Theories of Irony

Theories of Irony - Sperber and Wilson, Blakemore, Clark

TheoriesIronySperberWilson TheoriesIronySperberWilsonBlakemoreClark BlakemoreClarkPragmaticsMeaning PragmaticsMeaningContext Context

Zusammenfassung oder Einleitung This study presents three recent and influential theories of irony and subjects them to critical analysis. Beginning with Sperber and Sperber and Wilson’s landmark theory of echoic interpretive use of language, the study proceeds with Blakemore’s further development of the theory by the concept of weak implicature and finishes with Clark’s theatrical m odel of joint pretense. Examples are drawn from writers such as Austen and Swift as well as from everyday conversation.

Textauszug (computergeneriert) Freie Universität Berlin Seminar für englische Philologie Winter Semester 2003/04 Hauptseminar: Pragmatics. Meaning in Context

Theories of Irony  – Sperber and Wilson, Blakemore, Clark

Content 1 Introduction ... 3 2 From the Semantic Theory to the Pragmatic Theory to the Mention Theory of Irony. From Cicero to Grice to Sperber and Wilson ... 3 Discussion ... 6 3 Blakemore ... 8 Discussion ... 13 4 Clark: The Pretense Theory of Irony ... 17 Discussion ... 20 5 Conclusion ... 23 6 Works Cited ... 24

1 Introduction In this study1 I explore recent accounts of irony by Wilson and Sperber, Blakemore, and Clark. Wilson and Sperber formulated a theory of irony that has been commented on by almost every theorist of irony that came after  them. Their notion that irony is echoing interpretive use of language is taken

up and modified by Blakemore, who adds further components derived from the concept of weak implicature. The breach between Clark’s and Blakemore’s account of irony is wider than that between the accounts of  Sperber and Wilson and Blakemore. Clark introduces a new f ocus on irony, stressing the fact that every ironical utterance is a joint pretense that requires some sort of coordination of the speaker’s and the hearer’s actions. The descriptions of Sperber and Wilson, Blakemore, and Clark will each be followed by a discussion of their theses in which I will focus on the problems that seem unresolved by the respective theory. I begin with an account and a subsequent short discussion of theories of irony from Cicero to Grice to Sperber and Wilson.

2 From the Semantic Theory to the Pragmatic Theory to the Mention Theory of Irony. From Cicero to Grice to Sperber and Wilson Traditional accounts of irony work via reference to figurative meaning. These are rhetorical definitions of irony formulated by Cicero and Quintilian. In short, irony was identified as a trope that means the opposite of what it says. Cicero distinguished this type of irony from another one which says something different from what it means. Quintilian introduced a moralistic definition in which irony is admonishment through false praise and praise through false admonishment (cf. Knox 1973:25).  A problem with these short definitions can bee seen when looking at the sentence (1), which is uttered during a downpour. (1) What lovely weather   A theory holding that the main feature of irony is that it conveys the opposite of what it says overlooks that in the absence of a distinctive intonation, only a certain context can make this utterance ironic. Only if the hearer knows that the speaker’s utterance is false (for example, speaker and hearer are standing in the rain together) or if the hearer knows about the speaker’s beliefs (they are on the phone, and the hearer must know that the speaker  does not think the weather is nice since it is raining in his city) is it possible that the utterance (1) is recognized as ironic. Thus, any theory of irony that will not take the context into account must fail (cf. Blakemore 1992:170). Grice has claimed that the figurative meaning is not semantic but pragmatic in nature. He has proposed that ironic utterances flout the first maxim of quality, thus producing the conversational implicature that the speaker means the opposite of what he says. The sentence ‘Today, we have lovely weather’ would be ironic when it’s raining heavily since the speaker utters something that is obviously false. The difference between the traditional and Grice’s theory of irony is merely the quality of the substitution that is made. W hile traditional theories claim that the substitution is semantic, Grice claims that it is solely pragmatic: It consists of a special kind of conversational implicature in which the first maxim of quality if flouted (cf. Lapp 1995:59ff.). The problem with Grice’s theory is that it does not get away from figurative meaning. Why does it not get away from figurative meaning? One reason is that figurative meanings are hard to define. Since almost every utterance is ambiguous, it should be even harder to find the figurative meaning, even if we take the disambiguating function of context into account (cf. Sperber and W ilson

81:298). According to Sperber and Wilson, another problem is that Grice must claim that irony conveys something in addition to the literal sense, whereas it in fact substitutes one meaning for the literal one (cf. Sperber and Wilson 81:299). In other words, the notion of irony seems hardly reconcilable with the concept of implicature, unless this concept is seriously distorted. Another  shortcoming of Grice’s theory is that it cannot explain the ironic nature of a sentence like (2) It seems to be raining [it is heavily raining] (Sperber and Wilson 81:300)

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1 Written as a seminar paper at the Free University Berlin in March 2004.