Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:09:41.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Irony and Humor

from Part V - Irony, Affect, and Related Figures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2023

By
Marta Dynel
Edited by
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr  and
Herbert L. Colston
Herbert L. Colston
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the complicated relationship between irony and humor, primarily from the perspective of neo-Gricean pragmatics (e.g., an ironic utterance flouts/overtly violates the maxim of Quality). Not all irony is humorous, of course, in part because of the highly polysemous nature of irony. In this light, it is important to distinguish irony that is humorous from irony that is related to sarcasm, teasing, parody, and even playfulness. Dynel offers a formal test by which one may determine what forms of humor may be specifically viewed as “irony.” She also describes some of the reasons why irony sometimes expresses humor, focusing on the importance of contrast and incongruity in judgments of ironic humor, but extending this emphasis to include surprise, absurdity, and creativity as key facets of humorous irony. Even blindness to irony can elicit humorous responses in some interpersonal situations. Dynel’s chapter also considers some of the intricacies in the ways speakers use humorous irony to position themselves in various interactions with others.

Keywords

absurdityhumorneo-Gricean pragmaticsplayfulnesssarcasmsurpriseverbal ironyteasing
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought , pp. 237 - 254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Apter, M., & Smith, K. C. P. (1977). The theory of humorous reversals. In Chapman, A. & Foot, H. (Eds.), It’s a funny thing, humour (pp. 95–100). Pergamon.Google Scholar
Attardo, S. (2001). Humor, irony and their communication: From mode adoption to failure of detection. In Anolli, L., Ciceri, R., & Riva, G. (Eds.), Say not to say: New perspectives on miscommunication (pp. 159–179). IOS Press.Google Scholar
Barbe, K. (1995). Irony in context. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, G. (1972 [1955]). A theory of play and fantasy. In Bateson, G. (Ed.), Steps to an Ecology of Mind (pp. 177–193). Chandler.Google Scholar
Baxter, J. (2014). Double-voicing at work. Palgrave.Google Scholar
Beckson, K., & Ganz, A. (1989). Literary terms: A dictionary (3rd ed.). Noonday.Google Scholar
Berger, A. A. (1993). An anatomy of humor. Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Bryant, G., & Gibbs, R. (2015). Behavioral complexities of ironic humor. In Brône, G., Feyaerts, K., & Veale, T. (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics and humor research (pp. 147–166). Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Canestrari, C., Bianchi, I., & Cori, V. (2018). De-polarizing verbal irony. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 30, 43–62.Google Scholar
Colston, H. (2000). On necessary conditions for verbal irony comprehension. Pragmatics and Cognition, 8, 277–324.Google Scholar
Colston, H. (2002). Contrast and assimilation in verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 111–142.Google Scholar
Colston, H. L., & O’Brien, J. (2000). Contrast of kind versus contrast of magnitude: The pragmatic of accomplishments of irony and hyperbole. Discourse Processes, 30(2), 179–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dentith, S. (2000). Parody (the new critical idiom). Routledge.Google Scholar
Dews, S., Kaplan, J., & Winner, E. (1995). Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony. Discourse Processes, 19, 347–367.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2012). Humour on the house: Interactional construction of metaphor in film discourse. In Chovanec, J. & Ermida, I. (Eds.), Language and humour in the media (pp. 83–106). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2013a). Irony from a neo-Gricean perspective: On untruthfulness and evaluative implicature. Intercultural Pragmatics, 10, 403–431.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2013b). When does irony tickle the hearer? Towards capturing the characteristics of humorous irony. In Dynel, M. (Ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory (pp. 298–320). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2014). Isn’t it ironic? Defining the scope of humorous irony. Humor, 27, 619–640.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2016). Two layers of overt untruthfulness: When irony meets metaphor, hyperbole, or meiosis. Pragmatics & Cognition, 23, 2, 259–283.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2017a). Academics vs. American scriptwriters vs. Academics: A battle over the etic and emic “sarcasm” and “irony” labels. Language & Communication, 55, 69–87.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2017b). But seriously: On conversational humour and (un)truthfulness. Lingua, 197, 83–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dynel, M. (2017c). The irony of irony: Irony based on truthfulness. Corpus Pragmatics, 1, 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41701-016-0003-6Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2018a). Irony, deception and humour: Seeking the truth about overt and covert untruthfulness. Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dynel, M. (2018b). No child’s play: A philosophical pragmatic view of overt pretence as a vehicle for conversational humour. In Tsakona, V. & Chovanec, J. (Eds.), Creating and negotiating humor in everyday interactions (pp. 205–228). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2018c). Deconstructing the myth of positively evaluative irony. In Jobert, M. and Sorlin, S. (Eds.), The pragmatics of irony and banter (pp. 41–57). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2019). Irony in action and interaction. Language Sciences, 75, 1–14.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (2020). Vigilante disparaging humour at r/IncelTears: Humour as critique of incel ideology. Language & Communication, 74, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, M., & Ford, T. (2008). Disparagement humor: A theoretical and empirical review of psychoanalytic, superiority, and social identity theories. Humor, 21, 283–312.Google Scholar
Forabosco, G. (1992). Cognitive aspects of the humour process: The concept of incongruity. Humor, 5, 9–26.Google Scholar
Forabosco, G. (2008). Is the concept of incongruity still a useful construct for the advancement of humor research? Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 4, 45–62.Google Scholar
Fowler, H. W. (1965). Fowler’s modern English usage (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garmendia, J. (2010). Irony is critical. Pragmatics and Cognition, 18, 397–421.Google Scholar
Garmendia, J. (2014). The clash: Humor and critical attitude in verbal irony. Humor, 27, 641–659.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. (2000). Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15(1–2), 5–27.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. (2012). Are ironic acts deliberate? Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 104–115.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R., Bryant, G., & Colston, H. (2014). Where’s the humor in irony? Humor, 27, 575–595.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Colston, H. (2001). The risks and rewards of ironic communication. In Anolli, L., Ciceri, R., & Riva, G. (Eds.), Say not to say: New perspectives on miscommunication (pp. 188–200). IOS Press.Google Scholar
Giora, R. (2003). On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1989). Meaning revisited. In Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haverkate, H. (1990). A speech act analysis of irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 77–109.Google Scholar
Hirsch, G. (2011). Between irony and humor: A pragmatic model. Pragmatics and Cognition, 19, 530–561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, G. (2020). Irony, humor or both? In Livnat, Z., Shukrun-Nagar, P., & Hirsch, G. (Eds.), The discourse of indirectness: Cues, voices and functions (pp. 17–38). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Holdcroft, D. (1983). Irony as trope, and irony as discourse. Poetics Today, 4, 493–511.Google Scholar
Jorgensen, J. (1996). The functions of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 613–634.Google Scholar
Kalbermatten, M. I. (2010). Humor in verbal irony. In Koike, D. & Rodríguez-Alfano, L. (Eds.), Dialogue in Spanish: Studies in functions and contexts (pp. 69–88). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kapogianni, E. (2011). Irony via “surrealism”. In Dynel, M. (Ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains (pp. 51–68). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapogianni, E. (2014). Differences in use and function of verbal irony between real and fictional discourse: (Mis)interpretation and irony blindness. Humor, 27, 597–618.Google Scholar
Kapogianni, E. (2016a). The ironist’s intentions: Communicative priority and manifestness. Pragmatics & Cognition, 23(1), 150–173.Google Scholar
Kapogianni, E. (2016b). The ironic operation: Revisiting the components of ironic meaning. Journal of Pragmatics, 91, 16–28.Google Scholar
Koestler, A. (1964). The Act of Creation. Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Kotthoff, H. (2003). Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1387–1411.Google Scholar
Kotthoff, H. (2007). Pragmatics of performance and the analysis of conversational humor. Humor, 19(3), 271–304.Google Scholar
Kreuz, R., & Glucksberg, S. (1989). How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of verbal irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 374–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, R., & Roberts, R. (1993). On satire and parody: The importance of being ironic. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 8, 97–109.Google Scholar
Kumon-Nakamura, S., Glucksberg, S., & Brown, M. (1995). How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, 3–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Littman, D., & Mey, J. (1991). The nature of irony: Toward a computational model of irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 15, 131–151.Google Scholar
Lucariello, J. (1994). Situational irony: A concept of events gone awry. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(2), 129–145.Google Scholar
