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<Paper uid="C96-2162">
  <Title>A Unified Theory of Irony and Its Computational Formalization</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="962" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Previous theories of irony
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Several irony theories have been proposed in the last few decades, but all the theories, as we will explain, make the same mistake in that they confuse the two difl'erent questions (Q1) and (Q2).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The traditional pragmatic theory (Grice, 1975; Haverkate, 1990) assumes that, an utterance is recognized to be ironic when tile hearer becomes aware of an apparent violation of some pragmatic principles (e.g,, the maxim of quality or the sincerity conditions for speech acts), and as a result it conveys the opposite of the literal meaning. This theory, howew,~r, colnpletely fails to explain many ironic utterances. First, irony can be comnmnicared by various expressions that do not include such violation: true assertions such as (2a) in Figure 1, understatements such as (2c), and echoic utterances such as (5a). Moreover, Candy's husband of Example i can t)erceive Candy's ~ttterances (la)~(le) as ironic even under the situation where he does not know or is careless of Candy's expectation of satisfy her hunger, in other words, where he is not aware of the viQlation. This im- null Example 1: Candy baked a pizza to satisilg her hunger. When she was dishing it, uI), her husband entered t;he kitchen and gobbled up the whole pizza. Candy said to her huslmnd: (1) a. I'm not hungry at all.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> b. Have you seen my pizza on the table? c. I'll gel; to sleep.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> d. I'm really satisfied to (',at the pizza.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> e. How about another small slice of pizza? Exmnple 2: A mother asked her son to (;lea.it up his messy room, but he did a slol)py , half-hearted job. Alter a while, she discovered that his room is still messy, and said to her son: (2) 2. I love children who keep their rooms clean, in(leed.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> I/. Would you mind if I asked you to clean up your room, please? c. This room may 1)e slightly messy.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Example 3: l'eter broke his wife's favorite tea(:ul) when he washed the dishes awkwardly. I,ooking at the broken cup, his wife said: (3) a. Thank you fur washing my cup carefully.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> b. Thank you for (:rashing my treasure.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> Example 4: Nancy and Jane were l)lamfing a trip to the beach, but that day was a coht and stormy one. As she looked out the window, Nancy slid: (4) a. ()It, the weather is really ni(:e.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> b. Mayl)e the 1)each is crowded with people.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> Example 5: Just after his colleague Jesse said to him &amp;quot;Pd be promoted before you&amp;quot;, Peter replied: (5) a. You'd be promoted before ine, huh7 b. You'd better work harder.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11">  plies that violation of pragmatic principh'.s is not an answer to (Q2). Secondly, it is not an answer to (Q1) because of its incompetence to discriminate irony from other non-literal utterances (e.g., a lie) in which the. maxim of quality is tlouted. Finally, the notion of &amp;quot;the opt)osite of the literal meaning&amp;quot; is problematic because it, is aplflicable only to declarative assertions hut many ironic utterances can take non-declarative forms: questions such as (lb); requests such as (2b); offerings such a.s (le); and expressives such as (3a).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> Other recent theories e.g., mention theory (Wilson and Sperber, 1992) and echoic reminder theory (Kreuz and Ghmksberg, 1989) share a common view that by mentioning or alluding to someone's thought, utterance, expectation or (:nltural norm, an ironic utterance communicates a speaker's attitude toward a discrepancy between what actually is and what, has heen expected.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> This view may be essential to irony, but these theories ark still incomplete as a comprehensive framework h)r irony for at least three reasons.