Irony as a Means of Perception Through Communication Channels. Emotions, Attitude and IQ Related to Irony Across Gender

• Authors: Anna Milanowicz
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper explores why certain adults are, or at least consider themselves to be, more ironic than others. The study looked at comprehension and application of irony compared to subjective affective evaluation of irony reported by Polish-speaking adults and with relation to nonverbal intelligence measured with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised-Polish versions (WAIS-R(PL), 2004). Fifty-four subjects aged 20-66 years (28 females and 26 males) participated in Study 1 on subjective perception of irony. The comprehension, emotional valence and social functions of ironic meanings as well as the degree to which subjects perceived themselves as ironic were assessed through a self-report questionnaire. Inter-correlations were performed and related to the performance quotient (IQ) which was measured in Study 2, where 45 (24 females and 21 males) out of the 54 participants were tested with performance subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised-Polish versions (WAIS-R(PL), 2004). The nonverbal intelligence scale was administered. Performance on nonverbal intelligence tests is not limited by language abilities and its analysis and can be considered important for future cultural comparative studies. Subjects who perceived themselves as ironic showed a higher nonverbal IQ in comparison to subjects who described themselves as non-ironic or barely ironic. The pragmatic qualities of irony were analyzed for their affective valuation and balanced for gender. Individual differences and gender effects in the perception of the social functions of ironic utterances were found. The paper describes the implicit emotional layer conveyed in irony and its importance in irony processing and comprehension.

Keywords

EN

irony; irony comprehension; emotions; attitude; IQ; gender

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Psychology of Language and Communication
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 115-132

