29.3907, Review: Cognitive Science; Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics: Athanasiadou, Colston (2017)

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Subject: 29.3907, Review: Cognitive Science; Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics: Athanasiadou, Colston (2017)

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Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2018 15:45:58
From: Sara Vilar-Lluch [S.Vilar-Lluch at uea.ac.uk]
Subject: Irony in Language Use and Communication

 
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EDITOR: Angeliki  Athanasiadou
EDITOR: Herbert L.  Colston
TITLE: Irony in Language Use and Communication
SERIES TITLE: Figurative Thought and Language 1
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Sara Vilar-Lluch, University of East Anglia

SUMMARY

Irony constitutes a complex conceptual and communicative process with multiple
  manifestations, mainly divided between situational and verbal types. To
analyze the importance of irony for cognitive, embodied and communicative or
social skills requires the dialogue and collaboration between different
disciplines. “Irony in Language Use and Communication”, edited by Angeliki
Athanasiadou and Herbert L. Colston, examines the different aspects of irony
by bringing together contributions from a wide variety of disciplines and
approaches. Part I presents research from cognitive science, psychology and
philosophy, and it is complemented by Part II, a collection of studies in
authentic data. Part III traces a relationship between irony and other types
of figurative language, and Part IV closes the volume with an examination of
different methods and approaches followed to date in irony research.

Part I. Interdisciplinary perspectives on irony

Colston opens the volume with “Irony performance and perception”. The chapter
presents two main hypothesis: (i) “contrast” stands as the common factor of
all types of irony (situational and verbal), and (ii) irony is an embodied
phenomenon. For Colston, the different theories on irony explain different
nuances of the phenomenon but are not incompatible with one another (p. 35).
All accounts of irony establish contrast (i.e. the simultaneous presentation
of two contradictory schemas of the same thing) as the main condition for
irony to emerge. The embodied or “conjoined antonymy” hypothesis identifies
the structure of the human body as the ultimate base of irony, for it is what
eventually determines how human beings conceptualize the world. While
schematization and categorization are useful cognitive operations when reality
is consistent, irony arises in those situations when categorical thinking does
not apply (p. 37). 

Gibbs and Samermit further examine  irony as part of our embodied experience
in “How does irony arise in experience?”. Although the different situational
and verbal phenomena understood as “irony” present a family resemblance, the
authors argue irony should better be regarded as an “umbrella term” and reject
the possibility of accounting for all manifestations of irony “by a singular
irony mechanism” (p. 57). By showing different cases of situational irony
(i.e. “thought suppression” and “benign body violations”), Gibbs and Samermit
hold that irony has to be understood as both a pragmatic and cognitive device,
for  it enables not only communication, but also the understanding of certain
complex or paradoxical situations (p. 48)

Willison closes Part I with “In defence of an ecumenical approach to irony”.
Restrictive approaches to irony, i.e. those which delimit the application of
the term “irony” so as to offer more detailed investigations, are presented as
unsatisfactory because relevant research questions are left unanswered (p.
62). For Willison, a solid theory of irony should be able to account for (i)
the psychological mechanisms employed in producing and interpreting irony,
(ii) the range of possible uses of irony or why irony is produced in the first
place, and (iii) the resemblances between the different kinds of irony (p. 72
& 76). Since the literature has shown that irony production and comprehension
is generated by different processes, the author presents an ecumenical
approach as the most appropriate option.

Part II. Irony, thought and (media) communication

In “Introducing a three-dimensional model of verbal irony”, Burgers and Steen
argue irony should be examined in the three levels of language, thought and
communication so as to enable a unification of metaphor and irony studies (p.
88). Irony in language examines the different formulations ironic utterances
can take (p. 92). Irony in thought has been mainly addressed by the relevance
and pretence theories (p. 93-96). Burgers and Steen propose to understand
irony in thought as an “evaluative contrast”, a “shift in evaluative valence”
(p. 94 & 95). Irony in communication is studied through the variable of
“deliberateness”. Deliberateness is not understood in Gibbs’ terms of
“conscious decision”. Irony is deliberate when “the propositional meaning is
present as a direct referent in the situational model of the utterance”, and
non-deliberate when only the intended meaning is present (p. 98 & 104). While
in processing deliberate ironies  the recipient pays attention to the two
valences of the expression, in processing the non-deliberate type (e.g.
conventional ironies and default ironic expressions) no attention is directed
to the propositional content (p. 99). 

