established; in the second one, (12) will
be analyzed on the bases of the utterance itself.
Figure 6. Example (12)12
(12) I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.
Charles used to be a very indecisive person but quite a long time ago and thanks
to his promotion in a big company, he became a more confident person. His family was
so proud about both him and his change of personality that his mother uttered the
following sentence: “Oh dear, you used to be a very indecisive person. However I
always thought your value was gold. I am very happy you finally choose the right path.”
12
http://www.iliketoquote.com/tag/irony/ (Accessed 24 April 2014)
39
All the same, he quickly started to doubt about his own decisions. That is why he
answered to his mother: “Thanks mum but the real thing is that I used to be indecisive
but now I’m not sure.”
With respect to Grice’s Cooperative Maxims, this utterance could not work
because despite being an ironic one, the speaker is not violating the Quality maxim.
However, Attardo’s GTVH would argue that (12) violates Grice’s fourth maxim,
Manner; what is more, it could be said that (12) is flouting both the first and second
sub-maxim of Manner. As has been already mentioned, the former establishes that the
speaker should “avoid obscurity of expression.” The latter states that the speaker must
“avoid ambiguity” (Grice 1991: 308).
Regarding Pretense, example (12) could be slightly better explained because in
this case the ironist seems to be pretending to convey another speech act different from
the one uttered. The listener’s ability to understand the real meaning the speaker is
trying to convey is important, in this case, the fact that he is still an indecisive person.
However, in (12) the irony relies on the contrast, which arises “[…] when processing
the remaining fragment of the utterance […]” (Tabernero 2013: 43).
At this point, the second explanation mentioned, in which context is not needed,
will be discussed. In (12), the receiver should derive an implication in order to both
interpret the utterance correctly and identify the echo established by (12). The
implication just mentioned is the following one: by uttering I used to be, it is understood
that the following words will establish something the speaker usually did in the past, but
he does not do it any more in the present. In this particular case, as Tabernero argues:
“[…] if the speaker ‘used to be indecisive,’ it means that such a situation is not true for
the present, and, therefore, he is now confident [which is the antonym of ‘indecisive’]”
(2013: 43). This is the thought the hearer would probably have after receiving the first
part of the utterance, I used to be indecisive.
As mentioned above, in (12) the echo is put to work as soon as the hearer starts
processing the second part of the utterance: Now I’m not sure. At this point the clash is
produced thus giving rise to the ironical effects.
However, in this example neither the echo nor the clash is accompanied by a
particular speaker’s attitude. In example (12) the main issue to highlight is that the echo
is constructed on the explicit level and it contradicts the implication mentioned above:
the speaker is not indecisive anymore.
40
The speaker contradicts himself asserting that he was indecisive but now he is not
sure about it or he doubts about being indecisive, which means that this person, and
therefore the speaker in (12), is still an indecisive person.
Figure 6 represents how cognitive modeling takes place in example (12).
Figure 6. Cognitive Modeling in I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure
So far this chapter has focused on the analysis of both real and created examples
of irony according to the theories explained in chapter three. The following chapter of
this dissertation moves on to discuss the results obtained from the analysis of the eleven
cases of verbal irony provided here.
41
42
6. RESULTS
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the findings that have emerged from the
analysis presented in the previous chapter. In an overall analysis of the examples
examined in this dissertation, and after the deeper analysis provided in chapter five, it
can be stated that verbal irony can be divided into two different groups regarding the
kind of echo involved: if the echo is explicit, the irony is constructed at the linguistic
level, whereas if the echo is not explicit, more contextual information is needed.
To some extent, examples where the echo is explicit are very similar in their
analysis. They are more demanding because the hearer could understand them literally
and, therefore, the communication will not be successful. In these cases, context is
essential for the correct interpretation of the utterance; that is why it is usually given at
the beginning. Moreover, other clues such as “Yeah” (as a linguistic marker) or a
specific attitude are easily noted. Conversely, in examples of verbal irony in which the
echo is explicit, the analysis is slightly different and the explanation of the echo itself is
the most important issue. Examples (5), As I said before, I’ll only say this once, or (8),
Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room, belong to this second group.
As regards Grice’s Cooperative principle and thanks to the analysis elaborated in
this dissertation, we have shown that Grice’s account is not able to produce a
sufficiently thorough explanation of irony. Although this explanation had some merit
decades ago, a number of new precisions need to be made. For example, Grice is more
centered on the code and what a speaker utters; however, a more inferential approach in
which ostensive behavior is involved, is needed in order to produce an accurate and
complete enough explanation. Furthermore, the Gricean account cannot provide a
sufficiently good distinction between irony and other figures of thought like metaphor,
metonymy, hyperbole, and understatement. However, the Cooperative Principle can
contribute to predict the subsequent moves in a conversation exchange, and to create an
expectation which will then be either broken or strengthened.
Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor goes further in the explanation of
irony because of its least disruption principle, thanks to which Grice’s violations are
minimized. However, as GTVH is a development of Grice’s Cooperative Principle, its
counterpart is, again, that it holds indistinguishably of other figures of thought.
