Viewpoint in Language

Transcription

1 Viewpoint in Language What makes us tak about viewpoint and perspective in inguistic anayses and in iterary texts, as we as in andscape art? s this shared vocabuary marking rea connections between the disparate phenomena? This voume argues that human cognition is not ony rooted in the human body, but aso inherenty ''viewpointed" as a resut; consequenty, so are anguage and communication. Dancygier and Sweetser bring together researchers who do not typicay meet on common ground: anaysts of narrative and iterary stye, inguists examining the uses of grammatica forms in signed and spoken anguages, and anaysts of gesture accompanying speech. Using modes deveoped within cognitive inguistics, the book uncovers swprising functiona simiarities across various communicative forms, arguing for specific cognitive unde!pinnings of such correations. What emerges is a new understanding of the roe and structure of viewpoint and a groundbreaking methodoogy for investigating communicative choices across various modaities and discourse contexts. BARBARA DANCYGBR is Professor in the Department of Engish at the University of British Coumbia, Vancouver. EVE SWEETSER is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Caifornia, Berkeey.

2 Viewpoint in Language A Mutimoda Perspective Edited by Barbara Dancygier and Eve Sweetser CAMBRDGE UNVERSTY PRESS

3 vi Contents 7 'Wo ways of conceptuaizing space: motivating the use of static and rotated vantage point space in ASL discourse TERRY JANZEN 156 Contributors Part V Constructions and discourse 8 The constructiona underpinnings of viewpoint bends: the Past + now in anguage and iterature 177 KK NKFORDOU 9 ''Wait ti you got started": how to submerge another:s discourse in your own LEVEN V ANDELANOTTE Concusion: mutipe viewpoints, mutipe spaces BARBARA DANCYOER Notes ndex BARBARA DANCYGER, Department of Engish, University ofbritish Coumbia LLAN FERRAR, Department of Linguistics, Federa University of Rio de Janeiro MCHAEL SRAEL, Department of Engish, University of Maryand TERRY JANZEN, Department of Linguistics, University of Manitoba KK NKFORDOU, Department of Engish Language and Literature, University of Athens SHWETA NARAYAN, Department of Linguistics, University of Caifornia, Berkeey FEY PARRLL, Department of Cognitive Science, Case Western Reserve University BARBARA SHAFFER, Department of Linguistics, University of New Mexico EVE SWEETSER, Department of Linguistics, University of Caifornia, Berkeey VERA TOBN, Engish Department, University of Caifornia, Santa Barbara LBVBN VAN DBLANOTTE, University of Namur (FUNDP) and University of Leuven vii

4 1 rony as a viewpoint phenomenon Vera Tobin and Michae srae 1.1 A curious exampe n Jesus s Magic, a concert fim of her off-broadway stand-up comedy routine, Sarah Siverman (2005) tes a joke: (1) "Everybody bames the Jews for kiing Christ, and then the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. 'm one of the few peope that beieve it was the backs." The audience seems to have no troube identifying this utterance as a kind of ironic joke, in which the comedian is presenting an absurd or offensive position in order to mock it, rather than simpy asserting it. n order to appreciate the joke, her audience must understand it as performing more than one speech act at once. At the most superficia eve, there is the act performed by Siverman's cheerfuy narrow-minded, unfappabe onstage persona, who is presenting her nove theory about the death of Christ. This ostensibe act audes to at east two other (sets of) speech acts: first, the centuries-od anti-semitic trope that "Jews kied Jesus," and second, Lenny Bruce's famous jokes skewering that caim (cataogued in Bruce 1963: 155). For exampe: (2) ''Yes, we did it. did it. My famiy. found a note in my basement: LWe kied him- signed, Morty."' Where the joke in (2) is a fairy straightforward exampe of verba irony, however, (1) seems to invove something more compicated and perhaps even probematic. This joke is not quite ike its predecessor. Something about it eads commentators to wonder if aughing makes the audience compicit in ''the cheap thri of pubic racism" (Anderson 2005), even though it is aso cear that Siverman does not reay beieve that ''the backs" kied Christ. Whie the structure and context of the joke invite the audience to join the comedian in the contempation of something from an ironic distance, the actua object of Siverman's ironizing is uncear. The victims of Bruce's irony are rea anti-semites, but there is no such rea-ife bigot who beieves that "the backs" kied Jesus. The absence of any obvious viewpoint one coud share 25

