Studying Verbal Irony and Sarcasm

This volume provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the phenomenon of verbal irony and sarcasm and the methodological aspects of its study. The chapters in this volume employ quantitative and qualitative measures of the use of verbal irony and sarcasm in both adults and children. The methods used by the contributors range from self-report questionnaires and comment elicitation to experimental studies using comprehension and production tasks, to a qualitative analysis of naturalistic data. The volume contains both theoretical chapters and empirical results. By examining verbal irony and sarcasm in a range of cultural contexts, the chapters also show that cultural norms of communication may affect both the use and understanding of irony in specific ways and should therefore be taken into account in research.