Languages & Linguistics
Sarcasm
Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony that involves saying the opposite of what is meant, often with a mocking or contemptuous tone. It is used to convey humor, criticism, or disdain, and relies on the listener's ability to recognize the discrepancy between the literal meaning of the words and the intended meaning. Sarcasm is a common feature of everyday language and communication.
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6 Key excerpts on "Sarcasm"
eBook - ePub- Federico Alberto Pozzi, Elisabetta Fersini, Enza Messina, Bing Liu(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Morgan Kaufmann(Publisher)
figurative language .Irony and Sarcasm are two interesting and strongly related concepts. Usually people do not have a clear idea of what they are. However, from early childhood we begin to use them in our daily life. They have been a topic studied by different disciplines, such as linguistics, philosophy, psychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, and recently computational linguistics. Each discipline has tried to define what they are, how they are produced, and why they are used.These figurative devices give us the opportunity to explore the interaction between cognition and language. Broadly speaking, irony and Sarcasm are figurative language devices that serve to achieve different communication purposes. The commonest definition of irony refers to an utterance by which the speaker expresses a meaning opposite that literally said. There are different theories that attempt to explain what irony is. Grice’s theory [1 ] points out that the speaker intentionally violates the “maxim of quality” (the speaker does not say what he or she believes to be false) when he or she expresses an ironic utterance. Some theories such the one described in [2 ] propose define it beyond the literal sense of the words: for Wilson and Sperber [2 ] an ironic utterance is an “echoic mention” that alludes to some real or hypothetical proposition to demonstrate its absurdity. Attardo [3 ] considers an ironic utterance as a form of “relevant inappropriateness” in which the speaker relies on the ability of the listener to reject the literal meaning on the basis of the disparity between what is literally said and the context in which it is said. On the other hand, the “failed expectation” intention (ie, the speaker’s approval or disapproval of the entity or situation at hand) behind an ironic expression has been studied by Utsumi [4 ] and Kumon-Nakamura and Glucksberg [5
eBook - PDF- Joana Garmendia(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
I do so in Section 7.1. Another issue that I have not addressed up to this moment is the role of humour in verbal irony. Humour is an extensive phenomenon, and it ranges far beyond irony. However, it also appears that it plays a particular role in ironic communication, whatever that may be. I address this issue in Section 7.2. 126 7.1 IRONY AND Sarcasm Explaining ironic communication has traditionally been a challenge for pragmatic theories: understanding how speakers communicate by being ironic will help to explain how human communication works overall. Sarcasm has typically played a supporting role on the prag- matic scene: the main purpose of analyzing Sarcasm has been to shed light on the study of irony. Thus, analyses of Sarcasm have tradition- ally been an appendix to theories of irony. Etymology The word ‘Sarcasm’ originates from the Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmos), which is taken from σαρκάζειν, meaning ‘to tear flesh, bite the lip in rage, sneer’. Irony and Sarcasm appear inevitably bound to each other in the field of pragmatics. Nonetheless, the relationship between the two phenomena remains unclear. Here I will map the main lines of this debate. We should bear in mind, however, that this theoretical debate is based on a pre-theoretical confusion: the distinction between irony and sar- casm is unclear among natural speakers, and the differences are accen- tuated when we compare different cultures or linguistic communities. For example, in Chapter 1, I used an example from the TV series The Big Bang Theory in which Kripke says to Leonard: (47) Heard about your latest anti-proton decay experiment. 20,000 data runs and no statistically significant results. Very impressive. I introduced this example as an instance of verbal irony, and it appears that it would easily be accommodated within the theories of irony we have considered thus far, as it straightforwardly parallels many of the examples that are acknowledged as ironic.
eBook - ePub- Nancy Bell(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Sarcasm is a cultural phenomenon ubiquitous in contemporary societies. People use Sarcasm to achieve various communicative goals. Some use it to show their negative or positive attitudes (see Kim 2014:193 for an outline), while others use it to skillfully hide their emotion and intent (Giora, 2004; Ekman, 1984). In using and comprehending Sarcasm, speakers of English consider particular types of linguistic signals such as visual, prosodic, lexical, and contextual cues that exist within the conventions of the society. Particularly in the U.S., sarcastic characters are easily found in numerous scripted and unscripted television shows.Achieving conceptual understanding of Sarcasm in another languaculture (Agar, 1994) is no easy matter. It requires examination of the motivation, intensity, means of expression, and goals of Sarcasm in that particular culture. Mere exposure to the target language setting or having already achieved high proficiency in the language does not guarantee that learners will gain this ability. Bouton’s (1999) study on the second language (L2) acquisition of irony also disproves any co-relation between learners’ language proficiency and irony comprehension.Despite the need for instruction, teaching learners how to understand Sarcasm in L2 English is an under-researched area in applied linguistics. This problem originates partly from the fact that the ambiguous nature of Sarcasm makes the concept difficult to concretize into a tangible form and a teachable unit. Developing learners’ understanding of this complex concept requires an intervention carefully designed with theoretical and empirical rigor.This chapter reports on Kim’s study (2013) that introduces an innovative pedagogical approach for teaching the concept of Sarcasm to L2 learners. In particular, this chapter provides a complementary account of learners’ concept development by tracing the trajectories of learner knowledge prior to and after a particular form of instruction referred to as Systemic-Theoretical Instruction (STI). To show evidence of development, this chapter documents three major stages of learner growth: learners’ pre-understanding prior to STI, learner-teacher dialectics during STI, and learners’ communicated thinking as evidenced through verbalization data collected after STI.
