Sarcastic Irony Research Articles

An Analysis of Types and Functions of Taboo Words in Hot Fuzz Movie

In daily lives, a person can adapt speech patterns, vocabulary, and accents to fit with social surroundings. From the formal language used in workplace to the informal language spoken with friends and relatives. The informal spoken form of language, particularly viewed as being of lower social rank than standard language is called vernacular. Vernacular represents the everyday language spoken by people, including slangs and taboo words that develop over time. The purpose of this research is to find the types and functions of taboo words in Hot Fuzz movie. The researcher used a qualitative descriptive method. The researcher used two theories of taboo words from Edwin Battistella (2005) to analyze the types and Timothy Jay to analyze the functions (1992). The data in the research was taken from the dialogues of the Hot Fuzz movie. The total data of taboo words found in the movie are 65 data. The researcher found all four categories of types of taboo words, they are 8 Epithets, 16 Profanity, 14 Vulgarity, and 27 Obscenity. The researcher found all five categories of functions of taboo words, they are 20 Anger and/or Frustration, 17 Descriptive – Evaluative, 10 Joking, 9 Surprise, and 9 Sarcastic Irony or Insults.

THE TYPES AND THE FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES OF TABOO WORDS IN EUPHORIA SEASON 2 TV SERIES SCRIPTS

The objectives of this research are to identify the different types of taboo words and to describe the functions of taboo words as they are used by characters in the Euphoria Season 2 TV show. The descriptive qualitative method was used in this research because the data is in words rather than numbers. This study's primary theory is that of Michael Swan (2005) and Timothy Jay (1992). The researcher discovered four types of taboo words after classifying 50 data of taboo words in Euphoria Season 2 TV Series, namely lavatory 4 data (8%), private parts of body 17 data (34%), religion 12 data (24%), and sexual activity 17 data (34%). Meanwhile, from those 85 data of taboo words, the researcher found some functions of taboo words anger and/or frustration 14 data (16%), descriptive-evaluative 40 data (47%), joking 9 out data (11%), surprise 6 data (7%), and sarcastic irony or insult 16 data (19%).

Complex aspects of hate speech and their problematic representation in dictionaries ..

The paper discusses an official response provided by the spokesperson of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), addressing previous criticism by a popular Romanian journalist of several statements by Patriarch Daniel, the head of the ROC. Taking its cue from previous research by van Dijk (1995), the paper examines the lexical choices in the representation of an outgroup in the text, which include the abundant use of derived words based on a rich range of negative prefixes, most of which are salient to Romanian speakers. Emphasizing the role played by these evaluative prefixes to create “epithets” which target the group represented as holding views different from those of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the paper argues that the text, which does not include direct insults, and which relies on “sarcastic irony” (Dynel 2016), emerges as an instance of covert hate speech. The paper goes on to discuss the role of Romanian dictionaries in identifying instances of “overt” and “covert” hate speech.

The Analysis of Swear Words in Suicide Squad Movie

Swear words as a strong language that is expressed by a person to their powerful emotion by Swan in 1995. The present study discussed the type and the function of swear words in Suicide Squad movie. This research is descriptive qualitative study whose data are in the form of utterances uttered by the characters in Suicide Squad movie that shown the types of swear words and their functions. In finding, the researcher found five types of swear words in Suicide Squad movie. Those are dysphemism, idiomatically, abusively, emphatically and cathartically. The researcher also founds the functions those of swear words as they functioned as showing anger or frustration, descriptive- evaluative, joke, surprise and sarcastic irony. The findings showed that abusive was the dominant type, because this type was mostly used by the characters in Suicide Squad movie. The implication of this research is knowing that swear words found in Suicide Squad movie showed that the characters in Suicide Squad movie used swear words not always to humiliate others or to express anger, but also to express their other emotions and to show friendliness.

THE TABOO WORDS ANALYSIS IN "DAISY JONES & THE SIX" NOVEL

Language and society are strongly intertwined. Society needs language to be connected, and language needs society to use it properly. The study that correlates with language and society is taboo words. Taboo words are the restriction or avoidance of spoken and written words in any society that is harmful to its members because they would give them discomfort and humiliation. The research focused on the taboo words, primarily about the types and functions in the novel entitled Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The objectives of this research were to find out the types and the functions of taboo words in Daisy Jones & The Six novel. This research used the qualitative method since the data are in the form of quotations and descriptions in a thorough description involving the researcher’s interpretation. The result of the research showed that there were 123 data of taboo words categorized into four types, consisting of 68 data of Obscenity, 30 data of Profanity, 17 data of Epithets, and 8 data of Vulgarity. The mentioned data of taboo words were categorized into five functions, those were 61 data of Descriptive-Evaluative, 43 data of Anger and/or Frustration, 9 data of Surprise, 8 data of Sarcastic Irony or Insults, and 2 data of Joking.

