Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism

Recent investigations of the pragmatic functions of ironic criticism (e.g., saying “Nice shot” to condemn a fellow player for missing a free throw and losing a basketball game) have argued that ironic criticism is used to dilute condemnation. Dews and Winner (1995) and Dews, Kaplan, and Winner (1995) showed that, relative to literal criticism (e.g., Terrible shot”), ironic criticism expresses less condemnation. This article reports the results of four experiments to show that ironic criticism in many cases is used for just the opposite reason—to enhance rather than to dilute condemnation. These findings have significant implications for both pragmatic and processing theories of verbal irony.

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