Komlosi on Griceian irony

by J. L. Speranza
for the Grice Club

Komlósi in the online study, "Irony in the semantics-pragmatics interface: A reconstructional model" shows that terms like opposition, contrary and negation are very vague in verbal irony researches.

Komlosi shows that it is not enough to take only pragmatic features into account, but the semantic features are also very important to get a more detailed picture about verbal irony. The emerging question is what we mean when we say opposition, contrary, negation and why authors are forced to take a stance concerning the relationship between irony and opposition/contrary/negation.

Komlosi sketches a framework inspired by Grice’s (1975/1989; 1978/1989) ideas (although one that is not strictly Gricean) to study the phenomenon from a pragmatic point of view, incorporating Giora’s definition of irony.[2]

Giora (1995, 2003) views irony as a figure of speech, an ironic utterance to be interpreted in a two-stage model, which involves both what is said and what is implicated by the speaker. The pragmatic meaning of irony maintains both at the same time, and they remain in interaction with each other.[3] A crucial question is the relation between what is said and what is implicated. I will present Giora’s suggestion in (2.2.) and I will advance on my own modified view at the end of the paper (section 5. and 6.). There is an important difference between Grice’s and Giora’s approaches, despite the fact that both are two-stage models. Based on traditions of language philosophy, Grice speaks about the reconstruction of inferences by the hearer. Giora’s model, however, is a processing model of comprehension, which stands on a cognitive base (supported by empirical findings).

Komlosi's approach is a reconstructional one, which represents a kind of deliberate (conscious) guessing by the hearer, I think one of the functions of irony is to keep the hearer alert.

As we will see, it seems reasonable to clarify the notions of opposition, contrary, negation, which task I fulfill in section 3. In section 3.1 I speak about the types of opposition, then in 3.2 the intended meaning of ironic utterances will be modified – compared to Giora’s (1995, 2003 and section 2.2.) approach – with the pragmatic and semantic analysis of negation, double negation, and ‘neg-raised’ negation. The intended meaning of an ironic utterance is the interaction between what has been said and at least one suggested meaning. In section 4. I present the role of hyperbole and litotes in recognition of irony, which is tightly related to the polarizing tendency (Horn 1989; Osgood and Richards 1973). In section 5, based on the results of the previous sections, I suggest that the prototypical irony expresses the speaker’s perspective-shift (critical attitude), it draws attention to the deflection and difference between what has been said and at least one suggested meaning. The intended meaning of the ironic utterance is the interaction of these (at least) two. Context may dismiss, but also keep up suggested meanings (cf. Giora 2003). The difference between what has been said and at least one suggested meaning are often polar or logical contraries (cf. section 3.1), due to the attached hyperbole or litotes.

Irony is unlike opposition (demarcating and distancing from opposition)

Ever since Grice (1975/1989) the pragmatic approaches to irony have attempted to show alternative operational means, other than simple opposition. Despite the fact that such research trends acknowledge the existence of opposition without exception; in their irony-theories other notions get a central role, as it can be seen in Figure 1.

Grice (1978/1989) studied irony, considering notions like PCI, contradictory proposition, pretense, critical attitude, inappropriateness, familiarity and indirectness, expectation. Although Grice did not develop these notions into a coherent theory, they became key notions in the later studies of irony. The notions of familiarity and indirectness play an important role in Giora’s works (1998, Giora and Fein 1999, 2003), just as negative critical attitude in the approach of Wilson and Sperber (1992/2007), while pretense is the cornerstone of Clark and Gerrig’s study (1984) and inappropriateness is a central notion in Attardo’s model (2000). Finally, expectation is an important notion in Martin (1992) and Giora (1995; 2003; Giora and Fein 1999,). The notions in Fig. 1. may appear in different theories, and the authors often combine several ones (into one). I noted the ones most characteristic of the authors.

Some (Sperber-Wilson 1992/2007 and Wilson 2006) have voicec a fundamental criticism against the Gricean view of the relationship between irony and opposition.

They treat figurative meanings as literal meanings; therefore their model is a one-stage model. They see irony as indirect quotation while parody is a direct quotation. An ironist speaking ironically reports an opinion which is not his own. They treat irony as a negative, critical attitude. They bring examples (1) in which irony does not involve opposition:

(1) Context:

You have invited me to visit you in Tuscany. Tuscany in May, you write, is the most beautiful place on earth. I arrive in a freak cold spell, wind howling, rain lashing down. As you drive me home along flooded roads, I turn to you and exclaim the following:

Ah, Tuscany in May!