5 26 ntersubjectivity and subjectification with the speaker, or any obvious way of figuring out where her viewpoint might reay be, generates interpretive tension: Part of Sive's edgy apea rests on the difficuty of decoding her ironic intentions. s the Joke on ractsts, on the audience, on poitica comedy?.. 1bis off-kiter experience seems to us to be exacty the pomt of the JOke. t is a concise exampe of what Wayne Booth (1974) caed "unstabe irony": an irony that offers no fina interpretation that is not sbject to the prospect of further ironic undermining. We woud ike to expicate the processes of meaning construction that make this joke both ironic unsetting. Whie pretense is invoved in this performance (cf Cark and mg 1?84; Krenz and Gucksberg 1989; Cark 1996), and so is a sort of echmc mention (cf Sperber and Wison 1981) of the origina anti-semitic remark, neither of these factors is sef-evidenty the source of the unstabe ironic effect itsef..z sn't it ironic? rony is a puzzing thing. t has been a source of wonder for schars in y traditions from German Romantics to psychoinguists and Aams Momsette (the popar singer who famousy asked, "sn't it ironic?"). But since the beginning of the Modem era, the variety of phenomena ca "irony" by rhetoricians, iterary schoars, and the pubic in genera has proiferated (Knox 1961), so it is wo!1f considering whether a these phenomena reay have anything of substance in common at a. Within the cognitive sciences, it is common (Sperber and Wison 1981, 1998; Cark and Gerrig 1984; Krenz and Gucksberg 1989) to restrict studies of irony to "verba irony," of which sarcasm is the paradigm case. These accounts.tend to focus on the probem of how these kinds of ironic utterances are recogruzed; the basic goa is to identify the necessary features for an ironic utterance and the cognitive mechanisms that enabe bearers to identify and terpt sch utterances. Literary studies tend to come at irony from oppostte. dtio?. Rather than considering readers' "successfu" interpretations of any gtve tro_uc statement, iterary accounts often seek to tease out more and.mo 1r0mes surrounding a text, and to point out how these ironies make tt difficut or impossibe to pin down stabe meanings (Empson 1947; Cpebrook 20). We suggest that these concerns are in fact compementary, and that iterary and inguistic theories of irony have much to gain from one anthr. e are two major issues that we fee have been somewhat negected m ingmsttc theories of irony. First, "irony" is the name of not one thing, but a whoe range f phenomena. Our account buids on theories that treat irony as a form o echotc mention (Sperber and Wison 1981, 1998) or pretense (Cark and mg 1984; Kreuz and Gucksberg 1989), but appies to a broader range of iterary and cutura phenomena, incuding.cassica cases ike Swift's "Modest Proposa"; rony as a viewpoint phenomenon 27 cosmic and dramatic ironies; mutiayered ironies of the sort found in Borges; irony as a kind of sensibiity, as in Romantic irony and camp; and the existence of entire ironic genres, such as the pseudo-schoary artices produced by fans of Arthur Conan Doye, which operate under the conceit that Sherock Homes was a genuine historica figure. t is possibe that these different senses of irony are ony reated by a chain of historica associations, and do not form a natura type. Sti, amost as ong as there have been forma discussions of irony, it has been treated as a phenomenon with many guises. Even Quintiian, whose definition of irony as a trope in which one says the opposite of what one means is often presented as the canonica, overy simpistic "cassica view" of the form, in fact described irony as something that coud be expressed over the course of extended, discursive "figures of thought," as we as through simpe anaphrasis (Buter 1921). Rather than presenting an account of verba irony aone, then, theorists shoud consider whether verba irony and other pnomena sometimes caed "ironic" do, in fact, have anything significant in common. The production and interpretation of sarcastic utterances may we rey on simiar cognitive mechanisms to those that underie the performance and appreciation of dramatic, situationa, and Socratic irony. ntuitivey, what seems to unite the various sorts of irony is the existence of some kind of compex viewpoint on a singe situation, the quaity that Fower (1926) described as the "doube audience" that distinguishes 110ny from mere incongruity. Our account suggests that this intuitive connection refects genuine, shared, underying conceptua structure. The second issue is an apparent paradox. On the one hand, irony is difficut. The abiity to understand it comes reativey ate in cognitive deveopment, and even aduts frequenty misinterpret it, so much so that the potentia for misunderstanding appears to be a defining feature of the figure. But irony is aso ubiquitous. t is a commonpace of cutura criticism that certain strata of Western cuture can no onger be sincere, ony "post-ironic." Literature, of course, has ong depended on irony for tragic or comedic effect, but irony aso fis the emais we send (with newy invented typographic effects to signa one's ack of sincerity), the music we isten to, even the cothes we wear and the food we eat- think of urbane aduts who wear My Litte Pony shirts or serve Moon Pies at their weddings. We are incapabe, it seems, of resisting the ironic urge. n ight of these facts, a theory of irony ideay ought to expain how verba irony reates to other kinds of irony, as we as why irony is both sometimes very hard to understand and sometimes very hard to contro, aowing for apparenty endess ayering in certain contexts. Drawing on work in Menta Spaces Theory (Fauconnier 1985, 1997) and Cognitive Grammar (Langack.er 1999), we argue that irony is fundamentay a viewpoint effect in which a conceptuaization is simutaneousy accessed

6 28 ntersubjectivity and subjectification from mutipe perspectives. Acts of ironic understanding in genera, incuding verba, dramatic, and situationa ironies, invove a type of dynamic reconstrua in which attention "zooms out" from the focused content of a menta space to a higher viewpoint from which the origina Viewpoint Space is reassessed. n this interpretive process, a meaning is accessed from one viewpoint (the ironized) and then, simutaneousy or a itte ater, re-accessed from a higher viewpoint (the ironic). 1.3 Various views of verba irony Figurative anguage in genera poses a fundamenta probem for a theory of utterance interpretation - how is it that a speaker can say one thing, mean something ese, and yet hope to be understood? The unifying quaity of so-caed ''verba ironies" (as opposed, for instance, to dramatic ironies) is that typicay they can be "decoded" by understanding that the speaker's actua position and the speaker's sarcasticay adopted position differ in crucia ways. Sarcasm is the paradigm case of concise verba irony. Swift's Modest Proposa is the cassic extended exampe. Swift's narrator proposes that rish babies shoud be bred and saughtered as meat for human consumption. The successfu interpreter understands that the impied Swift himsef proposes no such thing; instead he is presenting a savage and satirica criticism of the cruety of the Engish andord cass. We consider traditiona distinctions between different rhetorica figures theoreticay justified so ong as they invove distinct cognitive strategies. n this ight, what actuay counts as an instance of verba irony depends in part on how one understands the phenomenon to work. A cassica view, going back at east to Cicero and Quintiian, is that an ironic utterance is one that means the opposite of what it says: as Johnson put it in his dictionary, irony is "a mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words" (1755: 1134). Neither Johnson nor Quintiian is fuy expicit as to just what sorts of meanings shoud count as contrary here, but the most common assumption seems to be that an ironic meaning shoud be the poar contrary of the ex?ressed meaning -for exampe, saying He's a fine friend to mean "He's a ousy friend," or Rotten meat! How deightfu! to mean "Rotten meat! How disgustmg!" The probem with this account is that there are many utterances that intuitivey count as ironic, but in which the speaker does not mean anything ike the opposite of what he says. Thus Gibbs ( 1986) cites the exampe of a disgrunted driver who excaims, '' ove peope who signa," after another driver turns into his ane without signaing. Ceary, the speaker here does not mean that he hates peope who signa, nor that he oves peope who do not signa. The proposition that the speaker has expressed is in fact just what the speaker beieves - the <! J ' rony as a viewpoint phenomenon 29 irony here is not in what the speaker says, but rather in the fact that he shoud choose this occasion to say it Approaches based on echoic mention, such as Sperber and WJ.son (1981), assimiate verba irony to the broader phenomenon of the use/mention distinction. The basic idea is that a speaker, in producing an ironic utterance, mentions an expressed proposition rather than using it. This theory is often misunderstood as impying that irony aways invoves some sort of itera echo or quotation of a previous utterance. However, the caim is ony that the speaker presents an expressed.proposition as the kind of thing one might say. The thought being echoed may not have been expressed in an utterance; it may not be attributabe to any specific person, but merey to a type of person, or peope in genera; it may be merey a cutura aspiration or norm (Wison and Sperber 1992: 60). Echoed thoughts may be a refection of actua utterances, or of hopes, desires, attributed thoughts, or cutura norms. One advantage of this approach 1s that it offers a neat expanation of why verba irony is easier when it takes the form of a positive comment on a manifesty negative sib.jation (e.g. Briiant! as a comment on a boneheaded action, or Lovey weather! as a comment on a sudden downpour) than in the opposite case, when it takes the form of a negative comment on a positive situation (What a jerk! of someone who has been very hepfu, What an idiot! of a Nobe Prize winner, or What fou weather! said on a sunny day). According to the echoic mention account, the fonner exampes work in amost any context, because they echo positive cutura norms; the atter ony work where there is some accessibe prior utterance or expectation that they can echo: (3) Peter: The weather is going to nun fou. have a nasty feeing about that picnic. [Peter and Mary go to the picnic panned with their friends. The sun. shines.] Mary: Pretty fou weather, a right! Whie the theory has a number of virtues, and does seem to describe an important variety of ironic utterances, it remains open to criticism. t is not cear that echoic mention is aways a necessary condition for irony. t is difficut to see how the irony in a satire ike A Modest Proposa, for exampe, is predicated sheery on echoic mention: there is no cutura norm, prior utterance, or expectation for eating rish babies being echoed here. Nor 1s echoic mention by itsef sufficient to expain irony. Giora ( 1995: 248) points out that utterances ike ( 4b) are both echoic and disparaging, but not ironic, whie utterances ike (5b) are indeed ironic. (4a) (4b) Dina: missed the ast news broadcast. What did the Prime Minister say about the Paestinians? Mira (with ridicuing aversion): That we shoud deport them.

7 30 ntersubjectivity and subjecti.fication (Sa) (5b) Dina: missed the ast news broadcast. What did the Prime Minister say about the Paestinians? Mira: That we shoud host them in 5-star hotes in Lebanon. Aternate approaches based on pretense (Cark and Gerrig 1984; Cark 1996; aso Kreuz and Gucksberg 1989; Kumon-Nakamura et a. 1995) can hande both of these cases. These accounts propose that verba irony occurs when the speaker pretends to some attitude that she does not reay fee and expects her audience to recognize that it is a pretense. Swift's ost Proposa us can be expained as foows: the author is pretending an atttude, that of smcerey proposing that rish chidren be saughtered and sod as meat.for hu.man consumption. The pretense theory can aso expain the ack.of rrony m (4), by pointing out that Mira is in no way pretending to hod a vte or P.erform. a roe that is not her own. Mira reay does beieve that the Prime Minister satd that the Paestinians shoud be deported... However, just as there are many kinds of mention that are not rroruc, there are many forms of non-ironic pretense. Further, as pointed out by Sperber (1984), there is something unsatisfying, at the very east, about the pretese accout when it comes to ironic utterances that are manifesty sef-contradictory, as m (6), which is a perfecty we-formed piece of sarcasm, but not a very coherent act of pretense. (6) Oh, yes, how right you are; this disgusting state of affairs is just deightfu. Since the 1980s, a number of hybrid accounts have been propose. Gio (15) suggests a modification of the Gricean pragmatic anaysis of rrony, m which she argues that irony is a kind of indirect neg.ation produced by an aparent vioation of the cooperative requirements for discourse coherence, spectficay produced by a cash between the most saient meaning of an uttece dthe degree of informativeness that is approri for that. utterance, gtven tts discourse context. An ironic utterance thus highbghts the difference tween an actua state of affairs and some impicated message about a ore desuabe. sta of affairs. Attardo (2000) aso takes a neo-gricean view of uony, expatrung 1t as a case of reevant inappropriateness: if an utterance is both inappropriate and reevant to the contex it wi count as ironic. However, some exampes that are handed fairy straightforwardy other approaches tum out to be probematic for these theories. The condittn of reevant inappropriateness covers many cases that do not see to quaify. a! irony such as poite understatements. Meanwhie, so-caed 'pure} ch01c cases' ike the ironic "Pretty fou weather, a right!" in (3), do not conjure up a mo desirabe state of affairs, as predicted by the indirect negation account, and indeed Giora (2003) argues that these cases represent a fundamenta.y different phenomenon than the kinds of sarcasm expained by her theory. This ' rony as a viewpoint phenomenon 31 is a reasonabe ine to take on the issue, but since our project in this chapter is to account for the features that verba uony does share with other kinds of irony, it means that these theories wi not be sufficient for our purposes. 1.4 rony as a viewpoint phenomenon The most common way of thinking about irony is as an operation on a focused proposition. We suggest that irony is instead an operation on the way a focused proposition is accessed and viewed: it is a way of construing an expressed proposition or an observed scene. That is, ironic utterances, ike ironic situations, are r;istinguished by the sort of interpretive process they evoke. n particuar, we caun that the interpretation of irony invoves three key eements: 1. a ayered configuration of menta spaces; 2. a shift in attention from an inner to an outer ayer- a "zooming-out"; 3. a dynamic bended construa of an event from two distinct viewpoints. We see these eements as essentia not ony to the appreciation of verba irony, but aso to the experience of situationa ironies, ironic sensibiities, and structura ironies that are buit up over the course of an extended narrative. n speaking here of irony as an interpretive process, we seek to highight the dynamic and unsetting nature of the ironic experience, but we do not wish thereby to suggest that there is ony one way this experience can be achieved. Canonicay, perhaps, the eements of an ironic interpretation are buit onine - the interpreter starting with a view that proves somehow inadequate (the ironized view), and then adjusting to a new, more satisfying (ironic) viewpoint n practice, however, readers and interocutors may approach the act of interpretation with an ironic attitude right from the start, depoying an ironic menta space configuration as a defaut mode of understanding, as, for exampe, in that pecuiary sophisticated attitude that takes peasure in the enjoyment of camp (cf Sontag 1964), or in the simutaneous appreciation of severa mutuay excusive expanations of the word that Schege described as the ironic sensibiity of Romanticism. A precise articuation of this proposa wi depend on a few technica detais of Menta Spaces Theory. First, every menta space configuration canonicay incudes a Base, a Viewpoint, an Event, and a Focus, athough a singe space can serve as more than one of these at the same time (Cutrer 1994; Fauconnier 1997). The Base Space serves as the subjectivey construed Ground of interpretation. The Viewpoint Space is the space from which conceptua content is accessed. The space in Focus is the space on which attention is concentrated. The Event Space is the one in which an event takes pace. Menta spaces aso have status with reation to other spaces. These reative statuses can be hierarchica: menta spaces can be embedded within other menta spaces. They can be tempora: a space can be figured as past with respect to

