Journal of Experimental Psychology: General Copyright 1984 by the

1984, Vol. 113, No. I, 112-120 American Psychological Association, Inc.

Test of the Mention Theory of Irony

Julia Jorgensen and George A. Miller Dan Sperber
Princeton University Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and
Universite de Paris 10
Paris, France

The traditional theory of irony, which assumes that an ironist uses a figurative
meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the utterance, is shown to be inadequate;
an alternative theory is presented, which assumes that the ironist mentions the
literal meaning of the utterance and expresses an attitude toward it. Although the
implications for understanding irony are difficult to test, the two theories do make
testable predictions about the conditions under which irony is perceived: The mention
theory requires antecedent material for the ironist to mention, whereas the standard
theory does not. A reading comprehension test was conducted involving anecdotes
that satisfied the traditional criterion for irony but could include or omit antecedents
for echoic mention. Results favored the mention theory of irony.

Metaphor and irony, the two most impor- Since Aristotle, metaphor has been discussed
tant tropes, have been discussed by rhetoricians in terms of mental processes: the ability to
and literary scholars for more than 2 millennia. perceive similarities, the ability to construct
Both are common in everyday speech: It is or appreciate analogies, the ability to condense
equally unsurprising, for instance, to hear an verbal expressions. On the other hand, classical
objectionable person called "a rat" meta- accounts of irony assume a specialized mech-
phorically or "a nice guy" ironically. Yet met- anism of meaning inversion that does not seem
aphor has become a popular topic in psycho- to govern any other mental process. (An ironic
linguistics (Ortony, 1979), whereas irony has statement is supposed to communicate the op-
been neglected. Two considerations might help posite of what it says, whereby "the opposite"
to explain this imbalance: It has been easier is a deliberately vague term that can mean
to conceive experimental approaches to met- either the contrary or the contradictory.)
aphor, and the relevance of metaphor to Moreover, many well-described aspects of
broader psychological issues has been more ironythe stance of moral superiority of the
apparent. Our aim in this article is to illustrate ironist, the victims that ironies often have, the
one way in which irony is amenable to ex- ironic tone of voiceare in no way explained
perimental treatment and to test a recent the- by this mechanism of meaning inversion. As
ory of irony put forward by Sperber and Wil- a result, traditional accounts of irony from
son (1981), which, if correct, should increase Quintilian's (first century A.D./1921) to
the psychological pertinence of the study of Booth's (1974) consist of an assortment of
irony. (often subtle) observations with little internal
cohesion and no links to broader psychological
Theoretical Background issues.
For better or worse, the psycholinguistic Sperber and Wilson (1981) challenged the
study of tropes is heir to classical rhetoric. basic assumption of this traditional approach.
They denied that to speak ironically is to ex-
press a figurative meaning that is the opposite
Preparation of this article was supported in part by a
of a literal meaning; they denied that to com-
grant from the Spencer Foundation to Princeton University. prehend any irony consists in retrieving such
The work was planned while Dan Sperber was a visiting a figurative meaning. They argued instead that
member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the meaning expressed in an ironical utterance
New Jersey. is the literal one and no other. However, this
Authors' names are listed alphabetically.
Requests for reprints should be sent to George A. Miller, literal meaning is not used by speakers to con-
Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Prince- vey their own thoughts. Rather, it is mentioned
ton, New Jersey 08544, as an object of contempt, ridicule, or disap-
112
 MENTION THEORY OF IRONY 113

