Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
irony [Grk eirōneía ‘dissimulation, i.e. ignorance purposely affected’]
Rhetorical trope: the replacement of an expression that is meant by its opposite. Characteristic of ironical speech are ambiguous structures or structures that contain contradictory expressions, which implicitly point to the opposite by polysemy, homonymy, or antonymy, e.g. You are charming=You are mean, or by ambiguous illocution, e.g. Just keep it up. In order to make irony recognizable and therefore effective, the contrast between the spoken and the intended meaning should be as large as possible. Blatant contradictions often indicate irony, e.g. What beautiful weather, when it is pouring with rain. Various other linguistic signals can be used, e.g. modal particles, hyperbole, exclamative sentences, and intonation.
References
Booth, W.C. 1974. A rhetoric of irony. (6th ed. 1987.) Chicago, IL.
Grice, H.P.
1968. Logic and conversation. In P.Cole and J.L.Morgan (eds), Syntax and semantics, vol. 3: Speech acts. New York. 41–58.
Handwerk, G.J. 1986. Irony and ethics in narrative: from Schlegel to Lacan. New Haven, CT.
Muecke, D.C. 1982. Irony and the ironic. London.
Sperber, D. et al. 1981. Irony and the use-mention distinction. In P.Cole (ed.), Radical pragmatics. New York. 295–318.
Swearingen, C.J. 1991. Rhetoric and irony: Western literacy and Western lies. New York.
figure of speech
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