Irony in conversation

Clift, Rebecca

doi:10.1017/s0047404599004029

Cited by 151 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…Proponents of this view rely on speech act theory and Grice's theory of implicature to explain why utterances carry implications and are interpreted as meaning something other than, often the opposite of, what is said. The core assumption in this view is that irony involves the simultaneous presence of both the literal and the implied meaning, which negates or reverses the literal meaning (Attardo, 2000;Clift, 1999). Recently the traditional view of irony as involving contradiction in meaning has broadened its scope from the level of propositions to expressions of pragmatic insincerity or violations of expectations.…”

Section: Linguistic and Pragmatic Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there is no consensus on a definition of irony, previous research points to some characteristic features: ironic utterances are implicit or ambiguous; they involve hidden or double meanings (typically the simultaneous presence of two meanings) or other types of incongruency with respect to the expectations of what is appropriate in a given context. The use of irony always involves evaluation, the expression of an attitude or point of view on the target of the ironic utterance, and it is highly context-specific (Attardo, 2000;Clift, 1999). Recently a growing number of studies inspired by conversation analysis have demonstrated that turns emerge as ironic through both their construction and their placement in sequences of talk (Clift, 1999;Hutchby, 2001;Nuolijärvi & Tiittula, in press).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of irony always involves evaluation, the expression of an attitude or point of view on the target of the ironic utterance, and it is highly context-specific (Attardo, 2000;Clift, 1999). Recently a growing number of studies inspired by conversation analysis have demonstrated that turns emerge as ironic through both their construction and their placement in sequences of talk (Clift, 1999;Hutchby, 2001;Nuolijärvi & Tiittula, in press). This study builds on the conversation analytic view that turns and utterances are constructed to perform actions that contribute to interactional sequences and that the sequential dimension of talk provides a crucial resource for interpreting and analyzing the meanings, functions and stances put forward in any particular utterance (Arminen, 2005;Schegloff, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Irony and the moral order of secondary school classrooms

Piirainen–Marsh

2011

Linguistics and Education

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Section: Linguistic and Pragmatic Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Irony and the moral order of secondary school classrooms

Piirainen–Marsh

2011

Linguistics and Education

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“…While irony has attracted much academic interest, little attention is paid to IR as a specific linguistic phenomenon, except that from some researchers (Clift, 1999, in Davis, 2003Kotthoff, 2003;Eisterhold, Attardo & Boxer, 2005), who have made the start recently. The initial studies on IR are contributive in offering certain aspects to look into such common linguistic phenomena, but they tend to statically describe various IRs instead of investigating them from a genuinely pragmatic aspect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Cognitive-Pragmatic Study of Irony Response

Zhang

2016

ESJ

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As the second part of an irony-irony response (I-IR) adjacency pair, an IR is based on the perception of irony. It affects the ironist and plays a significant role in shaping the communicative effect of irony as well as the nature of the ongoing conversation. Therefore, IRs reflect people's employment of communicative strategies and deserve pragmatic attention. Within the framework of Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory (RT), the author views IRs as illocutions with different relevance degrees chosen by reactors to perform certain perlocutionary acts and probes into the variety of IR strategies and motivations from a cognitive-pragmatic aspect. As is found, IRs can be simple and complex illocutions with various relevance degrees: maximally relevant, very relevant, weakly relevant and irrelevant. In responding to irony, people are inclined to perform simple relevant acts rather than supplying irrelevant reactions. Moreover, the familiarity degree between the interlocutors overweighs the content of irony in affecting reactors' motivations and hence their response choices.

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“…A conversation analysis study of irony specifically finds that it serves other purposes, enabling talk to venture into evaluating perceived transgressions (such as unjust or undignified treatment in this case) from a more detached stance, and simultaneously maintaining affiliation (Clift, 1999).…”

Section: Ironic Humour As Moral Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming talk in community-based feminist groupwork

Landvogt¹

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"Having the opportunity to talk about one's life, to give an account of it, is integral to leading that life rather than being led through it" (Legones & Spelman quoted by Patai, 1988, p. 163).This thesis was bom out of the countless conversations I have had with other women, around kitchen tables, over fences, at playgroups and in community-based women's groups. I know from the testimony of these women, including those in the groups I have facilitated, that such conversations can change lives, hi such places stories are told, the personal search for words to match experiences becomes collective, and the moments of mutual recognition enable us to go on with a lighter, or at least a more purposefiil, step.Yet these conversations have also perplexed me. If they are so important, why so takenfor-granted? And if they are indeed 'consciousness-raising', why do they not produce more obviously radical personal transformations?In this study I have taken one instance of women's talk in non-public spaces, a community-based, facilitated group of mothers of children with a disability, and teased apart the threads of its conversations to better understand what happens there, and why it matters.In settling upon a methodology for this task, a pilot study first revealed that the density of the group conversations required just one research site, and that their breadth required the analysis to include interactions and discourses £is well as narratives. Two methodological choices followed from this: furstly to be the group's facilitator and hence a practitioner-researcher, and secondly to use an applied conversation analysis method. The former gave me access to data that would otherwise be difficult if not impossible to obtain, that is, extended and often overlapping talk between multiple participants that could only be adequately transcribed by someone who was present and had listened closely. This placed me squarely within the research event. The latter is a rigorous discipline that insisted I stay close to the data, so balancing and making expUcit my personal involvement. In addition, conversation andysis supplied a body of existing knowledge that valued the everyday, brimmed with fresh metaphors for group processes, and focused above all on interaction.The resulting descriptions of the group have an order of detail that is new to groupwork research, and a language that is sometimes surprising, but illuminating in its relevance.They maximize the data available from one local site, and give rise to a research-based model of group process that captures at least some of the dimensions of women's talk in this setting. Because this is essentially an 'applied' study, I use two further theoretical contributions, feminism and poststructuralism, to locate it usefully in the world of emancipatory action. The addition of a feminist analysis allows women's talk outside the public sphere, which has often been invisible, to emerge as a potential form of civic participation. Poststructural theory provides links between language and ...

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Irony in conversation

Cited by 151 publications

References 23 publications

Irony and the moral order of secondary school classrooms

Irony and the moral order of secondary school classrooms

A Cognitive-Pragmatic Study of Irony Response

Transforming talk in community-based feminist groupwork

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