Supervisors info:
Elly Ifantidou (Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
Tim Wharton (Principal Lecturer, Language and Linguistics, School of Humanities, University of Brighton)
Louis de Saussure (Professor, Linguistics, Department of communication and cognitive science, University of Neuchatel)
Summary:
Over the years, verbal irony has been the center of attention for many linguists, who
tried to decode the process of producing an ironic remark and examine the speaker’s
attitude that accompanies such utterances (Grice, 1975/1978/1989; Sperber and
Wilson 1981/2012; Kreuz and Gluckberg, 1989; Clark and Gerrig, 1984; KumonNakamura, Glucksberg and Brown, 1995; Walton, 1990). However, until today, little is known about the addressee and his emotional reactions to verbal irony, an issue that should be further analyzed, as the main goal of producing an ironic utterance is to
provoke emotional responses (Leggitt and Gibbs, 2000). This research therefore, aims
at establishing connections between different types of verbal irony (sarcasm, satire,
overstatements, understatements and rhetorical questions) and emotional responses
(joy, sadness, warmth, fear, anger, anxiety, disgust, contempt) but also at discovering
cross-cultural similarities and differences in the way two cultures react to verbal
irony. In order to provide answers to the questions above, 16 Spanish (University of
Vic, Barcelona) and 16 Greek (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) postgraduate students were asked to complete a questionnaire and evaluate their perceived emotional state and intensity of emotion after being exposed to different types of verbal irony. The questionnaire that was distributed contained three different
scenarios covering three main social encounters (workplace/friendly/semi-formal). In
each scenario, the ironist made five different ironic remarks as a final comment and
the subjects were asked to evaluate in each case their perceived emotional state, as
well as the intensity of the emotion experienced. Quantitative methods were employed
in order to analyze the data, while the notions of ‘emotional communication’
(Wharton and Strey, 2019) and ‘emotional contagion’ (Hatfield et al., 1994) were
implemented in the process of interpreting the findings. Results indicated that
sarcasm, overstatements and rhetorical questions were able to elicit mostly negative
reactions, whereas satire and understatements tended to arouse positive reactions in
both cases (Spanish and Greek participants). Notable differences however, were
observed between the two ethnic groups with regards to intensities of emotions, as
Greeks attributed greater intensities in transactions including verbal irony, with the
most evident case being the largely greater intensities that appeared (compared to v
Spanish responses) when anger was elicited, as a response to verbal irony. Findings
therefore suggest that there are both similarities as well as differences regarding cross-cultural reactions to irony. Nevertheless, further research is needed on the topic in
order to be able to reach credible conclusions.
Keywords:
Verbal irony, emotional responses, emotional communication, emotional contagion, cross-cultural studies
