On verbal and situational irony Towards a unified approach

Abstract

This chapter treats the notion of ironic echo as subsidiary to the broader notion of epistemic scenario, which applies to both verbal and situational irony. In ver­bal irony, the existence of an epistemic scenario takes the shape of a pretended agreement with someone' s beliefs, which can be materialized in agreement expressions of various kinds including echoic mentions. In situational irony, the epistemic scenario is built on a generally reliable assumption about a state of affairs. Finally, situational irony can be embedded within a communicative context, an observation which allows for a classification of ironic types that overrides the traditional verbal irony-situational irony dichotomy. Toe resulting account provides a single unified framework for the study of irony.