Diana Mazzarella: Understanding irony (mis)understanding

In this talk, I will focus on two claims made in the context of Relevance Theory on the nature of verbal irony and its cognitive underpinnings. The first claim is that irony is an echoic use of language. The second claim is that irony understanding relies on the exercise of epistemic vigilance. I will present new experimental data on adult processing and children’s comprehension of irony that corroborate them both.