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In:The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter
Edited by Manuel Jobert and Sandrine Sorlin
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 30] 2018
► pp. 41–58

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Chapter 3
Deconstructing the myth of positively evaluative irony

 | University of Łódź, Poland
Published online: 25 April 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.30.03dyn
Abstract
Adopting a neo-Gricean perspective on the figure of irony, this chapter critically examines the species of irony that communicates positive evaluation in its implicated meaning. A critical overview of the existing scholarship on this type of irony is performed, with the focus being on the rationale for its intermittence and on the available examples. Further support is thus given to a view that irony must implicate negative evaluation. In the case of irony couched in overtly untruthful negatively evaluative expression of one referent, a negatively evaluated antecedent (another referent) is necessary. The speaker’s intention to convey the latter form of evaluative implicature lies at the heart of irony, whilst the positively evaluative implicature is just an optional concomitant.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Infrequency of positively evaluative irony
  • 3.Positively evaluative irony
  • 4.Negatively evaluated antecedent
  • 5.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
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