Semiotica 2015; 204: 101119

Alan Bailin

On the characteristics of verbal irony

Abstract: During the last forty years there have been a number of attempts to
understand verbal irony in relation to specific kinds of speech acts (negating,
echoing, pretending, alluding). This article argues that these theories can ac
count for certain subsets of ironic phenomena but not others precisely because
oftheir focus on substantive kinds of speech acts rather than more general rela
tional semiotic properties. The article proposes two conditions based on rela
tional semiotic properties. These conditions, it is argued, allow for a unified ac
count of ironic phenomena and a better understanding of irony in relation to
other tropes.
Keywords: irony; semiotics; pragmatics; discourse; figurative language;
semantics
DOI 10.1515/sem-2014-0087

1Introduction: The elusive nature of verbal irony

Semiotics examines signs and symbols not as carrying meaning because of
their inherent content or because they are part of some sort of act or gesture,
butbecause of the relations in which they partake, the code of which they are
part. A sign, even something as simple as a green traffic light, does not carry
meaning in and of itself, but rather as part of a relational code that links the
green color to other colors and all of these colors to a context in which they
areused for a purpose (Hodge and Kress 1988: 3738). However, during the last
forty years there have been a number of attempts to understand irony as a verbal
phenomenon, not in terms of semiotic relations creating meaning, but rather as
the result of specific kinds of speech acts (negating, echoing, pretending, allud
ing). Each can account with some success for a certain subset of ironic phe
nomena but not other subsets. It will be argued that in each case this occurs be
cause to a greater or lesser extent the theories focus on trying to characterize
irony substantively, as akind of speech act, rather than examining the more gen
eral relational semiotic properties that give rise to ironic meaning. This article
Alan Bailin: Hofstra University. E-mail: alan.bailin@hofstra.edu

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proposes two conditions based on such semiotic properties. It argues that in ad

dition to creating a unified account of ironic phenomena, these conditions allow
us to better understand how irony is related to metaphor and possibly other
tropes as well.
The article first considers four major modern approaches to verbal irony to
show how each of these theories, while capturing some ironic phenomena, fails
to account for other kinds. The intent here is to highlight problematic ironic phe
nomena that should be accounted for within a theory of irony.
One of these approaches has its roots in the classical rhetoric account of
irony, which characterizes verbal irony as saying one thing but meaning the
opposite. Quintilian (2006: Book 8, Chapter 6, 54), for example, talks of irony
asoccurring when what is expressed is quite contrary to what is meant. Irony
allows us to censure with pretended praise, and to praise under the appearance
of censure (2006: Book 8, Chapter 6, 55). As an example of the first, he quotes
Cicero as saying ironically
(1)Your integrity, believe me, has cleared you; your modesty has rescued you;
your past life has saved you. (2006: Book 8, Chapter 6, 56)
Although Quintilian does not explicate, it is reasonably clear that Cicero
means the opposite of what he is saying: the man in question has neither integ
rity, nor modesty nor an honorable past life. It is interesting to note that in char
acterizing verbal irony as saying the opposite of what one means, Quintilian con
siders irony to be a kind of allegory, a sort of metaphorical pretense. In fact, he
writes, In the other kind of allegory, where what is expressed is quite contrary to
what is meant, there is irony, which our rhetoricians call illusio, and which is
understood either from the mode of delivery, the character of the speaker, or the
nature of the subject (2006: Book 8, Chapter 6, 54). A similar approach to irony
is found in the pseudo-Ciceronian treatise Rhetorica ad Herennium (2004: 345) in
which it is characterized in the following manner: An Allegory is drawn from a
contrast if, for example, one should mockingly call a spendthrift and voluptuary
frugal and thrifty.
Some twentieth century discussions take this approach to verbal irony as a
kind of contrast or negation while dropping the traditional conception of it as in
some way metaphorical. Perhaps the most significant of these is Grice (1975: 53),
who writes that when a speaker A is ironic [i]t is perfectly obvious to A and his
audience that what A has said or has made as if to say is something he does not
believe and the audience knows that A knows that this is obvious to the audi
ence (Grice 1975: 53). In using irony, the speaker transparently breaks the first
maxim of quality, that one should not say what one believes to be false (Grice