8 32 ntersubjectivity and subjectification 0 Viewpoint Event Focus Base/Ground M rony as a viewpoint phenomenon Vewpoint (V') Base Weather not ovey SpaceM-1 33 After re-evauation: Event Focus, ' ' ' ' ' Viwpont Base/Ground Attention zooms out from putative base to re-evauated base Resut of decompression Event Focus v,, ' ' ' \, \ \ ' ' SpaceM Figure 1.1 one space and present with respect to anothe1. 1bey can aso be epistemic: one space can have the status of fact with respect to another space, for exampe, or prediction. Finay, menta spaces are aso potentia objects of joint attention, speakers and hearers try to coordinate their menta representations and share attention to various aspects of those representations. Conceptuaizers can shift their attention within menta space configurations, moving their viewpoint from space to space. _ n these terms, then, we propose that irony is a figure of attention fow consisting of three minima steps:. 1. The presentation of a proposition p in a Focus Space F from a Viewpomt Space V (where F and V may, but need not be identica). 2. The assessment of some confict or incongruity between p and some set of assumptions that are accessibe iii the context of p. 3. The reconstrua off, V, and p from a higher Viewpoint Space, V', in a way that resoves any inconsistencies. The effect of thi; process is that an ironic utterance presents a proposition amost simutaneousy from at east two distinct points of view: an ironized viewpoint (V) and an ironic viewpoint (V'). The basic ironic configuration, iustrated very schematicay in Figure 1.1, invoves a perceived incompatibiity between a profied Event and some set of j j! Figure 1.2 FALSE with respect to M-1 RONC with respect to M-1 tacit assumptions about the common ground. Verba irony invoves a menta space _configuration in which what is said (i.e. what is manifesty communicated m a speech act) is somehow incongruent with the conditions of its own utterance. n.order to resove this incongruity, the intetpret.er must effectivey reconceptuaize the context of utterance, thus prompting the construction of a new viewpoint from a new, re-evauated Base (M-1), which contains the origina Event Space (M). Fgure 1.2 iustrates how thi; works With a reativey straightforward sarcastic utterance: "Lovey weather," said in response to a sudden downpour. Here, the utterance Lovey weather sets up space M, containing the proposition that the weather (presumaby the weather at hand, of which speaker and hearer share awareness in their common ground) is ovey. Nonnay, space M might be understood as a factua beief space, representing the speaker's current view of reaity, but in this case the reaity of the situation is painy at odds with the expressed proposition. The ironic interpretation arises when a her bo recognizes this incongruity and thereby recognizes that the expressed Vewpomt of the utter.mce is not in fact that of the speaker. This

