Essay About Conversational Irony And Different Contexts

Irony
Essay Preview: Irony
Report this essay
Abstract
My paper deals with responses to conversational irony in two different contexts. As
an interaction analyst I am interested in how interlocutors co-construct the whole
conversational sequence, in what they do with the ironic act in reacting to it.
I combine data analytic methods from interactional sociolinguistics with questions
from cognition theory. I shall point out how the interaction analysis of different
response types contributes to the development of irony theory.
A look at two data sets (informal conversations among friends and pro- and con-TV-
discussions) provides interesting differences in responses to irony in these contexts.
One important difference in responding appears to depend on whether the irony is
framed and understood as critical or as friendly. From the format of the responses we
can often access the processing of the ironic (though not always). If there are
responses to the literal meaning and to the implicatum, we can take this as evidence
that principally both the implicated and the literal message is processed. We find five
response types: Responses to the literal, to the implicated, mixed types, just laughter
and ambiguous types which do not allow us to assign a meaning. The data further
confirm that the different types of responses to irony create different activity types:
Responses to the literal develop a humorous discourse type of joint teasing. These are
highly frequent during the dinners among friends. In the context of pro and con
debates responses within the group differ in connection to the line of arguing.
Responses to the implicatum are much more frequent here. They recontextualize the
Page 2
serious debate. Very often, those who share the general opinion of the ironist, laugh –
those who do not reject the implication of the ironic act.
1. Introduction
This paper is contributing to a neglected area of irony research, the reception of irony
in contexts of face-to-face interaction. I would like to show that the reception of irony
in different conversational contexts can give us insights into the way irony is
processed. I cast a critical glance at cognition-oriented irony research which works
with data from lab settings. The greatest differences between lab situations and
natural conversations are: (a) in the first type of situation the irony recipients are not
affected by the ironic act and (b) have no opportunity to continue the interaction and
thus to shape and co-construct it. I have reason to think that the way an addressee is
affected by the ironic act influences her or his response. I discuss the ironic in two
different contexts: in private conversations among good acquaintances and in pro and
con television discussions. I will show that in private conversations (where friendly
irony is displayed) people react more to what is said in the ironic act, while in
television discussions of controversial issues they react more to what is meant by the
(critical) ironic act. Previous irony research underestimated the fact that people
normally can react to both levels of meaning: to what is said and to what is
implicated, and thereby shape the meaning of the ongoing conversational sequence.
In particular, the double responses (to the dictum and the implicatum) which are also
present in both data sets suggest as well that both levels of expression are received.
This indicates that irony is a special case of communicating a cleft between the two
levels of dictum and implicatum. This cleft has to do with an evaluation contrast.
Let us first take a short glance at the long history of irony theory.
In Antiquity ironists were viewed, on the one hand, as deceivers, hypocrites and self-
righteous pretenders and, on the other, also as sensitive, modest persons who employ
understatement.
In his Institutio Oratoria, Quintilian classifies irony as a trope and figure of speech.
Page 3
Irony, however, is a type of allegory in which the opposite is expressed. The Romans call it
“illusio” (mocking). One recognizes this either from the tone in which it is spoken or from the
person affected or from the nature of the subject; for if something contradicts what is said, it is
clear that the speech wishes to say something different. (VII, 6, 54, my translation)
In irony, Quintilian maintains – building upon Ciceros comments on irony – the
speaker states the opposite of what he means and at the same time communicates that
the stated message is not the one intended. In the further history of the concept, the
notion of Ðdissimulatio
was emphasized