proval. Conversely, the task of the hearer is to plicit mention of a proposition). This ambi-
reconstruct both the literal meaning of the guity is manifest in the contrast between (4)
utterance and the attitude of the speaker to- and (5):
ward that meaning. Thus, Sperber and Wilson
proposed a mention theory of irony, which we I have spoken with Max. He will be here
shall present briefly before considering means at 5, which means, since he is always
of testing it. 1 hour late, that we should expect
him at 6. (4)
Use Versus Mention I have spoken with Max. He will be
The distinction between use and mention here at 5. He said he would be here at
is borrowed from standard logic. Among all 4, but I am taking into account the fact
the other things that can be talked about are that he is always an hour late. (5)
words, sentences, phonetic and graphic strings,
meanings, and propositions normally used to
talk about things other than themselves. The Echoic Mention
only way to talk about a nonlinguistic object
a cat, sayis to use some linguistic expression, One type of mention of a proposition is of
such as "the cat" or "that animal over there" special relevance here: echoic mention. Con-
plus a gesture, that can refer to the intended sider the following exchanges:
cat. On the other hand, there are two ways to
talk about a linguistic object, such as the word He: I've lost my job.
cat: One may follow the general pattern and She: You've lost your job. I'm sorry
use an expression that can refer to the word to hear that. (6)
cat (e.g., "the common name of Felis catus," He: Should I wear a tie?
or "the English word composed of the 3rd, She: Should you wear a tie? Who
1st, and 20th letters of the alphabet in that cares? (7)
order"); alternatively, one may mention the
word cat. When mentioned, cat refers not to He: I've seen a wolf!
the animal but to the word itself. For instance, She: You've seen a wolf? Hmm hmm.
cat is used in the examples below both when Are you sure it was a wolf? (8)
it refers to an animal and when it refers to a
word: In these examples, the propositions used by
him are mentioned by her. Her purpose is not
There is a cat in this room. (1) to inform him of what he has just said or that
he has just said it. Rather, she is echoing him
There is a cat on this page. (2) to show that she has heard and understood
Mentions of words, sentences, and phonetic and at the same time to express her attitude
or graphic strings are usually explicit and are toward the proposition she is echoing: an at-
set off from the context in which they occur titude of concern in (6), of unconcern in (7),
by semantic or syntactic constructions, pho- of disbelief in (8).
netic pauses, or quotation marks. Mentions of Besides these cases of immediate echo, a
meanings or propositions, on the other hand, great variety of mentions of propositions are
are often implicit. They Wend into the context, echoic in a looser sense. She could, for in-
and pragmatic analysis is required to identify stance, echo not what she has heard but what
them. For instance: she thinks was implied by what she has heard:
I have spoken with Max. He will be He: It's not my fault!
here at 5. (3) She: Then it's my fault! Is that what
you mean? (9)
The second sentence of (3) can be understood
either as a statement by the speaker (and Or she could echo thoughts she attributes to
therefore as a case of use) or as a report of her interlocutor without his having utterxed or
what Max said (and therefore as a case of im- intentionally implied them:
114 J. JORGENSEN, G. MILLER, AND D. SPERBER

She: You know better, huh? Not this taken, the speaker allows the hearer to infer
time, pal! (10) that she believes the opposite of the proposition
mentioned. Thus in (12) she implicates that
Or she could echo popular wisdom or received Joe is dishonest, in (13) that the weather is
opinions: bad, in (14) that she is not forgetful; these
She: It takes all kinds. But does the implicatures follow directly from her ironic
world really need people like attitude toward the proposition she mentions.
Cuthbert? (11) To assume that there is a figurative meaning
opposite to the literal meaning would be re-
Ironic Attitude dundant, because the information it would
convey is available anyhow as an implicature.
Such cases of echoic mention are extremely Note that this analysis differs from Grice's
common and varied in everyday speech. In (1975).. Gride assumed that the ironist "must
each case, the speaker's tone of voice (ap- be trying to get across some proposition other
proving, doubtful, admiring, scornful, con- than the one he purports to be putting for-
cerned, unconcerned) together with the im- ward" (p. 53). If the speaker is Using one prop-
mediate context may help to indicate her at- osition in order to get across its contradictory,
titude toward the proposition mentioned and then the hearer must replace the literal mean-
therefore her own beliefs in the matter. ing by its implicature. In this critical respect,
Clearly, the speaker can also express an therefore, Grice's analysis and the traditional
ironic attitude toward a proposition she is analysis of irony do not differ (see Wilson &
echoing. In the following, (12) is an example Sperber, 1981).
of immediate echo of speech, (13) is an ex- At this point it might be tempting to assume
ample of delayed echo of speech, and (14) is that there are two kinds of ironies: echoic
an example of echo of attributed thought: ironies such as (12) through (14), which are
He: Joe is an honest fellow. to be accounted for in terms of mention, and
She: Oh, sure, Joe is an honest fellow standard ironies, which are best accounted for
. . . who just can't help lying, in terms of figurative meaning (Cutler, 1974;
cheating, and stealing when- Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1981). This unparsimo-
ever the occasion arises. (12) nious assumption would be justified, however,
only if a unitary treatment of irony were im-
She: Trust the Weather Bureau! See possible, and it would create the extra task of
what lovejy weather it is: rain, explaining why two figures of speech based on
rain, rain. (13) fundamentally different mechanisms should
He: I assume you forgot to buy beer! intuitively appear to belong to one and the
She: I forget everything, don't I? Go same class.
look in the refrigerator before
making assumptions. (14) The Mention Theory
In such cases, in order to analyze the ironic A unitary treatment of irony is possible,
intention of a speaker (and how it is recon- based on the mention model. As we have seen,
structed by a hearer), there is no need to as- besides blatant cases of immediate echo, a va-
sume that the literal meaning has to be can- riety of utterances are intended and interpreted
celed and replaced by an opposite, figurative as more or less remote echoes1 of past utter-
meaning. The traditional analysis would be ances, thoughts, received opinions, or accepted
inconsistent and redundant with the obser- norms. Such intentions may succeed and such
vation that the speaker is echoing and ridi- interpretations may occur even when the
culing a remark or a thought literally under- mentioned material has not been presented in
stood. If the echoed proposition were not lit- the preceding utterances. It is sufficient that
erally understood, there would be no point in hearers be able to identify the mentioned ma-
ridiculing it. In mentioning a proposition and terial: They may recognize it or they may
making it clear by the context and tone of identify it by inference. Recognition occurs
voice that she considers it ridiculously mis- when received opinions are mentioned, as in
 MENTION THEORY OF IRONY 115

