Lying, irony, and default interpretation

Although most sarcastic ironies trick comprehenders into misapprehension (Giora 2003; Giora, Fein, Laadan, Wolfson, Zeituny, Kidron, Kaufman, and Shaham 2007; Fein, Yeari, and Giora 2015), irony is not lying. ¹ Admittedly, some ironies do share some resemblance with lying. In most cases, when uttering, ironists do not explicitly say what they believe to be true or relevant to the issue at stake. But, then, they do not intend comprehenders to take “what is said” at face value, but instead to reinterpret it vis à vis contextual information. (On lying involving an intention to deceive, see e.g., Meibauer 2011, 2014c). And even if untrue, irony is not a lie but, for instance, an act of Joint Pretense— a mutual recognition of a pretense shared by speakers and addressees, albeit not necessarily by the uninitiated (Clark and Gerrig 1984; Clark 1996). Even by Grice (1975), according to which irony involves a breach of the Quality maxim, which on the face of it might entitle it to the label of “lying,” it is not. Given that this breach of truthfulness is overt, it cues comprehenders as to the need to reinterpret what is explicitly communicated in keeping with contextual information and authorial intent. Indeed, if comprehenders could tap the ironic interpretation directly or, at least, instantly revise their initial misapprehension, it might not resemble lying. Most of the evidence, however, indicates that comprehenders do not fully understand irony initially, even when it is cued and even when they detect incompatibilities. Rather, irony interpretation is fallible, especially when in the affirmative, where it is most misleading. Hence the resemblance to lying. ² However, when interpreted directly, as when it is in the negative, irony bears no resemblance to lying.