Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-h5th4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-02T13:05:37.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Irony Processing in L1 and L2: Same or Different?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

By
Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman
Edited by
Roberto R. Heredia  and
Anna B. Cieślicka
Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman
Affiliation:
Adam Mickiewicz University
Roberto R. Heredia
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
Anna B. Cieślicka
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
Get access

Summary

Abstract

This chapter provides an overall review of irony processing research as well as evidence showing that it is not the literal/nonliteral language distinction that determines irony processing patterns, but its affective meaning. In everyday communication, next to saying what they think, speakers impart their attitudes (i.e., likes, dislikes) to express what they feel. Attitudinal content, whether explicit or implicit as in irony, is intended to shape the affective state of the hearer and prime the comprehension of the message. Implicit attitudinal meaning conveyed by ironic comments exploits this affect-driven mechanism. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging evidence shows that attitudinal content instantaneously impacts comprehension. New experimental evidence demonstrates the special role attitudinal content plays in irony processing and is consistent with behavioral and neuroimaging evidence, pointing to an affect-driven mechanism in irony processing. Based on the available experimental evidence exploring irony processing in bilingual population of Polish users of English, preliminary empirical insights point to the primary role of attitudinal content and secondary role of language in irony processing.

Keywords: affective load, bilingualism, contextual effects, implicit attitude, irony processing

Traditionally, verbal irony has been analyzed as a trope. Tropes are utterances with figurative meanings that relate to their literal meanings in one of several standard ways. In irony, figurative meaning is assumed to be the opposite of, or contrary to, the literal meaning and is based on substitution, in which the literal meaning is substituted with the figurative meaning. The major drawback of irony as a trope approach is that it neither differentiates between irony and other figures of speech nor explains how the figurative meaning is derived from linguistic evidence.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Bilingual Figurative Language Processing , pp. 268 - 298
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bargh, J.A. (Ed.). (2007). Social psychology and the unconscious. The automaticity of higher mental processes. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R., & Colston, H.L. (Eds.). (2007). Irony in language and thought. A cognitive science reader. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Attardo, S. (2000). Irony as relevant inappropriateness. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 793–826.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Attardo, S., Eisterhold, J., Hay, J., & Poggi, I. (2003). Multimodal markers of irony and sarcasm. Humor, 16, 243–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, M.W., Carrell, S.E., & Lopez, D.F. (1990). Priming relationship schemas: My advisor and the Pope are watching me from the back of my mind. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26, 435–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbe, K. (1995). Irony in context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, J.A. (1984). Automatic and conscious processing of social information. In Wyer, R.S. & Srull, T.K. (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition 3 (pp. 1–43). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Bargh, J.A. (1988). Automatic information processing: Implications for communication and affect. In Donohew, L. & Sypher, H.E. (Eds.), Communication, social cognition and affect (pp. 9–32). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Bargh, J.A. (1990). Auto-motives: Preconscious determinants of social interaction. In Higgins, E.T. & Sorrentino, R.M. (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition 2 (pp. 93–130). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Bargh, J.A. (Ed.). (2007). Social psychology and the unconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Bargh, J.A., & Pietromonaco, P. (1982). Automatic information processing and social perception: The influence of trait information presented outside of conscious awareness on impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 437–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, J.A., Lombardi, W.J., & Higgins, E.T. (1988). Automaticity of person situation effects on impression formation: It’s just a matter of time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 599–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, J.A., Litt, J., Pratto, F., & Spielman, L. (1989). On the preconscious evaluation of social stimuli. Paper presented at the XXIV International Congress of Psychology, Sydney.
Bargh, J.A., Chaiken, S., Raymond, P., & Hymes, C. (1996). The automatic evaluation effect: Unconditional automatic attitude activation with a pronunciation task. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 104–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, J.A., & Chartrand, T.L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54, 462–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, J.A., & Ferguson, M. (2000). On the automaticity of higher mental processes. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 925–945.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barrett, L.F. (2006). Valence is a basic building block of emotional life. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, L.F., & Bar, M. (2009). See it with feeling: affective predictions during object perception. Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B, 364, 1325–1334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baumeister, R.F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K.D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechara, A. (2003). Risky business: Emotion, decision-making and addiction. Journal of Gambling Studies, 19, 23–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A. (2004). The role of emotion in decision-making: Evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage. Brain and Cognition, 55, 30–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A.R. (1996). Failure to respond autonomically to anticipated future outcomes following damage to prefrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 6, 215–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A.R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293–1295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A.R. (2000). Emotion, decision-making, and the orbitofrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 10, 295–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A., & Damasio, A.R. (2005). The somatic marker hypothesis: A neural theory of economic decision. Games and Economic Behavior, 52, 336–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A.R. (2005). The Iowa gambling task and the somatic marker hypothesis: Some questions and answers. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 159–162.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berntson, G., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2008). The functional neuroarchitecture of evaluative processes. In Elliot, A. (Ed.), Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation (pp. 305–319). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Brendl, M.C., & Higgins, T.E. (1996). Principles of judging valence: What makes events positive or negative. In Zanna, M.P. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology 28 (pp. 95–160). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bromberek-Dyzman, K., & Rataj, K. (2008, May). Getting irony in L1 and L2. Paper presented at New developments in linguistic pragmatics’, 4th Łódź Symposium, Łódź.
