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Multimodal Im/politeness: Signed, spoken, written
Edited by Andreas H. Jucker, Iris Hübscher and Lucien Brown
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 333] 2023
► pp. 251–272

Chapter 9
Multimodal markers of irony in televised discourse

A corpus-based approach

ORCID logo | University of Bremen

This paper analyses multimodal features of two ironic constructions (Tell me about it and syntactically independent as if clauses) in television discourse. The results of the quantitative analysis show that a slower tempo, gaze aversion, raised eyebrows, smiles and head movements are features of ironic Tell me about it, while a lowered mean pitch, a pause after the clause and head tilts are more frequent with syntactically independent as if clauses. Furthermore, a subtype of independent as if clauses is distinguished, which is marked by a faster tempo, a pause before the clause, but no pauses within, and raised eyebrows. These results suggest that verbal irony is marked differently depending on the function the ironic construction fulfils.

Keywords: verbal irony, multimodal markers of irony, function of irony, asymmetry debate, television discourse, corpus approach, quantitative method
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The functions of irony-in-interaction and im/politeness
  • 3.Ironic constructions
    • 3.1Tell me about it
    • 3.2Syntactically independent as if clauses
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Multimodal archive
    • 4.2Procedure
    • 4.3Analysis of multimodal features
    • 4.4Statistical analysis
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Tell me about it
    • 5.2Syntactically independent as if clauses
    • 5.3Formulaic as if clauses
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.333.09leh
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