43
With respect to Pretense theory, Clark and Gerrig have been able to provide a
better analysis of irony based on the idea that by means of irony the speaker is just
pretending to convey a speech act which is just the opposite of the real one. However,
this idea is very similar to Sperber and Wilson’s notion of echo, which has shown to be
more accurate from an analytical perspective. Clark and Gerrig rely on the receiver’s
ability to understand the real speech act that the speaker is trying to convey, but
linguistic markers as for example Yeah, right (used in example 2), which both reinforce
the presence of irony and help the hearer to identify the speaker’s attitude, are not
mentioned. Moreover, as was the case with Grice and Attardo, this theory can be
applied to other figures of language and not only to irony. There is a secondary problem:
as was mentioned in chapter 4, irony is not a matter of pretending to perform a given
speech act while actually expressing non-illocutionary meaning of the attitudinal kind;
in fact, the speech act meaning is never cancelled out by the attitudinal meaning.
Sperber and Wilson’s echoic theory goes slightly farther in the explanation of how
verbal irony is constructed; however, there is a clear counterpart in this account. The
echoic account argues that for irony to occur, it is necessary for the speaker to echo a
previous thought or utterance produced either by himself or by another person.
However, as was shown in the previous chapter, this is not enough for a complete
explanation of verbal irony. In fact, Sperber and Wilson admit the existence of a clash
but they regret it as being unnecessary for a concise enough explanation – despite being
completely necessary, as will be discussed later on. The reason why these linguists
cannot admit either the existence or the importance of a clash in the construction of
irony is the following one: if there is a clash or contradiction, it means that verbal irony
is based on cognitive operations and they are completely against this idea.
On the other hand, Ruiz de Mendoza’s theory starts by arguing that verbal irony is
the result of mental operations. To all intents and purposes, this idea is fulfilled when
analyzing irony because both speaker and listener need background knowledge – which
is activated – in order to produce and understand the irony.
As has been shown in the analytical part of this dissertation, it is no exaggeration
to say that Ruiz de Mendoza’s theory is the most accurate and complete one for several
reasons. Firstly, as this cognitive linguist has pointed out, verbal irony is built up on the
basis of an echo (this notion has already been explained). Secondly, the echo by itself
44
does not give rise to irony; a contradiction or clash between the uttered scenario and the
real scenario is also necessary. Finally, this clash is usually accompanied by a particular
attitude in the speaker.
Up to a point, as already noted in chapter five, all the theories discussed in
previous chapters could cast partial light on the phenomenon. All of them contribute to
the analysis of particular examples of verbal irony. Nevertheless, most of the accounts
are too simplistic on their own and they tend to overlook some characteristics of irony –
characteristics that are very important in order to understand both how it is constructed
and how it works.
Overall, the results of this study indicate that: despite the fact that several
researchers have attempted an explanation of irony, not all of them have achieved a
concise enough one. There is no doubt that all of them provide some details about the
construction of verbal irony. However, most of them are too simplistic and nothing can
detract from the central fact that verbal ironic meaning is based on a combination of
cognitive operations – this assumption is only taken into account in Ruiz de Mendoza’s
account – and the notion of ostensive communication is completely needed to
understand how it works and how hearers understand not only irony but also other socalled literary tropes such as metaphor, hyperbole or metonymy. Moreover, most of the
examples analyzed in the previous chapter are taken from everyday communication and
therefore, the traditional idea that all these tropes only occur in literature is not true.
45
46
7. CONCLUSIONS
This final chapter synthesizes the main findings discussed in the previous ones.
This essay has focused on how various linguistic theories can either provide a
good enough explanation of verbal irony or complement one another to explain both the
formal and functional aspects of this aspect of communication. It has been demonstrated
that irony does not only occur in literary works, nor is it an unusual tool in everyday
life. In fact, both the analysis and results of this dissertation indicate that not only irony,
but also all the so-called literary tropes, are common in everyday language use and have
predictable meaning effects.
The theories of communication discussed in chapter three provide partial
explanations of irony. If a thorough analysis is attempted, all of them are in fact needed,
since some of them either add missing elements or put the ones that have been
recognized in a more adequate perspectives. For example, the cognitivist approach
misses considering irony a question of language use motivated by cognitive processes.
Nonetheless, the cognitivist approach seems to provide one of the best explanations in
terms of the actual mental processes involved in irony production and interpretation. Its
only problem, which lies in the absence of language use considerations, can be
overcome by correlating a symbiosis of cognitive operations with meaning effects in a
systematic way.
In addition, on the basis of our corpus of examples and the results arising from its
study, this dissertation has given substantial evidence that Ruiz de Mendoza’s theory
provides the most encompassing explanation of verbal irony where not only are all
crucial elements identified but also their range of activity and their operational sequence
is clearly specified. Thus, in this account, irony is studied as a mental or cognitive
operation in which an echo of a previous thought or utterance is provided; then, this
echo leads to a clash between the uttered scenario and the real one; both the echo and
clash are accompanied by a particular attitude in the speaker which is usually one of
skepticism; it is thanks to this attitude, which is sometimes followed by linguistic
markers like Yeah, right in (2) reinforcing the presence of irony and helping the hearer
to identify the attitude, that the existence of irony is manifest to the hearer.
47
Finally, the examples analyzed in this essay allow for an initial and very basic
typology of ironical uses from the point of view of cognitive operations and their
communicative effects. By inserting this approach to irony within the research context
of humor, this dissertation has broken ground for further research into this field on the
basis of the use of specific cognitive operations. New examples should be analyzed in
order to improve this initial typology. What is more, other so-called literary tropes could
be studied in the future on the basis of this cognitive approach in which they will be
studied in terms of mental operations and combinations of such operations rather than as
mere figures of speech or as tropes.
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