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> First, their concepts of mention/allusion Sperher and Wilson's echoic interpretation and Kreuz and Glueksberg's echoic reminder are too narrow to capture the allusive llattn'e of irony (e.g., (lb), (le), (41))), and they are not clear enough to be formalized in a computable fashion, l,br example, Nancy's utterance (4a) in Fignre 1 ix an echoic interpretation of Nancy's expectation of the fine, weather, bttt (4b) does not interpretively echo any states of affairs: (4b) is an implication derived from the failed expectation. Second, they implicitly assume that the properties that characterize irony can be at)plied to recognition of ironic utterances as they stand or they do not focus oil how hearers recoglfize utterances to },)(; ironi(-. Thils they cannot also explain a certain kind of ironi(: utterances in which hearers are not aware of any pragmatic violation. Finally, these theories provide no plausible explanation of how irony is discriminated flom non-ironic echoic utterances.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> Allusional pretense theory (Kumon-Nakamura et al., 1995) is the most powerflll one in that it can explain ironic utterances of five speech act classes using the two crucial notions of allusion (including echoic interpretation and reminder) and pragmatic insincerity. They (:laimed that all ironic utterances allude to a failed e, xpe, ctation and violate one of the felicity conditions for well-ibrmed speech acts. However, allusional pretense theory still sut\[ers Dora the same disadvantage as other theories: their notion of allusion is not clear enough, and it does not focus on how hearers rec-Ogllize lltt, erallt;es t;o be ironic.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="962" end_page="966" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 A unified theory of irony
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"/>
    <Section position="1" start_page="962" end_page="963" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.1 Ironic Environtnent and Its Inlplicit
Display
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Our unitied theory of irony claims as an mmwer to (Q1) that irony is a figure of Sl)eeeh that inq)lieitly displays the fact that its utteraime situation is surrounded by ironic environment. To make this (:lailn realizable, we must explain two important notions: ironic eilvironment and implicit display.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> In order for an utterance to be ironic, a speaker nmst utter in a situation sm'rounded by ironic environmeut. Given two temporal loeatkms to and tt such that to temporally precedes t,, the utterante situation where an utterance is given is surrounded by ironic, envir(mmcnt if and only if it satisfies the following three conditions:  1. The speake, r has an expe(:tation E at t~).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> 2. The speaker's expectation E fails at h.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> 3. As a result, the speaker has a negative emo null tional attitude toward the incongruity between what is expected and what actually is.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> Note that our notion of speaker's expectaions subsumes cultually expected norms and rules. Furthermore previous theories assume echoic irony like (5a) to allude to other person's thoughts or  utterances, but our theory contends that such irony alludes to a speaker's exi)ectation that &amp;quot;the speaker wants the hearer to know the hearer's utterances or thoughts are false&amp;quot;. For example, the speaker's expectation of (5a) is that Jesse knows he cannot be promoted betbre Peter.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> Ironic environment can be classified into the following tbur types.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6">  * a speaker's expectation E can be caused by an action A performed by intentional agents - E failed because A failed or cannot t)e performed by another action B (type-l) - E failed because A was not performe(t (type-2) * a speaker's expectation E is not normally caused by any intentional actions E failed by an action I3 (type-3) - E accidentally failed (type-4)  For example, ironic environment of Example1 falls in type-l: Candy's expectation of staying her hunger can be realized by an action of eating a pizza, but her husband's action of eating tile whole pizza hindered her expected action. In the same way, ironic environments of Examples 2-4 fall in type-2~type-4, respectively, and that of Example 5 falls in type-3.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="7"> An utternace implicitly displays all the three conditions for ironic environment when it  1. alludes to the speaker's expectation E, 2. includes pragmatic insincerity by intentionally violating one of pragmatic principles, and 3. implies the speaker's emotional attitude toward the failure of E.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="8">  For example, utterances (2(1) and (2e) tbr Exampie 2 are not ironic even when they are given in the situation surrounded by ironic environment: (2(1) and (2e) directly express the speaker's expectation and tile st)eaker's emotional attitude, rest)ectively, and both do not include pragmatic insincerity. (2) d. I've expected a clean room.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="9"> e. I'm disat)t)ointed with the messy room.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="10"> On the other hand, all the utterances of Figure 1 are ironic because they implicitly express the three comt)onents of ironic enviromnent, as we will show in Sections a.a-a.s.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="963" end_page="964" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.2 Representing Ironic Environment
