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In:Relevance Theory: Recent developments, current challenges and future directions
Edited by Manuel Padilla Cruz
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 268] 2016
► pp. 147–171

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Relevance theory and contextual sources-centred analysis of irony

Current research and compatibility

ORCiD logo with link | University of Alicante
Published online: 20 October 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.268.06yus
In this paper, several claims compatible with the relevance-theoretic view of irony comprehension are proposed, beyond the essential requirement of the identification of the speaker’s dissociative attitude and the location of a source of the echo. Firstly, a view of context accessibility in terms of “contextual sources” is described. Secondly, it will be argued that the variability of processing speed and mental effort involved in irony comprehension depend on the kind of activation of these sources during irony comprehension. Finally, a proposal of how ironical intention is spotted is provided, this time by applying a type of metarepresentation to the overall interpretive procedure for ironies: the one detecting inconsistencies in utterances and in the speaker’s intentions.
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Cited by (11)

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Ruiz-Moneva, Maria Angeles
2020. Humour and irony in George Mikes’ How to be a Brit . In Relevance Theory, Figuration and Continuity in Pragmatics [Figurative Thought and Language, 8], ► pp. 327 ff. DOI logo
Ruiz-Moneva, María Angeles
2019. Ironie, umor și cultură în How to Be a Brit de George Mikes: perspective teoretice ale relevanței. Diacronia :10 DOI logo
Ruiz-Moneva, María Angeles
2019. Irony, humour and culture in George Mikes’ How to Be a Brit: relevance-theoretical perspectives. Diacronia :10 DOI logo
Ruiz-Moneva, María Ángeles
2018. Irony and Parody in a Spanish Translation of Fowles’ "The French Lieutenant’s Woman": A Relevance-Theoretical Approach. Complutense Journal of English Studies 26 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Walczak, Agnieszka
2020. Echoic irony in Philip Larkin’s poetry and its preservation in Polish translations. In Relevance Theory, Figuration and Continuity in Pragmatics [Figurative Thought and Language, 8], ► pp. 309 ff. DOI logo
Yus, Francisco
2016. Propositional attitude, affective attitude and irony comprehension. Pragmatics & Cognition 23:1 ► pp. 92 ff. DOI logo
Yus, Francisco
2023. Inferring Irony Online. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 160 ff. DOI logo
Yus, Francisco
2025. Introduction. In Emoji Pragmatics, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Yus, Francisco
2025. Pragmatic Functions of Emojis. In Emoji Pragmatics, ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Modeling Irony [Figurative Thought and Language, 12], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Irony in Linguistic Communication. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo

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