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Article published In: Constructions and Frames
Vol. 13:2 (2021) ► pp.309–339

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As if irony was in stock

The case of constructional ironies

 | University of Bremen
 | University of Osnabrück
Published online: 21 December 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00053.leh
Abstract
The linguistic treatment of verbal irony
has more often than not focused on novel, ad hoc ironies. Research in the last decade, however, suggests that there is a considerable number of utterances that are either schematic or lexically filled and interpreted as ironic by convention. By analyzing three of these, i.e. Tell me about it, XP pro BE not (A Michelangelo he is not) and stand-alone insubordinate as if (As if anyone could pronounce that), the present paper will show that these expressions are best analyzed as constructions (Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2006). Constructions at work. The nature of generalizations in language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The paper will further show that the Viewpoint account of irony (Dancygier, B. (2017). Viewpoint phenomena in constructions and discourse. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2(1), 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Tobin, V., & Israel, M. (2012). Irony as a viewpoint phenomenon. In B. Dancygier & E. Sweetser (Eds.), Viewpoint in language: A multimodal perspective (pp. 25–46). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) describes the data at hand most adequately.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Explaining irony and its functions
    • 2.1Pragmatic accounts of irony
    • 2.2Cognitive accounts of irony
    • 2.3The function(s) of irony
  • 3.What makes a construction? A usage-based perspective
  • 4.Constructional ironies
    • 4.1Tell me about it
    • 4.2XP pro BE not
    • 4.3Stand-alone insubordinate as if
  • 5.Implications for accounts of irony
  • 6.Summary: Constructional ironies as space builders and perspective shifters
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
References (50)
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