Batoréo’s chapter “On ironic puns in Portuguese authentic oral data” presents
the analysis of two cases of multiple meaning (polysemy and homonymy) as
employed in puns to examine the communicative and cognitive functions of
irony. The first case study analyses a pun based on the polysemy of the word
“Mercedes”, and presents the different metonymic relations upon which the
polysemy is constructed. The analysis shows intentional irony (here the
sarcastic comment) may come together with non-intentional irony (here
situational) (p. 118). The second case study analyses a pun based on the
homonymy of “cremado”. Both the sarcasm and the irony of the puns ultimately
rely on the shared socio-historical background of the participants (p. 121).
The study supports Gibbs’ hypothesis on asymmetry of irony: while jocular
utterances employ negative statements to convey positive messages, sarcastic
comments employ positive statements to express negative criticisms (p. 122).

In “Irony and sarcasm in follow-ups of metaphorical slogans”, Musolff examines
the importance of discourse history in irony and sarcasm comprehension. The
slogan “Britain at the heart of Europe” is analysed in a total of 236 British
press texts, from 1991 to 2016. In the period studied, the slogan was the
object of constant repetitions and reinterpretations (p.132), which eventually
led to the negative re-contextualization of the metaphor in ironic and
sarcastic statements. Metaphor, irony and sarcasm are integrated in the
comprehension of ironic and sarcastic utterances derived from a previous
metaphor. Two main comprehension stages are differentiated (based on Giora,
2003): (i) activation of the contextually salient meanings, i.e. recognition
of the mismatch between the (echoed) familiar HEART metaphor, in which “heart”
stands for centrality/closeness, and the (intended) negative meaning of the
ironic/sarcastic comment (“heart” as ILLNESS/MALFUNCTION); and (ii)
integration phase in which the readers pragmatically assess the statement as
ironic/sarcastic (p. 137-138). The conventionalised metaphor (i.e. healthy
heart) constitutes the “narrative-evaluative scenario” (p. 129) evoked in the
comprehension of the non-default meaning of ironic and sarcastic comments.  

Part III. Approaches to verbal irony

In “Irony, pretence and fictively-elaborating hyperbole”, Barnden adopts the
pretence approach to irony and argues the appropriateness of understanding
irony in terms of “(micro) drama” (p. 145). The “drama” account is presented
as especially suitable for the examination of how the ironist’s pretending
takes place (p. 148). Irony involves a “drama world”, i.e. the fictional
context in which the pretended agent operates (p.146), and it is frequently
composed by “fictively-elaborating hyperboles”, exaggerations produced by the
ironist’s addition of invented details with the aim to emphasize his/her
evaluation (p. 147 & 152). The invented details produce the emphasis and
contrast of the ironic comment (p. 170). While studies of irony have
traditionally studied “contrast” as the mismatch between the beliefs of the
acted speaker and the real world, Barnden argues two more potential
“contrasts” should be considered: (i) the contrast between the drama world and
the real world, and (ii) the contrast between the acted speaker’s beliefs and
the surrounding drama world (p. 175). 

In “Cognitive modelling and irony”, Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez examines the
cognitive processes involved in irony and presents a cognitive model for
irony. “Cognitive models” are “internally coherent representations of the
world” employed in any cognitive activity (p. 179 & 190). Cognitive modelling
is hypothesised as an appropriate approach for the study of all types of
figurative thought, irony included. Irony cannot be identified with echo or
with contrast alone. Unaccompanied by echoic repetition, contrast does not
generate irony: overstatements, understatements, oxymoron, paradoxes and
hyperboles entail contrast, and yet irony is not necessarily present (p.
188-189). Irony constitutes a complex cognitive activity that requires an
echoed thought, the contrast of two scenarios, an inference process, and
concept building (p. 193). A new conceptual scenario is generated when the
original thoughts do not match the observable reality. The observation of the
real scenario echoes the original thoughts (i.e. an echoed scenario is
generated), and the original scenario is cancelled as a result of the mismatch
or contrast (p. 197). The new ironic scenario will include the speaker’s
emotional response to the (cancelled) original thoughts. 

Athanasiadou’s “Irony has a metonymic basis” establishes conceptual metonymy
as the basic mechanism to evoke irony (p. 202). The author does not understand
metonymy as a lexical phenomenon only. A broader view which includes
conceptual contiguity, salience, highlighting, and general and situational
knowledge is proposed (p. 205). Athanasiadou argues that verbal irony can be
located in particular grammatical constructions, and the chapter offers a
study of two “iconic” types: the adjective noun pair, in which irony is
expressed by opposing scripts, and the like-construction pair, which expresses
irony by hyperbolic (dissimilar) comparison (p. 206). The examination shows
irony is highly dependent on other types of figurative language (e.g.
metonymy, similes and hyperbole), and cannot be reduced to mere expression of
opposition (p. 212).

