Leticia Bravo Matute

Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez

Facultad de Letras y de la Educación

Grado en Estudios Ingleses

2013-2014

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Director/es

Facultad

Titulación

Departamento

TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO

Curso Académico

Understanding verbal irony: a cognitive-linguistic approach

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© El autor© Universidad de La Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2014

publicaciones.unirioja.esE-mail: publicaciones@unirioja.es

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.

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TUTOR: FRANCISCO JOSÉ RUIZ DE MENDOZA

AÑO ACADÉMICO: 2013/2014

TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO

UNDERSTANDING VERBAL IRONY: A COGNITIVE-

LINGUISTIC APPROACH AUTOR: LETICIA BRAVO

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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

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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

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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;

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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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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

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.

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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).

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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

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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

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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:

21

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).

22

23

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.

24

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

25

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.

26

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.

27

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.

5http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CEY4R&Funny_Jokes=Irony

(Accessed 25 March 2014)

28

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

29

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.

6http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CEY4R&Funny_Jokes=Irony

(Accessed 25 March 2014)

30

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,

31

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.

7http://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)

32

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.

33

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.

34

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

35

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

36

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).

37

.

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

38

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.

39

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)

40

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.

41

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.

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43

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.

44

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

45

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 so-

called 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.

46

47

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.

48

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.

49

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