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In:Practising Stylistics: Essays in Honour of Paul Simpson
Edited by Clara Neary, Simon Statham and Peter Stockwell
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 45] 2026
► pp. 138–147

Chapter 11: Vignette
Ghost worlds

Irony and indeterminacy

 | Northumbria University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Clark’s chapter applies Simpson’s (2011, 2019, 2024) model of irony to explore how ideas about irony might apply to the production and understanding of two related texts, the graphic novel Ghost World and its film adaptation. There are indeterminacies in the examples drawn from both texts, including about whether they can even be categorised as irony and, if so, how. These examples provide further support for Simpson’s view of irony as complex and hard to define, but also, in line with Simpson, they illustrate how irony nonetheless remains a useful analytical concept, showing how the nature of what utterances communicate, and how they do so, is more important than whether or how they can be categorised.
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