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

1975: 46), and in so doing implicates (implies) something other than what is
said. This must be some obviously related proposition; the most obviously re
lated proposition is the contradictory of the one he purports to be putting for
ward (Grice 1975: 53). In other words, for Grice, irony is a speech act in which the
literal meaning is negated to reveal the speakers intended meaning.
But this conception of verbal irony as the act of saying one thing and mean
ing the opposite has been criticized by other modern scholars. Wilson and S
perber
(1992: 54) note, for example, that cases of ironic understatement do not fit com
fortably within the traditional definition. Consider (2), uttered about someone
who is blind with rage:
(2)You can tell hes upset.
The utterance in this context is an ironic understatement that cannot be said in
any way to figuratively imply the opposite of its face-value literal meaning.
In addition to understatement Wilson and Sperber (1992) make note of a
number of other kinds of utterances that do not fit the traditional definition.
One of the clearest counter-examples is that of ironic interjection. Consider,
for example, (3) uttered on an extremely cold and unpleasant day in Tuscany
inMay:
(3)Ah, Tuscany in May!
While intuitively ironic, they argue, the utterance cannot be considered to be
making a false statement because it is an interjection and interjections do not
express statements at all (Wilson and Sperber 1992: 5556).
Wilson and Sperber propose that a better way to characterize irony is as an
echo of a thought that is used to express disapproval of what is echoed: Verbal
irony, we argue, invariably involves the expression of an attitude of disapproval
The speaker echoes a thought she attributes to someone else, while dissociating
herself from it with anything from mild ridicule to savage scorn (Wilson and
Sperber 1992: 60).
For Wilson and Sperber, the act of echoing does not necessarily mean an ut
terance mentions the precise words of another person; the utterance need only
bring to mind anothers thought. Thus (3) could be considered to echo the thought
of someone appreciating Tuscany in springtime uttered in the context outlined
above to ridicule or mock such appreciation, whether or not it mentions the ac
tual words someone else used.
In another paper, Sperber and Wilson expand the notion of echoing: we
do claim that it is always possible to echo general norms or universal desires,

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ortheir particular instantiations in individual cases (Sperber and Wilson 1998:

284). Thus an ironic use of (4) in a context in which things have gone terribly
wrong becomes ironic by echoing a representation of what is always desirable
(Sperber and Wilson 1998: 285).
(4)Oh great. Thats nice.
In cases such as this the irony is best analyzed as involving the dissociative
echoing of (possibly exaggerated) general desires or norms (Sperber and Wilson
1998: 285).
Echo theory can certainly account for cases that cannot be accounted for by
the more traditional perspective of viewing irony as an act of negating. Neverthe
less, there are problems with this approach. Echoing is a clearly defined pattern
when one speaker repeats what another has just said as in (5):
(5)a. I like ice cream.
b. You like ice cream. Ok lets get you some.
Wilson and Sperbers extension of the concept to include instances such as
(3), however, is vague and relies on an unspecified process to connect the ut
terance to the idea or attitude echoed. As Clark and Gerrig (1984: 124) note,
the theory does not describe any criteria for deciding what is a possible im
plicit echo and what is not. The process at work really seems to be that of
allusion: an utterance alluding to some idea or attitude. Calling such allu
sions echoes does not shed any light on the process that is purported to be at
work in irony except to suggest that the process involves resemblance of
somesort.
There are, as well, cases of irony which do not seem to be easily under
stoodasechoes of any sort. Clark and Gerrig (1984) argue that Jonathan Swifts
AModest Proposal
cannot be viewed as echoic mention This essay is often pointed to as a model piece of
irony. To explain the irony, the mention theory would have to say that the entire essay was
an echoic mention. But of what? It is implausible that anyone had ever uttered the entire
essay or expressed its entire contents or that dining on Irish children was ever a part of
popular wisdom or received opinions (Clark and Gerrig 1984: 123)

Nevertheless, it should be noted that the traditional theory also cannot ac

count for this classic literary ironic work. Consider the following selection from
A Modest Proposal:

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

(6)A child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the
Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will make a reasonable Dish: and
seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth
Day, especially in Winter. (Swift 1973: 504)
Even though the intent of the essay is not to suggest that children would be a
reasonable dish, the essay cannot be viewed as simply saying this and meaning
the opposite, that is, that children would not be a reasonable dish. The focus
israther on mocking what is being said. In order to address the inability of both
the traditional and echo theory to account for clear instances of irony such as A
Modest Proposal, Clark and Gerrig propose that irony be considered a kind of
pretense: Treated as pretense Swifts irony makes good sense. Swift was pre
tending to speak as a member of the English ruling class to an English audience.
He expected his readers to recognize the pretense and to see how by affecting the
pretense he was denouncing English attitudes toward the Irish (Clark and Gerrig
1984: 123)
In more general terms, Clark and Gerrig define ironic pretense in the follow
ing manner:
Suppose S is speaking to A, the primary addressee, and to A, who may be present or absent,
real or imaginary. In speaking ironically, S is pretending to be S speaking to A. What S is
saying is, in one way or another, patently uninformed or injudicious, worthy of a hostile or
derogatory judgment or a feeling such as indignation or contempt (Grice, 1978, p. 124). A
in ignorance, is intended to miss this pretense, to take S as speaking sincerely. But A, as part
of the inner circle (to use Fowlers phrase), is intended to see everything the pretense,
Ss injudiciousness, As ignorance, and hence Ss attitude toward S, A, and what S said. S
and A may be recognizable individuals (like the TV weather forecaster) or people of recog
nizable types (like opportunistic politicians). (Clark and Gerrig 1984: 122)

