Unraveling Irony: from Linguistics to Literary Criticism and Back

Abstract

This article argues for the need to strengthen the dialogue between linguistics and literary criticism to enhance existing accounts of irony in both camps. The analytical categories arising from this work allow for a more systematic study of the ins-and-outs of ironic discourse. Our proposal starts from the cognitive-linguistic view of irony, based on the activation of an echoed and an observable scenario, which are mutually exclusive. The clash between them gives rise to an attitudinal element. To this analysis, our proposal adds, on the basis of the more socio-cultural view of literary criticism, a consideration of felicity conditions and a distinction between two basic types of ironist and interpreter, together with a discussion of the communicative consequences of their possible ways of interaction. With these tools the article introduces a degree of homogeneity in the account of the relationship between irony and its socio-cultural context across different time periods.