9 34 ntersubjectivity and subjectification recognition may be achieved by prac fereing aone: in wch case a hearer may first consider and then reject a itera mterptation, or 1t may. be facii by arainguisc cues vog fia express10ns or tone of votce, in whtch case 1t may be virtuay mnnediate. Either way, the resut is a menta space configuratio in which the epn:ssed wpoint and the speaker viewpoint are somehow dtsentanged. This disen :ging requires a second Base Space, M-1, which serves as a kind ohigher ground from which space M can be reconside. n Figure 1.2, the sohd arrow marks the status ofm as subordinate to M-1, whie the dashed arrow represents the fow of attention zooming out from M to the new higher ground. Because the irony here is intentiona and is recognized as such, speaker and harer s this conception of the entire ironic configuration. M retains an soctated epoint, V, which speaker and hearer "ook down on" from err bared rroc viewpoint, V'. The zoom-out effect of irony is a fo?f aienation fro this ower-eve viewpoint and from those who hod it; this ts the reason that trony often has a victim.. Again, it is worth emphasizing that in our view irony d not reqwre an interpreter to first entertain and then reject a itera interpretation, but may cme more or ess instantaneousy in a pre-<:ompied, compex space configurtio?. But whether an irony is buit onine or pre-compied as part of an tromc sensibiity, the experience consists of the simutaneous. apprehension of two incompatibe viewpoints, one of which is rejected and m effect ooked down on. The difference between these two ways of experiencing irony is roughy anaogous to the distinction drawn by Langacr.(1987: 144-5) betw:en the two ways of construing an event that unfods m ttme, eter b.scannmg the stages of the event sequentiay in processing time or by unagtmng the event a at once with a summary scanning of its subparts.. This acount is compatibe with the "distancing" viewpoint confition described by Vandeanotte (this voume), in which certain exampes of mdirect speech and thought serve to report or present anoer person's discurse, whie keeping the deictic center of person, pace, and time a firmy wtth the crent speaker. The caim is that this kind of speech and thought representation invoves menta space evocation (Dancygier and Sweetser 2000, 2005) rar than embedding - that is, it requires the interpreter to ook for an appte space accessibe within the current discourse configuration, rather than havmg to crete an a-new, embedded space. Such cases are thus echoic, in the. sen.se of Sperber and Wtson (1981), but they are not aways, or even usuay, me. They can be, though. Vandeanotte observes that the effect of these kinds of utterances is distancing, because of the unexpected confuence of contextua signas that indicate that there are two speech situations in pay - both the current and the reported- without any expicit inguistic indication of this compexity. Moreover, different versions of this configuration can invoke more or rony as a viewpoint phenomenon 35 ess associative or dissociative attitudes between current and reported speaker. Vandeanotte connects more dissociative configurations with the expression of iterary irony and sarcasm, which is just the way we see it as we. n the ast few years, other researchers have proposed accounts of irony within Menta Spaces Theory. These theories have generay focused on verba irony, and have caimed that the underying structure of sarcasm depends cruciay on counterfactua thinking. Coison (2005: 136) argues that in "sarcastic anguage, the istener is confronted with a bend that she must unpack into two input spaces: an expected reaction space and a counteifactuatrigger space." Kihara (2005: 236) simiary suggests that ''ironica remarks have their effects by referring to a counterfactua menta space of expectation without any distinct space buiders." We find these accounts appeaing in many ways, but note that there are good reasons not to pin an account of irony too tighty to counterfactuaity. Kumon-Nakamura et a. (1995), among others, point out that there are many kinds of insincerity that are not counterfactua, but are perceived as ironic, such as statements ike, "You sure know a ot," directed to someone who is indeed knowedgeabe, but being an obnoxious show-off about it. n our account, irony invoves a specia kind of viewing arrangement-a view of a Viewpoint in a compex menta space configuration. Like Couson, we thus see irony as invoving a kind of a bend; however, in our account, the bending takes pace not in the Focus Space where a proposition is expressed, but rather in the Viewpoint from which an expressed proposition is accessed. The experience invoves the same propositiona content being accessed simutaneousy from two incompatibe viewpoints, one of which encompasses the other. This is what makes irony different from the experience of simpy being in two minds about something. The ironic effect itsef appears to arise from the way a whoe construa (incuding an expressed proposition in focus from some viewpoint) itsef becomes an object of construa. This is simiar to what happens in the cases of menta space aignment that Vandeanotte (this voume) describes, in which "the represented speaker's discourse ends up submerged in that of the current speaker." What happens with the experience of irony, then, is an adjustment from this bend to a new Viewpoint (zooming out) that is construed as both separate and superordinate: in Haiman's (1998: 80) terms, distinguishing "the difference between a behaving and a scrutinizing sef." This viewpoint adjustment is a kind of decompression (Fauconnier and Thmer 2002). This account has severa merits. t generaizes insights of previous theories of verba irony to hande other kinds of ironic effects, and it aows for a more articu1ated treatment of ayered ironies and ironies that seem to vioate the ogic of stacked eves. rony can arise wherever a discourse structure provides a mutieve network of menta spaces. Where verba irony invoves a mismatch between what a speaker says and some set of mutuay manifest

10 36 ntersubjectivity and subjectification assumptions in the common ground, cosmic irony invoves a mismatch between facts and expectations at the eve of an event itsef, and dramatic irony invoves a mismatch between facts at the event eve and beiefs at a higher narrative eve. t aso suggests that there is a reason why some genres seem particuary to end themseves to irony. The ironizing viewpoint constitutes a new common ground between the interpreter and some impicit or expicit interocutor, or feow-observer. This higher ground may be constructed in the process of interpretation, but it may aso be aready estabished by the discourse situation in which the irony occurs. Narrative fiction, for exampe, comes with a (usuay overt) narrator, who is understood as distinct from, if sometimes cosey aigned with, an impied author. 1.5 A stabe structura irony: Huck Finn reverts to his wicked ways As we have seen, of the phenomena commony deseri as "ironic," verba irony is by far the most frequenty discussed in the cognitive science and inguistics iterature. Verba ironies are intentiona, and understanding them reies at east in part on recognizing a difference between what is said and the proposition and attitude that the speaker intends to convey. Cosmic or situationa irony, by contrast, is perpetrated by the universe, rather than by a speaker. t arises from twists of fate in which hopes and expectations are overturned in some fundamenta way. To die of thirst swrounded by water, or to ose the thing you ove best through the very actions that you take in order to preserve it, is to be the victim of a cosmic irony. To be subject to such an irony is perhaps poignant, but aso absurd, or at east fainty ridicuous. There is a sense that destiny has conspired to pay a joke on the irony's unhappy target, as if fate, the universe, or some other omniscient agent were in some way the author of the irony. The compex viewpoint invoved in appreciating cosmic irony arises not from a confict between an expressed proposition and the rea communicative intentions of its utterer, but between something ike the apparent "intentions" of the universe and the futie origina intentions or expectations of the irony's victim, so that the former make a mockery of the atter. Appreciating the irony in such a circumstance requires a certain amount of detachment: again, it cas for the interpreter to take a particuar view of a viewpoint. n taking one's own circumstances to be ironic, one must momentariy step outside onesef, to induge in a perhaps ruefu or bitter chucke at one's own expense. A simiar process underies the interpretation of stabe dramatic and structura ironies-the kinds of irony that pay a centra roe in Tristram Shandy, Oedipus Rex, Mansfied Park, or The Adventures of Huckeberry Finn. A stabe irony (Booth 1974) is one that can be grasped in one go, without the prospect of r ( i! f i rony as a viewpoint phenomenon 37 infii regress of further ironic undermining. n these cases, the particuar dispanty ts between what a narrating character or persona takes hersef to mean and the deeper or higher significance that the impied author seems to intend the reader to understand. As in verba irony, these texts say one thing and mean another, but here the doube meaning arises from the presentation of a character whos account of events is ceary unreiabe in some way. She is untrustworthy or na.tve; some faiing that the impied author of the text recognizes and does not share. impairs her judgment: prejudice, perhaps, or imited perspicacity, or persona mterest.. n interpreting these ironies, the reader can make use of an aready estab sh- detached or superior Viewpoint, or decompress a bend, to make an tromzmg Viewpoint/Ground newy avaiabe. For exampe, the moment in The Adveres of Huckeberry Finn when Huck decides to hep Jim, even though he beieves that doing so is a sin, invoves a sustained cash between the focaizing viewpoint and what the reader takes to be the case, prompting the reader to zoom out to the higher ground associated with the impied author. Here is the passage in question (Twain 2008 [1884]: 143): fet good and a washed cean of sin for the first time had ever fet so in my ife, and knowed. cod pra nw. But didn't do it straight off, but aid the paper down and set rethinking-g how good it was a this happened so, and how near come to bemg t and gomg to. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our ttip down _the nver; see Ju before me a the time: in the day and in the night-time, some moonight, sometimes storms, and we a-foating aong, taking and singing aughing. But somehow coudn't seem to strike no paces to harden me against him: but ony the other kind. 'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of camg me, so coud go on seeping; and see him how gad he was when come back out of the og; d when come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and suc-ike nmes; and woud aways ca me honey, and pet me and do everything he c?ud think of for me, and how good he aways was; and at ast struck the time saved him by teg the n we had sma-pox aboard. and he was so gratefu, and said was the best friend od Jtm ever had in the word, and the ony one he's got now; and then happened to ook around and see that paper. t was a c?se pace. took it up, and hed it in my hand. was a-trembing, because 'd got dectde, forever, betwixt two things, and knowcd it. studied a minute, sort of hoding my breath, and then says to mysef: "A right, then, ' go to he" - and tore it up. t was awfu thoughts and awfu wo. but they was said. And et them stay said; and nver thought no more about reformmg. shoved the whoe thing out of my head and S3.1d woud e up wickedness again, which was in my ine, being brung up to it: and the warn t _And for a starter woud go to work and stea Jim out of savery again; d if. coud think up anything worse, woud do that, too; because as ong as was n, and tn for good, might as we go the whoe hog.