Intuitively, the pretense theory would seem to capture something about ver
bal irony, at least as it is practiced by a literary master such as Swift. Certainly
ironic texts like A Modest Proposal can pretend to be earnestly saying some
thing while at the same time mocking what they are saying. And just as certainly
it is quite possible to miss the irony. A nave reader, such as a high school student
who takes Swift at his word would be, in effect, a victim of irony.
Nevertheless, there are clearly cases of irony in which the ironist is not en
gaged in the act of pretending not at least in any standard sense (cf. Holdcroft
1983: 507511). Cases where someone says something that is polite and true but
the speaker does not have the typical accompanying attitude are one kind of
counter-example. Consider a situation in which someone is given a painting
which she does not really want because it will be extremely inconvenient to find

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a place for it in her home. Nevertheless, she might think it beautiful and so ironi
cally but truthfully say
(7)It is a beautiful painting you have given me.
She does not need not to pretend that she considers the painting beautiful for
it to be ironically understood that she does not want the gift. In fact, what she
says can be understood as ironic even if she does not pretend to be pleased with
the gift. She can use facial expressions or a less than enthusiastic tone of voice to
make clear that, as lovely as the picture is, she is not pleased with being its recip
ient. Moreover, it is quite possible that the addressee could understand the ironic
intent and take it as a way of remaining polite while expressing displeasure.
Similarly, cases of understatement such as Wilson and Sperber present in
identifying problems with the traditional theory can be ironic without any pre
tense. Consider someone who tells a friend about having nearly been hit by a car
and the friend replies:
(8)That could ruin your whole day.
Here again the pretense that the pretense theory considers necessary to verbal
irony is missing.
In addition, it is not at all clear that cases of irony in which the speaker says
the opposite of what he means necessarily involve pretense. So, for example,
(9)Oh great!
uttered in a context in which the speaker means anything but great is neverthe
less ironic, even though the speaker makes no pretense that he thinks what has
happened is great and the person to whom the remark is addressed is under no
illusion that he thinks so.
Finally, pretense theory assumes that the pretense must be critical, a con
ceptbased on a proposal made in Grice (1978). Recognizing that the traditional
view needed modification to include speaker attitude, Grice added a proviso that
someone who is being ironic must reflect a hostile or derogatory judgment or a
feeling such as indignation or contempt (1978: 124). The proposal was adopted
not only by pretense theory but also by echo theory, as is clear from the proviso
that the echo must include an attitude of disapproval (Sperber and Wison 1992:
60; see also Kaufer 1981 and Dunmire and Kaufer 1996).
However, there are examples of irony where no such critical act of judgment
is discernible. Grice, in discussing this extra condition, notes that certain utter

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

ances in which the speaker is taken to have an approving rather than a critical
attitude must be called playful, not ironical: I can for example say What a
scoundrel you are! when I am well disposed toward you, but to say that will be
playful, not ironical, and will be inappropriate unless there is some shadow of
justification (Grice 1978: 124). In effect, then, Grice implicitly admits the pro
posal excludes a class of phenomena that could otherwise be considered ironic.
This seems to be arbitrary and, in fact, other scholars have identified this class
as a kind of irony, including Quintilian (2006: Book 8, Chapter 6, 55), who, as
noted above, includes as ironical cases where there is praise under the appear
ance of censure (see also Attardo 2000: 796).
Some scholars have argued that even if it is not explicit there must be an
underlying critical inference if the utterance is to be viewed as ironic. Garmendia
(2010), for example, argues that an ironic use of (10)
(10)You definitely made a mess of it.
In relation to a situation in which the person addressed has done very well on an
exam must have some critical element that can be inferred for example, that the
speaker is tired of the addressees complaining (Garmendia 2010: 405406). This
seems forced. No doubt a speaker could use (10) in a context where it could be
interpreted that way. However, such phrases are used all the time in a playful way
to congratulate people (in order perhaps not to seem too effusive) without anyone
interpreting them as in any way critical, although they are understood as involv
ing an ironic reversal of meaning. Indeed, one would have to be quite creative to
make Grices scoundrel utterance seem critical. The point is simple: a counter-
example to a theory is not negated by showing it might under some circumstances
be interpreted in a way in which it will fit the theory.
Let us now move on to the allusional-pretense theory of verbal irony that at
tempts to combine features of both the echo and pretense theories:
Ironic utterances are intended to be allusive in that they are intended to call the listeners
attention to some expectation that has been violated in some way but we propose that
echoing or echoic interpretation are not the only ways that allusion to unfulfilled expecta
tions is accomplished in ordinary discourse.
Pragmatic insincerity is a criterial feature of ironic utterances. The standard pragmatic
theory considered only one type of insincerity, semantic or propositional insincerity,
namely, uttering false assertions This formulation is too restrictive because there are a
variety of utterance types that cannot be counterfactual because the criterion of truth is
simply not applicable. Among such utterance types are compliments, questions, and re
quests. Such utterance types are neither true nor false, but they can be sincere or insincere.
The construct of pragmatic insincerity rather than truth is thus the more general because it
is the more inclusive. (Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995: 5)