Part IV. Approaches to studying irony

Giora and colleagues’ “Defaultness shines while affirmation pales” examines
the Defaultness Hypothesis and the Optimal Innovation Hypothesis in the
comprehension of sarcasm. Linguistic processing is frequently explained in
relation to four variables: affirmation, literalness, context, and degree of
salience (p. 219-220). The study examines the primacy of defaultness over
affirmation in information processing with two tests. Test 1: speed of
processing of default meanings of negative idioms is measured in
contraposition to the nondefault positive counterparts. Default meanings of
positive lexical idioms are then compared to nondefault interpretations of the
negative versions. Test 2: speed of processing of default negative sarcasm is
measured in contraposition to the positive version. In both cases, defaultness
prevails: default targets are processed faster than nondefault ones,
regardless of their valence. Following the Optimal Innovation Hypothesis,
nondefault meanings’ processing is compensated by making the nondefaultness
more gratifying, i.e. when non-default meanings de-automatise a default
salient meaning of a familiar stimulus, the interpretation of the novel
stimulus is more pleasant (p. 230). 

In “The standard experimental approach to the study of irony”, Katz examines
how the traditional experimental approach can be revised to reduce its
artificiality and increase its ecological validity in the study of irony and
sarcasm (p. 237). The chapter presents three types of modification of
experiments based on the traditional approach with successful outcomes (p.
237). Case 1 studies when people understand a statement X as ironic. In order
to increase the ecological validity of the experiment (i.e. ensure that the
scenarios presented are actually possible real contexts), participants are not
provided any artificial context. Instead, one group of participants was asked
to provide scenarios in which they would use non-salient ironic statements as
ironic, and the other group would have to provide a neutral context (p. 241).
Case 2 proposes a new type of control group to study the pragmatic effects of
employing irony instead of a direct comment. In order to determine which of
the two conditions considered (presence vs absence of irony) explains the
positivity frequently associated with ironic utterances, a neutral condition
is proposed as control group: a context with no critical comment (p. 245-246).
Case 3 explores the traditional measurement of irony, i.e. the reduction of
ironic-impact to single measures in the rating scales, frequently examined
separately one from the other (p. 248). Katz proposes a multi-nominal process
tree model (p. 249- 250) in which ironic impact is examined in terms of
conditional probabilities. Any ironic impact (e.g. an ironic comment perceived
as polite mocking) is examined in relation to all the other possibilities in
which the same ironic comment could be interpreted. 

In “Investigating sarcasm comprehension using eye tracking during reading”
Ţurcan and Filik examine how literality, familiarity and echoing affect
written sarcasm comprehension (p. 259), and test the explanations of the
standard pragmatic model, the graded salience hypothesis, and the echoic
theory. The study employs the eye tracking method: it has ecological validity
(participants can re-read earlier portions of text as they would do in real
contexts) and a millisecond temporal acuity (p. 259). The experiment supports
the echoic mention: sarcastic comments are processed faster if they echo an
explicit antecedent (p. 273). Sarcasm comprehension complexity is only higher
than this of the literal equivalents when it does not echo any contextual
antecedent (p. 273). However, echo cannot be identified as necessary for
sarcasm comprehension. Instead, comprehension of sarcastic comments is
conditioned by a variety of factors, none of them necessary on its own for
comprehension to be given (p. 274).

EVALUATION

“Irony in Language Use and Communication” is an interdisciplinary volume that
brings together state of the art research on irony and sarcasm from
linguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics and philosophy. With the
integration of these four different disciplines in the same volume, the
collection meets the interests of a large audience and provides a
comprehensive and critical approach to irony.

As evidenced in the summary section, the chapters show research in irony
satisfies different interests and can adopt a wide diversity of approaches.
Chapters 5 (Batoréo) and 6 (Musolff), authentic data-based analyses of irony
and sarcasm, may contrast with theoretical discussions on irony approaches,
such as the ones offered in Chapter 3 (Willison), 7 (Barnden) and 8 (de
Mendoza). And yet, Musolff shows how the linguistic analysis of irony and
sarcasm as employed in news reports can shed light on theoretical inquiries
(i.e. integration of metaphor and irony accounts), and successfully
incorporate insights from experimental research (i.e. Giora and colleagues’
Defaultness Hypothesis). Burgers and Steen explore further the possibility of
an integration of metaphor and verbal irony and propose the adoption of a
three-dimensional framework based on Steen’s three-dimensional model of
metaphor (Steen, 2008). Burgers and Steen’s proposal is circumscribed to the
study of verbal irony, thus not accounting for the situational type of irony
as aimed in more encompassing approaches (cf., for example, Colson’s Chapter
1). However, the three-dimensional model contributes to figurative language
research by bringing investigations on metaphor and irony together, separated
in the late 70s and early 80s with the cognitive turn in linguistics (Burgers
& Steen, p. 88; Musolff, p. 128). Athanasiadou (Chapter 9) and Barnden
(Chapter 7) do not propose any inclusive framework for the study of metaphor
and irony, but both acknowledge the strong interdependence between irony and
other forms of figurative language, hyperbole and metonymy in particular
(Athanasiadou, p. 212). From a different angle, also de Mendoza (Chapter 8)
takes a unifying perspective toward figurative language. Following the
hypothesis that all types of figurative thinking can be explained in terms of
cognitive modelling (p. 181), de Mendoza proposes a cognitive model for irony
in the line of those available for metaphor and metonymy. 

