The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction
-
Geert Brône
Abstract
Interactionally grounded accounts of humor and irony have focused on the construction of complex layered gestalts. In most cases, these accounts provide a model for the pretense that speakers are engaged in when jointly construing ironic or humorous utterances, as well as for the affective power of such utterances. Much less studied, however, is the question how speakers interactionally monitor such sequences of joint pretense. To investigate this more systematically, I zoom in on the role of eye gaze as a mechanism for reaction monitoring by speakers and hearers. Using humorous sequences taken from a multimodal video corpus of three-party interactions, in which the gaze behavior of all participants was recorded using mobile eye-tracking devices, I describe specific gaze patterns.
Abstract
Interactionally grounded accounts of humor and irony have focused on the construction of complex layered gestalts. In most cases, these accounts provide a model for the pretense that speakers are engaged in when jointly construing ironic or humorous utterances, as well as for the affective power of such utterances. Much less studied, however, is the question how speakers interactionally monitor such sequences of joint pretense. To investigate this more systematically, I zoom in on the role of eye gaze as a mechanism for reaction monitoring by speakers and hearers. Using humorous sequences taken from a multimodal video corpus of three-party interactions, in which the gaze behavior of all participants was recorded using mobile eye-tracking devices, I describe specific gaze patterns.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction. Figurative language 1
-
Part I. Intersubjectivity and interaction
- Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony 19
- Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes 41
- Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects 75
- The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction 109
-
Part II. Mechanisms and processes
- Metaphor and irony 139
- Metonymic indeterminacy and metalepsis 175
- On verbal and situational irony 213
- On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings 241
-
Part III. Usage and variation
- Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy 287
- Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration 307
- The fabric of metaphor in discourse 339
- Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon 357
- Measuring the impact of (non)figurativity in the cultural conceptualization of emotions in the two main national varieties of Portuguese 387
- Index 439
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction. Figurative language 1
-
Part I. Intersubjectivity and interaction
- Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony 19
- Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes 41
- Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects 75
- The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction 109
-
Part II. Mechanisms and processes
- Metaphor and irony 139
- Metonymic indeterminacy and metalepsis 175
- On verbal and situational irony 213
- On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings 241
-
Part III. Usage and variation
- Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy 287
- Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration 307
- The fabric of metaphor in discourse 339
- Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon 357
- Measuring the impact of (non)figurativity in the cultural conceptualization of emotions in the two main national varieties of Portuguese 387
- Index 439