(11). Inference occurs when implications or fellow, "What a nice fellow!"; of a stupid idea,
thoughts are mentioned, as in (9), (10), and "What a clever idea!" than the converse:
(14). Thus it is conceivable that all ironies are "What a failure!" of a success; "What a nasty
instances of echoic mention, instances that dif- fellow!" of a nice fellow; "What a stupid idea!"
fer only with respect to the closeness or re- of a clever idea; and so on. In other words,
moteness of the echoed material. Compare the irony is most often used to criticize, not to
following with (13) above: praise.
Standard theory provides no explanation for
She: See what lovely weather it is: this asymmetry; mention theory leads one to
rain, rain, rain! (15) predict it. Expectations of success are intrinsic
In (13) the echoed material, a report from the to any action; culturally denned criteria of
Weather Bureau is explicitly alluded to, leaving excellence and rules of behavior are invoked
no doubt as to the echoic character of the in most value judgments. Thus it is always
utterance. In (15), the speaker might again be possible to mention these expectations ironi-
echoing such a forecast and be expecting her cally when they are frustrated, or to mention
hearer to recognize it without any explicit cue, these norms ironically when they are violated,
or she might merely be echoing an expectation and to trust that hearers will share them and
or hope that they had shared that the weather so recognize them for what they are. On the
would be good. Under ordinary circumstances, other hand, expectations of failure or criticism
people can be assumed to have such a hope; occur only on specific occasions, and it is only
it can therefore be mentioned and ridiculed on those occasions that they can be mentioned
when it turns out to be disappointed, without ironically and serve to bestow praise under the
creating any difficulty in interpretation for the guise of blame. Thus, "What a failure!" could
hearer. be an effective ironic reference to a success if
The standard theory and the mention theory the hearer knew or could surmise that failure
of irony are compared in Table 1, which sum- had been expected.
marizes the interpretive steps that a hearer 2. Most (but not all) ironies have victims.
must go through in order to comprehend an That fact is yet another puzzle for the standard
irony. theory; it is easily accounted for in terms of
the mention theory. In ridiculing a proposition,
the ironist ridicules whoever holds or held that
Implications of the Mention Theory proposition to be true. To the extent that a
specific individual or group is thus singled out,
Various aspects of irony that are merely the irony has a definite victim. This explains
listed in lesser or greater detail in traditional for instance why "What lovely weather!" used
accounts are explained and integrated in the ironically has a victim when it echoes a definite
mention theory. Three instances are discussed: weather forecast (namely the forecaster) but
1. It is much more common to say ironi- has no particular victim when it echoes ev-
cally of a failure, "What a success!"; of a nasty erybody's disappointed hope.

