Russian Journal of LinguisticsRussian Journal of LinguisticsRussian Journal of Linguistics2687-00882686-8024Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba (RUDN University)9389ArticlesСтатьиArticlesResearch ArticleIrony as Inferred ContradictionИрония как скрытое противоречиеAlba-JuezLauraАльба-ХуесЛаурадоктор, профессор лингвистикиalba@flog.uned.esThe National Distance Education University (UNED)Национальный университет дистанционного образования, Мадрид, Испания150420144NO4 (2014)№4 (2014)14015309092016Copyright ©; 2014, Alba-Juez L.Copyright ©; 2014, Альба-Хуес Л.Copyright ©; 2014, Alba-Juez L.2014Alba-Juez L.Альба-Хуес Л.Alba-Juez L.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0https://journals.rudn.ru/linguistics/article/view/9389“If we acknowledge the existence of an Irony Principle, we should also acknowledge another ‘higher-order principle’ which has the opposite effect. While irony is an apparently friendly way of being offensive (mock politeness), the type of verbal behaviour known as ‘banter’ is an offensive way of being friendly (mock impoliteness).” Geoffrey Leech, Principles of Pragmatics (1983: 144) In this work I present some theoretical considerations about what I consider to be a permanent and ever-present feature of verbal irony, namely, inferred contradiction , which has to be distinguished from plain, direct (non-inferred) contradiction as well as from indirect negation , for a contradiction which is directly expressed cannot be interpreted as ironical (since it lacks a crucial component: inference), and an indirect negation may or may not be ironic (depending on the situation), and thus cannot be considered a permanent feature of the phenomenon. In spite of the fact that many scholars have proposed different theories in order to capture the essence of this intricate and complex phenomenon, not all of them have managed to find a feature or characteristic that applies to or is found in all possible occurrences of irony. I briefly discuss the tenets of some of the best-known of these theories, namely the Classical theories (Socrates, Cicero, Quintilian), the Echoic-Mention Theory (later Echoic Theory), the Echoic Reminder Theory, the Pretence Theory and the Relevant Inappropriateness Theory, trying to show that in all the types of irony emerging from these proposals (e.g. echoic irony, pretence irony, etc.) it can be observed that the irony is triggered by inferred contradiction . The one theory that according to my view and knowledge- seems to capture its whole essence to date is Attardo’s (2000) Relevant Inappropriateness Theory, to whose proposal I adhere, but I argue at the same time that inferred contradiction is another feature of irony (which goes hand in hand with relevant inappropriateness) that should be considered in any theoretical approach to irony. I also try to show how the feature of inferred contradiction is found in all the types of verbal irony identified by different authors (e.g. Alba-Juez’s 1995 negative, positive and neutral irony, Leech’s 1983, 2014 conversational irony, etc.), and thus conclude that this is a feature of irony that should be taken into consideration as a distinguishing and identifying characteristic of the phenomenon.verbal ironyinferred contradictionirony theorytheories and types of verbal irony1.Alba-Juez, Laura (1995). “Irony and the other off record strategies within Politeness Theory”. In Miscelanea: A Journal of English and American Studies, Vol. 16, pp. 13-23.2.Alba-Juez, Laura (2001 [1996]). The Functions and Strategies of Ironic Discourse: An Analysis. Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense.3.Alba Juez, L. (1998). “On the conventionalization of verbal irony in English: A corpus-based study”. Perspectivas Pragmáticas en Lingüística Aplicada. Zaragoza: Anubar Ediciones, pp. 11-17.4.Alba-Juez, Laura & Attardo, Salvatore (2014). “The evaluative palette of verbal irony”. In L. Alba-Juez & G. Thompson (eds.), Evaluation in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.5.Attardo, Salvatore (2000a) “Irony as relevant inappropriateness.” Journal of Pragmatics 32: 793-826.6.Attardo, Salvatore (2000b) “Irony markers and functions: Towards a goal-oriented theory of irony and its processing.” RASK 12: 3-20.7.Attardo, Salvatore; Eisterhold, Jodi; Hay, Jennifer & Poggi, Isabella (2003). Multimodal markers of irony and sarcasm. Humor 16-2 (2003), 243-260.8.Barbe, Katharina (1993). “‘Isn’t it ironic that..’: Explicit irony markers”. In Journal of Pragmatics, 20, 579-590. North Holland: Elsevier.9.Booth, Wayne C. (1974). A Rhetoric of irony. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.10.Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.11.Clark, Herbert H. & Gerrig, Richard J. (1984). “On the Pretense Theory of Irony”. In Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Vol. 113, 1984, Nº 1, 121-126.12.Cicero (See Quintilian, 1st century A.D.)13.Cuttler, Ann (1974). “On saying what you mean without meaning what you say”. In Papers from the Tenth regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. 117-127.14.Freud, Sigmund (1905). Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (1991 edition). London: Penguin Books.15.Giora, Rachel (1995). On irony and negation. Discourse Processes 19, 239-264.16.Grice, Herbert Paul (1975). “Logic and Conversation”. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, 41-58.17.Haverkate, Henk (1990). “A speech act analysis of irony”. In Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 77-109.18.Johnson, Samuel (1755). Dictionary of the English Language. A. Chalmers (ed.), 1994. London: Studio Editions.19.Kaufer, David (1981). “Understanding ironic communication”. Journal of Pragmatics, 5, 495-510. North Holland: Elsevier.20.Kaul de Marlangeon, Silvia (1999). “Uso estratégico de la ironía”. Anales del Instituto de Lingüística Vol. 18-21. Mendoza: Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. 141-150.21.Kreuz, Roger J. & Glucksberg, Sam (1989). “How to be sarcastic: The Echoic Reminder Theory of verbal irony”. In Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Vol. 118, Nº 4, 374-386.22.Leech, Geoffrey (1983). Principles of Politeness. Singapore: Longman.23.Leech, Geoffrey (2014) The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.24.Marino, M. (1997). “Irony”. In P. Lamarque (ed.). Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language. Vol. 4. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 404-407.25.Martin, Robert M. (1987). The meaning of Language. Cambridge, MA: M.I. T Press.26.Morgan, Jerry L. (1978). Two types of convention in indirect speech acts. In Peter Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 261-280.27.Quintilian, Marcus Fabius (1st c. A.D.). Institutes of Oratory. Book 9, Chapter 2. At: http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/9/chapter2.html Consulted on November 2, 2014.28.Roy, Alice M. (1978). Irony in conversation. Ph. D Dissertation, University of Michigan.29.Russell, Bertrand (1958). Russell’s Best. R. Egner (ed.). London: Unwin Hayman Ltd.30.Schmidt, Stephen R. (1994). “Effects of humour on sentence memory”. In Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Vol. 20, Nº 4, 953-967.31.Socrates (See Plato: Euthypro, Apology, Crito, Paedo, Phaedrus. Translation by H. North Fowler (1914).)32.Sperber, Dan (1984). “Verbal irony: Pretense of echoic mention?”. In Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Vol. 113, Nº1, 130-136.33.Sperber, Dan & Wilson, Deirdre (1981). “Irony and the use-mention distinction”. In P. Cole (ed.), Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press.34.Sperber, Dan & Wilson, Deirdre (1986). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.35.The Golden Girls: Scripts (1991). London: Boxtree Limited. Touchstone Pictures and Television.