Context and Intonation in the Perception of Sarcasm

Woodland, Jennifer; Voyer, Daniel

doi:10.1080/10926488.2011.583197

Cited by 53 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This is in line with previous studies suggesting that the late P600 effect is modulated by communicative constraints (Regel et al., ). It is also compatible with the idea that positive contexts make irony more difficult to be understood and require greater inferential processing costs as compared to negative contexts (Gibbs, ; Ivanko & Pexman, ; Woodland & Voyer, ). Finally, the marginal triple interaction in this late time window seems to suggest that the P600 irony effect observed for positive contexts was greater for foreign accented speech.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

When is irony influenced by communicative constraints? ERP evidence supporting interactive models

Caffarra

Haeri

Michell

et al. 2019

Eur J of Neuroscience

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Distinct theoretical proposals have described how communicative constraints (contextual biases, speaker identity) impact verbal irony processing. Modular models assume that social and contextual factors have an effect at a late stage of processing. Interactive models claim that contextual biases are considered early on. The constraint‐satisfaction model further assumes that speaker's and context's characteristics can compete at early stages of analysis. The present ERP study teased apart these models by testing the impact of context and speaker features (i.e., speaker accent) on irony analysis. Spanish native speakers were presented with Spanish utterances that were ironic or literal. Each sentence was preceded by a negative or a positive context. Each story was uttered in a native or a foreign accent. Results showed that contextual biases and speaker accent interacted as early as 150 ms during irony processing. Greater N400‐like effects were reported for ironic than literal sentences only with positive contexts and native accent, possibly suggesting semantic difficulties when non‐prototypical irony was produced by natives. A P600 effect of irony was also reported indicating inferential processing costs. The results support the constraint‐satisfaction model and suggest that multiple sources of information are weighted and can interact from the earliest stages of irony analysis.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

When is irony influenced by communicative constraints? ERP evidence supporting interactive models

Caffarra

Haeri

Michell

et al. 2019

Eur J of Neuroscience

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show abstract

“…Given this apparent expectation conflict, comprehenders will try to construe the meaning of the statement, making an inference about what the speaker intends to convey. Whether and what type of inferences will be made depend on a number of factors which have to do with the social norms of the communicative setting (e.g., interlocutors are supposed to exchange information that is as true, informative, relevant and clear as possible; [14]), as well as linguistic cues (e.g., prosody and intonation, [19–21]). For instance, the lexico-semantic information available in the previous discourse can have an impact on the way people attribute a figurative meaning to ironic sentences [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the lexico-semantic information available in the previous discourse can have an impact on the way people attribute a figurative meaning to ironic sentences [22]. Negative contexts usually elicit stronger ironic judgements as compared to more neutral contexts (e.g., the utterance “You’re such a great chef!” is considered more ironic after a negative context–the meal is completely burnt–than after a neutral context–the meal is bland; [21,23,24]). In addition, the interpersonal relation between interlocutors seems to be another important influential factor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of foreign accent on irony interpretation

2018

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In modern multi-cultural societies, conversations between foreign speakers and native listeners have become very common. These exchanges often include the use of figurative language. The present study examines, for the first time, whether native listeners’ non-literal interpretation of discourse is influenced by indexical cues such as speaker accent. Native listeners were presented with ironic and literal Spanish stories uttered in a native or foreign accent (Spanish and British English accents, respectively). Two types of irony were considered: ironic criticism (frequently used) and ironic praise (less frequently used). Participants were asked to rate stories on their level of irony. Results showed an impact of foreign accent on natives’ non-literal interpretation. The effect was evident in the less frequent ironic constructions (ironic praise), with foreign accented utterances considered less ironic than native accented utterances. These findings revealed that native listeners’ figurative interpretation of ironic praise can change depending on indexical cues, with a reduction of pragmatic inferences in the case of foreign accent.

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“…While the impact of contextual incongruity or prosody on understanding irony has led to a significant amount of research, the influence of the interplay between these markers on irony and sarcasm understanding have only recently been investigated in English (Woodland and Voyer, 2011;Voyer et al, 2014;Peters et al, 2015) and in French (Deliens et al, 2017;Deliens et al, 2018). Developing different experiments in English, Voyer et al (2014) found a strong interaction between context and prosody, concluding that prosody contributes to emphasizing the contrast effect in sarcasm perception.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using context and prosody in irony understanding: Variability amongst individuals

Rivière

Klein

Champagne-Lavau

2018

Journal of Pragmatics

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The present study sought to investigate, in French, the relative influence of both contextual incongruity and prosodic cues on irony comprehension and to explore whether individual differences exist regarding the relative influence of these markers of irony. Ninety-five participants, all native French speakers, were included in the study. They listened to a context followed by a target utterance presented with either an ironic prosody or a neutral prosody and then, they had to decide whether this target utterance was ironic or not. The stimuli were manipulated according to their degree of context incongruity between contextual information and the target utterance. The main results revealed that all participants relied on contextual incongruity to decide whether the speaker's utterance was ironic or not, whereas only a subgroup also used prosody to this interpretation task, highlighting individual differences in the use of prosody to decode irony. This study also confirmed that context seems to be a more powerful cue than prosody in judging irony.

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Context and Intonation in the Perception of Sarcasm

Cited by 53 publications

References 23 publications

When is irony influenced by communicative constraints? ERP evidence supporting interactive models

When is irony influenced by communicative constraints? ERP evidence supporting interactive models

The impact of foreign accent on irony interpretation

Using context and prosody in irony understanding: Variability amongst individuals

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