This paper examines Utsumi's (2000) implicit display theory, which is proposed to be a better theory of irony which could replace Wilson and Sperber's (1992) dominant theory of irony, the echoic theory. It will be proposed that the main component of U...
This paper examines Utsumi's (2000) implicit display theory, which is proposed to be a better theory of irony which could replace Wilson and Sperber's (1992) dominant theory of irony, the echoic theory. It will be proposed that the main component of Utsumi's theory, the so-called 'ironic environment, which is based on the concept of the speaker's expectation, is too narrowly defined so that not all types of verbal irony are accounted for by his theory. It will be further proposed that a more general mechanism than the one argued by the echoic theory or by the implicit display theory, which is based on the concept of contradiction, is involved in verbal irony.