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At first glance this syncretic theory would appear to achieve its goals. It avoids
the overly restrictive scope of the echo theory, making clear that verbal irony need
only allude to an expectation rather than echo a desire or belief thereby
avoiding the use of a term which, as noted above, seems to add nothing to the
conception of allusion in relation to norms and beliefs. The broader understand
ing of pragmatic insincerity allows it to apply not only to the pretense of coun
terfactual verbal irony but also to cases in which the utterance does not make a
truth conditional statement. It may also be pointed out that the theory explicitly
rules out the necessity of a critical act on the part of the speaker (Kumon-
Nakamura et al. 1995: 4).
Nevertheless, this theory encounters some of the same problems as pretense
and echo theory: the speech acts of pretending and alluding are not neces
saryconditions for irony. Consider again (7) in the context described above. The
speaker cannot be considered to be pragmatically insincere: she is telling the
truth about the gift and may through her tone of voice or facial expressions also
make clear her displeasure with it. It cannot therefore be identified as ironic with
in the allusional-pretense theory any more than it can within the pretense theory.
In addition, using allusion instead of the presumably more specific term
echo does not allow the allusional-pretense theory to handle A Modest Pro
posal any better than echo theory. In what way does a selection from this essay
such as (6) call the listeners [or readers AB] attention to some expectation
that has been violated in some way, as the authors of this theory suggest in the
quotation above? Without doubt this famous piece is intended to mock certain
utilitarian beliefs and can be said to call them to mind (or echo them) in a vague
way but does it allude to an expectation that has not been met? It certainly does
not in any self-evident manner.

2Text comprehension and normative

assumptions
In the review above, we have seen that one theory can account for one class of
ironic phenomena while another theory can account for another class by charac
terizing ironic utterances as one or more kinds of speech act: negating, echoing,
pretending, alluding. It is clear that such theories have been unable to account for
ironic phenomena in a comprehensive way, leading Colston and Gibbs (2007: 4)
to wonder whether irony is simply a family of related phenomena that each re
quire their own theoretical approach Certainly, this is a real possibility. How
ever, it is also possible that we have not identified crucial aspects that are com
mon to all forms, simply because, as we have seen, the theoretical discussions

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

focus on different kinds of substantive speech acts and consequently different

sorts of ironies (see also Attardos (2000) detailed review of the literature). What
may be necessary is to focus less on the specific acts in which irony is used, and
to examine more closely from a semiotic perspective the relations that give rise to
ironic interpretation, no matter the speech act in which it is found.
Let us note what all four approaches we have examined make clear irony
does not exist in a vacuum. It can only occur as part of an utterance in a text
(whether oral or written), and never as part of the meaning of sentences in the
abstract. Negating, echoing, pretending, alluding are all speech acts that relate to
utterances in texts, not sentence types. Since irony is a property of utterance or
textual meaning, we need to look at those aspects of meaning relating to the ut
terance or text itself, and not to the sentence, phrase or word type that is uttered.
So, before making specific claims that can function as necessary conditions for
verbal irony, we need to look more closely at utterances and the texts of which
they are part.
One basic way in which the textual meaning of language differs from the
meaning of word or sentence types is that textual meaning always involves the
use of context, that is information or assumptions which are not part of the text
itself. A theory of text or utterance meaning presented in Bellert (1970) makes
therelational role of non-textual background knowledge clear. According to this
approach, the meaning of a text (comprised of two or more utterances) can be
understood as the inferences (called consequences) we can draw from the text,
including inferences we can make with the help of background assumptions but
not including inferences we can make just from the background itself. The formal
construction of this approach is omitted because it is not relevant to the pro
posals presented here about irony. (The interested reader is directed to Bellert
1970 and 1980, and Bellert and Weingartner 1982.) What is important to note is
that within this approach the full meaning of a text (and the utterances which
comprise them) is to a great extent dependent on non-textual background propo
sitions (see also Grice 1975: 50). Since the term proposition may suggest that the
non-textual propositions must be true or factual, this article uses the more gen
eral assumptions in what follows.
These non-textual background assumptions can be assumptions that deter
mine the core meaning of a word or phrase. So in (11),
(11)a. Some athletes smoke

