Abstract

AbstractDuring the last forty years there have been a number of attempts to understand verbal irony in relation to specific kinds of speech acts (negating, echoing, pretending, alluding). This article argues that these theories can account for certain subsets of ironic phenomena but not others precisely because of their focus on substantive kinds of speech acts rather than more general relational semiotic properties. The article proposes two conditions based on relational semiotic properties. These conditions, it is argued, allow for a unified account of ironic phenomena and a better understanding of irony in relation to other tropes.

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