11 38 ntersubjectivity and subjcctification Huck is a victim of this irony, athough not in the same way as the object of a satire is its victim. Here, the effect is sympathetic, even poignant; Huck is a victim of his own ironic circumstances, and both reader and impied author see that irony, crediting Huck with additiona virtue thereby. Huck's conviction that his.decision is damnabe makes its bue audabiity a the more evident. The ostensibe viewpoint in this passage ies squarey with the narrator, Huck. But the reader knows, through information buit up over the course of the nove, that the perspective impicated in statements ike how near come to being ost and going to he is more compex. Here, Huck is enacting discourse and professing beiefs that propery beong to someone ese - to the pious and sma-minded Miss Dougas, to the prevaiing views of white Southern society that surround him - and the distance between Huck's true convictions and the beiefs that he echoes is made increasingy expicit over the course of this passage. So far, this state of affairs ooks strikingy ike the exampes of dissociative, ironic DST discussed in Vandeanotte (this voume). However, in this case, the putative speaker is patenty unaware of the distance between the two positions. This is not a verba irony that can be ascribed to the speaker himsef. Something ese is going on. This kind of structura irony invoves much the same kind of interpretive work as verba irony, but with an additiona ayer. Something is said. The reader who enjoys the irony then appreciates that an attitude is being conveyed that differs from what is being said, but that the intention behind this doube articuation cannot be ascribed to the putative speaker. To resove the cash of perspectives, the reader must take recourse to a higher eve of the discourse situation, as iustrated in Figure 1.3. The normay atent perspective of the impied author is recruited to provide a viewpoint from which the subjective narrating viewpoint can newy consbued as an object. of conceptuaization. The "f' of the higher Viewpoint Space ooks upon, rather than participating in, the vexed viewpoint represented by the 'T' of Huck's Ground. Ordinariy, readers are not continuay consciousy aware of the impied author as they proceed through a text, and the more successfu a piece of fiction, the more fuy immersed readers are in the deictic frame associated with the current speaker. That is, much of the time when we are reading a narrated fiction, we are inhabiting a bend in which the narrator is the (one and ony) speaker of the narrative. n the bend. the narrator partakes of a the aspects of the speaker roe distinguished by Goffman (1981)- he is the animator, the person who does the uttering, the author or composer of the utterance, and the principa whose position is estabished by the words that are uttered. Appreciating a structura irony requires a decompression of this bend. The new construa invoves a fresh awareness that both narrative viewpoint and the roe of current speaker } i i rony as a viewpoint phenomenon., '. / /mpifdauthors \! Ground \ : Latent in i \.Discourse Situation/ r Figure 1.3 ronmg viewpoint 1: mpied autor H: Huck Saves are peope H hepsj-. Huck 18 vituous Juxtaposition of Huck's expjicit beief8 and underying convictions is pognnt 1: Huck (narrator), Huck beieves that M ' \ \ ' \ \ ;,,.,' M: J: Jim (runaway save) J & are friends Saves are property Fugies are thieves hepsj..., Huck, 11m wicked 39 Atentonzoomsout from putative base D re-evauated base ar compx. 'This dec.ompression of the confated authoria and narrating viewpmts actiates: or remtroduces, a higher-eve Base Space identified with the discourse ttuation and viewpoint of the impied author. Fro this perspective, the ironizing reader can appreciate that what H k takeshimseftome _ deed. uc.. an : what he takes himsef to beieve-is at odds with the true stgruficance of his actions and motivations and that thi..... tsef ' S DCOnStStency ts tn. stficant and intentiona. The discrepancy between Huck's - sentation of his own situati 1 d... pre the.. on, mc u mg his own discourse situation, and what iron reader ts gte? to understand the true situation to be generates a structura G y. n recogmzm the source of this discrepancy, readers shift Viewpoint and round to.a. mor distant perspective, creating a sense of both ironic distance and comphctty With the impied author.