b. Not all athletes smoke.
we can infer that the speaker is talking about a class of humans because of our
general background assumption that athletes are human.

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However, not all non-textual information relates to the core meaning of words
and phrases. When someone says (11a) we conventionally infer (11b), although
there is arguably nothing in the meaning of the words which necessarily leads us
to this inference (Davis 2010). Within a Gricean framework these are called non-
conventional implicatures (Davis 2010), but since nothing within our analysis
depends on this characterization or on the Gricean maxims to which they relate,
this is not of particular relevance to our purposes here. What is relevant is some
thing little discussed in linguistic pragmatic theory; that is, the contextual back
ground assumptions that allow us to make such inferences. In this case the infer
ence would involve a background assumption of the sort found in (12):
(12)Typically if someone says some x does y, then he means not all x does y.
The adverb typically is used here to indicate that while we may consider
the inference to be usual or normative, we do not consider it to be necessary. In
fact, we can drop assumptions of this sort whenever we encounter a situation
where what we assume to be true (or what is said to be true) is logically incon
sistent with what we would infer using the assumption. Consider how easily we
drop (12) in the following context:
(13)Some athletes smoke and perhaps all do.
So, the inference in (11b) that not all athletes smoke directly refers to the proposi
tional content of (11a), but depends as well on non-textual assumptions that do
not relate to the core meaning of the words and phrases, and that can be dropped
easily when they are contradicted by statements in a text.
One significant subclass of background assumptions not related to core se
mantic meaning is the set concerning attitudes or emotions which are assumed to
be typical of a speaker producing a particular kind of utterance in a particular
kind of context. These, it will be argued, play a crucial role in ironic interpreta
tion. Before this argument can be made, however, it is necessary to look a little
more closely at properties of these background assumptions, in particular those
relating to inconsistency.
When someone looks outside and says
(14)It is a beautiful day outside.
we may infer that the speaker is pleased based on an assumption such as (15)
about what such a statement says about the speakers attitude in a context where
she is looking outside:

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

(15)Saying it is beautiful outside while looking outside typically means the

speaker is pleased.
Similarly, consider someone thanking another person for a gift by uttering
(16):
(16)Thank you for that thoughtful gift.
We may infer in this context that the speaker is pleased to receive the gift, based
on an assumption we make that is something like (17):
(17)If someone thanks someone for a gift and praises the gift, typically the
speaker is happy with the gift.
Like other inferences based on normative assumptions, the inferences based
on assumptions such as (15) and (17) are inferences based on assumptions that
are highly sensitive to context. It may well be that we know or assume the person
remarking on the weather is doing so simply as a matter of fact and takes no plea
sure in the observation (perhaps because she is busy at work); we may believe
that the speaker uttering the thank you and the praise for the gift is merely
being polite and indeed has no desire for, nor any interest in the gift. Just as for
other normative assumptions, in these cases, when we have specific knowledge
or assumptions about a context that would lead to inferences inconsistent with
those from the normative assumption, we do not use the normative assumption to
draw inferences.
In fact, at least for inferences concerning speaker attitude, the inconsistency
that leads us to avoid making an inference from a normative assumption need not
be one that is taken as necessarily following from what we know or assume; it
may be simply based on some other assumption we believe typically or norma
tively holds. Frequently, we consider that holding one attitude or belief typically
implies that the speaker does not hold some other attitude or belief. This means
that we can consider as inconsistent attitudes that we take to be normatively or
typically incompatible.
So, for example, if we consider someone to be happy about something, we
may, based on normative assumptions, infer that the person is not angry that this
thing has happened. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to be both happy and angry
about the same thing under certain conditions:
(18)I am both happy and angry about the election results happy that it was the
right outcome and angry that the outcome was not more decisive.

