Event Abstract

Back to Event

Detecting irony: the rise and fall of lips in LIS

Lara Mantovan1, 2, Beatrice Giustolisi1 and Francesca Panzeri1*
  • 1 Università degli studi di Milano Bicocca, Italy
  • 2 Università Ca' Foscari, Italy

An ironic speaker intends to convey a meaning that is typically the opposite of what she literally said, but if the addressee does not recognize her mocking intent, there is the risk of misunderstanding and communication failure (Kreuz et al., 1999). It is therefore imperative that the ironist is reasonably certain that her interlocutors can detect her sarcasm and correctly interpret her utterance (Principle of inferability: Kreuz, 1996). To do so, speakers may rely on ironic markers, that is, meta-communicative clues that alert the hearer that the utterance requires an ironic interpretation (Attardo, 2000a). In vocal languages, these ironic markers may be realized phonologically, via a particular intonational contour (the so-called ironic tone of voice, but see Bryant and Fox Tree, 2005 for a critique of this notion), slower rate of speaking, syllable lengthening, and exaggerated stress (see Attardo, 2000 and references therein), or by means of particular morpho-syntactic constructions (e.g., rhetorical questions and superlative constructions) and lexical elements (extreme adjectives and adverbs). Ironic remarks may also be associated with corporal expressions and gestures, such as wink, smile and laughter (Gibbs, 2000; Bryant, 2011) especially after the end of the ironic utterance (gestural codas, González-Fuente et al., 2015). However, Attardo et al. (2003) claimed that the so-called blank face, i.e., the absence of any particular facial expression, often accompanies ironic utterances. We aimed to investigate the presence of ironic markers in Italian Sign Language (LIS). Many studies indicate non-manual markers (i.e., facial expressions, head and body movements, henceforth NMMs) as ideal candidates for an intonational analogue in sign languages (for a discussion see Sandler, 1999; Wilbur, 2000 and Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006). In the grammar of sign languages, NMMs play an essential role in different domains: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, prosody (for an overview, see Pfau & Quer, 2010). To our knowledge, no systematic investigation has examined the function of NMMs in LIS on a sentential semantic and pragmatic level. We administered to four Deaf native LIS signers (two women and two men) a Discourse Completion Task (Félix-Brasdefer, 2010) to obtain a semi-spontaneous elicitation of ten minimal pairs of remarks. The same remark was elicited in one session after a context that triggered its literal interpretation and, in a different session, after a context that supported its ironic interpretation. Since verbal irony crucially involves an evaluation (a.o. Grice 1978, Attardo 2000b, Kotthoff 2003 and Partington 2007), we elicited remarks containing an explicit evaluative sign, either positive (e.g., BEAUTIFUL) or negative (e.g., WORTHLESS). We thus obtained, from every signer, five Literal Compliments (LiCo), five Ironic Criticisms (IrCr), 5 Literal Criticisms (LiCr) and 5 Ironic Compliments (IrCo). To illustrate, we report below the glosses of two minimal pairs: (1) IX-3 BEAUTIFUL VERY ‘That’s very beautiful!’ (literal compliment & ironic criticism) (2) HOUSE IX-3 WORTHLESS ‘What an awful house!’ (literal criticism & ironic compliment) The 80 remarks were imported and annotated in ELAN. To compare literal and ironic remarks in LIS, we investigated three aspects: i) duration of the evaluative lexical sign and whole remark; ii) manual markers; iii) non-manual markers. We found that (i) ironic remarks had a longer duration than literal ones (β=0.15, SE=0.06, t=2.46, p=.02). (ii) Signers spontaneously produced additional signs; the manual marker CIRCLE (articulated with a B handshape rotating in a clockwise direction) tended to occur in ironic remarks, regardless of the polarity of the evaluative sign (both IrCr and IrCo). Moreover, we identified repetition, superlatives, and exaggerated articulation as manual strategies to signal ironic intent. (iii) As for non-manual markers, those that showed significant results involved Head (multiple nods) and Mouth (corners up and corners down). We conducted a generalized linear model analysis entering as predictors Remark type (literal vs. ironic) and Attitude (compliment vs. criticism). Significant results are reported in Table 1. We found a significant effect of remark type by attitude interaction on head multiple nods (p=.002: more multiple nods in ironic criticisms than literal criticisms, no such difference in compliments); a significant effect of attitude on mouth-corners down (criticism>compliment, p=.01); and a significant effect of attitude on mouth-corners up (compliment>criticism, p<.001). A more fine-grained descriptive analysis conducted on the evaluative signs revealed clear regularities: (a) ironic remarks were often accompanied by multiple nods and/or lateral tilts of the head; (b) mouth-corners up were almost always present in remarks expressing compliment (LiCo and IrCo), while mouth-corners down were almost always present in remarks expressing criticism (LiCr and IrCr). Finally, other instances of NMMs were observed within ironic remarks: open mouth, head-shake, wide-open eyes and raised eyebrows. Since they were not systematically found across signers and contexts, we report them as descriptive observations. The quantitative and qualitative analyses we conducted on the minimal pairs of ironic/literal remarks allowed us to identify an irony toolkit for LIS. Some of the strategies to signal ironic intent are analogous to those found in vocal languages. This suggests that these cues are modality independent: prolonged articulation of the remark (cf. Cutler, 1974; Haiman, 1998; Anolli et al., 2002); the use of repetitions and superlatives (Muecke, 1978; Hancock, 2004); finally, head-shakes, wide-open eyes and raised eyebrows are common to both modalities (Attardo et al., 2003). Quite interestingly, some other strategies appear to be modality specific, as the manual marker CIRCLE and multiple nods and lateral tilts of the head. Moreover, we claim that mouth patterns convey signer's attitude: mouth-corners up compliments, whereas mouth-corners down criticisms. We then propose that, besides the irony markers discussed before, irony in LIS may also be inferred from the combination of sentence meaning and signer's attitude. Sentence meaning consists in the positive or negative evaluation expressed by the lexical evaluative sign (e.g., BEAUTIFUL and HORRIBLE), whereas signer's attitude is signaled by the position of the mouth. The interaction between evaluative sign and position of the mouth indicates whether the sentence has to be interpreted literally (when they match) or ironically (if there is a mismatch).

