Explaining Ironic Literary Dialogue: A Comparative Study of Echoic and Pretence Accounts of Verbal Irony Focusing on Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Abstract

This thesis tests and compares two post-Gricean accounts of how to explain verbal irony by using them to analyse data from literary texts, primarily Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. The first of these accounts explains verbal irony as a type of echoic language use where the speaker tacitly attributes a thought and tacitly expresses a dissociative attitude towards that thought. The second account explains irony as being a type of pretence, where the speaker pretends to be someone with a defective perspective or point of view in order to represent a similar point of view as unreasonable. The echoic theory and the multiple variants of the pretence theory have by some been seen to be empirically or theoretically indistinguishable. Hybrid accounts that make use of elements from both accounts have also been made, and the theories have thus become even less distinct. The pretence variant relevant to this thesis is arguably such a hybrid. This thesis tests and compares the two chosen theories to find what the similarities and differences between the two are by analysing and explaining data from The Sun Also Rises and a few other literary texts. By analysing data from literature, the theories can be tested in an interesting way while also offering explanations of intuitive interpretations and claims by literary critics. I suggest that the only meaningful distinction between the two theories appears to be their fundamental disagreement over whether irony is echoic language use or a type of pretence. In several aspects where the two theories are similar, I argue that the echoic theory is superior. I also claim that the pretence theory would be improved by adapting similar or identical explanations to those of the echoic theory. Treating irony as a kind of pretence also seems to complicate the pretence theory’s explanations, while not appearing to offer any meaningful benefit for the added complications. I also make observations about ironic questions, including questions that appear to be both sincere and ironic, as well as ironic answers to sincere questions. Furthermore, I claim that the ways in which irony can have victims are not unique to irony. Lastly, I comment on Hemingway’s use of verbal irony and the way in which it often leads to the attitudes communicated in irony being open to interpretation. Appendix 1 contains the examples in the data that are analysed in the thesis, as well as a few additional examples mentioned in the discussion. Appendix 2 contains tables and figures, including a figure that is an example in the data.