Dates

published

2013-09-01

online

2013-09-06

Contributors

author

Anna Milanowicz

• Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland

References

• Allport, G. (1935). Attitudes. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology (pp. 798-844). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.
• Barbe, K. (1995). Irony in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Blakemore, D. (1992). Understanding Utterances: An Introduction to Pragmatics.Oxford: Blackwell.
• Bromberek-Dyzman, K. (2012). Affective twist in irony processing. Humana.Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies, 23, 83-111.
• Brown, P. & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Brownell, H.H., Jacobs, J.R., Gardner, H., & Gianoulis, D. (1990). Conditions for sarcasm. Unpublished paper from the Boston University Aphasia ResearchCenter and Harvard Project Zero.
• Cacioppo, J.T. & Bernston, G.G. (1994). Relationship between attitudes and evaluative space: A critical review, with emphasis on the separability of positive and negative substrates. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 401-423.
• Chorpita, B.F., Albano, A.M., & Barlow, D.H. (1996). Cognitive processing in children: Relation to anxiety and family influences. Journal of Clinical ChildPsychology, 25, 170-176.
• Clark, H. & Gerrig, R. (1984). On the pretense theory of irony. Journal of ExperimentalPsychology: General, 113, 121-126.
• Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.New York: Penguin Books.
• Dews, S., Kaplan, J. & Winner, E. (1995). Why not say it directly? The social function of irony. Discourse Processes, 19, 347-367.[Crossref]
• Dews, S. & Winner, E. (1995). Muting the meaning: A social function of irony. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10, 3-19.
• Dews, S., Winner, E., Kaplan, J., Rosenblatt, E., Hunt, M., Lim, K., McGovern, A., Qualter, A., & Smarsh, B. (1996). Children’s understanding of the meaning and functions of verbal irony. Child Development, 67, 3071-3085.[Crossref]
• Eagly, A.H. & Chaiken, S. (1993). The Psychology of Attitudes. Belmont: Thomson and Wadsworth.
• Frye, N. (1957). Anathomy of Criticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Gibbs Jr., R.W. & Colston, H.L. (2007). Irony in Language and Thought. A CognitiveScience Reader. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Gibbs Jr., R.W. & O’Brien, J. (1991). Psychological aspects of irony understanding. Journal of Pragmatics, 16, 523-530.[Crossref]
• Glenwright, M.R. & Pexman, P.M. (2010). Development of children’s ability to distinguish sarcasm and verbal irony. Journal of Child Language, 37, 429-451.[Crossref]
• Glenwright, M.P. & Pexman, P.M. (2008). Children’s perception of the verbal functions of irony. In R.W. Gibbs Jr. & H.L. Colston (2008). Irony in Languageand Thought. A Cognitive Science Reader (pp. 447-464). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Giora, R. (1995). On irony and negation. Discourse Processes, 19, 239-264.[Crossref]
• Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J.L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntaxand Semantics. Vol. 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.
• Hamamoto, H. (1998). Irony from a cognitive perspective. In Robyn Carston and Seiji Uchida (Eds.) Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications (pp. 257-270). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Householder, F.W. (1971). Lingusitic Speculations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ito, T.A., Larsen, J.T., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2000). Electrophysiological evidence of implicit and explicit categorization processes. Journal of Experimental SocialPsychology, 36, 660-676.
• Ito, T.A. & Cacioppo, J.T. (2001). Affect and attitudes: A social neuroscience approach. In J.P. Forgas (Ed.), Handbook of Affect and Social Cognition (pp. 50-74). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Ito, T.A. & Cacioppo, J.T. (2005). Variations on a human universal: Individual differences in positivity offset and negativity bias. Cognition and Emotion, 19 (1), 1-26[Crossref]
• Ivanko, S.L., Pexman, P.M., & Olineck, K.M. (2004). How sarcastic are you? Individual differences and verbal irony. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 23, 244-271.
• Jorgensen, J.C. (1996). The functions of sarcastic irony in speech. Journal ofPragmatics, 26, 613-634.[Crossref]
• Kreuz, R.J., Long, D.L., & Church, M.B. (1991), On being ironic: Pragmatic and mnemonic implications. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 6, 149-162.
• Kreuz, R. & Glucksberg, S. (1989). How to be sarcastic: The echoic reminder theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 374-386.
• Kumon-Nakamura, S., Glucksberg, S., & Brown, M. (1995). How about another piece of pie: the allusional pretense theory of discourse irony. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: General, 124, 3-21.
• Leech, G.N. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman.
• Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Lewin, K. (1935). A Dynamic Theory of Personality. New York: McGraw Hill.
• Mewhort-Buist, T.A. & Nilsen, E.S. (2013). What are you really saying? Associations between shyness and verbal irony comprehension. Infant and ChildDevelopment, 22, 2, 180-197.
• Muecke, D. (1970). Irony and the Ironic. London: Methuen.
• Pexman, P.M. & Olineck, K.M. (2002). Does sarcasm always sting? Investigating the impact of ironic insults and ironic compliments. Discourse Processes, 33, 199-217.[Crossref]
• Recchia, H.E., Howe, N., Ross, H.S., & Alexander, S. (2010). Children’s understanding and production of verbal irony in family conversations. British Journalof Developmental Psychology, 28, 255-274.
• Roberts, R.M. & Kreuz, R.J. (1994). Why do people use figurative language? PsychologicalScience, 5, 159-163.
• Searle, J. (1979). Literal meaning. In J. Searle, Expression and Meaning (pp. 117-136). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Seto, K.-I. (1998). On non-echoic irony. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (Eds.), RelevanceTheory: Applications and Implications (pp. 239-255). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1981). Irony and the use-mention distinction. In P. Cole (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 295-318). New York: Academic Press.
• Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1984). Pragmatics: An overview. In S. Georges (Ed.), From the Lingusistics to the Social Context (pp. 21-41). Bologna: Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice.
• Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance. Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1991). Irony and the use-mention distinction. In D. Steven (Ed.), Pragmatics: A Reader (pp. 550-564). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1998). Irony and relevance: A reply to Seto, Hamamoto and Yamanashi. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (Eds.), Relevance Theory: Applicationsand Implications (pp. 283-293). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (2002). Pragmatics, modularity and mind-reading. Mindand Language, 17, 3-23.[Crossref]
• Shuliang, M., Yanjie, S., Raymond, C.K., & Chanb, J.L. (2008). Comprehension of metaphor and irony in schizophrenia during remission: The role of theory of mind and IQ. Psychiatry Research, 157, 21-29.
• Taghavi, R., Moradi, A.R., Neshat-Doost, H.T., Yule, W., & Dalgleish, T. (2000). Interpretation of ambiguous emotional information in clinically anxious children and adolescents. Cognition and Emotions, 14, 809-822.[Crossref]
• Thurstone, L. (1931). The Measurement of Social Attitudes. Journal of Abnormaland Social Psychology 27, 249-269.
• Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral andBrain Sciences, 28 (5), 675-691.
• Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Toplak, M. & Katz, A.N. (2000). On the uses of sarcastic irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1467-1488.[Crossref]
• Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (1992). On verbal irony. Lingua, 87, 53-76.[Crossref]
• Yamanshi, M. (1998). Some issues in the treatment of irony and related tropes. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (Eds.), Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications (pp. 283-293). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/plc-2013-0008