Figure 1
Image

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the SIGN-HUB project (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, Grant Agreement N°693349).

Many thanks are due to the LIS signers who collaborated to this reseach project: Anna Folchi, Rosella Ottolini, Mirko Pasquotto and Mauro Mottinelli.

References

Anolli, Luigi, Ciceri, Rita, Infantino, Maria Giaele, 2002. From “blame by praise” to “praise by blame: Analysis of vocal patterns in ironic communication. International Journal of Psychology 37 (5), 266–276.
Attardo, Salvatore, 2000a. Irony markers and functions: Towards a goal-oriented theory of irony and its processing. Rask 12(1), 3-20.
Attardo, Salvatore, 2000b. Irony as relevant inappropriateness. Journal of pragmatics, 32(6), 793-826.
Attardo, Salvatore, Jodi Eisterhold, Jennifer Hay and Isabella Poggi, 2003. Multimodal markers of irony and sarcasm. Humor 16(2), 243-260.
Bryant, Gregory A., 2011. Verbal irony in the wild. Pragmatics and Cognition 19 (2), 291-309.
Bryant, Gregory A., and Jean E. Fox Tree, 2005. Is there an ironic tone of voice?. Language and speech 48.3, 257-277.
Cutler, Anne, 1974. On saying what you mean without meaning what you say. In: Lagaly, M., Fox, R., Bruck, A. (Eds.), Papers from the Tenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society. University of Chicago, Chicago, 117–127.
Félix-Brasdefer, Julio C., 2010. Data collection methods in speech act performance: DCTs, role plays, and verbal reports. In: Martínez-Flor, A., Uso-Juan, E. (Eds.), Speech Act Performance: Theoretical, Empirical, and Methodological Issues. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 41-56.
Gibbs, Raymond W., 2000. Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and symbol 15.1-2: 5-27.
Gonzalez-Fuente, Santiago, Escandell-Vidal, Victoria, Prieto, Pilar, 2015. Gestural codas pave the way to the understanding of verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics 90, 26–47.
Grice, H. Paul, 1978. Further notes on logic and conversation. In: Cole, P. (Ed.), Pragmatics. Academic Press, New York, vol. 9, pp. 113-127.
Haiman, John. 1998. Talk is Cheap. Sarcasm, Alienation, and the Evolution of Language. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Hancock, Jeffrey T., 2004. Verbal Irony use in computer mediated and face-to-face conversations. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23, 447-463.
Kotthoff, Helga, 2003. Responding to irony in different contexts: On cognition in conversation. Journal of pragmatics, 35(9), 1387-1411.
Kreuz, Roger J., 1996. The use of verbal irony: Cues and constraints. In J. S. Mio and A. N. Katz (Eds.), Metaphor: Implications and Applications (23-38). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kreuz, Roger J., Max A. Kassler, Lori Coppenrath and Bonnie McLain Allen, 1999. Tag questions and common ground effects in the perception of verbal irony. Journal of Pragmatics 31(12), 1685-1700.
Muecke, Douglas C., 1978. Irony markers. Poetics 7, 363-375.
Partington, Alan, 2007. Irony and reversal of evaluation. Journal of Pragmatics 39 (9), pp. 1547-1569.
Pfau, Roland & Josep Quer, 2010. Nonmanuals: Their prosodic and grammatical roles. In Diane Brentari (Ed.), Sign languages: A Cambridge survey (381–402). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sandler, Wendy. 1999. The medium and the message: Prosodic interpretation of linguistic content in Israeli Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 2, 187-215.
Sandler, Wendy., & Lillo-Martin, Diane (2006). Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge University Press.

Keywords: Irony detection, Italian Sign Language (LIS), non-manual markers, Speaker's intended meaning, Speaker's attitude

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: Mantovan L, Giustolisi B and Panzeri F (2018). Detecting irony: the rise and fall of lips in LIS. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: XPRAG.it 2018 - Second Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2018.73.00019

Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.

The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.

Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.

For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.

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

* Correspondence: PhD. Francesca Panzeri, Università degli studi di Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy, francesca.panzeri@unimib.it