Irony, pretence and fictively-elaborating hyperbole

Abstract

Abstract This article broadly adopts a well-known approach to verbal irony: taking ironic speakers to be engaging in pretence; and it follows others in viewing the pretences as (micro-)dramas created by the ironists, who act characters in the dramas. But it breaks new ground by strongly emphasizing the world of the drama (the drama’s world). In drama, acted characters operate within some implied world (e.g., a historical setting). Equally, in irony there is such a world. We then see a triangle of contrast: not only (a) the opposition usually considered in irony theory – between acted characters’ views/attitudes and the nature of the real world – but also potential contrast between (b) those views/attitudes and the rest of the drama’s world, and between (c) drama’s world and real world. This particularly helps us analyse fictively-elaborating hyperbole, arising from drama-world details invented by ironists. The article also invites non-pretence irony theories to try to account for the effects.

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