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“Irony is easy to understand ”: The role of emoji in irony detection

  • Giulia Bettelli

    Giulia Bettelli has earned her Ph.D. in Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Milan – Bicocca with a thesis entitled ‘The effectiveness of a morphosyntactic priming-based training program in different populations’. Her main research interests include syntax and bilingualism, as well as pragmatic phenomena such as irony detection through different means of communication and cross-linguistically.

    und Francesca Panzeri

    Francesca Panzeri is an associate professor in Philosophy and Theory of Languages at the Department of Psychology of the University of Milan – Bicocca. Her research focusses on pragmatic phenomena, in particular she worked on the expression and detection of irony in face-to-face and in computer-mediated communication and on the comprehension and acquisition of irony in typical and atypical populations.

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Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 7. November 2023
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Abstract

In face-to-face conversations, interlocutors might recognize the ironic intent of a speaker relying on the incongruity of the comment relative to a situation, and on irony markers such as the ironic tone of voice and specific facial expressions. In instant messaging, acoustical and visual cues are typically absent, and the context is not always shared. We investigated the role of emoji as cues to detect irony, hypothesizing that they might play the role of the conversational context. We administered to 156 Italian adults a questionnaire, presenting them with WhatsApp messages followed by an emoji, which was congruent or incongruent with the (non-)evaluative positive or negative comment, and found that evaluative incongruent items were rated as more ironic, and that incongruent positive messages were more easily recognized as ironic (criticisms) compared to incongruent negative messages (ironic compliments), in line with the asymmetry of affect hypothesis.


Corresponding author: Francesca Panzeri, Department of psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy, E-mail:

About the authors

Giulia Bettelli

Giulia Bettelli has earned her Ph.D. in Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Milan – Bicocca with a thesis entitled ‘The effectiveness of a morphosyntactic priming-based training program in different populations’. Her main research interests include syntax and bilingualism, as well as pragmatic phenomena such as irony detection through different means of communication and cross-linguistically.

Francesca Panzeri

Francesca Panzeri is an associate professor in Philosophy and Theory of Languages at the Department of Psychology of the University of Milan – Bicocca. Her research focusses on pragmatic phenomena, in particular she worked on the expression and detection of irony in face-to-face and in computer-mediated communication and on the comprehension and acquisition of irony in typical and atypical populations.

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Published Online: 2023-11-07
Published in Print: 2023-11-27

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