12 40 ntersubjectivity and subjectification 1.6 nstabiities Just as not au ironies are verba, neither are a ironies resovabe. The viewpoint account of irony can aso hande unstabe ironies, "in which the truth asserted or impied is that no stabe reconstruction can be made out of the ruins reveaed through the irony" (Booth 1974: 240); "ironies that wi tum into infinities tf pursued" (ibid.: 246). Sarah Siverman's routine, described in the introduction and recapituated in (7), induces one kind of unstabe irony. (7) ''Everybody bames the Jews for kiing Christ, and then the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. 'm one of the few peope that beieve it was the backs." Unstabe ironies set up zoom-out configurations in which the potentia views of viewpoints threaten to proiferate uncontroaby. Siverman's unsetting humor invites the intetpreter to vaciate among these proiferating viewpoints, whie aso recognizing that the author of the irony intended this unsteady view: the intetpreter must take a view of the fuctuating view of a viewpoint. This interpretive process invoves a menta space configuration ike the one iustrated in Figure 1.4. The joke 8ets. up a speaker's reaity space, S, and three beief spaces: M, M2, and M3. The punchine, 'm one of the few peope that beieve it was the backs, provokes a cash that seems at first bush to be a cassic verba irony. Just as with the "Lovey weather" exampe, an assertion that woud ordinariy count as an expressed beief of the speaker appears under utterance conditions that confict with this interpretation. The surprise makes the audience augh, and the recognition of the inappropriateness prompts hearers to decompress the bend of expressed viewpoint and speaker viewpoint, zooming out to a new Base Space. This is S2, the "Rea Sarah Siverman" space. S retains its associated viewpoint, that of the Sarah Sivennan persona, which the comedian and the audience can ook down on together from a shared ironic viewpoint. So far, so sarcastic. However, whie the irony here may be what Booth (1974) cas "ocay" stabe, its status with respect to the arger discourse is ess cear. When someone ooks at the rain and says "Lovey weather!" in disgusted tones, there is no worry that she wi tum out to have reay meant that the weather was indeed ovey. Simiary, nothing in the discourse context or our background knowedge suggests that we need to worry that it is actuay the case that Sarah Siverman truy beieves that back peope were responsibe for the death of Jesus. At the same time, her intended message does not seem to be straightforwardy sarcastic. The point is not to coverty express something ike, "As. if back peope kied Jesus! Can you beieve the kind of bozo who woud think such a thing?" There is no such bozo. 6 f. i f! ' j J i f r rony as a viewpoint phenomenon Guity compicity (S3) "Rea S.s. Space (S2) (ronies 1 and 2) Speech Space (S1) spoken by S.S. manner/deivery: cheerfu pace: comedy cub Figure 1.4 M2 ' ' ' ' \ But why make the joke? S cashes with background info/common ground. The. intended ge, in?eed, is not cear. f irony typicay invoves somethin reevan! mappropnateness, one might we wonder what the reevance of this mappropnate statement might be. n other words why make th. ke? Why ue the offensivey marked noun phrase "the backs"? And wh :ud :=nee take peasure in it?.this ou?t about the motivations of :speaker r.ho pe of the Vtewpomt m S2 motivates a fresh zoomin out to a new cntica Vew of a viewpoint in S3 But there. be g correct fina interpretation.. S no way to sure of a f we_ take the instabiity to be intentiona, speaker and hearer share this conception of the entire ironic configuration d Si, an vennan counts as an M3 41

13 42 ntersubjectivity and subjectification especiay masterfu ironizer. f we do not take it to be intentiona, we end up with a simiar menta space configuration, but a very different opinion of Sivennan, ause the zoom-out effect is a form of aienation from the owereve viewpoint and from those who hod it. n that case, the reconstrua is not one of compicity but of estrangement At this point, we have the option of stabiizing the irony by rejecting the joke. But as ong as we aow the possibiity that the performance is ironic and that the joke is funny, audience and speaker aike are impicated in the viewpoints of both S2 and S3, and the utimate stance remains indetenninate, as indicated by the doube-headed dashed ine in Figure 1.4. Ambiguous ironic intentions ike Siverman's are not the ony possibe source of ironic instabiity, and we woud ike, finay, to discuss the structuray unstabe irony generated by the short story "Borges and " (Borges 1967 [1964]). This story presents a situation in which, by virtue of their expression, the thoughts and characteristics of Borges become those of the pubic persona "Borges." Thus everything the narrator tes us about the reationship between Borges and "Borges" accrues not to Borges but to "Borges," and the more Borges tries to express this irony, the worse it gets: rony as a viewpoint phenomenon,,,, //...,,\, / 1: Borges (narr} \ 1 B: the other Borges ' \ knowwhoe } Negative\ Space ' ,... Lower Ground Base and Focus t ' /,- -t The other one, the one caed Borges, is the one things happen to... ike hourgasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. t woud be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostie reationship; ive, et mysef go on iving, so that Borges may contrive his iterature, and this iterature justifies me.... Years ago tried to free mysef from him and went from the mythoogies of the suburbs to games with time and infinity, but now those games beong to Borges and wi have to think up something ese. Thus is my ife a fight and ose everything and everything beongs to obivion, or to him. do not know which of us has written this page Figure 1.5 /,,' f ever there was an irony that woud '<turn into infinities if pursued," this is it. The basic situationa irony takes as its ingredients an experiencer (A), a situation, and an expectation. n the Focus/Event Space, A acts with intention to bring about some resut p. n the higher Viewpoint Space, A's action brings about p. ''Borges and r invokes a simiar causa structure and combines it with a potentiay infinite regress of ironic reconstruas. The action that gives rise to Borges' diemma - presenting himsef in writing - and the articuation of that diemma are one and the same. As a resut, the ordinary zoom-out construa invoved in appreciating a situationa irony gives rise each time to a new diemma and a new need to construct a higher-eve Viewpoint/Ground. The irony can never be resoved. This ;;wpoint configuration generates the mise en abyme, or infinite regress that many postmodem schoars characterizes the very height ofrro. "ty as a potent d ifi. ruct. rrony stab! ' apt. Y pro rating, perhaps even uncontroabe, means by which e meanmg ts undenruned and made permanenty uncertain We woud note, as we, that constructing this kind of... unavodaby invves active and conscious interpretive 1abo; cotrua canoruca sasttc utterance in a context where conventiona disco:= o"!u: support that mterpretation is reativey rapid and automatic for aduts ( g fi exampe Kreuz d Link 2002 see, or ever, noticeabe:. ). n ne and _compex cases ike these, howinte ti spectton and exphctt Puzzing over the speaker's "genuine" n ons are required before the fu unsetting instabiity emerges.