Martin, R. (2007). The psychology of humour. An integrative approach. ElsevierGoogle Scholar
Martin, R., & Ford, T. (2018). The psychology of humour. An integrative approach. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Mayerhofer, B. (2013). Perspective clashing as a humour mechanism. In Dynel, M. (Ed.), Developments in linguistic humour theory (pp. 211–234). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
McGhee, P. (1979). Humor: Its origin and development. Freeman.Google Scholar
Morreall, J. (1983). Taking laughter seriously. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Morreall, J. (1987). The philosophy of laughter and humor. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Morreall, J. (2008). Philosophy and religion. In Raskin, V. (Ed.), The Primer of Humor Research (pp. 211–242). Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muecke, D. (1969). The compass of irony. Methuen.Google Scholar
Norrick, N. (1993). Conversational joking: Humor in everyday talk. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Nunberg, G. (2001). The way we talk now. Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Palmer, J. (1994). Taking humour seriously. Routledge.Google Scholar
Park-Ozee, D. (2019). Satire: An explication. Humor, 32, 585–604.Google Scholar
Partington, A. (2006). The linguistics of laughter. A corpus-assisted study of laughter-talk. Routledge.Google Scholar
Partington, A. (2007). Irony and the reversal of evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 1547–1569.Google Scholar
Piskorska, A. (2014). A relevance-theoretic perspective on humorous irony and its failure. Humor, 27, 661–685.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piskorska, A. (2016) Echo and inadequacy in ironic utterances. Journal of Pragmatics, 101, 54–65.Google Scholar
Reimer, M. (2013). Grice on irony and metaphor: Discredited by the experimental evidence? International Review of Pragmatics, 5, 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, G. (2004). The linguistic analysis of jokes. Routledge.Google Scholar
Rose, M. (1993). Parody: Ancient, modern and post-modern. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rossen-Knill, D., & Henry, R. (1997). The pragmatics of verbal parody. Journal of Pragmatics, 27, 719–752.Google Scholar
Shelley, C. (2001). The bicoherence theory of situational irony. Cognitive Science, 25, 775–818.Google Scholar
Simpson, P. (2003). On the discourse of satire: Towards a stylistic model of satirical humor. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Simpson, P. (2011). “That’s not ironic, that’s just stupid”: Towards an eclectic account of the discourse of irony. In Dynel, M. (Ed.), The pragmatics of humour across discourse domains (pp. 33–50). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sinkeviciute, V. (2022). Teasing. In F. Brisard, S. D’hondt, P. Gras and M. Vandenbroucke (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics (pp. 156–176). John Benjamins Publishing.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1981). Irony and the use-mention distinction. In Cole, P. (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 295–318). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Suls, J. (1972). A two-stage model for the appreciation of jokes and cartoons: An information processing analysis. In Goldstein, J. & McGhee, P. (Eds.), The psychology of humor (pp. 81–100). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Suls, J. (1977). Cognitive and disparagement theories of humor: A theoretical and empirical synthesis. In Chapman, A. J. & Foot, H. C. (Eds.), It’s a funny thing, humor (pp. 41–45). Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Suls, J. (1983). Cognitive processes in humor appreciation. In McGhee, P. & Goldstein, J. (Eds.), Handbook of humor research, Vol. 1 (pp. 39–57). Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, C. (2016). Mock politeness in English and Italian. A corpus-assisted metalanguage analysis. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Tsakona, V. (2018). Online joint fictionalization. In Tsakona, V. & Chovanec, J. (Eds.), The dynamics of interactional humor: creating and negotiating humor in everyday encounters (pp. 229–255). John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Utsumi, A. (2000). Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1777–1806.Google Scholar
Vandaele, J. (2002). Humor mechanisms in film comedy: Incongruity and superiority. Poetics Today, 23(2), 221–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. (2004 [1967]). Imagination and creativity in childhood (trans. E. Sharp). Journal of Russian East European Psychology, 42, 9–97.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. (2017). Irony, hyperbole, jokes and banter. In Blochowiak, J., Grisot, C., Durrleman-Tame, S., & Laenzlinger, C. (Eds.), Formal models in the study of language (pp. 201–220). Springer.Google Scholar
Yus, F. (2016). Humor and relevance. John BenjaminGoogle Scholar
Zillmann, D. (1983). Disparagement humor. In McGhee, P. and Goldstein, J. (Eds.), Handbook of Humor Research, Vol. 1 (pp. 85–107). Springer Verlag.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×