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Irony in Language Use and Communication
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou and Herbert L. Colston
[Figurative Thought and Language 1] 2017
► pp. 43–60

Chapter 2
How does irony arise in experience?

How does irony arise in experience? Most studies of irony focus on the verbal expression of ironic meaning. Irony is typically viewed as a rhetorical tool used for indirect communication. But irony also emerges automatically in many nonlinguistic contexts. People often judge paradoxical situations to be ironic, and sometimes recognize that their own failed attempts at thought suppression also lead to a sense or feeling of irony. Irony can also emerge when people enact certain embodied metaphors relevant to pretense and benign violations of the body. This chapter explores these various ways by which irony presents itself in everyday life. We suggest that irony is less an indirect form of communication than fundamental kind of bicoherent thought which underlie many cognitive and expressive actions.

Keywords: benign violation, humor, paradox, verbal irony, thought suppression, bicoherence, embodiment, situational irony, consciousness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ironic language
  • 3.Ironic situations
  • 4.Ironic experience and thought suppression
  • 5.Irony and benign bodily violations
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.1.03gib
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Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Belaj, Branimir & Goran Tanacković
2022. Verbal and situational irony. In Figurative Thought and Language in Action [Figurative Thought and Language, 16], ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo
Colston, Herbert L.
2019. How Language Makes Meaning, DOI logo
Gibbs, Raymond W., Patrawat Samermit & Christopher R. Karzmark
2023. The Varieties of Ironic Experience. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 60 ff. DOI logo
Giora, Rachel, Dalia Meytes, Ariela Tamir, Shir Givoni, Vered Heruti & Ofer Fein
2017. Chapter 10. Defaultness shines while affirmation pales. In Irony in Language Use and Communication [Figurative Thought and Language, 1], ► pp. 219 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Modeling Irony [Figurative Thought and Language, 12], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. The Scope of Irony. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo

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