Cover not available
Part of
Irony in Language Use and Communication
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou and Herbert L. Colston
[Figurative Thought and Language 1] 2017
► pp. 109–126

Chapter 5
On ironic puns in Portuguese authentic oral data

How does multiple meaning make irony work?

In the present paper we are going to focus on two Portuguese case studies (one in European Portuguese – EP and one in Brazilian Portuguese – BP) of the ironic oral discourse that result in verbal puns. In our analysis we postulate that studying multiple meanings (polysemy and homonymy) in puns can explain how irony functions on cognitive, linguistic and cultural levels given that (i) irony is a fundamental way of thinking about human experience (Gibbs & Colston, 2007; Gibbs, 2012); (ii) it is perspectivised and culturally grounded (Tobin & Israel, 2012; Dancygier & Sweetser, 2012, 2015); and (iii) linguistically explicit in verbal irony (Bryant, 2012, cf. Batoréo, 2016).
The study is qualitative in character: the aim of the analysis is to exemplify cognitive and linguistic mechanisms culturally grounded that make irony work. In two case studies of authentic Portuguese discourse with ironic puns chosen out of larger corpora (cf. References) to be discussed in the present paper we shall argue that (i) polysemy and homonymy are cognitive and linguistic phenomena that trigger ironic puns; (ii) metonymy organised in metonymical chains or networks can be a complex cognitive mechanism that underlies polysemy; (iii) verbal puns are perspectivised and strongly culturally and historically grounded.
Keywords: irony, Cognitive Linguistics, Cultural Linguistics, verbal puns, authentic oral discourse, polysemy, metonymy, homonymy, Portuguese (EP and BP), Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: What do we understand by irony from a Cognitive Linguistics point of view?
  • 2.The first case study: Polysemy of ‘Mercedes’ in The Mercedes joke
    • 2.1Formal representation, scripts, and a sarcastic trigger
    • 2.2Polysemy and a metonymical network as a grounding cognitive mechanism
    • 2.3Representations and metarepresentations of irony
  • 3.The second case study (Brazilian Portuguese): Homonymy of ‘cremado’ in The ‘cremado’ joke
  • 4.Final discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Extra information related to the corpus
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.1.06bat
References (34)
References
Batoréo, H. J. (2016). Como conceptualizamos a ironia no discurso? Representações e meta-representações do implícito (How do we conceptualize irony in discourse? Representation and metarepresentaion of implicitness). Revista Portuguesa de Humanidades – Estudos Linguísticos, 20 (1), 9–24. Braga: Universidade Católica Portuguesa.Google Scholar
Bryant, G. A. (2012). Is Verbal Irony Special? Language and Linguistic Compass 6/1, 673–685. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colston, H. L. (1997). Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism. Discourse Processes, 23, 24–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. & Cruse, A. D. (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gan, X.. (2015). A Study of the Humor Aspect of English Puns: Views from the Relevance Theory. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 6, 1211–1215. DOI logo. [URL]
Dancygier, B. & Sweetser, E.. (Eds.) (2012). Viewpoint in Language. A Multimodal Perspective. Frontmatter/Prelims, Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dancyngier, B. & Sweetser, E.. (2015). Figurative Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dynel, M. (Ed.) (2011). The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains. John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Furtado, J. Leichsenring. (2016). A Piada e a Narrativa Conversacional de cariz humorístico: um breve estudo comparativo (Jokes and humorous conversational narrative: a short comparative study). Dissertação de Mestrado em Estudos Portugueses: Investigação e Ensino (MA dissertation in Portuguese Studies). Lisboa: Universidade Aberta. Retrieved from [URL].
Gibbs, R. W. (2000). Irony in Talk Among Friends, Metaphor and Symbol, 15, 1–2, 5–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001). Authorial intentions in text understanding. Discourse Processes, 32, 73–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012). Are Ironic Acts Deliberate? Journal of Pragmatics 44 (1), 104–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. W., & Colston, H. L. (2001). The Risks and Rewards of Ironic Communication. In: L. R. Anolli, R. Ciceri and G. Riva (eds.) (2001). Say not to Say. New Perspectives on Miscommunication. (pp. 188–201). IOS Press.Google Scholar
(Eds.) (2007). Irony in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Reader. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
. (2012). Interpreting Figurative Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giora, R.. (1995). On irony and negation. Discourse Processes, 19, 239–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marinho, E. Soares. (2016). Uma abordagem cognitivsta na interpretação do humor: mesclagem conceptual na construção do significado em piadas (Cognitivist approach in interpretation of humour: blending in meaning construction in jokes). Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística, Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, ms. (PhD thesis in progress).Google Scholar
Marinho, E. Soares & Ferrari, L.. (2016). Mesclagem conceptual em piadas curtas (Conceptual blending in short jokes). LinguíStica, Vol. 12, nº 1, 143–156.Google Scholar
Morais, J. Armindo de & Batoréo, H. J. (2013). «Quando e Porquê Contamos uma História?» Narrativa e Argumentação: o Caso das Narrativas Conversacionais. («When and why do we tell a story?» Narrative and argumentation in conversational narratives). Estudos Linguísticos/ Linguistica Studies, 8, Revista do Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Lisboa: Edições Colibri. 151–162.Google Scholar
Morreall, J., (2016). Philosophy of Humor. In Edward N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition). [URL].
Raskin, V. (1984). Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tobin, V., & Israel, M. (2012). Irony as a viewpoint phenomenon. In B. Dancygier & E. Sweetser (Eds.), Viewpoint in Language. A Multimodal Perspective (pp. 25–46). Frontmatter/Prelims, CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Extra information related to the corpus
1. Information on Mercedes Jellinek and the Mercedes-Benz brand
Janis Joplin’s Mercedes-Benz lyrics Retrieved from [URL]
Krebbs, M. (2001). Her name still rings a bell. The New York Times, Automobiles Section. Oct. 19, (2001). Retrieved from [URL]
Meet Mercedes Jellinek, the woman behind the name. Autoblog. 28 June (2012). Retrieved from [URL]
Mercedes Jellinek, an interesting life story. Mercedes-Benz Cyprus Website: Mercedes World. Retrieved from [URL]
2. Information on Brazilian jokes “Piadas de Português” (Jokes on the Portuguese)
Fino, C. (2016). Piada de português e espírito do tempo. Ms.
Sites on “piada-de-portugues” retrieved from
http://www.osvigaristas.com.br/piadas/portugues/
http://www.piadascurtas.com.br/piadas-de-portugues/
http://www.piadas.com.br/piadas/portugues
http://www.piadasnet.com/piadas-de-portugues.htm
http://piadasantigasenovas.blogspot.pt/2008/06/piadas-de-portugus.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mvgoogle&v=BajXlGOotEk&fulldescription=1&app=desktop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWFkEuJ1sqI
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Maldonado, Gabriel Orlando Quiñones
2022. A polissemia do item lexical ‘luz’, uma análise baseada na linguística cognitiva. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento ► pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
Batoréo, Hanna Jakubowicz
2018. Metaphorical Competence in Multilingual Context of Language Acquisition and Learning. Psychology of Language and Communication 22:1 ► pp. 534 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.