AN ANALYSIS OF TABOO WORDS IN DEADPOOL MOVIE

The research dealt with taboo words in Deapool movie. The objectives of research aimed at explaining the types of taboo words and also to figure out motives of using taboo words in Deadpool movie. The research conducted by using descriptive qualitative method. This study was different from previous researcher that found types and function of taboo words while in this study focused on types and motives of using taboo words. The data were taken from the utterances that contain taboo words by first main character in this movie. There were 82 taboo words that had been uttered in this movie. From nine types of taboo words, there were eight of them, they were Cursing 2,44 %, Profanity 3,66 %, Obscenity 40,24%, Vulgarity 6,10 %, Insults and slurs 9,76 %, Slang 12,20 %, Epithets 20,73 %, and Scatology 2,44 %. And for the motives of using taboo words, there were five from five motives of them, they were Angry or Frustration 30,48 %, Descriptive- evaluative 43,90 %, Joking 7,32 %, Surprise 14,64 %, and Sarcastic Irony Insults 3,66 %.

Media Structural Defacement and Its Philosophical Implications

Examples given in this paper deal with print media, but the argument applies to all media. These examples illustrate structural-linguistic principles, principles that may be extended to any medium. The approach is structuralist.The history of handwritten and printed texts in the West is an inseparable history of punctuation and lettering. Written and printed texts represent spoken language: letters are representations of segmental-phonemes (linguistically meaningful sounds); graphemic punctuation represents meaningful supra-segmental phonemes (intonation, pitch, pause, etc.).Alphabetical, graphemic representation in the West has through the ages developed many arbitrary systems of grammatic punctuation to show speech, but the semantics of speech representation remains under-developed. This is no less true of digital media as of print media. Digital print media are particularly vulnerable to ambiguity. Emoticons and emojis came about of necessity. Just as early-print punctuation was primarily invented by printers and printers’ devils, not scholars, so too emoticons are Silicon-Valley formalization of user-invented semantic punctuation. :-) becomes [smiley emoji] or [smiling alien emoji]. :-( becomes [frowning emoji] or [frowning alien emoji], and so on—and ambiguity is the hothouse of error and misreading that affects all media. We should not be surprised. It is said that a similar devil, Titivillus, caused medieval manuscript scribes to make errors in their copying.I am specifically interested in the ramifications of semantic punctuation on philosophical texts—above all, irony, though sarcasm, ridicule, double entendre, derision, mockery, satire, scorn, sneering, scoffing, gibing, taunting, acerbity, causticity, hate, trenchancy, etc., as well as positive expressions such as love, amusement, friendliness, approval, sincerity, etc. are also of semantic-punctuation representational importance. Does the failure of traditional written and printed tests to reflect, for the most part, semantic values handicap printed representational discourse? In fact, can the handicapped discussion of profound ideas be adequately represented graphemically and philosophical inquiry limited without representation of the full range of human linguistic communication?Representation of irony in print has long escaped writers and scholars. In the 17th century, John Wilkins in An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) proposed, among other semantic punctuations, an inverted exclamation mark (¡) to indicate irony: “That is terrific work¡” for a job poorly done. “What a lovely hat you have¡” said with sarcastic irony to someone sporting a ridiculous hat. (Later, an inverted question mark was suggested for ironic statement, ¿, but confusion with Spanish inverted question marks makes it a less attractive alternative).Wilkins’ term “philosophical language” refers to language as printed representation, not speech. His argument is an early reference to what I have elsewhere argued is the failure of “bookish philosophy” that has come to typify academic philosophy, for example, the gibberish of Heidegger, Derrida, post-structuralists, post-modernists, post-humanists, numerous analytic and “linguistic” philosophers, and many others.One possible way out of these difficulties is a process of mediation, unmediation, and immediation.