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There is nothing contradictory about this that might move us to assume that one
or the other property is not meant literally as there would be, for example, if one
were to say:
(19)That cat is a dog.
Since cases like (18) do not imply a contradiction but are only unusual or
markedcases, it is best to speak of two attitudes that we consider normatively
or typically to preclude each other as simply being normatively inconsistent
(rather than contradictory). In light of this, the generic term inconsistency
will be used in what follows where the inconsistency may be either normative
orlogical.

3Two necessary conditions

A consideration of normative assumptions about attitude and their relation to
what we assume to be the speakers actual attitude can allow us to formulate
necessary conditions for irony (or more precisely, ironic interpretation) that are
based on semiotic relations between assumptions rather than the substance of
speech acts. It can be argued that inconsistencies between background (non-
textual) assumptions about the attitude a speaker normatively has in using a par
ticular kind of utterance and background (non-textual) assumptions about the
attitude he or she actually has are a necessary component of verbal irony (cf.
Kaufer 1981: 504). Irony can then be understood as an interpretive strategy we use
under the following two conditions pertaining to interpretive assumptions about
normative and actual speaker attitudes:
i. Inconsistency Condition: we assume the utterance normatively or typically to
imply a certain attitude on the part of the speaker, but assume as well that the
speaker producing the utterance has an actual attitude inconsistent with
what is normally or typically implied.
ii. Implicitness Condition: the speakers actual attitude is not directly stated by
the speaker in the immediate context.
These conditions allow us to account not only for cases in which the speaker
means the opposite of what he says and where the intent is critical, but also for
cases where the irony is playful, as Grice put it. It can help us to account for
cases of clear echoic irony and cases of pretense such as A Modest Proposal that
cannot be considered echoes. It can allow us to account, as well, for cases where
no pretense at all is involved.

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

Before proceeding to the problematic cases, let us look at how the conditions
can account for traditional cases of irony where the speaker says one thing and
means the opposite. Quintilian uses (1) repeated here as (20) as an example of a
situation in which the speaker is ironically suggesting the contrary to what he
says about the speakers integrity, modesty and personal history:
(20)Your integrity, believe me, has cleared you; your modesty has rescued you;
your past life has saved you.
For examples such as (20) the traditional approach of Grice (1975) appears
perfectly adequate. However, further examination of (20) reveals that while there
are contexts in which we can interpret (20) as ironic, there are others in which it
cannot be. The traditional approach does not permit us to distinguish the two; the
Inconsistency Condition proposed above does allow us to differentiate.
Suppose, for example, the speaker does not believe that the virtues of the
person he is addressing actually helped him, but is attempting not to ironically
criticize but to praise the addressee in order to comfort him, to make him feel that
he has come through his travails by the strength of his character. In this context
(20) is not ironic even if the addressee knows that the speaker is merely pretend
ing in order to make him feel good and the speaker knows himself that his pre
tense is obvious. The traditional perspective of Grice (1975) affords us no means of
distinguishing the ironical use of (20) from the context in which it functions as a
transparent lie. The Inconsistency Condition, however, does provide such a
means. Note that in the case of the transparent lie, the speakers actual attitude is
one of praise and that this is the same as the attitude one would normatively have
using (20) in a non-ironic way. According to the Inconsistency Condition then,
wecannot view the utterance as ironical since the speakers actual attitude is not
an attitude inconsistent with what is normatively held. If, on the other hand, the
speakers attitude is one of disapproval, it can be seen as inconsistent with the
speaker attitude of praise normatively associated with such an utterance, and
according to the Inconsistency Condition the utterance can be considered ironic.
The issue is also addressed by the condition proposed in Grice (1978: 124),
and adopted by both echo and pretense theory, that the speaker must have a crit
ical attitude. Clearly, this condition too would exclude from the domain of irony
utterances in which the intent is to praise rather than disapprove. However, un
like Grices proposal, the Inconsistency Condition can be shown to be at work in
non-critical irony, just as it is in the critical sort.
Consider the following, uttered in relation to a brilliant political decision:
(21)What an incredibly stupid thing to do!