One of their arguments against the oppositional view is that it does not express a complete proposition; hence it cannot be true or false. It follows that there is no complete proposition and it cannot be contradictory with another proposition. We can bring at least two objections against their argument. (i) The utterance

„Ah, Tuscany in May”

is an incomplete propositional form at the semantic level, but its propositional form will be completed at a pragmatic level with the constituents of the context (cf. free enrichment, Carston 2004) (ii) Contradiction between two propositions is only one of the types of opposition. I am going to present other types of opposition later (section 3.).

Irony as an indirect negation form (Giora 1995)

Let us examine briefly Giora’s indirect negation view. Indirect negation is in contrast with direct negation:

1. it does not have a scalar interpretation

2. it does not have linguistic markers

3. it avoids unpleasant value and

4. it involves ‘less than’, ‘more than’ and ‘opposite’ interpretations

Giora says that irony may express not only opposition, but ‘less than’ ‘more than’ interpretations as well. If we see the next example, however, we can notice that Giora’s definition does not fit it.

(2)

What a beautiful white wedding dress she has!

Context: Contrary to the traditions and expectations (i.e. the bride’s dress is white), the bride’s dress is pink.

According to Giora’s approach, the possible intended meanings of the speaker should be:

The bride’s dress is less than white*

The bride’s dress is more than white*

The bride’s dress is opposite to white

The problem is that ‘less than’ and ‘more than’ refer to a smaller or bigger amount of something. We need a more general explanation! The meaning of the ironic utterance is the interaction between what is said: „What a beautiful white wedding dress she has” and what is implicated: the wedding dress is not white or the wedding dress is not white, it’s pink. The meaning of ‘opposite’ is vague, as it can be: white/pink or white/not-white or white/black.

The nature of the problem is that Wilson and Sperber’s and Giora’s approaches envisage no difference between simple, polar, logical, non-logical contraries or contradictions, although they play an important role in the mechanism of irony.

The nature of opposition and negation

Opposition

It seems necessary and desirable to clarify the use of the terms opposition and contrary and differentiate their meanings. I am trying to accomplish this task based on Horn (1989). The vagueness about opposition emerges from the pragmatic approaches of irony, and a deeper semantic analysis is required.

We can see three types of opposed terms: white/pink are simple contraries (non-logical); white/black are polar contraries (non-logical); white/not-white are logical contraries. Note the next example:

(3) What beautiful flowers you have brought to me!

Context: Your boyfriend is standing in front of view with a teddy bear.

We should reconsider our notion of opposition. In my opinion, irony expresses a difference (at least a simple opposition as white/rose in (2) or flower/ teddy bear in (3)) from something and takes something out of a given category (see more examples in section 4.)

Negation, ‘neg-raised’ negation and double negation

The two types of negation are the so-called (1) external negation, which is treated as a propositional operator (a mode of prediction); and the so-called (2) internal negation, which is treated as an operation on the predicate. The truth-value of a statement and the truth-value of its external negation cannot be identical at the same time. In the case of the truth-value of a statement and the truth-value of its internal negation, both can be false, but not true at the same time (Horn 1989: 140). Based on the previous section, applying external negation upon a statement results in contradiction, while applying internal negation on a predicate results in contrary between the predicate and its negative.

On the other hand, from a pragmatic point of view, negation has euphemistic and polite local colour if the negated expression (good – not good) has a positive value or it is relatively weak on its scale. The further the negative particle is from the negated expression; or the bigger chunk it refers to, the less certain the interpretation is (Horn 1989: 339–341). Euphemism can be detected with the help of R-based implicature (see Horn 1984/1998, 1989). Let’s see double negation, which often appears when one speaks ironically. It is also a kind of double negation when a statement, which already contains a negation, is said with an ironical intention, as in (4). Thinking in the classical logical frame, ‘ ¬¬ A‘ and ‘ A‘ are equivalent; at the pragmatic level, however, they have different meanings. Double negation always indicates either (i) hesitation or uncertainty, or (ii) diffidence or (iii) irony (Hintikka 1968: 47).

(4)

"Some of his words were not Sunday school words."