How to be sarcastic in Greek: Typical means of signaling sarcasm in the New Testament and Lucian

AbstractWhile significant debates are still ongoing, modern scholarship has made great strides in describing the nature of verbal irony and the sorts of markers that signal its use. Much of this research, however, has focused on the English language, leaving significant linguistic and historical data untouched. This study aims to fill a portion of this lacuna by investigating the typical cues for indicating sarcastic irony amongst those who invented it—or at least the term—the ancient Greeks. To this end, taking modern scholarship as our starting point, we shall proceed by investigating the extent to which various cues discussed in the literature are also present in ancient sarcasm, while taking note of cases where certain markers are more idiomatic to the ancient world. Our dataset for this task will be drawn from two diverse corpora, the writings of Lucian—arguably one of antiquity’s most prolific sarcasts—and the New Testament. While the cues that signal sarcastic intent across these texts share many similarities to those discussed in modern research, significant differences attest to the impact of both cultural and linguistic forces on the ways in which the ancient Greeks went about being sarcastic.

What is the difference between irony and sarcasm? An fMRI study

Verbal irony is a figure of speech that communicates the opposite of what is said, while sarcasm is a form of irony that is directed at a person, with the intent to criticise. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with the aim of mapping the neural networks involved in the processing of sarcastic and non-sarcastic irony. Participants read short texts describing an interaction between two characters, which ended in either a literal, sarcastic, or non-sarcastic ironic comment. Results showed that the mentalising network (mPFC) and semantic network (IFG) were more activated for non-sarcastic irony than for literal controls. This would suggest that interpreting this kind of language involves understanding that the speaker does not mean what they literally say, as well as processes involved in conflict detection and resolution. Sarcastic irony recruited more of the semantic network, as well as areas associated with humour appreciation and subcortical structures, indicating that more complex neural mechanisms underlie the comprehension of sarcastic versus non-sarcastic irony.

Comprehension of Ironic Utterances by Bilingual Children

Abstract This study investigates verbal irony comprehension by 6-year old bilingual children speaking Polish and English and living in the USA. Researchers have predominantly focused on monolingual populations when examining non-literal language in young children. This is the first exploratory study of how irony is comprehended by children growing up in a bilingual setting. Results suggest that 6-year olds from this population score high in decoding the intended meaning behind an ironic utterance and that there is a relation between this ability and the development of their theory of mind (ToM). Interestingly, the data suggests that in the tested sample, no difference could be observed between comprehension of sarcastic irony (i.e., irony containing the element of blame directed towards the addressee) and non-sarcastic irony (irony without criticism towards the interlocutor). The results may be a basis for assuming that irony comprehension may be different in bilingual, compared to monolingual, samples.

Academics vs. American scriptwriters vs. academics: A battle over the etic and emic “sarcasm” and “irony” labels

The primary goal of this paper is to tease out the concepts denoted by the etic and emic labels “irony” and “sarcasm” (i.e. as they are viewed by linguists, and lay language users, here, primarily of American English). Several species of irony are elucidated, most importantly the rhetorical figure and situational irony. The author critically examines various competing academic (etic) approaches, some inspired by emic use, and the thorny relationship between the two focal notions, that is sarcasm and the rhetorical figure of irony. In the light of the different provenance of the two terms “irony” and “sarcasm” (originally operating as emic labels) and the original applications of the two linguistic tools they denote, the perspective advocated here is that sarcasm and irony should be deemed distinct phenomena, which may co-occur, yielding “sarcastic irony”. The empirical study conducted on the basis of transcripts of the discourse of the American television series “House” adduces evidence that generally corroborates the previous findings on the focal emic (meta)pragmatic labels, which are partly not compatible with the preferred etic labels: in emic usage, “sarcasm” typically indicates the presence of the stylistic figure, whereas “irony” is usually reserved for situational irony. Interestingly, in the discourse of the television series, the “irony” label tends to be employed creatively for humorous purposes.

Do you hear itnow? A native advantage for sarcasm processing

Context and prosody are the main cues native-English speakers rely on to detect and interpret sarcastic irony within spoken discourse. The importance of each type of cue for detecting sarcasm has not been fully investigated in native speakers and has not been examined at all in adult English learners. Here, we compare the extent to which native-English speakers and Arabic-speaking English learners rely on contextual and prosodic cues to identify sarcasm in spoken English, situating these findings within current cross-linguistic effects literature. We show Arabic speakers utilize the cues to a different extent than native speakers: they tend not to utilize prosodic information, focusing on contextual semantic information. These results help clarify the relative weight of contextual and prosodic cues in native-English speakers and support theories that suggest that prosody and emotion could transfer separately in second language learning such that one could transfer while the other does not.

