Contrast of Kind Versus Contrast of Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole

Colston, Herbert L.; O’Brien, Jennifer E.

doi:10.1207/s15326950dp3002_05

Cited by 104 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…However, it is less clear what other views would predict about hyperbole because (as we noted in the introduction) hyperbole is significantly less discussed in the literature. There is some exploration of similarities between hyperbole and irony (Colston & O'Brien 2000), but as Colston and Gibbs (2002) caution, it is difficult to extrapolate from one figure to another. We are thus reluctant to speculate in advance of more detailed discussions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphor and Hyperbole: Testing the Continuity Hypothesis

Rubio-Fernández

Wearing

Carston

2014

Metaphor and Symbol

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In standard Relevance Theory, hyperbole and metaphor are categorized together as loose uses of language, on a continuum with approximations, category extensions and other cases of loosening/broadening of meaning. Specifically, it is claimed that there are no interesting differences (in either interpretation or processing) between hyperbolic and metaphorical uses (Sperber and Wilson 2008). In recent work, we have set out to provide a more fine-grained articulation of the similarities and differences between hyperbolic and metaphorical uses and their relation to literal uses (Carston & Wearing 2011, forthcoming). We have defended the view that hyperbolic use involves a shift of magnitude along a dimension which is intrinsic to the encoded meaning of the hyperbole vehicle, while metaphor involves a multi-dimensional qualitative shift away from the encoded meaning of the metaphor vehicle. In this paper, we present four experiments designed to test the predictions of this analysis, using a variety of tasks (paraphrase elicitation, self-paced reading and sentence verification). The results of the study support the view that hyperbolic and metaphorical interpretations, despite their commonalities as loose uses of language, are significantly different. IntroductionWhile metaphor is usually treated as a distinctive, even unique, use of language, hyperbole has generally been categorized, by those few theorists and experimentalists who have considered it, as belonging with irony and meiosis (understatement) (Fogelin, 1988; Clark, 1996 3 paying attention to. 3 In section 2, we briefly examine the claim that metaphor and hyperbole are not genuinely distinct from a descriptive point of view. In section 3, we report our experimental study, which challenges the claim that there are no psycholinguistic differences between the two.We conclude in section 4 by clarifying the resulting positions of metaphor and hyperbole. To anticipate: while a single pragmatic mechanism may account for the understanding of both of these non-literal uses of language, significant descriptive and psycholinguistic differences between them must be respected. Descriptive differences between hyperbolic and metaphorical usesAs just noted, the intuition that metaphor is a distinctive, even unique, use of language is widespread. In trying to characterize the special nature of metaphor, many theorists have talked of it as involving a mapping across distinct cognitive domains (e.g.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphor and Hyperbole: Testing the Continuity Hypothesis

Rubio-Fernández

Wearing

Carston

2014

Metaphor and Symbol

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“…Most studies of hyperbole refer to this distinction as a difference in magnitude (e.g., Claridge, 2010;Colston & O'Brien, 2000). Under this perspective, then, the propositional meaning is typically "larger" or "more extreme" than the intended meaning of the utterance.…”

Section: Defining Hyperbolementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A good way to visualize this perspective on hyperbole has been independently suggested by a variety of researchers (e.g., Burgers et al, 2011;Cano Mora, 2006;Colston & O'Brien, 2000;Ferré, 2014;Fogelin, 2011). These authors propose to show the gradability of hyperbole on a scale.…”

Section: Defining Hyperbolementioning

confidence: 99%

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HIP: A Method for Linguistic Hyperbole Identification in Discourse

Burgers

Brugman

Lavalette

et al. 2016

Metaphor and Symbol

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“…Kreuz and Roberts (1995) suggested that a stock frame for sarcastic expressions may be the use of extreme adverb -adjective collocations (e.g., "perfectly lovely," "absolutely incredible"). Colston and O'Brien (2000) found that participants provided with examples of "strong irony" (statements that included modifiers like "magnificent" and "absolutely brilliant") rated these statements as more humorous or condemning than "weak irony" (e.g., "agreeable," "good"), although their results were discussed in terms of pragmatic factors and did not address these lexical cues separately (see also Gibbs & Colston, 2001). In one of the few studies of sarcasm production, Hancock (2004) found that about 20% of the utterances identified as ironic contained "verbal amplifiers" (defined as "adjectives or adverbs used to exaggerate or to minimize a statement," p. 453).…”

Section: Kovaz Kreuz Riordanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing Sarcasm From Literal Language: Evidence From Books and Blogging

Kovaz

Kreuz

Riordan

2013

Discourse Processes

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Sarcasm production and comprehension have been traditionally described in terms of pragmatic factors. Lexical cues have received less attention, but they may be important potential indicators. A major obstacle to examining such features is determining sarcastic intent. One solution is to analyze statements explicitly marked as being sarcastic. This study examined Twitter postings marked with #sarcasm as well as dialog from Google Books containing the phrase "said sarcastically." We used word counting and part-of-speech tagging to compare specific lexical features of the explicitly-marked sarcastic statements to statements by the same author not marked as sarcastic. Our results broadly support the Lexical Cues Hypothesis-certain word-level cues, such as interjections and positive affect terms, are stereotypic of sarcasm. A model incorporating these features performed comparably to human raters in making sarcastic versus nonsarcastic judgments. This finding shows promise for future work toward automatically identifying sarcasm in text.

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Contrast of Kind Versus Contrast of Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole

Cited by 104 publications

References 74 publications

Metaphor and Hyperbole: Testing the Continuity Hypothesis

Metaphor and Hyperbole: Testing the Continuity Hypothesis

HIP: A Method for Linguistic Hyperbole Identification in Discourse

Distinguishing Sarcasm From Literal Language: Evidence From Books and Blogging

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