(Mark Twain)

If (4) is an ironic utterance, and if we can find out its suggested meaning via implicit negation, the utterance can have more than one suggested meanings due to the uncertainty of double negation. According to Horn (1989: 338), both ‘neg-raised’ negation and double negation are used to keep various interpretations alive, thus it results in the vagueness of the intended meaning. The ‘neg-raised’ negation is a mild form of doubting and – based on the verb’s type in the higher-clause (factiv/not factiv) – it may or may not, have a litotic and euphemistic feel (see Horn 1989: 339–341). Notice that the mitigative feature of neg-raising is a very point of engagement of negation and irony. The phenomena of neg-raising and double negation are similar to the interpretation of an ironic utterance: when an utterance is considered ironical, then the implicit negation can operate at a higher level, over the given utterance. In the case of utterances used ironically, implicit negation works over what has been said, which can result in double negation, as we have seen in (4), where one of the two negations is implicit and it is similar to neg-raising, both of them negate at a higher level and both of them have euphemistic or polite flavour. These characteristics of the different types of negation make the interpretation of the utterance uncertain. Implicit negation is more uncertain than the other two, because of its unmarked form. The cues for implicit negation are also uncertain. We can see this uncertainty-scale through examples (5a – 5e).

(5a)

The painting isn’t nice.

(5b)

I suppose the painting isn’t nice.

(5c)

I don’t suppose the painting is nice.

(5d)

I don’t suppose the painting isn’t nice.

(5e)

I suppose the painting you have chosen isn’t nice.

(Context: Going to a van Gogh auction.)

In the utterance with the ironic intention (5e), does the speaker negate “I suppose” or “the painting isn’t nice” implicitly, or both at the same time? If we aren’t thinking in the classical logical frame, where ‘¬¬ A’ and ‘A’ are equivalent, then all three interpretations are possible and allow different intended speaker meanings.

Contraries with and without direct negation

Based on the previous section, applying external negation upon a statement results in contradiction, while applying internal negation on predicate results in contrary between the predicate and its negative. It can be seen how the two types of direct negation can result in two types of opposition, namely contradictories and logical contraries (C2). Two other types of opposition – polar contraries (C3) and simple contraries – are not created with negation (see examples above in Figure 2.). Considering these, it is not easy to tell whether irony communicates the opposite of what has been said or not (cf. Grice 1975/1989; Wilson and Sperber 1992/2007), or whether irony is a form of negation and the ironist negates indirectly an opinion accepted by everyone, or not (cf. Giora 1995, 2003).

Theoretically, we can reach the same conclusion as Giora (1995, 2003; Giora and Fein 1999) did in an empirical way, namely that there is an interaction between what has been said and what has been implicated, and what has been said cannot be replaced with what has been implicated. They will remain in interaction, while contextual information can disambiguate the pragmatic meaning. But in the case of irony, the speaker’s intention is to keep up the ambiguity/vagueness of the pragmatic meaning, similarly to double negation and ‘neg-raised’ negation.

Irony expresses a difference or category-shift between what has been said and at least one suggested meaning. The intended meaning of the ironic utterance is the interaction of these (at least) two. Context may dismiss, but also keep up suggested meanings.

The role of hyperbole and litotes in the case of recognizing irony

The example below (7) shows us how the Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party[4] creates contraries to be ironical and to draw attention to the exaggerated promises of advertisements. [The billboard (7) is avaible in poster form.]

(7) Car. Guarantee for development.

- Even more exterminated species!

- Even larger ozone hole!

- Even more occupied Arabic countries!

Defeat your planet with us!

Cars Against Humans Association


Notice that this car commercial is polarizing the state of affairs (i.e. exterminated species, ozone hole, etc.) which is in conflict with the expectations of society. The car guarantees “more exterminated species”, “a larger ozone hole”, etc. These are polar contraries (C3) of the expectations of society. From this point of view, the first utterance of (7) implicates that a car guarantees devastation. As we can see in (7), in most cases irony refers to sharply contrasting polar contraries (black/white). In a rhetorical sense, this exaggeration is a hyperbole, and it can not be ignored that irony usually occurs with hyperbole or litotes (see more Kreutz 1995, 1996; Nemesi 2005, 2009). According to empirical studies, irony most often occurs with hyperbole, litotes, sarcasm and metaphor.

Because of these associated figures of speech, I suppose this is one of the reasons why it is difficult to define the essence of irony. We have to pay attention to these occurrences and we have to distinguish irony from other figures and topoi. The reason why what is said and what is implicated are thought to be opposites (namely polar contraries) in the case of ironic utterances, is the universal tendency of the speculative mind which is labelled polarizing tendency (Horn 1989; Osgood and Richards 1973). Polarizing tendency means that the phenomena are placed into the range of polar contraries, imposing a dichotomy on concepts such as good and bad, white and black, light and dark, God and Evil. Hyperbole and litotes might serve as cues in order to show/detect easily irony.

From category-shift to perspective-shift

The closer examination of Opposed terms (see Figure 2.) reveals that those critiques which say that irony communicates not simply the opposite of what was literally said are rather vague. Separating the different types of opposition (section 3.1.), we could see that ironic utterances are not simply an opposition in the common sense. Reconsidering white/pink as simple contraries in example (2), then white/black (in Figure 3.) or development/devastation as polar contraries (C3) in (7), and hot/not hot as strong (logical) contraries (C2) in (8), finally Defeat your planet with us/not-Defeat your planet with us as Contradictories in (7) we can see that in the case of ironic utterances each type can occur.

(2)

What a beautiful white wedding dress she has! Context: Contrary to the traditions and expectations (i.e. the bride’s dress is white), the bride’s dress is pink.


(8)

What a hot tea!

Context: Drinking some already cold tea, because the waiter bought it late.

(9)

What lukewarm water!

Context: Hot summer day when I order cold mineral water and get a lukewarm one.

Notice in (8) how the physical context of an ironic utterance modifies which opposition plays a role in it. From the given contexts it can be seen that polar contraries (C3) (cold/hot) play a role in the implicated meaning in (8). Hot/warm are simple contraries, in which case all the terms of the scale can make pairs with hot, except cold. If lukewarm water is given, contrary to the expectations (cold water), we can speak about simple contraries in (9). The third possibility is hot/not-hot, which are strong (logical) contraries (C2), which interpretation is also available in (8), because the tea can be anything but not hot.

From the utterance’s point of view: summarising what we have seen so far, it is worth taking opposition into account, when thinking about irony. But what can we do with these results? In my view, irony is at least difference, category-shift (i.e. not white, but pink, green, etc.) from the utterance’s point of view. Irony expresses that a certain thing can be anything but what the speaker is actually saying.

From speaker’s point of view: the speaker uses irony to show a deflection from what is said and to emphasize a distance from the state of affairs. The speaker uses irony to take something out of a given category (white/pink; flower/teddy bear), to put himself out of a given group which has opinions/expectations other than those of the speaker. As for the speaker and the listener, irony aims at “accomplishing derailing” from an already existing perspective. The speaker creates a distance and addresses criticism towards the target, and doing so they define their identity in relation to others.

Komlosi emphasizes that irony most often occurs with hyperbole or litotes. Presumably, due to this fact, the judgment arises that irony is a polar opposite (C2). We have to pay attention to this co-occurance and we have to distinguish irony from other figures of speech. My proposal is that irony is a difference or category-shift in language from the utterance’s point of view. What is a category-shift in language from the point of view of the utterance is a perspective-shift from the speaker’s point of view. Due to the analyses of the types of opposition and negation, by not giving up on the oppositional account but rather re-interpreting it instead, we are not far from the idea of Wilson and Sperber’s (1992/2007). They treat irony as a critical attitude, when the speaker reports an opinion (cf. perspective) which is not his own. One can acknowledge that we are reconceptualising the Socratic notion of irony, which urges the listener to doubt his or her own mental states, thus forcing him or her to shift perspectives in order to accommodate novel pieces of knowledge.

With the semantico-pragmatic analyses of opposition and negation we have seen that the ironic utterance is the presentation of difference, deflection, that is, we distinguish two things with the help of irony, which procedure I call a category-shift. At speaker-level, irony is a perspective-shift, the speaker uses an ironic utterance to create a distance (cf. critical attitude in Wilson and Sperber 1992/2007) from something and to force the listener to doubt his or her own knowledge, opinion; thus forcing him or her to shift perspectives in order to accommodate to novel pieces of knowledge.

Theoretically we can reach the same conclusion as Giora (1995, 2003; Giora and Fein 1999) did in an empirical way. In the case of irony, what has been said and what has been implicated will remain in interaction, due to the nature of negation (see in section 3.2.) and the goal of using irony is that contextual information should not disambiguate the pragmatic meaning. In the case of irony, the speaker’s intention is to keep up the ambiguity/vagueness of the pragmatic meaning, similarly to double negation and ‘neg-raised’ negation.

In most cases, irony is accompanied with the figures of overstatement (hyperbole and litotes), which might help to clarify the speaker’s point of view, therefore irony accompanied with hyperbole and litotes is easier to recognize. Although due to the overstatement, the intended meaning of irony is often considered as the opposite of what has been said, the intended meaning of “pure” (without overstatement) and “accompanied” irony should not be confused.