On the priority of salience-based interpretations: The case of sarcastic irony

AbstractResults from 2 experiments support the view that, regardless of strength of contextual expectation for utterance nonsalient (ironic) interpretation, (a) salience-based interpretations will not be blocked. Instead, they will be facilitated initially. And, (b) if conducive to the interpretation process, they will not be suppressed, albeit incompatible (Giora 2003; Giora and Fein 1999a; Giora and Fein 1999b; Giora et al. 2007). In Experiment 1, expectancy for an ironic utterance was manipulated by introducing an ironic speaker, whose ironic utterances were prefaced by overt ironic cues, making explicit the speaker's ironic intent. In Experiment 2, expectancy strongly biased via repeated exposure to ironic utterances, was further strengthened by informing participants that the experiment was testing sarcasm interpretation. Long processing times were allowed so as to tap later (suppression) processes. Results from reading times and lexical decisions support the temporal priority of salience-based interpretations, while arguing against both, the contextualist views (Gibbs 2002; Katz 2009) and the Gricean suppression hypothesis (Grice 1975).

On sarcasm, social awareness, and gender

AbstractSarcastic irony, uttered in four (within and between) gender-based settings, is used here as a tool to diagnose affective attitudes toward women. The kind of sarcasm tested here is an aggressive type of humor, whereby a speaker derides another individual, turning her or him into the victim of the humorous utterance. Finding this kind of irony less or more pleasing allows indexing between- and within-group attitudes. Participants were overall nonsexist, scoring low on sexism scales, but male participants were still more sexist than female participants. Results show that, as predicted by Ariel and Giora (1998), female participants fully adopted a feminine point of view, enjoying sarcastic irony best when it was directed by women at men and least when it was directed by women at women. Being more sexist, our male participants adopted a feminine point of view only partially, enjoying sarcastic irony more when directed at men than directed at women, regardless of the speaker's gender.

Are There Necessary Conditions for Inducing a Sense of Sarcastic Irony?

This article investigates the contextual components utilized to convey sarcastic verbal irony, testing whether theoretical components deemed as necessary for creating a sense of irony are, in fact, necessary. A novel task was employed: Given a set of statements that out of context were not rated as sarcastic, participants were instructed to either generate discourse context that would make the statements sarcastic or meaningful (without further specification). In a series of studies, these generated contexts were shown to differ from one another along the dimensions presumed as necessary (failed expectation, pragmatic insincerity, negative tension, and presence of a victim) and along stylistic components (as indexed by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program). However, none of these components were found to be necessary. Indeed, in each case, the items rated as highest in sarcasm were often at the lowest levels on the putative “necessary” characteristic. These data are taken as consistent with constraint satisfaction models of sarcasm processing in which various linguistic and extralinguistic information provide probabilistic (but not necessary) support for or against a sarcastic interpretation.

How Sarcastic are You?

In the present research, the authors examined the effects of self-perceived use of sarcasm on the production, interpretation, and processing of verbal irony. Accordingly, they first devised and evaluated a sarcasm self-report scale (SSS). In Experiment 1, results showed that participants’ self-perceived use of sarcastic irony (as assessed by the SSS) predicted their use of ironic statements in a production task and was related to their interpretation of ironic criticisms and ironic compliments. In Experiment 2, results showed that participants’ perceived use of irony was related to their processing of ironic statements: SSS scores were related to relative processing speeds for literal and ironic statements. The results of these experiments indicate that there are individual differences in purported use of sarcasm that influence interpretation and processing of verbal irony.

From “blame by praise” to “praise by blame”: Analysis of vocal patterns in ironic communication

From a communication psychology point of view, irony is not only a rhetorical figure or a cunning linguistic device, but also an articulated strategy for a flexible negotiation of meaning, as well as for establishing and maintaining relations with others. Within the “irony family” phenomena our attention is focused on the sarcastic irony generated in a conflict context (“praise by blame”) and on the kind irony produced in a cooperation context (“blame by praise”). The effects of the variability of contextual cues on the vocal variables (Fo, energy, time) of irony were studied. Through the analysis of the vocal features of standard phrases in a conflict or cooperation context, an ironic dominant pattern has been found consisting of caricatured vocal traits, although differences referring to the two ironic expressions came out. From a subject‐by‐subject analysis, four ironic patterns were obtained: (1) in the cooperation context (a) a rather high and changeable pitch and strong energy (“bantering” joy) were observed, as well as (b) a low and monotone pitch and strong energy (emphatic mark of tenderness); (2) in the conflict context (a) a very high and changeable pitch, strong energy, and slow rate of articulation (“accented banter”) were found, as well as (b) a low and not very changeable pitch, slow rate of articulation, and steadily soft energy (like scorn and cold anger). Following these four vocal patterns, the ironic voice could be defined as a “voice of banter.” In such a way, irony appears as a method used to manipulate the weight of indirect speech, which allows the efficacy of the word and the innocence of silence. Moreover, the ironist can be described as an able director of his own image, able to play with the voice. Within social relationships, in fact, he can use his own voice for calibrating strategically his ways of (un)masking himself to the others.

On the uses of sarcastic irony

The studies reported here contrasted the effects of making a criticism directly with that of making it indirectly (via sarcasm). These effects were examined either when the focus was on the person who uttered the criticism (Study 1) or when the focus was on the person to whom the barb is directed (Study 2). Moreover, we studied the beliefs associated with sarcastic uses from four different points-of-view: from that of the speaker, from that of the target of the criticism, from that of an incidental overhearer and from a control no-perspective orientation. The main task involved reading a set of passages in which one of the characters criticized another either directly or via sarcasm. Participants completed a questionnaire for each passage about why the criticism was made. A set of reasons discriminated sarcastic from direct criticism, with twice as many discriminating reasons being observed when one considers what is in the mind of the person making the sarcastic comment (Study 1) relative to what is in the mind of the person who receives it (Study 2). Factor analyses indicated that many of the seemingly separate reasons reflect a common basis, primarily verbal aggression, though separate factors indicated that verbal aggression made via sarcasm differs in some ways from that when made directly. Finally, there were some differences found in point-of-view, indicating that the effect the speaker believes his criticism has sometimes differs from the effect as seen by the victim.

Irony as a game of implicitness: acoustic profiles of ironic communication.

Irony, as "quotation" and "fencing game," consists of an interactive script, grounded on a focal event "trigger," in which the dialogic comment shows the ironist's intention through an antiphrastic process and syncoding to "hit" the victim of the irony (blame by praise or praise by blame). Through acoustic analysis of the suprasegmental profiles of standard phrases inserted into inductors expressly composed and read by 50 naive subjects, the presence and nature of significant differences between sarcastic and kind irony in low- and high-context utterances (contextualization effect--Experiments 1 and 2) have been verified. It has also been observed that, where more "specific weight" is given to the linguistic stream (corrective irony hypothesis), a markedness of suprasegmental features emerges (correctivity effect--Experiment 3). Finally, comparison between sarcastic irony and blame and between kind irony and praise shows that there exists a precise manner of contrastive syncoding, whereby the voices of irony do not coincide with those of direct blame or praise, but assume a specific caricature and emphatic profile (contrastivity effect--Experiment 4).

The functions of sarcastic irony in speech

Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory of politeness, while partly supported by empirical studies, may not accommodate a number of relevant social and psychological variables. Accordingly, Kasper (1990) suggests investigating the ‘forms and meanings of politeness’ in a variety of discourse and social contexts. Since Brown and Levinson contend that irony may be used for face-saving, and Sperber and Wilson (1981) explain why irony is especially suitable for remarking on the failure of an expectation, the face-saving function of sarcastic irony in American discourse is the focus of this paper. The first study shows that sarcastic irony is typically used to complain to or criticize intimates, who are usually hearers of the remarks. Hearers' reactions to both sarcastic and directly stated remarks with comparable content were explored, and remarks expressing trivial and serious complaints, occurring in conversations between same-sex best friends, were compared. Overall, the results show that sarcasm can serve a face-saving function, making the speaker appear less rude and unfair, particularly when expressing a trivial criticism; humor contributes little to this face-saving. These results raise problems for Brown and Levinson's formula for degree of face-threat, which is discussed, along with explanations for sarcasm's face-saving properties.