Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 23:2 (2016) ► pp.259–283

Two layers of overt untruthfulness

When irony meets metaphor, hyperbole or meiosis

| University of Lódz
This philosophical-pragmatic paper discusses several forms of irony which rest on other figures of speech contingent on overt untruthfulness, namely the figures arising as a result of flouting the first maxim of Quality. It is argued that an ironic implicature may be piggybacked on another implicature, called “as if implicature”, originating from flouting the first maxim of Quality occasioned by metaphor. Metaphorical irony, which is subject to the irony-after-metaphor order of interpretation, exhibits a number of manifestations depending on the nature and scope of irony, and the scope of the subordinate metaphor. On the other hand, rather than giving rise to an as if implicature distinct from the irony-based one, hyperbole and meiosis, which are inherently evaluative, most typically overlap with ironically evaluative expressions, promoting meiotic and hyperbolic irony, frequently (wrongly, as will be claimed here) considered by researchers to rely on flouting Quantity maxims. However, cases of independent use of hyperbole or meiosis in ironic environment are also possible. Such invite two levels of untruthfulness and two implicatures.
Keywords: overt untruthfulness, hyperbolic irony, meiotic irony, metaphorical irony, flouting, evaluative implicature, first maxim of Quality, irony
Published online: 20 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.23.2.03dyn
References
Bezuidenhout, A.
2001 “Metaphor and what is said: A defense of a direct expression view of metaphor”. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 251: 156–186.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blair, H.
1842 Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Halifax: William Milner.Google Scholar
Camp, E.
2006 “Contextualism, metaphor, and what is said”. Mind and Language 21(3): 280–309.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “Sarcasm, pretense, and the semantics/pragmatics distinction”. Noûs 461: 587–634.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Camp, E. and Hawthorne, J.
2008 “Sarcastic ‘Like’: A case study in the interface of syntax and semantics”. In John Hawthorne (ed), Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1–21.Google Scholar
Carston, R. and Wearing, C.
2015 “Hyperbolic language and its relation to metaphor and irony”. Journal of Pragmatics 791: 79–92.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carter, R. and McCarthy, M.
1997 Exploring Spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Claridge, C.
2011 Hyperbole in English: A Corpus-Based Study of Exaggeration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Colston, H.
1997 “Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism”. Discourse Processes 231: 25–45.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 “On necessary conditions for verbal irony comprehension”. Pragmatics and Cognition 8(2): 277–324.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colston, H. and O’Brien, J.
2000 “Contrast of kind versus contrast of magnitude: The pragmatic accomplishment of irony and hyperbole”. Discourse Processes 30(2): 179–199.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creusere, M.
2000 “A developmental test of theoretical perspectives on the understanding of verbal irony: Children’s recognition of allusion and pragmatic insincerity”. Metaphor and Symbol 151: 29–45.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dynel, M.
2011 “A web of deceit: A neo-Gricean view on types of verbal deception”. International Review of Pragmatics 3(2): 137–165.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013a “Irony from a neo–Gricean perspective: On untruthfulness and evaluative implicature”. Intercultural Pragmatics 10(3): 403–431.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013b “When does irony tickle the hearer? Towards capturing the characteristics of humorous irony”. In M. Dynel (ed), The Pragmatics of Humour Across Discourse Domains. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 289–320.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “Comparing and combining covert and overt untruthfulness: On lying, deception, irony and metaphor”. Pragmatics & Cognition 23 (1): 174–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “The irony of irony: Irony based on truthfulness”. Corpus Pragmatics 11: 1–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Falk, L.
1990 “Between emphasis and exaggeration: Verbal emphasis in the English of Cape Breton Island”. In J. Black (ed), Papers from the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association. St John’s Memorial: University of Newfoundland, 39–49.Google Scholar
Fogelin, R.