Table 1
Comparison of Standard and Mention Theories of Irony
Standard theory Mention theory

Observe that the tone of voice, the immediate context, and background knowledge rule out the possibility that the
speaker might be using the literal meaning of the utterance (or intending the utterance to be understood
metaphorically).
Take the speaker to be using a figurative meaning Take the speaker to be mentioning the literal meaning
opposite to the literal meaning of the utterance. of the utterance.
Identify the echoed material mentioned and the
speaker's attitude toward it.
116 J. JORGENSEN, G. MILLER, AND D. SPERBER

3. Within the standard framework, the ex- The prepositional content of the utterance
istence of an ironic tone of voice is puzzling. literally understood matches at least
Why not speak of a "metaphorical tone of in part that of some identifiable
voice," a "metonymical tone of voice," and utterances, thought, intention,
so on, for other tropes? When irony is seen as expectation, or norm which it can be
an instance of mention, the ironical tone falls taken to echo. (17)
quite naturally into place. It is merely one of
Although subjects' introspective judgments
a variety of tones of voice (doubtful, approving,
contemptuous, etc.) that speakers may use to as to what goes on in their minds when they
indicate their attitudes toward the propositions interpret an ironic utterance are vague and
mentioned. inconclusive, their intuitions as to whether
some given utterance is ironic or not can pro-
vide more reliable data. In particular, if it could
Tests of the Theory be shown that subjects perceive irony in all
As far as generality and explanatory power utterances that satisfy condition (16), whether
are concerned, mention theory has the ad- or not condition (17) is also satisfied, that result
vantage over standard theory. Both theories, would provide evidence in favor of the standard
however, suffer from the fuzziness of their em- theory. If, on the other hand, subjects failed
pirical foundations. They belong more to lit- to perceive irony in sentences that satisfy only
erary studies than to experimental psychology. condition (16) but did perceive it when both
Given an ironic utterance, they provide dif- condition (16) and (17) are satisfied, mention
ferent descriptions of the way in which it is theory would be vindicated.
interpreted. But the interpretation process is
not observable; our knowledge of it is intro- Method
spective and hazy. Moreover, introspection can A kind of reading comprehension test was used to com-
be influenced by knowledge of the theories. pare the two theories. Short descriptions of simple episodes
The standard theory has become part and par- were written in such a manner that condition (16) was
cel of Western culture, so most subjects' initial always satisfied, but the antecedent for an echoic mention
understanding of their own interpretive pro- could be present or absent. These stories, with and without
the echo, were presented to subjects who then answered
cesses are likely to be mere restatements of questions about what they had read.
this theory. On the other hand, it becomes
equally easy to have intuitions that are in ac-
Subjects
cord with mention theory once it has become
familiar. Either way, such data are inconclu- The subjects were 24 male and female undergraduates
sive. at Princeton University; they were tested in two groups.
Luckily, standard theory and mention the- Participation was part of a laboratory requirement for a
course in psychology. None of the students was familiar
ory differ not only in the way they describe with the mention theory prior to the experiment.
the interpretation of irony but also in their
predictions about which utterances will be in- Materials
terpreted as ironic. According to standard the-
ory, the following is a sufficient condition for The six anecdotes used in the experiment are reproduced
an utterance to be interpreted as ironic: in the Appendix. The main problem in devising experi-
mental materials along these lines is the difficulty of en-
The speaker's communicative suring that condition (17) is not satisfied inadvertently.
This difficulty is not insuperable, however, and working
intention could not be to assert the on its solution is itself instructive.
proposition literally expressed by the ' The following criteria guided construction of the stories:
utterance, since the speaker manifestly 1. Each anecdote portrayed a situation involving dia-
expects the hearer to realize that the logue between two characters in which the final utterance
speaker believes the opposite in the anecdote echoed an earlier utterance. A second,
nonechoic version of each anecdote was then constructed,
of that proposition. (16) which was identical with the echoic version except that
According to mention theory, (16) is not a the antecedent for the echo was deleted.
2. In both the echoic and nonechoic versions, the final
sufficient condition, but the conjunction of utterance expressed an opinion that the speaker and the
(16) and (17) is: hearer both knew to be false.
 MENTION THEORY OF IRONY 117

