Resonating with contextually inappropriate interpretations in production: The case of irony

Abstract

According to the graded salience hypothesis, salient meanings and salience-based interpretations are not only involved in language comprehension but also in language production (Giora 2003, 2011a; Giora and Gur 2003). This should be true of irony production as well. If, as predicted by the graded salience hypothesis, the ironist herself indeed activates utterance interpretations on account of their salience-based accessibility rather than solely on account of their contextual fit, this might be reflected in the ironies' environment. Given the crucial role of the salience-based interpretation of “what is said” in deriving and supporting the ironic interpretation, this interpretation should not be suppressed (Giora 1995). Such a view of irony production predicts that its environment will demonstrate dialogic resonance (à la Du Bois, this volume) with ironies' salience-based, but incompatible interpretations. To test this prediction, we studied a written Hebrew corpus including over 1600 ironies. Our findings show that 46% of the ironies, 10% of which are extended ironies, are addressed via reference to their salience-based contextually incompatible interpretations; resonance with the context-based , ironic interpretation occurred in only 8% of the cases; the environment of the rest either did not resonate with any of their interpretations (43%), or resonated with both their compatible and incompatible interpretations (3%). These results support the view that, like comprehenders (Giora et al. 2007), irony producers too activate and retain salience-based albeit inappropriate interpretations.

On the priority of salience-based interpretations: The case of sarcastic irony

“…11 Findings from corpus-based studies lend further support to (the priority but even more so to) the retention of salience-based interpretations. They show that the environment of ironic utterances reflects their salience-based albeit contextually incompatible interpretations rather than their nonsalient (ironic) yet appropriate ones (Giora et al 2014). They further testify to the difficulties in identifying sarcastic irony in naturally occurring discourses, despite the fact that they are cued as such (González-Ibáñez, Muresan and Wacholder 2011).…”

“…In addition, such inappropriate interpretations should not be discarded from the mental representation unless they are detrimental to the construction of the appropriate interpretation. In irony interpretation, such "irrelevant" interpretations are conducive to the utterance interpretation and will therefore be retained (Giora 2003;Giora et al 2014).…”

“…These are just examples indicating that saliencebased interpretations do play a role in constructing the ironic interpretation despite their contextual inappropriateness. Their retention is therefore required, as predicted by the retention/suppression hypothesis (Giora 2003;Fein 1999a, Giora andFein 1999b;Giora et al 2014). …”

Two analogy strategies: the cases of mind metaphors and introspection

“…Conclusions or outputs of these initially parallel processes get subsequently integrated (Giora 2003, Peleg et al 2004, Peleg & Giora 2011): Where they can contribute to the interpretation, they are retained (Giora & Fein 1999; where they interfere, they are effortfully suppressed (Gernsbacher & Faust 1991, Faust & Gernsbacher 1995 ('Retention/Suppression Hypothesis', Giora et al 2014). Retained conclusions can serve as premises for subsequent analogical inferences.…”

Negation and Polarity: Experimental Perspectives

“…In contrast, the sarcastic utterance in (9) (in bold), exemplifies resonance with its salience-based literal interpretation (in italics; cited in Giora et al 2014b): (8) The man [Olmert] who made a number of courageous statements about peace late in his tenure has orchestrated no fewer than two wars. Talking peace and making war, the "moderate" and "enlightened" prime minister [Olmert] has been revealed as one of our greatest fomenters of war.…”