RT list: question on irony

Dear all,

I am currently writing a review of the book

The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains, edited by Marta Dynel.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2011

One of the papers is “Irony via “surrealism”” by Eleni Kapogianni. She analyses
“a particular strategy in which the speaker employs a strikingly unrealistic,
unexpected, and inappropriate question or assertion in order to create the
ironic effect” (p. 51), as in “Hanging upside down from a log on the ceiling
just like a bat” as an answer to “How did you sleep?” (p. 56). Other examples
include:

Job interviewer: Introduce yourself please
Candidate: You want me to introduce myself?
Job interviewer: No, you should sing us an aria from "The Marriage of Figaro"
(p. 57)

John: Although I hadn't studied, I am sure I did great in the exam
Mary: Sure you did! And I am the Queen of England (p. 57)

As I was reading this chapter, I was wondering what account relevance theory
would provide for this kind of ironic strategy. The issue of "the speaker's
dissociative attitude" is clear. But what about the source of echo in these
examples? The absourd quality of these remarks makes it difficult to trace an
echo beyond, perhaps, the invalidation of commonsense encyclopedic information
about the world we live in...

Comments welcome, thanks!

Best

Francisco
Received on Sun Jan 8 12:23:22 2012