1988 Figuratively Speaking. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Garmendia, J.
2010 “Irony is critical”. Pragmatics and Cognition 181: 397–421.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “She’s (not) a fine friend: ‘Saying’ and criticism in irony”. Intercultural Pragmatics 81: 41–65.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “The clash: Humor and critical attitude in verbal irony”. Humor 271: 641–659.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.
1994 The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W.
1999 The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.
2000 “Irony in talk among friends”. Metaphor and Symbol 151: 5–27.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. and O’Brien, J.
1991 “Psychological aspects of irony understanding”. Journal of Pragmatics 161: 523–530.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, H.P.
1989a “Logic and conversation”. In Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 22–40. [Grice, H.P. 1975. “Logic and conversation”. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds), Syntax and Semantics, Vol.3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, 41–58; Grice, H.P. 1975. “Logic and conversation”. In D. Davison and G. Harman (eds), The Logic of Grammar. Dickenson: Encino, 64–75.]Google Scholar
1989b “Further notes on logic and conversation”. In Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 41–57. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1978. “Further notes on logic and conversation”. In P. Cole (ed), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, 113–127.]Google Scholar
Hamamoto, H.
1998 “Irony from a cognitive perspective”. In R. Carston and S. Uchida (eds), Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 257–270.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haverkate, H.
1990 “A speech-act analysis of irony”. Journal of Pragmatics 141: 77–109.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horn, L.
1989 The Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Israel, M.
2006 “Saying less and meaning less”. In B. Birner and G. Ward (eds), Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning: Neo-Gricean Studies in Pragmatics and Semantics in Honor of Laurence R. Horn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 143–162.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, O.
1917 Negation in English and Other Languages. Copenhagen: Høst.Google Scholar
Kapogianni, E.
2011 “Irony via ‘surrealism’”. In M. Dynel (ed), The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 51–68.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Irony and the Literal Versus Nonliteral Distinction: A Typological Approach with Focus on Ironic Implicature Strength. University of Cambridge PhD thesis.Google Scholar
2014 “Differences in use and function of verbal irony between real and fictional discourse: (mis)interpretation and irony blindness”. Humor 271: 597–618.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, R. and Glucksberg, S.
1989 “How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of verbal irony”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 118(4): 374–386.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kreuz, R. and Roberts, R.
1995 “Two cues for verbal irony: Hyperbole and the ironic tone of voice”. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 101: 21–31.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kumon-Nakamura, S., Glucksberg, S. and Brown, M.
1995 “How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 1241: 3–21.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lausberg, H., Orton, D and Anderson, D.
1998 Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. A Foundation for Literary Study. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Levinson, S.C.
2000 Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Livnat, Z.
2004 “On verbal irony, meta-linguistic knowledge and echoic interpretation”. Pragmatics & Cognition 12(5): 7–70.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Quantity, truthfulness and ironic effect”. Language Sciences 33(2): 305–315.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, M. and Carter, R.
2004 “ ‘There’s millions of them’: Hyperbole in everyday conversation”. Journal of Pragmatics 361: 149–184.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nemesi, A.
2010 “Data-gathering methods in research on hyperbole production and interpretation”. In E.T. Nemeth and K. Bibok (eds), The Role of Data at the Semantic-Pragmatic Interface. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 381–417. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Neuhaus, L.
2016 “On the relation of irony, understatement, and litotes”. Pragmatics & Cognition. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norrick, N.R.
2004 “Hyperbole, extreme case formulations”. Journal of Pragmatics 361: 1727–1739.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Partington, A.
2006 The Linguistics of Laughter. A Corpus-Assisted Study of Laughter-Talk. Oxon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Irony and the reversal of evaluation”. Journal of Pragmatics 391: 1547–1569.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pexman, P., Ferretti, T. and Katz, A.
2000 “Discourse factors that influence on-line reading of metaphor and irony”. Discourse Processes 291: 201–222.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, A.
1986 “Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims”. Human Studies 91: 219–229.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Popa, M.
2009 Figuring the Code: Pragmatic Routes to the Non-literal. PhD Dissertation, University of Geneva.Google Scholar
2010 “Ironic metaphor interpretation”. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 331: 1–17.Google Scholar
Preminger, A.
