Implicit Display Theory of Verbal Irony: Towards A Computational Model of Irony

This paper proposes the implicit display theory of verbal irony that overcomes several difficulties of previous irony theories, and then describes a computational model of irony interpretation and generation based on the theory. The theory claims that irony implicitly communicates the fact that its utterance situation is surrounded by ironic environment which has three properties, but hearers can assume an utterance to be ironic even when they do not see all the three properties implicitly displayed by the utterance. Implicit communication of three properties is accomplished in such a way that an utterance alludes to the speaker’s expectation, violates pragmatic principles, and is accompanied by several cues for implying the speaker’s emotional attitude.