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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. 255–276

Chapter 12
Investigating sarcasm comprehension using eye-tracking during reading

What are the roles of literality, familiarity, and echoic mention?

This chapter tests the hypothesised effects of various factors on sarcasm processing. In an eye-tracking experiment, participants read texts ending in either literal or sarcastic and familiar or unfamiliar remarks, either echoing a previous contextual utterance or not. Results indicated that (1) the effect of utterance literality was observed in the later processing stages when sarcasm was more difficult to process than literal language, (2) utterance familiarity also affected processing, and (3) echoing an antecedent made comments faster to read. A novel finding was that echoing an antecedent made sarcastic comments as easy to process as literal equivalents – a result not easily explained within any of the frameworks under investigation here. Implications for theories of sarcasm comprehension are discussed.

Keywords: figurative language, irony, sarcasm processing, eye-tracking
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Empirical evidence
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Materials and design
    • Procedure
  • Results
    • The pre-critical region
    • The critical region
    • The post-critical region
  • Discussion
    • Utterance literality
    • Utterance familiarity
    • Echoic mention
  • Note
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.1.13tuc
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Cited by 11 other publications

Attardo, Salvatore
2023. Tracking the Ironical Eye: Eye Tracking Studies on Irony and Sarcasm. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 140 ff. DOI logo
Barzy, Mahsa, Ruth Filik, David Williams & Heather J. Ferguson
2020. Emotional Processing of Ironic Versus Literal Criticism in Autistic and Nonautistic Adults: Evidence From Eye‐Tracking. Autism Research 13:4 ► pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
Colston, Herbert L.
2020. On why people don’t say what they mean. In Producing Figurative Expression [Figurative Thought and Language, 10], ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo
Filik, Ruth
2023. Emotional Responses to Sarcasm. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
Filik, Ruth, Hannah Howman, Christina Ralph-Nearman & Rachel Giora
2018. The role of defaultness and personality factors in sarcasm interpretation: Evidence from eye-tracking during reading. Metaphor and Symbol 33:3 ► pp. 148 ff. DOI logo
Howman, Hannah Elizabeth & Ruth Filik
2020. The role of emoticons in sarcasm comprehension in younger and older adults: Evidence from an eye-tracking experiment. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 73:11 ► pp. 1729 ff. DOI logo
Mazzarella, Diana & Nausicaa Pouscoulous
2023. Ironic speakers, vigilant hearers. Intercultural Pragmatics 20:2 ► pp. 111 ff. DOI logo
Pickering, Bethany, Dominic Thompson & Ruth Filik
2018. Examining the emotional impact of sarcasm using a virtual environment. Metaphor and Symbol 33:3 ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. The Multimodal Performance of Conversational Humor [Figurative Thought and Language, 13], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Irony, Affect, and Related Figures. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Irony in Linguistic Communication. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo

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