Characterising Irony

<p>This book offers a systematic bottom-up account of irony across both everyday contexts and literary and linguistic texts using an empirically rigorous approach in distinguishing between central irony non-central ironies and non-ironies and highlighting a new way forward for irony research.</p><p>The volume considers the current landscape of irony in which the term is used with increasing frequency with the knock-on effect of a loosening of its meaning. Pattison addresses this challenge by applying a systematic form of analysis rooted in frameworks from pragmatics and complementary disciplines to a database of over 500 irony candidates from a wide range of sources. The book uses these examples to illustrate the features of central ironies as well as the attributes used to differentiate between central ironies non-central ironies and non-ironies. These attributes are mapped across four key domains including: difference and opposition; the role of context; how ironies are signaled; and speaker attitude and intention. Taken together the volume puts forth a credible account for more clearly characterizing examples of irony and equips researchers with a comprehensive step-by-step method for undertaking future research.</p><p>This book is key reading for scholars in stylistics pragmatics literary studies and psycholinguistics.</p>