The semantico-pragmatic analyses of irony, which mainly studied the notions of negation, opposition, contrary and contradiction (cf. Horn 1989); and also hyperbole and litotes, define the prototypical irony as follows: irony expresses the speaker’s perspective-shift (critical attitude), which draws attention to the deflection and difference between what has been said and at least one suggested meaning. The intended meaning of the ironic utterance is the interaction of these (at least) two. Context may dismiss, but also keep up suggested meanings (cf. Giora 2003). The difference between what has been said and at least one suggested meaning are often polar or logical contraries, due to the attached hyperbole or litotes.

References:

Attardo, Salvatore

Irony as relevant inappropriateness.

Journal of Pragmatics 32

Clark, H. – R. Gerrig
On the Pretense Theory of Irony, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 121 – 126.

Carston, R.
Relevance theory and the saying/implicating distinction, in: Horn, Laurence R. – Gregory Ward szerk.: The Handbook of Pragmatics, Cambridge, MA MIT Press, 633–656.

Gibbs, Raymond W. – Herbert L. Colston szerk.: 2007: Irony in Language and Thought, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Taylor & Francis Group, New York, London.

Giora, Rachel
On Irony and Negation, Discourse Processes 19, 239–264.

-- Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics, 8/3, 183–206.

-- Irony, in J. Verschueren, J-O. Östman, J. Blommaert and C. Bulcaen szerk.: Handbook of Pragmatics, 1–21, John Benjamins.

& Ofer Fein 1999: Irony: Context and salience. Metaphor and Symbol, 14/4, 241–257. Republished in: Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. – Herbert L. Colston szerk.: 2007: Irony in Language and Thought, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Taylor & Francis Group, New York, London, 201–216.

-- On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language. New York: Oxford University Press.

Grice, H. P. 1939. Privation and negation.
-- 1941. Personal identity.
-- 1948. Meaning
-- 1966. Logic and conversation: the Oxford lectures.
-- 1975/1989. Logic and conversation. in: Studies in the way of words, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 22 – 40. [First publication in Peter Cole – Jerry L. Morgan (eds.): Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts, New York: Academic Press]
-- 1978/1989. Further Notes on logic and conversation, in: Grice 1989: 41 – 57. [First publication in Peter Cole (ed.): Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics, New York: Academic Press, 113 – 128.]

Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A natural history of negation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
-- 1984/1998. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q- and R- based implicature, in: Deborah Schiffrin (ed.): Meaning, form and use in context, Washington D.C. : Georgetown University Press, 11–42. Republished in: Asa Kasher (ed.): Pragmatics I: critical concepts. London: Routledge, 383–418.
-- A brief history of negation.

Hintikka, Jaakko 1968. Epistemic logic and the methods of philosophical analysis. Australasian Journal of Philosopy 46/1, 37–51.

Kreutz, R. J – R. M. Roberts – B. K. Johnson – E. L. Bertus 1996. Figurative language occurrence and co-occurance in contemporary literature, in: R. J. Kreuz – M. S. MacNealy szerk.: Empirical approaches to literature and aesthetics, Norwood, NJ, Ablex, 83–97. [Hivatkozza Nemesi Attila László 2005: Az alakzatprodukció empirikus kutatásának dilemmái, in: Ivaskó Lívia szerk.: Érthető kommunikáció, Szegedi Tudományegyetem Médiatudományi Tanszék, 62–76.]

Levinson, Stephen C. 2000. On the notion of a generalized conversational implicature, in: Levinson, Stephen C.: Presumptive meanings, The theory of generalized conversational implicature, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 11–72.

Martin, Robert 1992. Irony and universe of belief. in: Lingua 87, 77 – 90.

Nemesi Attila László

Az alakzatprodukció empirikus kutatásának dilemmái, in: Ivaskó Lívia szerk.: Érthető kommunikáció, Szegedi Tudományegyetem Médiatudományi Tanszék, 62–76.

Nemesi Attila László 2009. Az alakzatok kérdése a pragmatikában, Loisir Könyvkiadó, Budapest.

Osgood, C., and M. M. Richards. 1973. From Yang and Yin to and or but. Language 49. 380-412.

Wilson, D. – Dan Sperber 1992. On Verbal Irony in: Lingua 87, 53 – 76.

Wilson, D. 2006. The pragmatics of verbal irony: echo or pretence? In: Lingua 116, 1722–1743.


Giora’s view (1995) says more about irony than this: she identifies the Conditions for Irony Well-Formedness (1995). She supported her two-stage interaction model with empirical findings (Giora and Fein 1999), and she formed The Graded Salient Hypothesis to explain so called figurative meanings (1997).