Understanding Irony

Abstract

Katz and Pexman reported that certain occupations (e.g., comedian) were associated with ironic speech and that participants rated metaphors as more sarcastic when speakers were members of such occupations. In the present research, the authors investigated whether speaker occupation was a cue to ironic intent when the statements were not metaphors (e.g., literal statements such as “you are a wonderful friend, ” potentially an ironic insult, and “you are a terrible friend, ”potentially an ironic compliment). Results of Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that speaker occupation stereotypes were routinely integrated in the comprehension process but only cued ironic intent when other contextual cues were minimal.Results of Experiment 3 demonstrated that speaker occupation stereotypes involve particular types of information in the context of potentially ironic speech: a speaker’s perceived tendencies to be humorous, to criticize, to be sincere, and also a speaker’s perceived education level.