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> In order to formalize ironic utterances and ironic enviromnent ill a coint)utational fashion, we use situation theory (Barwise, 1.989) and situation calculus. Our representational scheme includes discrete items of intbrmation called infons, situations capable of making infons true (i.e., supt)orting infons), and actions. For example, information that Candy eats the pizza is represented as the infon (( eat, x, a )&gt; in which x and a denote &amp;quot;Candy&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;the pizza&amp;quot;, and its negation as (( ca*,,x,a; 0)). A fact/event that Candy eats dm pizza is represented as t ~ (( eat, x, a )) where the situation t expresses the spatiotemporal location of that event. Ail action of eating the pizza performed by Candy is expressed by tile predicate eat(x, a) and its negation (i.e., an action of not perfbrming eat(x,a)) by =~;at(x,a). The state of allah's that an action A is perfbrmed is expressed by (( did, A}}. Also, a proi)osition p expressing the claim that Candy eats the pizza is written as (t ~ ((eat, x,a)}). The propositionp = (s ~ c,)  is true if s supports v, and otherwise false. Situations are partially ordered by the, part-of relation denotexl by &lt;1. A situation sj is a part of a situation s2 (i.e., Sl &lt;1 s2) if and only if every infon supt)orted t)y st is also sut)ported by su. Ill this l/aper we also tel)resent an agent X's mental situation as ux and his/lmr beliefs as supl)ort relations t)etween 'ux and infons. D)r examph', l, he fact that ,/ira believes/knows the above event is re.t)resente.d a.s u.ri,,~ \[= t I : {{ eat, z,a }). hflbns and actions Call include paralnetexs denoted by capital letters.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> l)arameters (:an be restricted I)y infons: for example, T &lt;&lt; v'~:':~'l~'t',''r )) ix a parameter for tenlporal situations whMl temporally succeed to. A causal relation betwe, en two events Sl t- Ol alld s2 \[-- o-2 is exln'essed by .s~ \[= ch : \[A\] =&gt; .s'2 \[- c,~. This relation means dlat if an action A ix executed in a situation s l sut)porting the infon al, then it causes the inf(m a2 to be trlle in the re.suiting situatiol~ s.~. Thus it folh)ws that s2 \[-- ({ did, All. When we omit an actioi~ A froIn a ('ausal relation, that relation/)ccomes a constraint in sitltation theory, denoted by sl \[= cq =&gt; s2 ~= (*2. Figure 2 illustrates the, represe, ntation of ironic environnlents of Exalnple~s 1 and 2. Although Figure 2 does not in(:lude ally mental situations (i.e., ironic enviroi&gt; illent is re, i)resented Doln god's eye, vie, w), whell a speake, r intends the uttexan(:e to t)e ironi(; tlte st)eaker's mental situation must SUl)\[)ort all states of affairs, events and causal relations in this figure.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> An utterance U is characterized by its propositional content P and the illocutionary act that the speaker performs in saying 17, soIne of which m:e shown in Figure 3 (Litman and Allen, 1987).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> For example,, the propositional content of (1~) is (t~ ~ (( hwngr~.h a:; 0 }}) and its illocutionary act is lnfl)rm. Also (1t)) is characterized by l' = (h \[&lt;( *,~'~, v, T&lt;&lt;,,, ...... *&amp;quot;':'&amp;quot;&amp;quot; &gt;&gt; b &lt;&lt; lo~, a, h &gt;&gt; &gt;&gt;) alld the illocudonay act l{equestIf.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> a.a Allusion We give a formal de, finition of allusio,l in our theory. Given P expressing the p,'oposil,ional content of U, and Q expressing the speaker's expected event/state of affairs, an utterance U alludes to the exl)ectation l~ if it satisfies ()lie of the conditions shown ill Table 1. The relation -.a in Table 1 is defined as follows: assuming that</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> \])i = 1)'2 nleans that both arc (:oncel)tually identical or unifiable, \[)t ~'~ P'2 hohls if 1)1 ----- (12.2) or Ill's COllStitlle31t : {1)'2 or (1)'2)} (when P'2 is an event;) PI -P'2 or 15 's COllsgit, llent ---- 12. 2 (when 1)2 is an action)  This definition allows all utterances in Figure. 