Multiple voices in ironic discourse

This article brings together the concept of dialogue in the Bakhtinian sense and the concept of irony with the aim to show how irony emerges in texts as a result of the dialogic interaction of voices. Two issues are discussed: first, evaluation as a regular and ubiquitous component of discourse. The polyphonic structure of a text or an utterance can signal evaluative meaning; multivoicedness functions as a marker of the narrator’s stance, especially if the voices juxtapose or incohere with each other. Second, incoherence as the trigger of ironic interpretation. Incoherence can emerge as a result of the confrontation of voices in the texts. To create a misaligned polyphonic structure, writers employ various techniques, from direct quotation to free indirect discourse. My intention is to show that ironic evaluation can be a reasonable explanation for the cacophonic interaction of voices in the polyphonic structure of the text.