“Should Be Fun—Not!”

According to Kreuz's principle of inferability, speakers tend to employ nonliteral language when it can reasonably be perceived by their conversational partner. In a computer-mediated communicative setting, such as e-mail, this suggests that the e-mail writer might use discourse tools that facilitate comprehension on the part of the recipient. The present study examined rates of usage for various forms of nonliteral language in 210 e-mail messages written by young adults. In 94.30% of all e-mails there was at least one nonliteral statement, and participants used an average of 2.90 nonliteral statements per e-mail. Results showed that forms of nonliteral language that are typically deemed to be riskier, such as sarcasm, were used much less frequently than other less risky forms, such as hyperbole, and were marked with discourse markers more often. This indicates that e-mail authors are sensitive to the risky nature of nonliteral language use in e-mail, yet are savvy to the tools available to them in this communicative medium.

[1]  R. Kreuz,et al.  Why Do People Use Figurative Language? , 1994 .

[2]  Alastair J. Gill,et al.  Rating e-mail personality at zero acquaintance , 2006 .

[3]  John Short,et al.  The social psychology of telecommunications , 1976 .

[4]  Darren Gergle,et al.  Emotion rating from short blog texts , 2008, CHI.

[5]  Penny M. Pexman,et al.  Context Incongruity and Irony Processing , 2003 .

[6]  B. Keysar,et al.  The Illusory Transparency of Intention: Linguistic Perspective Taking in Text , 1994, Cognitive Psychology.

[7]  R. Kreuz,et al.  Two Cues for Verbal Irony: Hyperbole and the Ironic Tone of Voice , 1995 .

[8]  J. Walther.  Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction , 1992 .

[9]  Alastair J. Gill,et al.  Language With Character: A Stratified Corpus Comparison of Individual Differences in E-Mail Communication , 2006 .

[10]  Jean E. Fox Tree,et al.  Is there an Ironic Tone of Voice? , 2005, Language and speech.

[11]  R. Gibbs.  Irony in Talk Among Friends , 2000 .

[12]  Jeffrey T. Hancock,et al.  Children's Comprehension of Critical and Complimentary Forms of Verbal Irony , 2000 .

[13]  Rebecca Clift.  Irony in conversation , 1999, Language in Society.

[14]  N. Epley,et al.  Egocentrism over e-mail: can we communicate as well as we think? , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[15]  Anne S. Henly,et al.  Speakers' overestimation of their effectiveness. , 2002, Psychological science.

[16]  E. Winner,et al.  Why not say it directly? The social functions of irony , 1995 .

[17]  Joseph B. Walther,et al.  The Impacts of Emoticons on Message Interpretation in Computer-Mediated Communication , 2001 .

[18]  B. Tabachnick,et al.  Using Multivariate Statistics , 1983 .

[19]  Diana Boxer,et al.  Reactions to irony in discourse: evidence for the least disruption principle , 2006 .

[20]  Roger J. Kreuz,et al.  Regional Variation in the Use of Sarcasm , 2008 .

[21]  H. Kotthoff,et al.  Responding to irony in different contexts: on cognition in conversation , 2003 .

[22]  Julia Jorgensen,et al.  The functions of sarcastic irony in speech , 1996 .

[23]  Herbert L. Colston,et al.  Salting a wound or sugaring a pill: The pragmatic functions of ironic criticism , 1997 .

[24]  Herbert L. Colston,et al.  Contrast of Kind Versus Contrast of Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole , 2000 .

[25]  Penny M. Pexman,et al.  Interpreting Figurative Statements: Speaker Occupation Can Change Metaphor to Irony , 1997 .

[26]  R. Gibbs.  The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding , 1994 .

[27]  Traci Y. Craig,et al.  Rhetorical Question Use and Resistance to Persuasion: An Attitude Strength Analysis , 2006 .

[28]  Jeffrey T. Hancock,et al.  Verbal Irony Use in Face-To-Face and Computer-Mediated Conversations , 2004 .

[29]  Penny M. Pexman,et al.  Does Irony Go Better With Friends? , 2004 .

[30]  Penelope Brown,et al.  Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage , 1989 .