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In:Irony in Language Use and Communication
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou and Herbert L. Colston
[Figurative Thought and Language 1] 2017
► pp. 43–60

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Chapter 2
How does irony arise in experience?

Published online: 14 December 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.1.03gib
Abstract
How does irony arise in experience? Most studies of irony focus on the verbal expression of ironic meaning. Irony is typically viewed as a rhetorical tool used for indirect communication. But irony also emerges automatically in many nonlinguistic contexts. People often judge paradoxical situations to be ironic, and sometimes recognize that their own failed attempts at thought suppression also lead to a sense or feeling of irony. Irony can also emerge when people enact certain embodied metaphors relevant to pretense and benign violations of the body. This chapter explores these various ways by which irony presents itself in everyday life. We suggest that irony is less an indirect form of communication than fundamental kind of bicoherent thought which underlie many cognitive and expressive actions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ironic language
  • 3.Ironic situations
  • 4.Ironic experience and thought suppression
  • 5.Irony and benign bodily violations
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (40)
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Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Gibbs, Raymond W., Patrawat Samermit & Christopher R. Karzmark
2023. The Varieties of Ironic Experience. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 60 ff. DOI logo
Belaj, Branimir & Goran Tanacković Faletar
2022. Verbal and situational irony. In Figurative Thought and Language in Action [Figurative Thought and Language, 16], ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo
Colston, Herbert L.
2019. How Language Makes Meaning, DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Modeling Irony [Figurative Thought and Language, 12], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. The Scope of Irony. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. 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.

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