- Piotr Stalmaszczyk(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
In this case there is a (gloating) ‘I told you so’ implicature, which is the main 16 The etymology of the word, the ancient Greek root sark- (flesh) and its derivative sarkazein (tearing flesh), contributes to the related imagery. Types and Definitions of Irony 635 communicated meaning, but there is no contrast or opposition at any level between what the speaker says, what they believe, and what they mean. Example (11) conveys criticism that can be perceived as hostile in the manner of a rhetorical question, which, however, does not display any element of meaning opposition. Both Kapogianni (2013) and Dynel (2017, 2018) have previously advocated this view (Figure 34.1). Still, however, the picture on Figure 34.1 is rather “flat,” in the sense that it does not distinguish between different levels of the communicative event. It can reasonably be argued that Sarcasm is one of many possible goals that irony can be used to achieve. In other words, if irony is the linguistically (formally) determined trope/figure of speech, Sarcasm is the social- interactional goal that the use of irony can achieve. As example (11) demon- strates, a speaker can, instead, reach the same goal (Sarcasm) by using another rhetorical figure (a rhetorical question) and, conversely, the speaker can use irony to achieve alternative (or additional) social-interactional goals such as amusement and teasing. The latter can be defined as “involving an overt pretence of hostility serving as genuine friendliness,” while also being “playful non-serious talk” (Dynel, 2018: 397; citing Vincent Marelli, 1994): the features of pretend hostility and non-seriousness both make it a goal that can be achieved through irony. If we take banter to be reciprocated teasing and/or a more benevolent and less overtly hostile social-interactional form of teasing (contra Leech, 1983; see also Taylor, 2015), then it can also be seen as a goal achievable via irony (non-sarcastic irony in particular).
- Sabina Tabacaru(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629446 -004 four.tf Sarcasm: Meaning and incongruity Sarcasm is the humorous type that is encountered most in the study (36.6% of the total data). This analysis, following Hidalgo Downing and Iglesias Recuero (2009) who consider Sarcasm to be a type of humor (see also the description above), aims to differentiate between various linguistic mechanisms used to achieve a sarcas-tic effect. First, we investigate the concept of Sarcasm (section 4.1) for a better under-standing of the phenomenon. Secondly, we present a typology of Sarcasm (sec-tion 4.2), based on the corpus of examples. Thirdly, we present Sarcasm interact-ing with different humor types, as encountered in the study. In this case, Sarcasm can be interpreted as either the background or foreground tone for another hu-mor type (thus interacting with other humor types in the corpus). Finally, the general discussion addresses important issues for the analysis of humor in gen-eral, and Sarcasm in particular: the role of common ground (Clark, 1996), mean-ing construction, and incongruity analyzed from different linguistic perspectives (see also Tabacaru, 2017). four.tf.one.tf Basic assumptions Despite the numerous studies on the topic so far, “humor and irony research in linguistics is still young”, as Ruiz Gurillo and Alvarado Ortega (2013, p. 6) cor-rectly observe. This section addresses the basic definitions and features of the concept of Sarcasm, essential for a better understanding of how Sarcasm comes about. A few examples of irony and Sarcasm from the data are presented to clarify the difference between these two categories. four.tf.one.tf.one.tf Defining Sarcasm. Differences between irony and Sarcasm Even though many researchers have discussed the concepts of irony and sar-casm, definitions of these terms still seem unsatisfactory.
eBook - ePubIrony, Deception and Humour
Seeking the Truth about Overt and Covert Untruthfulness
- Marta Dynel(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Long and Graesser 1988; Gibbs and O’Brien 1991; Barbe 1995; Gibbs 2000; Caucci and Kreuz 2012). Sarcasm is thus perceived as the “crudest” form of irony (Muecke 1969: 20) or “an especially negative form of irony” (Gibbs 1994: 384). Gibbs seems to acknowledge that irony and Sarcasm are independent notions when he states that “it is possible to make sarcastic remarks without being ironic” but also claims that “most Sarcasm uses irony to get its bitter or caustic effect” (1994: 108). 82 Based on a dictionary definition, Gibbs states that “Sarcasm depends for its effect on bitter, caustic, and other ironic language that is usually directed against an individual” (1994: 108, italics added). Haiman espouses a belief that the essential feature of Sarcasm “is that it is overt irony 83 intentionally used by the speaker as a form of verbal aggression” (1998: 21, italics in original). The goal of this aggressive irony is to deprecate or even ridicule the victim (see Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Lee and Katz 1998; Channon et al. 2005; Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2005; Bowes and Katz 2011). Supportive of the assumption of the aggressive nature of Sarcasm, a few authors explicitly ascribe meaning opposition (typically associated with standard irony) to Sarcasm. For example, Haiman (1990: 181) claims that a sarcastic speaker “intends to mean the opposite of what his message would normally mean”. Similarly, Rockwell writes that “both Sarcasm and irony describe utterances that express the opposite of the speaker’s true intent” (2006: 6) and conceptualises Sarcasm as a subtype of irony, “a sharply mocking or contemptuous ironic remark intended to wound another” (2000: 485). For their part, Leggitt and Gibbs (2000: 5) propose that Sarcasm “clearly contradicts the knowable state of affairs”, which irony does as well. Leggitt and Gibbs (2000) see Sarcasm as more pointed and critical than irony but differentiate between the two also depending on who an utterance is critical of
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