Semantics and pragmatics of verbal irony

Abstract

This article study the multifaceted and slippery concept of verbal irony with special emphasis on its semantic and pragmatic aspects. From the semantic point of view, irony is recognized as an indirect negative discourse that works thanks to the cognitive relationship of antonymy. In this sense, we postulate that ironic messages have in their logical form an invisible, but always present, negation. Pragmatically, irony is understood in the light of the idea of degrees of salience applied to the role of the context and is considerably supported by the dynamics of the communicative intention. The multiplicity of factors that come into play in ironic interpretation leads us to postulate the need for the concept of ironic competence (as part of rhetorical competence). This concept attempts to account for the variegated strategies applied both in the production of the ironic text (the role of the enunciator) and in the interpretation of the ironies we live by (the role of the enunciator)