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According to the Inconsistency Condition, if the speaker of (21) is assumed to

be praising the political decision in question, then it can be understood as ironic
because the speakers actual attitude of admiration is inconsistent with the criti
cal attitude that is typically assumed when using an utterance of this sort. On the
other hand, if the speaker is taken to have a critical attitude towards the political
decision, as normative assumptions about such an utterance would suggest,
then, according to the Inconsistency Condition, it cannot be ironic because what
we assume about the speakers actual attitude is consistent with the normative
assumptions. The utterance then is simply what it appears to be: a straightfor
ward criticism.
So, whether the speakers actual attitude is critical or not, what is necessary
for an utterance to be understood as ironic is the inconsistency between what
wetake to be the speakers actual attitude and what we take as the normative or
typical speaker attitude associated with such an utterance. In other words, what
is important is not a specific speaker attitude but the relation between it and a
certain normative assumption about speaker attitude.
That said, it should be noted that there is another area in which the proposal
above offers a more complete account of the phenomena that the traditional the
ory identifies as ironic. The Implicitness Condition proposed above makes clear
that we can only consider an utterance ironic when the speakers actual attitude
cannot be directly inferred from the immediate context of the utterance, a point
noted by neither Grice nor rhetoricians such as Quintilian.
Consider the following:
(22)a. Despite your good qualities, you have behaved in a contemptible manner.

b. Nevertheless, your integrity, believe me, has cleared you; your modesty
has rescued you; your past life has saved you.
As long as we assume the speaker believes (22a) to be literally true, in interpret
ingwhat he says, we have no choice but to take (22b) as literal as well, not as an
ironic interpretation in which the speaker means the opposite of what he is say
ing. In the context of (22a) it would makes no sense for the person addressed to
ask (22):
(23)Are you suggesting that I am not modest?
The conditions can also provide a more complete account of instances
which the traditional approach finds problematic. For example, the conditions
can provide a more complete account of the cases of understatement that are
used by echo theory to show the limitations of the traditional approach. Let

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

us consider again (2) repeated here as (24), uttered about someone in extreme
rage:
(24)You can tell hes upset.
According to echo theory, (24) can be considered an instance of ironic under
statement presumably because it echoes the utterance of a matter-of-fact obser
vation and in so doing mocks the very possibility that the behavior of the person
being referred to could be seen as normal, as such an utterance would generally
suggest. However, here too, further examination shows the crucial role in ironic
interpretation of the relation between what we assume to be the actual and what
we assume to be typical speaker attitude.
Consider the possibility that we take the speaker of (24) to have a matter-offact attitude about the persons rage. Assume as well that both the speaker and
those he is addressing have accepted the bad behavior, and that to some extent at
least, the speaker is critical of the fact that they have:
(25)a. You can tell hes upset.

b. I guess that he expresses his feelings is good. Unfortunately, the way we
accept it you would think everyone expresses it that way.
The utterance (25a) in that context would fit the conditions for irony proposed by
Sperber and Wilson: it invokes the typical matter-of-fact attitude of other uses of
the utterance, and the speaker is critical of the attitude that is echoed. Neverthe
less, the utterance cannot be understood as ironic because the normative speaker
attitude is the speakers actual attitude.
Now consider what happens if we have a context in which we can infer that
the speaker has an attitude inconsistent with the typical matter-of-fact attitude
towards the behavior:
(26)a. You can tell hes upset

b. He is handling himself in such a mild mannered way.
Given the fact that the person in question has been in a rage, the obvious fal
sity of (26b) makes it very clear that the speaker intends it as a misstatement.
Thisallows (and possibly even encourages) us to assume that quite possibly the
speakers actual attitude is not really matter-of-fact but rather one of surprise or
disgust. As the proposal suggests, in this context what we take to be the speakers
actual attitude can lead to an ironic interpretation since the speakers actual atti
tude is inconsistent with the matter-of-fact attitude that normatively is associated

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with a statement such as (26a). The echo theory has no way of differentiating be
tween (25) and (26) because it considers only a negative or critical attitude to be a
defining property of irony, rather than the relation between the speakers actual
attitude and the normatively expected attitude.
The conditions proposed above can also provide an account of exclamations
that echo theory uses to show the limitations of the traditional approach. Con
sider again (3) repeated here as (27):
(27)Ah, Tuscany in May!
According to the Inconsistency Condition, (27) can be ironic because an ex
clamation of that sort is typically associated with a pleased attitude, while pre
sumably the ironic speaker, faced with bad weather, is feeling not quite so pleased
and thus has an attitude which can be considered inconsistent with what can be
considered the normative attitude. Just as for echo theory, there is nothing in this
proposal that depends of the utterance itself making a statement.
Let us now look at irony that involves pretense. Such texts must also meet
theproposed conditions if they are to be interpreted ironically. The pretense of
A Modest Proposal depends crucially on the fact that we assume the author
hasa scornful attitude that is not expressed in the text and that the earnest re
spectful attitude typical of the writer of a formal proposal of a treatise is incon
sistent with the writers actual attitude. If one has doubts that the irony depends
on this inconsistency between the unexpressed scorn and what we take to be
thetypical attitude of a writer of such a text, consider whether or not we would
interpret this essay as ironic if we believed or assumed that Swift had an attitude
of sincerity in making the proposal, and sincerely believed that eating Irish chil
dren is a reasonable solution to the problems raised in the essay. The answer
is obvious. Similarly, imagine if Swift had explicitly stated that he scorned the
proposal by saying something like I scorn the stupid brutality of what I am about
to propose No matter how the proposal was presented after such an explicit
expression of the writers true attitude, an ironic interpretation would not be
possible.
The proposed conditions also provide an explanation of ironic victims (Clark
and Gerrig 1984: 122), such as someone who does not understand that, for exam
ple, A Modest Proposal is not an actual proposal. The fact that an ironic inter
pretation requires that the speakers actual attitude be implicit makes it easy to
see that someone who does not make the correct assumptions about the speak
ers actual attitude necessarily misses the ironic intent.
Finally, the conditions proposed above can account for irony in which there
is no pretense at all about what is directly expressed (cf. Holdcroft 1983: 507511).