3, The final utterance did not (in the judgment of the to write their answers to the questions. Qu istions for "The
experimenters) echo any conventional norms or opinions, Party," for example, were:
or any views or intentions implicit in the anecdote.
4, Stylistic cues were eliminated so that comprehension Ql. Where was the party held?
of content alone would cause subjects to identify irony. Q2. Why did Joe say, "The Clarks |ave a beautiful
Because in natural conditions irony is nearly always ac- lawn"?
companied by stylistic or intonational cues, it was to be
expected that subjects' performance would be less than The answer to the first question indicates that the subject
perfect in both experimental conditions but, one could had read the anecdote. The second quest n was intended
hope, not to the point of jeopardizing the significance of to elicit judgments of irony or sarcasm.
the results. All subjects saw all six anecdotes, three choic and three
How these criteria were satisfied can best be indicated nonechoic. No subject saw both the echo and nonechoic
by example. The following is the nonechoic version of an versions of the same anecdote.
anecdote entitled "The Party":
Results
The party was at the darks', but Joe didn't know
where Mr. Clark lived. A subject was judged to have pe ceived irony
"It's on Lee Street," Irma told him. "You can't miss in the final utterance if he or ie answered
it." the second question by saying tha the speaker
But Joe did miss it. He never would have found it if
Ken hadn't seen him wandering down the street and intended to be ironic, sarcastic, or facetious
led him to the darks' apartment. They lived over a or if the speaker was said to be tryi ig to ridicule
store, and their apartment door was right on the sidewalk. the listener by an "I told you sc " taunt. All
Irma was already there when they arrived. "You're other answers were counted as fa ures to per-
late," she called to Joe. ceive irony.
"The darks have a beautiful lawn," he replied.
Responses judged as failures to perceive
This version satisfies condition (16), and so, by the tra-
irony included "I don't know"; i dications of
ditional account, the final utterance should be interpreted confusion about how to answer; laborate ex-
as ironic. Mention theory makes no prediction about the planations based on imagined m tives or cir-
interpretation of this final Utterance, but the simplest as- cumstances not written into th story; sug-
sumption is that without an antecedent utterance to echo, gestions that the speaker was jok ng, teasing,
the final utterance would seem odd or puzzling.
In order to satisfy both conditions (16) and (17), the fooling,, humoring, amusing, or pi ying a game;
echoic version of the same anecdote was used in which suggestions that the character said thie opposite
the antecedent is provided in Irma's first utterance. The of what he or she meant; suggest oris that the
echoic version begins: character was mimicking or bein g obnoxious
to someone; and statements of s mething in-
The party was at the darks', but Joe didn't know ferred or imagined that the character could
where Mr. Clark lived.
"It's on Lee Street," Irma told him. "It's the house have been echoing without any ndication of
with the big maple tree on the front lawn. You can't a particular attitude. This last cat gory, which
miss it." was infrequent, is illustrated by a subject who
But Joe did miss i t . . . . read the nonechoic version of The Party"
In this version, Joe's closing remark can be understood and answered the question aboi Joe's final
to echo the misinformation that Irma had given him earlier. remark, "Because it was physical! r impossible
Both theories predict that the echoic version will elicit to have a lawn."
judgments that Joe was being ironic. The results obtained by scorin the respon-
ses in this manner are summari ed in Table
2. Chi-square tests indicate a sta stically sig-
Procedure nificant interaction for four of 1 ic six anec-
dotes, thus supporting the menti n theory of
Subjects were tested in two groups. The anecdotes were irony. Results for the other two an cdotes were
presented in written form, which eliminated any cues that
might have been given by tone of voice. Each subject not significant.
received the anecdotes as a set of typewritten pages bound The answers of,two subjects ho read the
in prearranged order; a story was written on one page, echoic version of "The Typewrit r" anecdote
followed by its respective questions on the next page, then had to be discarded, because the> took Amy's
the next story followed by its questions, and so on. Subjects
were given 45 s to read a story before the experimenter saying "Mine is the blue one" t mean that
signaled that it was time to turn the page and answer the Amy's office was blue, not that h r typewriter
questions about it. Subjects were allowed unlimited time was blue.
118 J. JORGENSEN, G. MILLER, AND D. SPERBER