(ed) 1974 Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R. and Kreuz, R.
1994 “Why do people use figurative language?” Psychological Science 51: 159–163.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seto, K.
1998 “On non-echoic irony”. In R. Carston and S. Uchida (eds), Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 240–255.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, J.
1657 Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvail’d. Facsimile reprint of 1st ed., London: George Everfden.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D.
1981 “Irony and the use-mention distinction”. In P. Cole (ed), Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, 295–313.Google Scholar
1998 “Irony and relevance: A reply to Seto, Hamamoto, and Yamanashi”. In R. Carston and S. Uchida (eds), Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 283–293.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spitzbardt, H.
1965 “English adverbs of degree and their semantic fields”. Philologica Pragensia 81: 349–359.Google Scholar
Stern, J.
2000 Metaphor in Context. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Utsumi, A.
2000 “Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony”. Journal of Pragmatics 321: 1777–1806.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vincent Marrelli, J.
2003 “Truthfulness”. In J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, J. Blommaert and C. Bulcaen (eds), Handbook of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–48.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 Words in the Way of Truth. Truthfulness, Deception, Lying across Cultures and Disciplines. Napoli: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane.Google Scholar
Walton, K.
2015 “Meiosis, hyperbole, irony”. Philosophical Studies, 1–16.Google Scholar
Wilson, D.
1995 “Is there a maxim of truthfulness?” UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 71: 197–212.Google Scholar
2006 “The pragmatics of verbal irony: Echo or pretence?” Lingua 1161: 1722–1743.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. and Sperber, D.
1992 “On verbal irony”. Lingua 871: 53–76.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 [2002, 2012] “Truthfulness and relevance”. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 215–254. [Reprinted as Wilson, D. and Sperber, D. 2002. “Truthfulness and relevance”. Mind 111: 583–632; “Truthfulness and relevance”. In D. Wilson and D. Sperber. Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 47–83]Google Scholar
2012 “Explaining irony”. In D. Wilson and D. Sperber (eds), Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 123–145.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yamanashi, M.
1998 “Some issues in the treatment of irony and related tropes”. In R. Carston and S. Uchida (eds), Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 271–281.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 14 other publications

Baider, Fabienne & Maria Constantinou
2020. Covert hate speech. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8:2 ► pp. 262 ff. DOI logo
Barnden, John
2021. Metaphor and irony. In Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and Usage [Figurative Thought and Language, 11], ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2016. Comparing and combining covert and overt untruthfulness. Pragmatics & Cognition 23:1 ► pp. 174 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2017. Chapter 6. Implicitness via overt untruthfulness. In Implicitness [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 276], ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2017. The Irony of Irony: Irony Based on Truthfulness. Corpus Pragmatics 1:1 ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2017. Academics vs. American scriptwriters vs. academics: A battle over the etic and emic “sarcasm” and “irony” labels. Language & Communication 55 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2018. Chapter 3. Deconstructing the myth of positively evaluative irony. In The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter [Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 30], ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2018. Irony in Language Use and Communication. Journal of Pragmatics 135 ► pp. 4 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2019. Ironic intentions in action and interaction. Language Sciences 75 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2020. To Say the Least: Where Deceptively Withholding Information Ends and Lying Begins. Topics in Cognitive Science 12:2 ► pp. 555 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta & Fabio IM Poppi
2018. In tragoedia risus: Analysis of dark humour in post-terrorist attack discourse. Discourse & Communication 12:4 ► pp. 382 ff. DOI logo
Livnat, Zohar
2020. “My refrigerator is as much in the dark as I am”. In The Discourse of Indirectness [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 316], ► pp. 39 ff. DOI logo
Sullivan, Arthur
2019. The varieties of verbal irony: a new neo-Gricean taxonomy. Lingua 232 ► pp. 102740 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Figuring out Figuration [Figurative Thought and Language, 14], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 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.