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On the characteristics of verbal irony

Consider again (7) repeated here as (28) uttered by someone who has just received
a gift she does not want:
(28)It is a beautiful painting you have given me.
In this case it is the inconsistency between the normative attitude of gratitude
(typical when praising a gift) and the speakers actual implicit desire not to have
the gift that, according to the proposal, gives rise to irony. The Implicitness Con
dition is particularly important in this case. Adding words that make the attitude
explicit, something that can be directly inferred from the utterance, destroys the
irony:
(29)It is a beautiful painting you have given me, but I dont want it.
When the attitude is explicit the speaker may be said to be plain spoken, but cer
tainly not ironic.

4Concluding remarks
While the proposed conditions allow us to deepen our understanding of ironic
interpretation, there are important questions still left unanswered. For example,
what distinctive kinds of inferences or distinctive ways of letting us make infer
ences does irony offer? Also, what cues and clues do we use to identify when
ironic interpretation is appropriate (see Livnat 2011)?
That said, the two conditions do allow us to understand why it may be dif
ficult to express the content of an irony. De Saussure and Schulz (2009: 406) note
that an ironic utterance cannot be translated into a full-fledged proposition
without loosing [sic] its ironic component. They go on to argue that this is be
cause the essential content of irony is non-propositional. The proposals here
would suggest a rather different understanding. The difficulty results not from
thefact that the subjective attitude is essentially non-propositional but from the
fact that irony is the result of a relation between propositions. While the general
properties of this relation can be articulated, the specifics for particular utter
ances in particular texts and contexts is more problematic especially since it is
a matter of expressing the meaning of that relation in terms of the particular text
and context.
The proposal made in this article also allows us to relate ironic interpretation
to the interpretation of metaphor and possibly other tropes as well. Metaphor,
like irony, can be understood to rely on typical or normative assumptions and

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their relation to what we assume to be true. However, the normative assumptions

that play a role in irony and metaphor are quite different and have a different re
lation to propositions we assume to be true in the context of interpretation. In
ironic interpretation, as we have seen, the assumptions relate to typical and ac
tual speaker attitudes and are inconsistent with the attitudes we take the speaker
to actually have. In the case of metaphor (see for example, Bailin 1998: 107126;
Beardsley 1958: 125), the assumptions relate to typical and actual properties of
the entities to which words and phrases refer. These are properties we take to be
true of the entity or entities referred to in the metaphor in the context of inter
pretation. So, for example, in the case of a conventional metaphor such as that
little baby is a delicate rose, we use the assumption that roses are typically very
pretty in order to understand the metaphor; we attribute the typical property to
the baby referred to by the metaphor because we take the property (or at least
assume the speaker takes the property) to be true of the baby.
The similarities and differences between these two tropes, in fact, suggest the
possibility of a wider application to the approach used here. Irony may be one of
a number of tropes that can be characterized by the way normative assumptions
are connected by semiotic relations to what we assume to be true when trying to
understand what is being said. This perspective may provide us with a distinctly
semiotic way of understanding how tropes signify.

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Bionote
Alan Bailin (b. 1951) is an associate professor at Hofstra University <alan.bailin@
hofstra.edu>. His research interests include figurative language, semiotic and
semantic/pragmatic analysis of linguistic comprehension, readability, and the
critical assessment of research. His publications include The evolution of aca
demic libraries: The networked environment (with A. Grafstein, 2005); Online
library tutorials, narratives, and scripts (with A. Pea, 2007); Ambiguity and
metaphor (2008); and The critical assessment of research: Traditional and new
methods of evaluation (with A. Grafstein, 2010).

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