Table 2 in the nonechoic version. A mention theorist

Numbers of Subjects (N - 24) Judged to Have might speculate that tedious lectures are the
Perceived Irony norm for many Princeton students and that
Nonechoic Echoic the anecdote had inadvertently echoed that
common expectation. Of the five subjects who
No No perceived irony in the nonechoic version, one
Anecdote Irony irony Irony irony wrote, "Anne and the boys had expected the
lecture to be tedious," and another wrote, "He
The Lecture 5 7 (5) 7 5(5)
The Party** 3 9 (4) 10 2(1) saw'Anne, who was a boring person, and he
The Computer* 2 10 (10) 7 5(4) was telling her that obliquely," All that can
The Typewriter** 4 8 (6) 9 K0)a safely be said, however, is that, for reasons
The Hotel** 1 11(11) 7 5(2) unknown, this anecdote provided no evidence
The Animal 1 11 (0) 1 11(0) in favor of either the standard or the mention
Note. Parentheses indicate number of don't know responses. theory.
" Answers by two subjects were discarded. The results for "The Animal" suggest that
*p<.05. **p<.01. Princeton undergraduates do not expect par-
ents to use irony or sarcasm in speaking to
their children, at least in the kind of situation
Discussion depicted. They preferred to see the father's
utterance as a kind of play, a game of "let's
The results tend to support the claim that pretend," perhaps: Of the 22 responses we cat-
people do not perceive an implausible non- egorized as "no irony," 7 were judgments that
normative utterance as ironic unless it echoes Daddy was playing a game, and 14 more said
some antecedent use, which is the outcome that he was joking, fooling, or teasing. Again,
predicted by the mention theory of irony. our results with this anecdote proved indecisive
Shown in Table 2 are the numbers of sub- with respect to the two theories being com-
jects whose responses clearly indicated that pared.
they did not know why the final speaker said If we set aside the results from these two
what he or she did say. Although a proponent anecdotes and look only at the four showing
of the standard theory of irony might be able the interaction predicted by mention theory,
to interpret differently some of the responses we still find that irony was perceived in the
that we categorized as showing no appreciation nonechoic versions on 10 out of 48 answers.
of irony, these don't know responses are un- These results seem to support only the rela-
ambiguous. Note that nonechoic anecdotes tively weak claim that the probability of per-
received three times as many don't know re- ceiving irony is increased by echoic mention,
sponses as did the echoic anecdotes. In short, not that echoic mention is necessary. Before
under conditions in which standard theory weakening mention theory in that manner,
predicts an ironic interpretation, many people however, one should consider two possibilities:
find only inexplicable non sequiturs. Not only (a) These 10 subjects may have imagined some
did these subjects miss the point, but it also antecedent to the echo that the experimenters
did not occur to them that irony might have did not anticipate, or (b) they may have iden-
been intended. tified irony through elimination rather than
Two of the six anecdotes did not yield the through comprehension; that is^ they may have
predicted interaction. In the case of "The Lec- concluded that the last utterance in the anec-
ture," irony was perceived about half the time dote must be intended as ironic (for what else
for both versions. In the case of "The Animal," could it be?) without, however, getting the point
irony was seldom perceived for either version. of the irony.
These exceptions merit special comment. When the verbatim responses of those who
The results for "The Lecture" are puzzling perceived irony in nonechoic anecdotes are
on either theory of irony. That is to say, stan- studied, they prove no more than suggestive.
dard theory does not explain why half the sub- In the case of the "The Typewriter," three sub-
jects failed to perceive irony in either version. jects said that Mac's final remark alluded to
On the other hand, mention theory does not the fact that he had trouble picking out the
explain why half the subjects perceived irony typewriter, and the fourth wrote that Mac
 MENTION THEORY OF IRONY 119

