Chapter 9
Multimodal markers of irony in televised discourse
A corpus-based approach
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.
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
-
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Cited by (2)
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Lehmann, Claudia
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What makes a multimodal construction? Evidence for a prosodic mode in spoken English.
Frontiers in Communication 9
Smith, Chris A.
2023.
Productivity from a Metapragmatic Perspective: Measuring the Diachronic Coverage of the Low Level Lexico-Grammatical Construction Have the N (Body Part/Attitude) to ↔<Metapragmatic Comment> Using the COHA.
Languages 8:2
► pp. 92 ff.
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