What Are You Really Saying? Associations between Shyness and Verbal Irony Comprehension

Abstract

Verbal irony exploits the ambiguity inherent in language by using the discrepancy between a speaker's intended meaning and the literal meaning of his or her words to achieve social goals. Irony provides a window into children's developing pragmatic competence. Yet, little research exists on individual differences that may disrupt this understanding. For example, verbal irony may challenge shy children, who tend to interpret ambiguous stimuli as being threatening and who have difficulty mentalizing in social contexts. We examined whether shyness is related to the interpretation of ironic statements. Ninety‐nine children (8–12 year olds) listened to stories wherein one character made either a literal or ironic criticism or a literal or ironic compliment. Children appraised the speaker's belief and communicative intention. Shyness was assessed using self‐report measures of social anxiety symptoms and shy negative affect. Shyness was not related to children's comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyness was related to children's ratings of speaker meanness for ironic statements. Thus, although not related to the understanding that speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyness was related to children's construal of the social meaning of irony. Such subtle differences in language interpretation may underlie some of the social difficulties facing shy children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Shy children's understanding of irony: Better comprehension does not always mean better socioemotional functioning

“…Vignettes were revised from previous work (Mewhort‐Buist & Nilsen, ) and involved 12 story scenarios in which two characters engaged in an activity (e.g., playing soccer). Four versions of each of the 12 scenarios were used, such that the stories included either a negative context, wherein one character, the “target,” failed at the activity (e.g., fails to score a goal by completely missing the net), or a positive context, wherein the target succeeded (e.g., scores the game‐winning goal).…”

“…Children begin to comprehend that a speaker's beliefs are opposite to the literal meaning of his or her statement for ironic criticisms at the age of 5–6 years (Climie & Pexman, ; Filippova & Astington, ), with other research showing some understanding in children as young as 3 years (Angeleri & Airenti, ). Children's comprehension of ironic compliments lags behind their comprehension of ironic criticisms, emerging between the ages of 7–12 years (Harris & Pexman, ; Mewhort‐Buist & Nilsen, ; Whalen & Pexman, ). Although past work has not found gender differences in comprehension (Harris & Pexman, ), school‐aged boys endorse more willingness to use sarcasm than do girls (Mewhort‐Buist, Nilsen, & Bowman‐Smith, ).…”

“…The relation between verbal irony comprehension and social functioning may be particularly salient for shy individuals who have been found to interpret irony differently than their nonshy peers. For example, shy individuals view ironic speakers as meaner than do their nonshy peers when these speakers deliver both criticisms (in a school‐aged sample; Mewhort‐Buist & Nilsen, ) and compliments (in an adult sample; Mewhort‐Buist & Nilsen, ). Similarly, 6‐ to 11‐year‐old children who show both social anxiety and shy negative affect demonstrate difficulty in appreciating other sociocommunicative behaviour that relies on mental state understanding, such as faux pas (Banerjee & Henderson, ), with this skill holding a bidirectional relationship with peer relations (Banerjee, Watling, & Caputi, ).…”

Algunas exploraciones en torno a la reflexión metalingüística sobre la ironía verbal en los años escolares

“…Empiezan a ser capaces de interpretar la actitud del hablante detrás de la expresión irónica (por qué la persona eligió la ironía sobre otra expresión) (Andrews et al, 1986;Burnett, 2014;Filippova & Astington, 2008;Winner & Leekam, 1991), lo que además les permite comenzar a ver la función humorística o de crítica detrás de la misma (Filippova, 2014;Filippova & Astington, 2008, 2010Mewhort-Buist & Nilsen, 2013;Nicholson, Whalen & Pexman, 2013;Nippold, 2007;Pexman & Glenwright, 2007). Los adolescentes se vuelven capaces de observar que el hablante emplea enunciados irónicos durante las interacciones con la finalidad de ser gracioso, socialmente más aceptado o más popular dentro de su círculo social (Dews et al, 1996;Martin, 2007;Pexman et al, 2005).…”

“…Para ahondar un poco más sobre el tipo de respuestas de actuación que presentaron los participantes del estudio, se procedió a analizar las funciones que los niños y adolescentes le atribuían al enunciado irónico. Para ello se partió del supuesto de que la función más prototípica de la ironía es la crítica (Attardo, 2000(Attardo, , 2013Filippova, 2014) y que la ironía que involucra crítica es más fá-cil de interpretar para los niños que la que incluye halago (Filippova, 2014;Filippova & Astington, 2010;Mewhort-Buist & Nilsen, 2013;Shwoebel, Dews, Winner & Srinivas, 2000;Winner & Leekam, 1991). Con base en el hecho de que la ironía de crítica está mayormente relacionada con la función de agredir y con el logro de un estado de elevación social, puesto que un hablante que ofrece una crítica eleva su propio estado y denigra el estado de la persona a quien critica (Kalbermatten, 2006), y que emitir una ironía que implica halago se puede hacer para buscar control emocional y para crear humor (Dews, Kaplan & Winner, 1995), se procedió a analizar las respuestas de los participantes para ver si le atribuían a la ironía funciones de crítica o de halago.…”