"thought Amy knew about the two black type- ies. We have tried to suggest thai hey are also
writers," although that inference is not derived open to an experimental approa h.
from the anecdote; thus, mention theory could
account for all four responses. In the case of
"The Party," where three subjects perceived References
irony in the nonechoic version, the opinion Booth, W. c. (1974). A rhetoric of irony. Q ago: University
was expressed that Joe said "The Clarks have of Chicago Press.
a beautiful lawn" because the Clarks did not Cutler, A. (1974). On saying what yo mean without
have a lawn, which seems to satisfy the re- meaning what you say. In M. W. LaG y, R. A. Fox, &
quirements of the standard theory. Perhaps A. Bruck (Eds.), Papers from the Tenth egional Meeting
future studies should show a subject a single Chicago Linguistic Society (pp. 117 127). Chicago:
Department of Linguistics, University if Chicago,
anecdote and then systematically interrogate Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and convers ort. In P. Cole
the basis for the response given. & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and se antics: Volume
Those parts of the present results that are 3. Speech acts (pp. 41-58). New York: cademic Press.
inconclusive merely illustrate how such an ex- Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1981). L'ironi comme trope.
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tilian, with an English translation by H E. Butler (Vol.
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is maintained, then the study of irony can be Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1981). Iro and the use-
expected to throw light on two important as- mention distinction. In P. Cole (Ed, Radical prag-
matics, (pp. 295-318). New York: Ac ernic Press,
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Appendix
The following six anecdotes were used to test the "It's on Lee Street," Irma told m. ("It's the
mention theory of irony. The nonechoic versions house with the big maple tree on t front lawn.)
deleted the material in parentheses; the echoic ver- You can't miss it."
sions included it. Following each anecdote are the But Joe did miss it. He never wo d have found
two questions that were asked about it. it if Ken hadn't seen him wandering own the street
and led him to the Clarks' apartmi t. They lived
over a store, and their apartment dot r was right on
The Lecture the sidewalk.
The instructor asked the whole class to attend a Irma was already there when hey arrived.
special evening lecture by a visiting professor. "You're late," she called to Joe.
("How tedious!" Anne complained to Harry and "The Clarks have a beautiful law ," he replied,
Tom.) Ql. Where was the party held?
Harry and Tom attended together and were both Q2. Why did Joe say,1 "The Clarks h ve a beautiful
impressed by the high quality of the lecture, which lawn"?
was both educational and amusing. As they were
leaving the lecture hall, they bumped into Anne.
"Tedious, wasn't it?" Harry said. The Computer
Ql. Who attended the lecture with Harry?
Q2. Why did Harry say the lecture was tedious? The new computer was schedule to take over
many of the bookkeeping tasks that enry had per-
The Party formed manually.
"It's what the business needs," enry told his
The party was at the Clarks', but Joe didn't know boss. ("But I'm afraid that the one ou're buying
where Mr. Clark lived. is much too large.")
(App dix continued)
120 J. JORGENSEN, G. MILLER, AND D. SPERBER

When it arrived, Henry was put in charge and "Let's walk. It's not far. Just follow me," answered
given new administrative responsibilities. The new Carol.
operation was so successful that Henry soon had Sally felt she could have found the way herself.
to ask his boss to investigate ways to expand the (At one point she thought Carol had taken a wrong
computer. turn; she muttered, "We are getting lost!" and Carol
"I guess that the one I bought was 'much too heard her.) But Carol seemed so self-confident that
large," his boss commented. Sally followed her. They quickly reached the Campo
Ql. Who was put in charge of the new computer? San Stefano, and there stood the hotel.
Q2. Why did the boss say that the computer he "We are definitely lost!" Carol said.
had bought was much too large? Ql. Who led the way back to the hotel?
Q2. Why did Carol say, "We are definitely lost"?
The Typewriter
The Animal
Amy asked Mac to move her typewriter to her
new office on the third floor. ("Mine is the blue Little Jackie called, "Daddy, Daddy, come here!
one," she told him.) There's an animal in the barn."
Mac found two typewriters in Amy's old office, "What kind of animal, Jackie?"
both of them black. It took him and the inventory "I can't see it, but I don't think its a dog. (Maybe
clerk nearly an hour to identify Amy's. it's a bear. Yes, it must be a bear.) Hurry up, Daddy!"
When Mac delivered Amy's black typewriter, she Jackie and Daddy entered the barn. It was dark.
said, "Yes, that's mine. Did you have any trouble?" Something was moving behind the cart. Suddenly
"Of course not," he replied. "Yours was the blue they saw Bugs, Jackie's all white bunny, hopping
one." toward them.
Ql. What did Amy ask Mac to do? "Oh," Daddy said, "It's a polar bear!"
Q2. Why did Mac say, "Yours was the blue one"? Ql. Where did Jackie find the animal?
Q2. Why did Daddy say, "It's a polar bear"?
The Hotel
"Shall we walk back to the hotel or take a taxi?" Received March 25, 1983
Sally asked. Revision received June 27, 1983