Irony

Anna Bączkowska, University of Gdansk, Poland
anna.baczkowska@ug.edu.pl

Erika Lombart, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium
erika.lombart@uclouvain.be

Irony is a figure of speech which is used to intentionally manifest a hostile or derogatory judgement of the addressee. It is based on creating a clash between the intended meaning that is implied (the implicatum) and the meaning of what is actually said (the dictum). This clash is usually realised by resorting to the reverse of the speaker’s intended meaning, which can rely on the use of antonyms, as in You are a genius meaning ‘you are stupid’; antithetical meaning, wherein the whole utterance is contradicted, as in Thank you very much or Wow; a partial contradiction, as in You are tipsy said to somebody who is drunk; or absurd false comparisons, as in And I am the President of the USA. While in the traditional understanding of irony the meaning reversal relies on untruthful statements, in the neo-Gricean approaches, truthful statements are allowed (in verisimilar irony) as long as there is a clash between what the speaker says (a truthful statement) and what the described reality is like (the opposite), as in I love children who keep their rooms clean uttered by a mother to her child while inspecting the child’s room (that is in a mess).

Importantly, the use of irony extends well beyond isolated utterances. It is a discursive phenomenon that goes beyond a simple opposition between apparent and implicit messages, engaging contextual and social cues. It includes false advice, false praise, or feigned naivety to mock. Another form, turning ‘the world upside down’, creates incongruity through contextual clash.

In online opinionated discourse, irony plays a strategic role, allowing users to critique, distance themselves from or highlight contradictions in opinions and social norms without direct confrontation. This fosters subtle forms of dissent and reflection.

Keywords: implicature, online discourse, strategic communication

Related Entries: Sarcasm, Impoliteness, Ambiguity

References:
Currie, G. (2008). Echo et feintise: Quelle est la différence et qui a raison ? Philosophiques, 35(1), 13‑23.
Debyser, F. (1980). Les mecanismes de l’ironie. Bureau pour l’enseignement de la langue et de la civilisation Francaise a l’etranger. https://www.ciep.fr/sources/memoire-du-belc/mecanismes-ironie/files/assets/common/downloads/publication.pdf
Garmendia, J. (2010). Irony is critical. Pragmatics & Cognition, 18(2), 397–421.
Gibbs, R. W., & O’Brien, J. L. (1991). Psychological aspects of irony understanding. Journal of Pragmatics, 16(6), 523–530.
Kapogianni, E. (2013). Irony and the literal versus non-literal distinction: A typological approach with focus on ironic implicature strength [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Cambridge Press.
Lombart, E. (2022). L’implicite sur les réseaux sociaux. Entre les lignes des forums de discussion. L’Harmattan.