Download Verbal Irony in the Czech Discourse and its Perception

Verbal Irony in the Czech Discourse and its Perception
Mgr. Dominika Rýparová
Abstract
This thesis sets the verbal irony into a broader context of human communication and supports
the tendency to understand the irony as a communication strategy – not only as a speech figure
or a tool to make our way of speaking more attractive. The aim of this work is to remind that
irony is an integral part of our everyday communication, and a prerequisite for its use and
understanding is built on the particular language experience. The experiment was examining
the function of the four forms of irony, which differed in the degree of engaged humour or,
conversely, expressed criticism. During the research one was able to get answers from a total
of 3,167 respondents. Their analysis revealed that the major motivation for use of the selected
types of irony is the humour, but the more humorous the statement is, the more the speaker
takes a risk of not being completely understood, because he/she plays with reality too much.
Further the results showed that the perception of irony-related emotions is influenced by our
age. Younger people are more sensitive to the humorous points of irony, while the older are
more tolerant of its critical part. The evaluation of irony is also affected by the communication
role of the respondent within a specific communication situation - evaluating the speaker’s
intention and its real effect varied depending on whether the respondent answered from the
position of a speaker, an addressee or a disinterested audience.
Key words: irony, sarcasm, pragmatics, adolescents, development, social cognition, social
communication