1 to allude speaker's expectations, but it does not allow (2(t) to alhlde to it. Tal)le 1 shows which condition e, ach of these, uttt;rant:e,s satisfies. For exainple, the utteran(:c (11)) that nlenlion theory caltllOt ext)lain alludes to Candy's exi)ectatioll 1)y refe, rring to one of the conditions</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="8"> A = e, at(:c, a) since the part of its propositional content P and X are unifiable. Other utterances f,)r ExalIq)l,:l, (la)alld (l(')~(le), also refer to Q, Y, A, ./J shown ill Figure 2, respectively. Ill the sanle way, (2b) satisfies Condil;ion 4 since its &lt;:oiltent 1 j = ch'~a'n-up(y, a) is identical to A.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="3" start_page="964" end_page="965" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.4 Pragmatic Insincerity
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Table 2 lists the t)i'agmatic principles violated by the ironic utterances in Figure 1. \[n many (:ases an ironic utterance is praglnatically insincere ill the sense that it intentionally violates one of the pre-conditions in Figure 3 (i.e., sincerity, preparatory and propositional conditions) that need to hold before its illocutionary act is accomplished, but pragmatic insincerity also oecurs when an utteranee violates other praglnatic l)rineiples. Re.quests often I)ecolne il~sincere when they are over-polite, like (2t)) since they violate the t)olitene.ss principle (althougtl (2t)) also becomes insincere when l,he lnother no hmger intends her son to clean ut) his room). Understatenmnts like (2c) are also insincere since they do not provide as inuch illforulation as re.quired. The true assertion (2a) violates the princit)le of relevance in that it does not yie.\]d ally conl;extual implication. An mentioned earlier, the last three cases have been proi)lenlatic for all the, previous theories of irony 1)ecause none of these theories recognized a wide varie, ty of principles violated by ironic utterances. Although this t)aper does not describe how these praglnatic t)rinciples shouhl l)e formalized, they should be taken into account for the next steps of our study.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1">  1. P~Q A P+T~&lt;&lt;R,S,Q)) 2. P -,~ X where X: \[A\] =&gt; Q or X ::~ Q 3. P-o YwhereQ =~ Y 4. P &amp;quot;,~ A where X : \[A\] ~ Q (type-1 or type-2) 5. P ~-~ B or W or Z where W : \[B\] =~ Z (type-1 or type-3)</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> Notes: In Condition 1, T, R and S denote parameters for situations, relations about expecting, and speakers, respectively. In Condition 5, B denotes actions which disable an action A of Condition 4.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="4" start_page="965" end_page="965" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.5 Emotional Attitude
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Speakers can use a variety of signals/cues intonation contour, exaggerated stress, tone of voice, hyperbole, facial expression, etc. for implicitly communicating their emotional attitude. The use of the interjection &amp;quot;Oh&amp;quot; with a special tone of voice in (4a) offers one typical example of this.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Implicit communication can also be accomplished by utterances explicitly referring to the pleased emotion that speakers would experience if their failed expectation became true. For example, the utterance (3a) explicitly expresses speaker's counterfactual emotion.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> At the same time, many ironic utterances make emotion-elieiting rules for the speaker's attitude (some of which are shown in Figure 4) accessible by the 'hearers by alluding to one of premises of the rule. In the case of (3a), it alludes to Peter's action of washing the dishes so that the rule for &amp;quot;angry~t&amp;quot; emotion becomes more accessible.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="5" start_page="965" end_page="966" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.6 Recognizing and Interpreting Irony
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> In many cases, all the three components for implicit communication of ironic environment are easily recognized by the hearer. As we mentioned in Section 2, however, there are also many cases such as Example 1 that an utterance can be ironically interpreted even though all the three components cannot be recognized by the hearer because the hearer's mental situation differs from the speaker's one. Furthermore, in the case of (5a), after recognizing the utterance to be ironic Jesse turns out to know that the speaker Peter thinks Jesse cannot be promoted before Peter.