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Finding Irony: An Introduction of the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP)

2011; Routledge; Volume: 26; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10926488.2011.583194

1532-7868

Christian Burgers, M.J.P. van Mulken, Peter Jan Schellens,

linguistics and terminology studies

Abstract This article introduces the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP), a first systematic method for identifying irony in natural discourse. The first section discusses previous operationalizations of irony and demonstrates that these are not explicit about which criteria were used to separate irony from non-irony. The second section argues why irony can be defined as an “utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly contrary to its intended evaluation.” This section also explains why ironic utterances can be placed on an evaluation scale. In the third section, clauses are proposed as a good unit of analysis when looking at irony in natural discourse. The different steps of the VIP are then introduced in the fourth section and subsequently applied in a sample analysis of a natural text in the fifth section. The sixth section discusses a reliability analysis of the VIP protocol. The article ends with an outlook on how future research on verbal irony might benefit from applying the VIP. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research reported here is part of Christian Burgers' doctoral dissertation at the Department of Business Communication at Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands), supervised by the second and third author. Burgers is now at the Department of Communication Studies at VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The authors would like to thank Huib Kouwenhoven, for his assistance with the preparation of the data set for the intercoder reliability analysis, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Notes 1Some corpus studies on verbal irony provide no information at all on how irony was operationalized (cf. CitationCros, 2001; CitationWeizman, 2001). These studies were excluded from this overview. 2It should be noted that most studies that used this strategy considered themselves with counting different tropes, often in the context of one particular genre (e.g., CitationCatanescu & Tom, 2001; CitationKreuz, Roberts, Johnson & Bertus, 1996; CitationLeigh, 1994; CitationSrinarawat, 2005). The aim of these studies was usually to identify the frequency with which certain tropes were used in the genre under discussion. Although these studies often consider a large number of tropes, little information was given on how each individual trope is identified and counted. 4 Pauw & Witteman is a Dutch daily talk show, whose hosts are called Jeroen Pauw and Paul Witteman. 5The original Dutch text is as follows:Hij nodigde op 27 november in het programma Pauw & Witteman SBS6-verslaggever Alberto Stegeman uit eenkijkje te komen nemen en zelf te zien dat de boel op orde was. Diezelfde avond was Stegeman ironisch genoeg al opSchiphol, alleen zonder invitatie. Daar stelde hij opnieuw vast dat de beveiliging nog altijd niet deugde. 3Nevertheless, this way of searching can actually generate some examples of verbal irony, cf. CitationClaridge (2001, pp. 137–138). CitationKreuz and Caucci (2007) used slightly different strings to look for examples of irony and sarcasm (e.g., said sarcastically). However, they did so to make experimental materials and not to conduct a corpus study. Besides, a problem still remains that this strategy may not yield many ironic utterances in a corpus. 6Of course, not all ironic utterances are about the same target. CitationCros (2001, pp. 202–203) distinguishes three types of targets. She says that an ironic speaker can target (1) him- or herself, (2) the receiver, or (3) a third party (i.e., somebody different from sender and receiver). 8All originally Dutch examples were translated by the first author. 7For other studies on irony using scales, see for example, Kawakami (1984, 1988; summarized in CitationHamamoto, 1998, pp. 263–269), CitationGiora, Federman, Kehat, Fein, & Sabah (2005), and CitationPartington (2007). For other studies that see evaluation as a scalar phenomenon, see for example, CitationMartin and White (2005) and CitationLemke (1998). 9Since irony is defined on an evaluative level, our definition is also able to handle more implicit examples of irony. For instance, one of the key tests for any definition of irony is the classic utterance “I love people who signal” in the context where a driver is ironically criticized by a passenger for turning without signaling (first introduced by CitationMyers Roy, 1978, pp. 17–18, and later quoted by many authors including CitationGibbs, 1986, and CitationCoulson, 2005). On an evaluation scale, the literal interpretation of the utterance gives a positive evaluation about signaling. However, given the absence of signaling persons in the discourse situation, the intended evaluation can only be interpreted as a negative evaluation of the driver (which means that the zero point has been crossed). FIGURE 2 Desirability of the discounted price of Computer Idee. Display full size 10Please note that, in a small subset of cases, coders may end up finding that the entire text is ironic (e.g., the famous example of Jonathan Swift's essay A Modest Proposal or some texts found on the web site of The Onion). 11The original Dutch text is as follows:[1] Must Love Dogs[2] Sarah Nolan ([Diane] Lane) is kleuterleidster – [3] in Hollywoodcode een kanjer van een hint dat [4] deze dame de onbaatzuchtigheid zelve is – [5] maar toch staat ze er alleen voor. [6] Haar vent heeft Sarah, [7] de veertig inmiddels gepasseerd, [6, continued] namelijk ingeruild voor een jonger exemplaar. [8] Haar onmogelijk aimabele zussen willen dat [9] Sarah weer onder de mannen komt. [10] Dus zetten ze een advertentie op een datingwebsite. [11] Zal het lukken om de man van haar dromen te vinden? [12] Sarah komt uiteraard een hoop losers tegen. [13] Een van haar digitale don juans barst na twee minuten date al in huilen uit [14] en een ander blijkt haar bloedeigen vader (Christopher Plummer) te zijn. [15] Lachen natuurlijk, zulke blind dates uit de hel. [16] Met de huilebalk gaat Sarah nota bene een tweede keer uit. [17] Dat gelooft een normaal mens zelfs in de meest overheersende zwijmelbui toch niet. [18] Op de DVD zijn een paar bloopers en wat weggesneden scènes toegevoegd, [19] maar ook dat maakt Must Love Dogs niet echt een aanrader. [20] De film zit zo boordevol flauwe clichés dat [21] zelfs Cusack, [22] een van de meest begaafde acteurs voor dit genre, [21, continued] verzuipt in de zoetsappigheid. [23] Negeren dus, dit draakje. [24] Rapportcijfers:[25] Film: 4[26] Extra's: 6 12In order to provide a full picture of this utterance, the meaning of nota bene, the Dutch word that was translated with “even,” was looked up in the authorative Dutch dictionary Van Dale (version 1.2 Network). The lemma for nota bene indicates that it literally means something like “pay attention.” However, Van Dale claims that nota bene is always used as a so-called “irony marker,” a clue that a writer can give to his readers that he is being ironic. For this utterance, the Van Dale dictionary seems to be mistaken; nota bene (or “even”) should be interpreted literally.