Verbal Irony - Definition and Examples

Verbal Irony s Verbal incongruity is aâ trope (or saying) in which the proposed significance of an announcement varies from the implying that the words seem to communicate. Verbal incongruity can happen at the degree of the individual word or sentence (Nice hair, Bozo), or it might swarm a whole book, as in Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal. Jan Swearingen advises us that Aristotle likened verbal ironyâ with modest representation of the truth and verbal dissemblingthat is with saying or communicating a hidden or monitored adaptation of what one methods (Rhetoric and Irony, 1991). The articulation verbal incongruity was first utilized in English analysis in 1833 by Bishop Connop Thirlwall in an article on the Greek writer Sophocles. Models In [the 1994 movie] Reality Bites, Winona Ryder, going after a paper position, is confused when requested to characterize incongruity. It’s a decent inquiry. Ryder answers, Well, I can’t truly characterize incongruity . . . yet, I know it when I see it. Really?Irony requires a contradicting importance between what’s said and what’s planned. Sounds straightforward, yet it’s not. A mystery, something that appears to be opposing yet might be valid, isn't an incongruity. The Times stylebook, which, trust me, can be brutal, offers helpful advice:The free utilization of incongruity and unexpectedly, to mean an indiscernible unforeseen development, is trite. Only one out of every odd happenstance, interest, peculiarity, and mystery is an incongruity, even freely. What's more, where incongruity does exist, refined composing depends on the peruser to perceive it.(Bob Harris, Isn’t It Ironic? Most likely Not. The New York Times, June 30, 2008) Verbal Irony as Criticism What isolates amusing remarks from simply basic remarks is that the expected analysis is frequently not clear and not intended to be evident to all members (some portion of the face-sparing variable). Let us think about the accompanying models which all offer the equivalent situational setting: the recipient has by and by left the entryway open. To get the listener to close the entryway, a speaker may make any of the accompanying comments: (1) Shut the goddamn door!(2) Shut the door!(3) Please shut the door!(4) Would you please close the door?(5) You generally leave the entryway open.(6) The entryway is by all accounts open.(7) I am so happy you made sure to close the door.(8) I think individuals who shut entryways when its cold outside are truly considerate.(9) I love sitting in a draft. Models (1) through (4) are immediate solicitations fluctuating by the measure of obligingness utilized. Models (5) through (9) are circuitous demands, and, aside from (5), which works as an objection, are altogether unexpected. Despite the fact that the solicitation for activity in (5) is roundabout, the analysis is self-evident, though in models (6) through (9) the analysis is covered up to various degrees. We see here that incongruity is more than the negligible resistance of a surface and a hidden perusing. The speaker of (8) truth be told most likely accepts that individuals who shut entryways when its cold outside are extremely kind. In this way, there is no recognizable restriction of a surface and a basic perusing. All things considered, models like (8) ought to likewise be secured by any meaning of irony.(Katharina Barbe, Irony in Context. John Benjamins, 1995) Swifts Verbal Irony The least difficult type of high alleviation verbal incongruity is the antiphrastic acclaim for fault, for instance, the Congratulations! we offer to the shrewd Alec who has allowed the side to side. . . . [Jonathan] Swifts Directions to Servants, his parody of the issues and imprudences of workers, appears as encouraging them to do what they too every now and again as of now do and replicating their faltering reasons as substantial reasons: In Winter Time light the Dining-Room Fire yet two Minutes before Dinner is presented, that your Master may see, how sparing you are of his Coals.(Douglas Colin Muecke, Irony and the Ironic. Taylor Francis, 1982) Socratic Irony The ordinary incongruity that, today, we distinguish in straightforward instances of verbal incongruity has its root in [the] Socratic method of eironeia. We utilize a word however anticipate that others should perceive that there is something else entirely to what we are stating than the employments of ordinary language. (Claire Colebrook, Irony. Routledge, 2004)I worth the benefit of sitting next to you exceptionally, for I have most likely that you will fill me with an adequate draft of the best insight. (Socrates tending to Agathon in Platos Symposium, c. 385-380 BC) Verbal incongruity frames the reason for what we mean when we state incongruity. In old Greek satire, there was a character called an eiron who appeared to be docile, uninformed, frail, and he played off a pretentious, self-important, dumbfounded figure called the alazon. Northrop Frye depicts the alazon as the character who doesnt realize that he doesnt know, and that is just about great. What occurs, as should be o bvious, is that the eiron invests the vast majority of his energy verbally scorning, mortifying, undermining, and by and large outwitting the alazon, who doesnt get it. In any case, we do; incongruity works in light of the fact that the crowd comprehends something that escapes at least one of the characters.â (Thomas C. Cultivate, How to Read Literature Like a Professor. HarperCollins, 2003) Audens Unknown CitizenOur specialists into Public Opinion are contentThat he held the best possible sentiments for the hour of year;When there was harmony, he was for harmony; when there was war, he went.He was hitched and added five kids to the population,Which our Eugenist says was the correct number for a parent of his generation.And our instructors report that he never meddled with their education.Was he free? Is it safe to say that he was upbeat? The inquiry is absurd:Had anything been off-base, we ought to absolutely have heard.(W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen. Some other Time, 1940)The Lighter Side of Verbal IronyCommander William T. Riker: Charming woman!Lt. Administrator Data: [voice-over] The tone of Commander Rikers voice makes me speculate that he isn't not kidding about discovering Ambassador TPel beguiling. My experience proposes that actually, he may mean the specific inverse of what he says. Incongruity is a type of articulation I have not yet had the option to maste r.​​(Datas Day, Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1991) Otherwise called: logical incongruity, etymological incongruity