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Hence we propose the following condition for recognizing irony as an answer to (Q2): Hearers can assuIno an utterance to he ironic (with high possibility) if they can recognize that the utterance implicitly displays at least two of the three components for ironic environment, and if the utterance situation does not rule out the possibility of including tile unrecognized components, if any} This &amp;quot;2-of-3&amp;quot; criterion makes it possible that hearers can recognize utterances as ironic even though speakers do not intend their utterances to be understood as irony. It, provides empirical evidence of ()lit' theory since such unintentional irony has been found in a number of psychological experiments (Gibbs and O'Brien, 1991).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> By recognizing an utterance to be ironic, the hearer becomes aware of an illocutionary act of irony, that of conveying the fact that the utterance situation is surrounded by ironic environment (i.e., all the three components for ironic environment hoht in a current situation). That is an answer to (Q3), and then the hearer interprets/understands the ironic utterance by adding that information to his/her mental situation. In 2Practically speaking, whether an utterance is ironic is a matter of degree. Thus the degree of ironicity might t)e a better criterion for recognizing irony. If we can quantitatively evaluate, though do ,tot in this paper, to what degree an utterance alludes to the speaker's expectation, to what degree it includes pragmatic insincerity, and to what degree it implies the speaker's emotional attitude, we think the proposed condition for recognizing irony can also be quantitatively defined.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3">  many cases, sin(:e the hearer already knows the fact that the three components hold in the situs\]ion, interpretation of irony results in confirmation of the mosl; uncertain information, that is, the speaker's emotional attitude. However, when the hearer does not recognize all components, he/she also ol)tains new information that the unrecognize.d component holds in a current situation. Therefore, our the.ory includes many previous theories claiming that irony (:ommunicates an ironist's emotional attitude. For example, in the. case of (5a), after recognizing Peter's utterance (5a) to be iron\](', Jesse turns out to know that Peter drinks Jesse's t)receding uttermme is absurd, and tries to confirm Peter's emotional attitude by interpreting (5a) ironically. Furthermore, as we mentioned in Section 1, nil ironic utterance achieves various (:olmnunieation goals held t)y the sl)eaker e.g., to be huinorous, to enq)hasize a I)oint, to clarify as I)erlocutionary acts.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> 4 hnplications of the Theory Distinction between ironic and non-ironic utterances: Our theory ('an disl;inguish iron\](&amp;quot; utterances from non-iron\](; ones. For exmnple, lies and other non-ironic utt(wances violating the pragmatic principle do not allude to any antecedent exi)ectation and/or (lo not offer cues fi)r reasoning about the si)e.aker's emotional attitude.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> Non-ironic echo\](: utterances do not include pragmatic insincerity and/or do not irnplicitly communicate the speaker's attitude.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> Ironic cues: Some theories assmne that irony can be identified by special cues tTor irony, but the empirical finding in psychology shows that people can interpret iron\](: statements without any sI)ecial intonational cues (Gibbs and O'Brien, 1991). Our theory agrees with this finding: such kind of cues is only a l)art of Component 3 as we described in Section 3.5, and thus iron\](&amp;quot; ul;teranees without these cues can t)e recognized as ironic.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="7"> Victims of irony: Several irony studies, e.g., (Clark and Gerrig, 1984), have t)ointed out that irony generally has victims. Our \[theory suggesl, s th;~t ironic ul;l;eranc('.s have potential vi(:tims when their iroific environments fall in one. of types-l,2,3: in the ease of type-1 or type-3 an agent of 13 I)ecomes a victim, and i,l the case of type-2 an agent of A becomes a victiin.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="8"> Sarcasm and irony: We argue that explicit victims and disl)lay of the speaker's counterfactual pleased emotion described in Section 3.5 m'e dist;inctive prop(~rties of sarcasm. Thus \],he utt(,ran(:es (a~) and lab) are sar,:a,~ti(: 1,e,:anse they have an ext)licit victim, Peter, and they refer 1;() the wife's comltert'a(:tual l)hmse(t emotion. \]n parti(:ular, an utteran(:e &amp;quot;Thanks a lot!&amp;quot; for Exami)le 3 is non-ironic sar(;asln silt(:(', it does not allude to any exp(;etation.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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