(Un)detecting irony. Analysing responses to irony in three different discursive contexts

Abstract

Far from being restricted to a simple ironic comment, expressing the opposite of the literal meaning or voicing a duplicitous type of communication, irony appears as a complex phenomenon, in which the assumptions, the focal event, the intentionality, and the strategic choices made by the participants become intertwined with the context. The present article approaches irony from a contextual perspective, in an attempt to show how the various contexts affect the speaker’s choices and how the presence or the absence of the interlocutor may interfere in interpreting an ironic comment.