Bromberek-Dyzman, K., Rataj, K., & Dylak, J. (2010). Mentalizing in the second language: Is irony online inferencing any different in L1 and L2? In Witczak-Plisiecka, I. (Ed.), Pragmatic perspectives on language and linguistics; Vol.1: Speech actions in theory and applied studies (pp. 197–216). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Bromberek-Dyzman, K. (forthcoming). On attitude and language: Explicit and implicit attitudinal meaning processing. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University Press.
Bryant, G.A., & Fox Tree, J.E. (2002). Recognizing verbal irony in spontaneous speech. Metaphor and Symbol, 17, 99–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryant, G.A., & Fox Tree, J.E. (2005). Is there an ironic tone of voice?Language and Speech, 48, 257–277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cacioppo, J.T., & Berntson, G.G. (1994). Relationship between attitudes and evaluative space: A critical review, with emphasis on the separability of positive and negative substrates. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 401–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cacioppo, J.T., Crites, S.L., Gardner, W.L., & Berntson, G.G. (1994). Bioelectrical echoes from evaluative categorizations: A late positive brain potential that varies as a function of trait negativity and extremity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 115–125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cacioppo, J.T., Gardner, W.L., & Berntson, G.G. (1997). Beyond bipolar conceptualizations and measures: The case of attitudes and evaluative space. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1, 3–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cacioppo, J.T., Larsen, J.T., Smith, N.K., & Berntson, G.G. (2004). The affect system: What lurks below the surface of feelings? In Manstead, A. S. R., Frijda, N.H., & Fischer, A.H. (Eds.), Feelings and emotions: The Amsterdam conference (pp. 223–242). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H.H., & Gerrig, R.J. (1984). On the pretense theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 121–126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colston, H.L. (1997). Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism. Discourse Processes, 23, 25–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colston, H.L. (2002). Contrast and assimilation in verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 111–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colston, H.L., & Keller, S.B. (1998). You’ll never believe this: Irony and hyperbole in expressing surprise. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27, 499–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colston, H.L., & O’Brien, J. (2000). Contrast and pragmatics in figurative language: Anything understatement can do, irony can do better. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1557–1583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colston, H.L., & Gibbs, R.W. (2007). A brief history of irony. In Gibbs, R. & Colston, H.L. (Eds.), Irony in language and thought. A cognitive science reader (pp. 3–21). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Cortazzi, M., & Lixian, J. (2000). Evaluating evaluation in narrative. In Hunston, S. & Thompson, G. (Eds.), Evaluation in text (pp. 102–120). Oxford, UK: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Damasio, A.R. (2010). Self comes to mind. Constructing the conscious brain. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Damasio, A.R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. (1991). Somatic markers and the guidance of behavior: Theory and preliminary testing. In Levin, H.S. & Eisenberg, H.M. (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 217–229). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dews, S., & Winner, E. (1995). Muting the meaning: A social function of irony. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10, 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dews, S., Kaplan, J., & Winner, E. (1995). Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony. Discourse Processes, 19, 347–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dews, S., & Winner, E. (1999). Obligatory processing of literal and nonliteral meanings in verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, 1579–1599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazio, R.H., Sanbonmatsu, D.M., Powell, M.C., & Kardes, F.R. (1986). On the automatic activation of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 229–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferguson, M. (2007). The automaticity of evaluation. In Bargh, J.A. (Ed.), Social psychology and the unconscious. The automaticity of higher mental processes (pp. 219–265). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M., & Bargh, J.A. (2004). How social perception can automatically influence behavior. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 33–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Filik, R. & Moxey, L.M. (2010). The on-line processing of written irony. Cognition, 116, 421–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibbs, R.W. (1979). Contextual effects in understanding indirect requests. Discourse Processes, 2, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (1983). Do people always process the literal meanings of indirect requests?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 524–533.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (1986a). Comprehension and memory for nonliteral utterances: The problem of sarcastic indirect requests. Acta Psychologica, 62, 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (1986b). On the psycholinguistics of sarcasm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (1986c). Skating on thin ice: Literal meaning and understanding idioms in conversation. Discourse Processes, 9, 17–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (1994). The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (2000). Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15, 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W. (2002). A new look at the literal meaning in understanding what is said and implicated. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 457–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., & O’Brien, J.E. (1991). Psychological aspects of irony understanding. Journal of Pragmatics, 16, 523–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., O’Brien, J.E., & Doolittle, S. (1995). Inferring meanings that are not intended: Speakers’ intentions and irony comprehension. Discourse Processes, 20, 187–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giner-Sorolla, R., Garcia, M.T., & Bargh, J.A. (1999). The automatic evaluation of pictures. Social Cognition, 17, 76–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (1995). On irony and negation. Discourse Processes, 19, 239–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (1997). Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics, 8, 183–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (2002). Literal vs. figurative language: Different or equal?Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 487–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R. (2003). On our mind: Salience, context and figurative language. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R., Fein, O., & Schwartz, T. (1998). Irony: Graded salience and indirect negation. Metaphor and Symbol, 13, 83–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R., & Fein, O. (1999). Irony: Context and salience. Metaphor and Symbol, 14, 241–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giora, R., Fein, O., Laadan, D., Wolfson, J., Zeituny, M., Kidron, R., Kaufman, R., & Shaham, R. (2007). Expecting irony: Context versus salience-based effects. Metaphor and Symbol, 22, 119–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J.L. (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H.P. (1978). Further notes on logic and conversation. Syntax and Semantics, 9, 113–128.Google Scholar
Grice, H.P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hermans, D., Baeyens, F., & Eelen, P. (1998). Odours as affective-processing context for word evaluation: A case of cross-modal affective priming. Cognition and Emotion 12, 601–613.Google Scholar
Higgins, E.T. (1998). The aboutness principle: A pervasive influence on human inference. Social Cognition, 16, 173–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunston, S. (2000). Evaluation and the planes of discourse: Status and value in persuasive texts. In Hunston, S. & Thompson, G. (Eds.), Evaluation in text (pp. 176–207). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ito, T.A., Larsen, J.T., Smith, N.K., & Cacioppo, J.T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 887–900.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ito, T.A., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2000). Electrophysiological evidence of implicit and explicit categorization processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 660–676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanko, S.L., & Pexman, P.M. (2003). Context incongruity and irony processing. Discourse Processes, 35, 241–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorgensen, J. (1996). The functions of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 613–634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kihara, Y. (2005). The mental space of verbal irony. Cognitive Linguistics, 16, 513–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotthoff, H. (2003). Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1387–1411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, R.J., & Glucksberg, S. (1989). How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of verbal irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 118, 374–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, R.J., Long, D.L., & Church, M.B. (1991). On being ironic: Pragmatic and mnemonic implications. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 6, 149–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, R.J., Roberts, R.M., Johnson, B.K., & Bertus, E.L. (1996). Figurative language occurrence and co-occurrence in contemporary literature. In Kreuz, R. & MacNealy, M.S. (Eds.), Empirical approaches to literature and aesthetics (pp. 83–97). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Kroll, J.F., & Steward, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.CrossRefGoogle 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 Pragmatics: General, 124, 3–21.Google ScholarPubMed
LeDoux, J. (1995). Emotion: Clues from the brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 209–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23, 155–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeDoux, J., Ruggiero, D.A., Forest, R., Stornetta, R., & Reis, D.J. (1987). Topographic organization of convergent projections to the thalamus from the inferior colliculus and spinal cord in the rat. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 264, 123–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LeDoux, J., Iwata, J., Cicchetti, P., & Reis, D.J. (1988). Different projections of the central amygdaloid nucleus mediate autonomic and behavioral correlates of conditioned fear. Journal of Neuroscience, 8, 2517–2529.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leggitt, J.S., & Gibbs, R.W. (2000). Emotional reactions to verbal irony. Discourse Processes, 29, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory of personality. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Lodge, M., & Taber, C. (2000).Three steps toward a theory of motivated political reasoning. In Lupia, A., McCubbins, M., & Popkin, S. (Eds.), Elements of reason: Cognition, choice, and the bounds of rationality (pp. 183–213). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, R.A. (2007). The psychology of humor: An integrative approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, S.T., & Zajonc, R.B. (1993). Affect, cognition and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723–739.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Niedenthal, P.M., & Cantor, N. (1986). Affective responses as guides to category-based inferences. Motivation and Emotion, 10, 271–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osgood, C.E., Suci, G.J., & Tannenbaum, P.H. (1957). The measurement of meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience. The foundations of human and animal emotions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Partington, A. (2007). Irony and reversal of evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 1547–1569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peeters, G., & Czapinski, J. (1990). Positive-negative asymmetry in evaluations: The distinction between affective and informational effects. In Stroebe, W. & Hewstone, M. (Ed.), European review of social psychology (pp. 33–60). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Pratto, F., & John, O.P. (1991). Automatic vigilance: The attention-grabbing power of negative social information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 380–391.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Regel, S., Coulson, S., & Gunter, T.C. (2010). The communicative style of a speaker can affect language comprehension? ERP evidence from the comprehension of irony. Brain Research, 1311, 121–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Regel, S., Gunter, T.C., & Friederici, A.D. (2011). Isn’t it ironic? An electrophysiological exploration of figurative language processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 77–293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, R., & Kreuz, R. (1994). Why do people use figurative language?Psychological Science, 5, 159–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozin, P., & Royzman, E.B. (2001). Negativity bias, negativity dominance and contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 296–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwoebel, J., Dews, S., Winner, E., & Srinivas, K. (2000). Obligatory processing of the literal meaning of ironic utterances: Further evidence. Metaphor and Symbol, 15, 47–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shamay-Tsoory, S.G., Tomer, R. & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2005a). The neuroanatomical basis of understanding sarcasm and its relationship to social cognition. Neuropsychology, 19, 288–300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shamay-Tsoory, S.G., Tomer, R., Berger, B.D., Goldsher, D., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2005b). Impaired “affective theory of mind” is associated with right ventromedial prefrontal damage. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 18, 55–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shelley, C. (2001). The bicoherence theory of situational irony. In Gibbs, R.W. & Colston, H.L. (Eds.), Irony in language and thought (pp. 531–580). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Shibata, M., Toyomura, A., Itoh, H., & Abe, J-I. (2010). Neural substrates of irony comprehension: A functional MRI study. Brain Research, 1308, 114–123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shizgal, P. (1999). On the neural computation of utility: Implications from studies of brain stimulation reward. In Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.), Wellbeing: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 502–526). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1981). Irony and the use-mention distinction. In Cole, P. (Ed.), Radical pragmatics (pp. 295–318). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance: Communication and cognition. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance: Communication and cognition (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1998). Irony and relevance: A reply to Seto, Hamamoto and Yamanashi. In Carston, R. & Uchida, S. (Eds.), Relevance theory: Applications and implications (pp. 283–293). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (2002). Pragmatics, modularity and mind-reading. Mind and Language, 17, 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, S.E. (1991). Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events: The mobilization-minimization hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 67–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, G., & Hunston, S. (2000). Evaluation: An introduction. In Hunston, S. & Thompson, G. (Eds.), Evaluation in text (pp. 1–27). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thurstone, L.L. (1931). Measurement of social attitudes. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 26, 249–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uchiyama, H., Seki, A., Kageyama, H., Saito, D.N., Koeda, T., Ohno, K., & Sadato, N. (2006). Neural substrates of sarcasm: A functional magnetic-resonance imaging study. Brain Research, 1124, 100–110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Utsumi, A. (2000). Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1777–1806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Berkum, J.J.A. (2010). The brain is a prediction machine that cares about good and bad ‒ Any implications for neuropragmatics?Italian Journal of Linguistics, 22, 181–208.Google Scholar
Wang, T.A., Lee, S.S., Sigman, M., & Dapretto, M. (2006). Developmental changes in the neural basis of interpreting communicative intent. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1, 107–121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wakusawa, K., Sugiura, M., Sassa, Y., Jeong, H., Horie, K., Sato, S., Yokoyama, H., Tsuchiya, S., Inuma, K., & Kawashima, R. (2007). Comprehension of implicit meanings in social situations involving irony: A functional MRI study. NeuroImage, 37, 1417–1426.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, D. (2006). The pragmatics of verbal irony: Echo or pretence?Lingua, 116, 1722–1743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. (2010). Irony and metarepresentation. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 21, 183–226.Google Scholar
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (1992). On verbal irony. Lingua, 87, 53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2004). Relevance theory. In Horn, L.R. & Ward, G. (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (pp. 607–632). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Winner, E., Windmueller, G., Rosenblatt, E., Bosco, L., Best, E., & Gardner, H. (1987). Making sense of literal and nonliteral falsehood. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 2, 13–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, E.O. (1982). Towards a contextual grammar of English: The clause and its place in the definition of sentence. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Zajonc, R.B. (1980). Feeling and thinking. Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 51–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zajonc, R.B. (1984). On the primacy of affect. American Psychologist, 39, 117–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org 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
×