Sarcasm in Japanese

Abstract

Various kinds of motivation, such as psychological and physiological, affect and determine the forms of an utterance. Often observed consistent forms of sarcastic expression are likewise configured by sarcastic motivations. These forms, though still reflecting their original sarcastic motivation, progressively become emancipated from that motivation and become increasingly rigid and arbitrary as they undergo repetition. The relationships between motivation, this process of "grammaticalization", and arbitrary linguistic signs are observable in various forms of Japanese sarcastic expression. These forms are grouped by each specific major characteristic: 1) exaggeration 2) alienation 3) informal speech 4) stylized intonation 5) glottal stop

Acoustic markers of sarcasm in Cantonese and English

“…The finding that sarcasm is produced with less amplitude variation ͑range͒ in Cantonese, and frequently with a slower speech rate, coincides with data on English and other languages such as Japanese, Italian, and French ͑e.g., Adachi, 1996;Anolli et al, 2002;Bryant and Fox Tree, 2005;Laval and Bert-Erboul, 2005;Rockwell, 2000a͒. It has been suggested that a reduced speech rate has the effect of drawing listener focus to a particular excerpt of discourse for a number of communicative purposes ͑Haiman, 1998; Kreuz and Roberts, 1995͒.…”

Multimodal markers of irony and sarcasm

“…Conversely, Rockwell (2000) found that a higher pitch was a marker of irony. Adachi (1996) reports that an exaggerated pitch marks irony; this is similar to Schaffer's (1981) were used as markers of irony. The use of a marked succession of prominent syllables is analyzed as "beat clash" by Uhmann (1996), and is argued to provide a cue to irony.…”

Prosody and humor

“…There seem to be definite differences across languages: see Adachi (1996) for Japanese, Anolli et al (2002) for Italian, Laval and Bert-Erboul (2005) Bertrand and Priego-Valverde (this issue) for French, and Cheang and Pell (this issue), for Cantonese Chinese. There are also differences across age groups: Capelli et al (1990), Milosky and Ford (1997), and Laval and Bert-Eboul (2005) note that younger children rely more on prosodic cues.…”

“…Similarly, Haiman discusses "inverse pitch obtrusion" (i.e., the utterance of the stressed syllable "at a lower pitch than the surrounding material" 1998: 31) in English and German. Muecke (1978: 370-371), Schaffer's (1981), Adachi (1996), and Haiman (1998) report that an exaggerated pitch or extremes of pitch marks irony. Similarly, Attardo et al (2003) claim that "exaggerated pitch marks sarcasm".…”