14 44 ntersubjectivity and subjectification 1. 7 Concusion rony in a its forms is a figure of subjectivity. More precisey, it is a figure of desubjectification: the process whereby conceptua contents at.are first construed subjectivey are reconstrued as an object of concepon. possibiity for irony is, in effect, a natura consequence of nattve nd: irony arises from the fact that any situation we encoter ts sbject to mterpretation both as something that happens and as soething at S represented. However, irony's operation is constrained by the high costs 1t puts on pessing and a consequent need for highy rituaized discourse contexts ( cf Haunan 1998).... Our approach compements existing theories of irony by v1ewmg tt as a variety of interpretive experience, and by focusing on the cse -:- and, we argue, natura..:.. reations between different sorts of va, Situaona, an structura ironies, to show why irony is difficut, why tt 1s unsetting, why 1t typicay has a victim, and why it is subject to proiferation in certain discourse contexts. References Anderson, Sam rony maiden: how Sarah Siverman is raping American coinedy. S/Jte. (accessed October 13, 2011).. Attardo, Savatore rony as reevant inappropriateness. Jouma of Pragmatics 32, f Booth, Wayne c The Rhetoric of rony. Chicago and London: Uruvers1ty o Chicago Press. Borges, Jorge Luis [1964]. Borges and. Transated from German by James E. rby. n Anthony Kerrigan (ed.). A Persond Anthoogy. New York: Grove Press, p 'de Bruce, Lenny How to Tak Dirty and nfuence Peope. New York: tres1 : Buter, Harod E The nstitutio Oratoria of Quintiian. 4 vos. London: Wiiam Heinemann Ud, vo. D.. Cark, Herbert H Using Language. Cambridge University Press.. Cark, Herbert H. and Richard J. Gerrig On the pretense theory of uooy. Journd of Experimenta Psychoogy: Genera113, Coebrook, Caire rony: The New Critica diom. London and New York: Routedge. Couson, Seana Sarcasm and the space structuring mode. n a ouson and Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (eds.). The Utera and Nonztera 1.11 Language and Thought New York: Peter Lang, Cutrer, Michee Time and tense in narrative and in everyday 1anguage. Ph.D. dissertation, University ofaifornia, San Diego. Dancygier, Bar>ara and Eve SweetseJ Constructio with if, since and because: causaity, epistemic stance, and cause order. n Eizabeth Couper-Kuhen and rony as a viewpoint phenomenon 45 Bernd Kortmann (eds.). Cause-Condition- Concession- Contrast. Berin: Mouton de Gruyter, Menta Spaces in Grammar: Conditiona Constructions. Cambridge University Press. Empson, Wiiam Sen Types of Ambiguity. 2nd edn. New York: New Directions. Fauconnier, Gies Menta Spaces. Cambridge University Press Mappings in Thought and Anguage. Cambridge University Press. Fauconnier, Gies and Mark Thmer The Way We Think. New York: Basic Books. Fower, Henry Watson A Dictionary of Modem Engish Usage. 1st edn. Oxford University Press. Gibbs, Raymond W On the psychoinguistics of sarcasm. Jouma of Experimenta Psychoogy: Genera/115, Giora, Rache On irony and negation. Discourse Processes 19, On Our Mind: Saience, Context, and Figurative Language. Oxford University Press. Goffman, Erving Forms of Tak. University of Pennsyvania Press. Haiman, John Tak s Cheap: Sarcasm, Aienation, and the Evoutzon of Anguage. Oxford University Press. srae, Michae Saying ess and meaning ess. n Betty BirDer and Gregory Ward (eds.). Drawing the BoundJJries of Meaning: Neo-Gricean Studies in Pragmatics and Semanics in Honor of Laurence R. Hom. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, Johnson, Samue Dictionary of the Engish Language. 2nd edition. 2 vos. London: printed by W. Strahan, for J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Miar; and R. and J. Dodsey, vo.. Kihara, Yoshido The menta space structure of ver>a irony. Cognitive Unguistics 16:3, Knox, Nonnan The Woni rony and ts Context, Durham NC: Duke University Press. Kreuz, Roger T.!Jd Sam Gucksberg How to be sarcastic: the echoic reminder theory of verba irony. Journd of Experimenta Psychoogy, Genera ' Kre, Roger J. and Kristen E. Link Asymmetries in the perception of verba uony. Jouma of Language and Socia Psychoogy 21, Kumon-Nakamura. Sachi, Sam Gucksberg, and Mary Brown How about another piece of pie: the ausiona pretense theory of discourse irony. Journa of Experimenta Psychoogy, Genera124, Langacker, Ronad W Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretica Prerequisites. Stanford University Press Grammar and Conceptuaization. Berin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Sivennan, Sarah Jesus is Magic [fim]. Back God Fims. Sontag, Susan Notes on camp. n Susan Sontag. Against nterpretation and Other Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Sperber, Dan Verba irony: pretense or echoic mention? Jouma of Experimenta Psychoogy, Genera3, Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wison rony and the use-mention distinction. n Peter Coe (ed.). Radica Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press,