The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter

Editors

Manuel Jobert | University of Lyon 3, CREA Paris-Nanterre

Sandrine Sorlin | Aix Marseille Univ, LERMA/IUF, Aix-en-Provence, France

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027200532 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027264237 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter is the first book-length study analysing irony and banter together. This approach, inherited from Geoffrey Leech’s research, implies that the two notions are intrinsically related. In this thought-provoking volume, the various contributors (linguists, stylisticians, discourse analysts and literary scholars), while not necessarily agreeing on every aspect of this theoretical premise, discuss and develop the idea. In turn, they consider the workings of these two discursive practices in various corpora (face-to-face or digitally-mediated interactions, novels, comedy shows, etc.) thus providing a wealth of examples and case studies. This well-balanced positioning helps the reader to develop a better understanding of these complex discursive practices that play a crucial part in everyday interaction. Steering a course between traditional perspectives and new theoretical approaches, this innovative and exciting way of looking at irony and banter will no doubt open new avenues for research.

[Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 30] 2018. vi, 221 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.30

Table of Contents

Part I. Theoretical and empirical revisiting of irony (and banter)

Chapter 1. Introduction: The intricacies of irony and banter

Manuel Jobert and Sandrine Sorlin | pp. 1–19

Chapter 2. Irony in a theory of textual meaning

Lesley Jeffries | pp. 1–17

Chapter 3. Deconstructing the myth of positively evaluative irony

Marta Dynel | pp. 1–17

Chapter 4. Verbal irony, politeness… and three ironic types

Olivier Simonin | pp. 1–22

Chapter 5. Irony and semantic prosody revisited

Dan McIntyre | pp. 1–19

Part II. Irony and banter from 17th and 19th century literature to contemporary discourse

Chapter 6. Simulating ignorance: Irony and banter on Congreve’s stage

Natalie Mandon | pp. 1–18

Chapter 7. The face-value of place-work in William Makepeace Thackeray’s handling of irony

Jacqueline Fromonot | pp. 1–19

Chapter 8. The point of banter in the television show Pointless

Linda Pillière | pp. 1–24

Chapter 9. Irony as counter positioning: Reader comments on the EU migrant crisis

Jan Chovanec | pp. 1–30

Chapter 10. The Rolling Stones promoting Monty Python: The power of irony and banter

Sandrine Sorlin | pp. 1–20

Notes on contributors | pp. 1–3

Index

“The readers of The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter will appreciate editors Jobert and Sorlin’s discrete but welcome interventions, and namely their efforts to show the many potential connections between the various chapters (as they aptly insert references to other chapters when they feel the reader would benefit from reading them conjointly). The fact that various theoretical angles and discursive contexts are represented makes for a very engaging collected volume, which provides much food for thought and will, no doubt, trigger further research in the field of irony, sarcasm, banter and humor.”

Virginie Iché, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, in Cercles, December 2018

“This volume is a valuable contribution to the study of the still elusive phenomenon of verbal irony and an encouragement to further study irony, especially banter. With a primary focus on verbal irony, the volume will be of great interest to linguists and pragmatics scholars as it offers novel ways of conceptualising and categorising irony, while at the same time setting essential conditions for the identification of irony and offering a thorough insight into how irony works pragmatically.”

Aleksandar Takovski, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, Skopje, in The European Journal of Humour Research 8(2)

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Statham, Simon & Rocío Montoro

2019. The year’s work in stylistics 2018. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 28:4 ► pp. 354 ff.

Stypinska, Diana

2022. I Troll, Therefore I Am. In Social Media, Truth and the Care of the Self, ► pp. 41 ff.

[no author supplied]

2022. Modeling Irony [Figurative Thought and Language, 12],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 november 2023. 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.

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