The collection achieves a rich dialogue between the different sections and
chapters; the presentation of alternative approaches comes together with a
constant critical examination of the different perspectives adopted. Colston’s
presentation of “contrast” as a common factor of all irony types is
complemented by Willison’s defence of an ecumenical approach, an attempt to
give account of the full range of different phenomena understood as “irony”.
The “conjoined antonymy” hypothesis (i.e. ironic contradictions are based on
the structure of our mental representations, in their turn ultimately based on
the structure of our bodies, cf. Colston p. 38) is supported by research in
embodiment (cf. Gibbs and Samermit’s Chapter 2). However, in establishing
“irony” as an “umbrella term”, Gibbs and Samermit reject the possibility of
identifying any common factor: “there is no single essence that underlies all
aspect of the concept [irony]” (p. 45). The rejection of an “ironic essence”
entails that it is not possible (to date at least) to determine a unique
factor to explain what people see as ironic in real contexts (p. 45). This
remark seems to be confirmed by experimental research such as Ţurcan and
Filik’s study on sarcasm comprehension. While the experiment evidences echoic
mention as a facilitator of the comprehension of (written) sarcastic comments 
(p. 273), the authors acknowledge the impossibility of establishing a single
necessary factor for sarcasm comprehension (p. 274). Thus, it is sensible to
affirm with Colston that theories on irony and sarcasm should better be
regarded as relatively complementary approaches rather than completely
incompatible perspectives (p. 35). The different approaches illustrate
different conditions that come into play in irony and sarcasm production and
understanding. Giora and colleagues establish defaultness as the most relevant
variable in sarcasm and idiomatic expressions processing (Chapter 10). In
doing so, the importance of literalness, affirmation, or context in
comprehension is not denied. The experiments evidence defaultness as primary
factor, i.e. the variable that conditions how the other ones contribute to
comprehension. While default salient meanings are prompted as automatic
responses to the stimulus, non-salience meanings will rely on context cues for
their activation (p. 222). As evidenced in Batoréo and Musolff, the “context”
variable in irony and sarcasm comprehension is both situational context and
the broader cultural background. Understanding a pun requires knowledge of the
language spoken and the cultural assumptions or stereotypes that will activate
one homonym or the other. Likewise, understanding the sarcastic comment of a
parody in a newspaper requires that the readers hold some knowledge of the
previous employment of the comment (or metaphor), now echoed and
re-contextualized as sarcasm (p. 136). 

The chapters evidence the strengths of the different types of research.
Experimental studies make it possible to measure, for example, how the
processing variables identified by the different theories influence one
another. However, they have to tackle difficulties with ecological validity
and artificiality of data, as pointed out in Chapter 11 (Katz). While not
providing the insights of experimental research, studies such as the ones
presented in Chapters 5 and 6 make it possible to contrast and develop irony
theories by examining real language use, thus escaping from the controversies
attributed to the experimental approach. In examining the difficulty of some
theories to account for the different findings of experimental studies, Ţurcan
and Filik conclude that theories of irony may be too specific and cannot
accommodate all data (p. 273). Ecumenical approaches may offer an option.
However, it is also reasonable to question the actual benefits of an
all-encompassing theory of irony. In other words, an increase of the
explanatory potential should not compromise the possibility of testability. 

REFERENCES

Giora, R. (2003). On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language.
Oxford University 

Press.Steen, G. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a
three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(4), 213-241.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Sara Vilar-Lluch is a PhD student at the University of East Anglia, UK. Her
main research areas are Systemic Functional Linguistics, Appraisal Theory and
Discourse Analysis; she is also interested in metaphor theory. In her PhD
project she studies the representation of ADHD and the diagnosed individuals
in the psychiatric, educational, political and family institutional
discourses.





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