Event Abstract

Investigating factors that influence the interpretation of ambiguous phrases as literal or sarcastic

  • 1 University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
  • 2 Laureate Institute for Brain Research, United States
  • 3 Tel Aviv University, Israel

Background In the current study we aim to examine a number of factors that may influence the interpretation of ambiguous phrases, specifically, regarding whether they should receive a literal or sarcastic interpretation. A range of factors are investigated; some relating to properties of the message itself (e.g., valence, punctuation, and negation), and some to properties of the perceiver (e.g., age, and personal tendency to use sarcasm or engage in indirectly aggressive acts). Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary theories of sarcasm comprehension. Experiment 1 164 native English-speakers (aged 18-84) rated 36 ambiguous utterances (from Filik et al., 2016, Experiment 2) in relation to how sarcastic they thought the character was being, on a scale from 1 (not very) to 7 (extremely). Target utterances were either positive (e.g., “It was so interesting”) or negative (e.g., “It was so boring”) in valence, and were accompanied by either a full stop, wink emoticon, or ellipsis (…). Materials were counterbalanced so that participants only rated one condition from each scenario. After they had rated the materials, participants completed two self-report scales: Ivanko, Pexman, and Olineck’s (2004) self-report sarcasm survey and Forrest, Eatough, and Shevlin’s (2005) indirect aggression scale. Results showed that in terms of text-related factors, comments were rated as most sarcastic when accompanied by a wink, less sarcastic when accompanied by an ellipsis, and least sarcastic when companied by a full stop (which replicates the findings of Filik et al. 2016, Experiment 2, with a much larger and broader sample of participants). In addition, comments with a negative valence were rated as being more sarcastic than those with a positive valence. As for perceiver-related factors, the average sarcasm rating score (across all six conditions) was positively correlated with participants’ self-reported levels of sarcasm use (supporting Ivanko et al., 2004) and their self-reported tendency to use indirect aggression, and negatively correlated with participant age. Experiment 2 In Experiment 2, we wished to further investigate the recent hypothesis that ambiguous utterances in which negation is used to mitigate a highly positive concept (e.g., “He’s not the best lawyer”) are interpreted sarcastically be default (Giora, Givoni, & Fein, 2015). 162 native English-speakers (aged 18-74) each rated 28 negative phrases from Filik et al. (in press) (e.g., "This isn’t the most hygienic restaurant"), that were ambiguous between a literal interpretation (in which the restaurant is hygienic, but others are more hygienic than it) and a sarcastic interpretation (in which the restaurant is not hygienic at all). Participants again completed the self-report sarcasm survey and indirect aggression scale. Overall, participants rated materials as sarcastic (i.e., results from a one-samples t-test indicated that sarcasm ratings were significantly higher than the mid-point on the 7-point scale), supporting the predictions of the Defaultness Hypothesis. Ratings given by participants did not correlate with perceiver-related factors. Interestingly, results across both experiments showed a negative correlation between participant age and their self-reported use of sarcasm, which would concur with the finding from Experiment 1 that the tendency to interpret ambiguous materials sarcastically was negatively correlated with age. These results fit well with recent data suggesting that older adults have a greater tendency to misinterpret comments that are intended sarcastically (Phillips et al., 2015). Conclusions These findings have a number of implications for current theories. Firstly, results from Experiment 2 offer further support for the Defaultness Hypothesis, in that participants had a preference for a sarcastic interpretation of ambiguous negated materials. More generally, results would seem to indicate that a broad range of factors (both text-based and perceiver-based) can influence the sense of sarcasm that is experienced when reading ambiguous stimuli, which would offer support for the constraint-satisfaction approach discussed in Campbell and Katz (2012), and suggest further ‘constraints’ that need to be taken into consideration.

Acknowledgements

The current work was supported by the British Academy International Partnership and Mobility Scheme (grant number PM140296).

References

Campbell, J. D., & Katz, A. N. (2012). Are there necessary conditions for inducing a sense of sarcastic irony? Discourse Processes, 49, 459-480.

Filik, R., Turcan, A., Thompson, D., Harvey, N., Davies, H., & Turner, A. (2016). Sarcasm and emoticons: Comprehension and emotional impact. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 2130-2146.

Filik, R., Howman, H., Ralph-Nearman, C., & Giora, R. (in press). The role of defaultness and personality factors in sarcasm interpretation: Evidence from eye-tracking during reading. Metaphor & Symbol.

Forrest, S., Eatough, V., & Shevlin, M. (2005). Measuring adult indirect aggression: The development and psychometric assessment of the indirect aggression scales. Aggressive Behavior, 31, 84-97.

Giora, R., Givoni, S., & Fein, O. (2015). Defaultness reigns: The case of sarcasm. Metaphor and Symbol, 30, 290–313.

Ivanko, S. L., Pexman, P. M., & Olineck, K. M. (2004). How sarcastic are you? Individual differences and verbal irony. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 23, 244-271.

Phillips, L. H., Allen, R., Bull, R., Hering, A., Kliegel, M., & Channon, S. (2015). Older adults have difficulty in decoding sarcasm. Developmental Psychology, 51, 1840-1852.

Keywords: Sarcasm, irony, ambiguity resolution, Emoticons, figurative language

Conference: XPRAG.it 2018 - Second Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference, Pavia, Italy, 30 May - 1 Jun, 2018.

Presentation Type: Poster or Oral

Topic: Experimental Pragmatics

Citation: Filik R, Ralph-Nearman C and Giora R (2018). Investigating factors that influence the interpretation of ambiguous phrases as literal or sarcastic. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: XPRAG.it 2018 - Second Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2018.73.00007

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Received: 15 May 2018; Published Online: 14 Dec 2018.

* Correspondence: Dr. Ruth Filik, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ruth.filik@nottingham.ac.uk