Ministry of Higher education and Scientific

Research
University of Karbala
College of Education for Humanities
English Department
Evening Study

Understanding Irony
Prepared by
‫صباح جاسم عبيد‬
‫المرحلة الثالثة‬
‫الدراسة المسائية‬
D ‫الشعبة‬
‫بأشراف االستاذ‬
‫حسام طالب العمري‬
Table of contents
_Introduction
_What is irony
_The three types of irony
_Psychological aspects of irony understanding
_Why do we use irony
_Irony as substitutive conversational
implicature
_Conclusion
_Refrences
Introduction
Irony is one of the great forces of language
and literature. Irony calls on us to use our wit
and instinctual understanding of right and
wrong, and often requires that we see humor
where there is none. Some say that irony is as
old as literature itself, and they may be
right— in the human condition, we have
always sought to find meaning in paradoxes.
Since irony is so ubiquitous, it’s important to
understand the different types of irony, and
how or when they’re used. You'll be able to
identify the different types, and call out the
right and wrong ways to use them.

What Is Irony?
In short, irony is a literary or rhetorical device
that states or shows the opposite of what is
actually true for humorous or emphatic effect.
Irony states to contrary to what is meant, but
in a way that still makes the actual meaning
understood. Many people use sarcasm in their
everyday interactions, which is one form of
verbal irony.

The 3 Types of Irony

1-Situational Irony
Situational irony is when the outcome of a
situation is different than our expectations.
Situational irony can be used to create drama,
to drive home to realities of a tragedy, or to
create humor. You'll find situational irony
often in books and plays, as well as movies
and TV. This type of irony helps us and the
character make sense of their reality, and
weaves together humor and tragedy.
Here are some examples of situational irony
General: A friend posts on social media about
how social media is killing society and we a
need to interact in person
Humor: A thief on the run gets into a getaway
car but it's out of gas

2-Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is a device employed by
storytellers wherein the audience is aware of
what’s going on, but the characters are not.
Dramatic irony includes three phases:
Installation, when the audience is informed of
something the character does not know.
Exploitation, using the information to develop
curiosity and an emotional response from the
audience. Resolution, what happens after the
Romeo .character finds out the information
and Juliet's death scene is a great example of
dramatic irony.
As we discussed, verbal irony is an important
tool in speech. Verbal irony is also an
important tool in writing. Verbal irony occurs
when a person of character says one thing but
means another I mentioned above that
sarcasm is one form of verbal irony. But
remember, the definitions of sarcasm and
verbal irony are not interchangeable, and
sarcasm is only one form of verbal irony.
Sarcasm is generally a little harsher than
overall verbal irony, and verbal irony can also
include double entendre, over- or under-
exaggeration, and rhetorical questions.
psychological aspects of irony
understanding
psychological aspects of irony understanding
by reviewing some of the experimental
research from psycholinguistics. These
empirical findings suggest five main
conclusions about how people understand
irony in discourse: (1) people do not need to
recognize irony to comprehend what speakers
mean by their use of ironic statements, (2)
understanding irony does not require that
people see these statements as violating
norms of cooperative communication, (3)
people can easily understand sarcasm without
any special intonational cues, (4) people find
statements to be especially ironic that allude
to or echo societal norms or expectations, and
(5) people can understand statements as
being ironic because of the situation even
though speakers do not intend their
utterances to be understood as irony.

Why do we Use Irony?

Since we do not use irony unconsciously - not in
speech acts and less in written text
forms - certain communicative targets of using irony
have to be taken into account. A
categorization of three major goals was developed by
Littmann and Mey in 1991:

• Humor goals: that occurs in

many ironic situations often has two sides, a humorous
and a tragic one. Even when injustice or injury are the
focal points of the ironical situation, the protagonist,
who
often is the subject of irony himself, talks about the
situation in a humorous way afterwards.

• Social hedging goals: Irony is used as a tool to get

to know an unknown person
and his or her values. When a listener responds to an
ironic statement of the speaker
(agreement or disagreement), both conversational
partners “may establish either a concurrence or a
discrepancy of values.

_Instructional goals: Ironic statements with an

instructional goal soften the actual intent of the
speaker to criticize or to assign.
 - Irony as Substitutive Conversational
Implicature
The theory on conversational implicature presupposes a
number of principles and guidelines that underlie the way
people use language. These principles are based on
rationality of communicative acts. This general principle is
determined by four conversational maxims with the
following subcategories:

_Maxims of Quantity: Be as informative as essential!

Don’t be more informative than necessary!

_Maxims of Quality: Try to make your contribution one

that is true! Don’t say anything without sufficient evidence!

_Maxims of Relevance: Only say relevant facts!

_Maxims of Modality: Avoid ambiguity! Avoid polysemy!

Avoid amplification! Avoid disorder!
To follow these four basic maxims represents the
speaker’s efficiency and cooperation in communication.
Their relevance can be highlighted with the help of an
example: Person
A: “Where is Peter?” Person B: “There is a steaming pot
of coffee.” Literarily taken
B’s statement is not an answer to the question of person
A. At first sight B’s answer
violates the maxim of relevance as well as the maxim of
quantity. Assuming Person B
is nevertheless cooperative, Person A can reckon what
was actually meant by Person B.
Person A will than try to find a logic coherence between
the absence of Peter and the
steaming coffee pot and will immediately conclude that
Peter has only left the room for
a few minutes and will be back soon

Conclusion
In the previous we find approaches to irony in terms
of three different aspects basically:

1. irony as a violation of the conversational

principle.

2. focus at two preconditions for the success of

irony: a) the addressee’s ability to recognize the
implicit or explicit source of the echo, and b) shared
background knowledge.

3. a speech-act theoretical approach to irony as

simulation of insincerity in contrast to lying as
simulation of sincerity .

Refrences
Austermann, A. (1990). ABC des Journalismus.
Mu¨nchen: Verlag O¨ lschla¨ger.
Babbie, E. (1998). The practice of social research.
Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.
Barbe, K. (1995). Irony in Context. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing