Cover not available

In:The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, voices and functions
Edited by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar and Galia Hirsch
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 316] 2020
► pp. 19–38

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Irony, humor or both?

The model revisited

 | Bar-Ilan University
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.316.01hir
This contribution revisits the difference between irony and humor taking into account new approaches shedding light on the complicated relationship between irony and humor (Dynel 2013; Gibbs, Bryant & Colston 2014; Garmendia 2014; Kapogianni 2011; Piskorska 2014; Yus 2016). In previous research (Hirsch 2011a, 2011b), the differentiation between irony and humor was established based on a comparative model, which distinguished between cues for irony and cues for humor through pragmatic analysis of source texts and their translations.
In view of some of the new accounts (Dynel 2013; Kapogianni 2011; Piskorska 2014), the study purports to adapt the model, incorporating the concept of surrealistic irony and concluding that differences in the use of explicitation strategies in translation are still a decisive tool in setting the boundaries between irony and humor.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The original model
  • 3.New research on the relationship between irony and humor
  • 4.Textual analysis
    • 4.1Macro-analysis
    • 4.2Micro-analysis: Irony
    • 4.3Micro-analysis: Humor
    • 4.4Micro-level: Surrealistic irony or absurd humor
  • 5.Concluding remarks: the model revisited
  • Notes
  • References
References (49)
References
Primary sources
Runyon, Damon. 1932. Guys and Dolls. Penguin Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. Barnashim Vahatikhot (Tr: Eliezer Karmi). Tel Aviv: Mizrahi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Hush Humor Vesipuriom Aherim (Tr: Muli Meltzer). Tel Aviv: Sifrei Aliyat Hagag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Secondary sources
Alexander, Richard J. 1997. Aspects of Verbal Humour in English. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore. 1997. “The Semantic Fundation of Cognitive Theories of Humor.” Humor 10: 395–420. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Catford, John C. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation: An Essay in Applied Linguistics. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Richard J. Gerrig. 1984. “On the Pretense Theory of Irony.” Journal of Experimental Psychology/General 113 (1): 121–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colston, Herbert L. 2000. “On Necessary Conditions for Verbal Irony Comprehension”. Pragmatics & Cognition 8(2): 277–324. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dalzell, Tom, and Terry Victor. 2014. The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dascal, Marcelo. 1983. Pragmatics and the Philosophy of Mind. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dascal, Marcelo, and Elda Weizman. 1987. “Contextual Exploitation of Interpretation, Clues in Text Understanding: An Integrated Model.” In The Pragmatic Perspective, ed. by Jef Verschueren, and Marcella Bertuccelli-Papi, 31–46. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dimitrova, Birgitta Englund. 2005. Expertise and Explication in the Translation Process. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bose, La Rocque. 1953. “Damon Runyon’s Underworld Lingo.” The University of Texas Studies in English 32: 123–132.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dynel, Marta. 2013. “When Does Irony Tickle the Hearer? Towards Capturing the Characteristics of Humorous Irony.” In Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory, ed. by Marta Dynel, 298–320. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014a. “Linguistic Approaches to (Non)humorous Irony.” Humor 27 (4): 537–550. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Isn’t it Ironic? Defining the Scope of Humorous Irony.” Humor 27 (4): 619–639. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fludernik, Monika. 1996. “Linguistics and Literature: Prospects and Horizons in the Study of Pprose.” Journal of Pragmatics 26: 583–611. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garmendia, Joana. 2014. “The Clash: Humor and Critical Aattitude in Verbal Irony.” Humor 27 (4): 641–659. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr., Gregory A. Bryant, and Herbert L. Colston. 2014. “Where is the Humor in Verbal Irony?.” Humor 27 (4): 575–595. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goatly, Andrew. 2012. Meaning and Humor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, Paul H. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, Paul H. 1978. “Further notes on logic and conversation”. In Pragmatics 9, ed. by Peter Cole, 113–127. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jeffers, Jennifer. 1995. “Beyond Irony: The Unnamable’s Appropriation of its Critics in a Humorous Reading of the Text”. The Journal of Narrative Technique 25(1): 47–66.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haverkate, Henk. 1990. “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 14: 77–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hidalgo Downing, Raquel, and Silvia Iglesias Recuero. 2008. “Humor e ironía: una relación compleja.” In Dime cómo ironizas y te diré quién eres: una aproximacion pragmatica la ironía, ed. By Leonor Ruiz Gurillo, and Xose A. Padilla García, 423–455. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hirsch, Galia. 2011a. “Between Irony and Humor: A Pragmatic Model.” Pragmatics and Cognition 19 (3): 530–561. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011c. “Redundancy, Irony and Humor.” Language Sciences 33: 316–329. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kapogianni, Eleni. 2011. “Irony via ‘surrealism.’” In The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains, ed. by Marta Dynel, 51–68. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klaudy, Kinga. 2003. Languages in Translation: Lectures on the Theory, Teaching and Practice of Translation. Budapest: Scholastica.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kothoff, Helga. 2003. “Responding to Irony in Different Contexts: On Cognition in Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1387–1411. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Livnat, Zohar, and Gonen Dori-Hacohen. 2013. “The Effect of Irony in Radio Talk-Back Programs in Israel.” In The pragmatics of political discourse: Explorations across cultures, ed. by Anita Fetzer, 193–217. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myers Roy, Alice. 1981. “The Function of Irony in Discourse.” Text 1 (4): 407–423. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oring, Elliot. 1989. “Between Jokes and Tales: On the Nature of Punch Lines.” Humor 2 (4): 349–364. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Partridge, Eric. 2015. A Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piskorska, Agnieszka. 2014. “A relevance-Theoretic Perspective on Humorous Irony and its Failure.” Humor 27 (4): 61–685. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raskin, Victor. 1985. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shuttleworth, Mark, and Moira Cowie. 1997. Dictionary of Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 1981. “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toury, Gideon. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vinay, Jean Paul, and Jean Darbelnet. 1958. Stylistique comparée du franÇais et de l’anglais: Méthode de traduction. London-Toronto-Paris: Didier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weizman, Elda. 2001. “Addresser, addressee and target: Negotiating roles through ironic criticism”. In Negotiation and Power in Dialogic Interaction ed. by Edda Weigand, and Marcelo Dascal, 125–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weizman, Elda, and Marcelo Dascal. 1991. “On Clues and Cues: Strategies of Text Understanding.” Journal of Literary Semantics XX (1): 18–30.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre. 2006. “The Pragmatics of Verbal Irony: Echo or Pretence?.” Lingua 116: 1722–1743. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 1992. “On Verbal Irony”. Lingua 87: 53–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yus, Francisco. 2016. Humor and Relevance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ziv, Avner. 1984. Humor and Personality. Tel Aviv: Papyrus. (In Hebrew).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Shukrun-Nagar, Pnina & Galia Hirsch
2025. What kind of laughter?. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 35:2 ► pp. 258 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue