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Discourse Processes Volume 33, 2002 - Issue 3
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Original Articles

Does Sarcasm Always Sting? Investigating the Impact of Ironic Insults and Ironic Compliments

Penny M. Pexman
&
Kara M. Olineck
Pages 199-217 | Published online: 08 Jun 2010

Citations (79)

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Read on this site (23)

Ning Zhu & Ruth Filik. (2023) The role of social status in sarcasm interpretation: Evidence from the United Kingdom and China. Discourse Processes 0:0, pages 1-21.
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Valeria A. Pfeifer & Penny M. Pexman. (2023) Mixed and ambiguous emotions can be studied with verbal irony. Cognitive Neuroscience 14:2, pages 65-67.
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Piotr Kałowski, Maria Zajączkowska, Katarzyna Branowska, Anna Olechowska, Aleksandra Siemieniuk, Ewa Dryll & Natalia Banasik-Jemielniak. (2023) Individual Differences in Verbal Irony Use: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Psycholinguistic Studies. Metaphor and Symbol 38:1, pages 81-111.
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Alexander A. Johnson & Roger J. Kreuz. (2023) Sarcasm Across Time and Space: Patterns of Usage by Age, Gender, and Region in the United States. Discourse Processes 60:1, pages 1-17.
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Kathrin Rothermich, Sungwoo Ahn, Moritz Dannhauer & Marc D. Pell. (2022) Social appropriateness perception of dynamic interactions. Social Neuroscience 17:1, pages 37-57.
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Robert J. Sidelinger & Paul E. Madlock. (2021) Humor at work: exploring supervisors’ sarcasm, self-disparaging and vulgar language based humor, and verbal aggression. Communication Research Reports 38:5, pages 293-303.
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Jean E. Fox Tree, J. Trevor D’Arcey, Alicia A. Hammond & Alina S. Larson. (2020) The Sarchasm: Sarcasm Production and Identification in Spontaneous Conversation. Discourse Processes 57:5-6, pages 507-533.
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Elora Rivière & Maud Champagne-Lavau. (2020) Which contextual and sociocultural information predict irony perception?. Discourse Processes 57:3, pages 259-277.
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Maël Mauchand, Nikos Vergis & Marc D. Pell. (2020) Irony, Prosody, and Social Impressions of Affective Stance. Discourse Processes 57:2, pages 141-157.
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Bethany Pickering, Dominic Thompson & Ruth Filik. (2018) Examining the emotional impact of sarcasm using a virtual environment. Metaphor and Symbol 33:3, pages 185-197.
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Johny T. Garner, Robert C. Chandler & J. D. Wallace. (2015) Nothing to Laugh About: Student Interns' Use of Humor in Response to Workplace Dissatisfaction. Southern Communication Journal 80:2, pages 102-118.
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Juanita M. Whalen, Penny M. Pexman, Alastair J. Gill & Scott Nowson. (2013) Verbal irony use in personal blogs. Behaviour & Information Technology 32:6, pages 560-569.
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Joshua M. Averbeck. (2013) Comparisons of Ironic and Sarcastic Arguments in Terms of Appropriateness and Effectiveness in Personal Relationships. Argumentation and Advocacy 50:1, pages 47-57.
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James Boylan & AlbertN. Katz. (2013) Ironic Expression Can Simultaneously Enhance and Dilute Perception of Criticism. Discourse Processes 50:3, pages 187-209.
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Andrea Bowes & Albert Katz. (2011) When Sarcasm Stings. Discourse Processes 48:4, pages 215-236.
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JuanitaM. Whalen & PennyM. Pexman. (2010) How Do Children Respond to Verbal Irony in Face-to-Face Communication? The Development of Mode Adoption Across Middle Childhood. Discourse Processes 47:5, pages 363-387.
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JoshuaM. Averbeck & Dale Hample. (2008) Ironic Message Production: How and Why We Produce Ironic Messages. Communication Monographs 75:4, pages 396-410.
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Penny M. Pexman, Melanie Glenwright, Suzanne Hala, Stacey L. Kowbel & Sara Jungen. (2006) Children's Use of Trait Information in Understanding Verbal Irony. Metaphor and Symbol 21:1, pages 39-60.
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Jacqueline K. Matthews, Jeffrey T. Hancock & Philip J. Dunham. (2006) The Roles of Politeness and Humor in the Asymmetry of Affect in Verbal Irony. Discourse Processes 41:1, pages 3-24.
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Penny M. Pexman, Melanie Glenwright, Andrea Krol & Tammy James. (2005) An Acquired Taste: Children's Perceptions of Humor and Teasing in Verbal Irony. Discourse Processes 40:3, pages 259-288.
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Penny M. Pexman & Meghan T. Zvaigzne. (2004) Does Irony Go Better With Friends?. Metaphor and Symbol 19:2, pages 143-163.
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Melanie Harris & Penny M. Pexman. (2003) Children's Perceptions of the Social Functions of Verbal Irony. Discourse Processes 36:3, pages 147-165.
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Stacey L. Ivanko & Penny M. Pexman. (2003) Context Incongruity and Irony Processing. Discourse Processes 35:3, pages 241-279.
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Articles from other publishers (56)

Li Huang & Adam D. Galinsky. (2023) SHARP wit: Why receiving sarcasm improves perspective-taking. Current Opinion in Psychology 54, pages 101709.
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Katarzyna Branowska, Duygu Kandemirci-Bayız, Yasemin Abayhan, Büşra Akdeniz & Natalia Banasik-Jemielniak. (2023) Humor style predicts sarcasm use – evidence from Turkish speakers. HUMOR 36:3, pages 439-461.
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Jing Cui, Yu R. Dandan & Guiying Jiang. (2023) Judging emoji by occupation: A case of emoji-based sarcasm interpretation. Acta Psychologica 234, pages 103870.
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Simona Frenda, Viviana Patti & Paolo Rosso. 2023. Experimental IR Meets Multilinguality, Multimodality, and Interaction. Experimental IR Meets Multilinguality, Multimodality, and Interaction 34 47 .
Maximiliane Frobenius. 2022. A Pragmatic Approach to Fluency and Disfluency in Learner Language. A Pragmatic Approach to Fluency and Disfluency in Learner Language.
Anne Katrin Felsenheimer, Carolin Kieckhäfer & Alexander Michael Rapp. (2022) Irony detection in patients with borderline personality disorder: an experimental study examining schizotypal traits, response biases and empathy. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation 9:1.
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Simona Frenda, Viviana Patti & Paolo Rosso. (2022) Killing me softly: Creative and cognitive aspects of implicitness in abusive language online. Natural Language Engineering, pages 1-22.
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Gitte Henssel Joergensen, Pavitra Rao Makarla, Matthew Fammartino, Lauren Benson & Kathrin Rothermich. (2021) No, No One Had Fun. Individual Differences in Nonliteral Language Perception. Language and Speech 65:2, pages 290-310.
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Natsuko Shintani & Rod Ellis. (2022) The roles of language proficiency and study abroad in Japanese students’ receptive pragmatic competence. Applied Pragmatics 4:1, pages 1-32.
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Sandra Richter & Hartmut Leuthold. (2022) Understanding Irony in Literary Texts: A Cognitive Approach. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 58:1, pages 101-117.
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Kathrin Rothermich, Ayotola Ogunlana & Natalia Jaworska. (2021) Change in humor and sarcasm use based on anxiety and depression symptom severity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Psychiatric Research 140, pages 95-100.
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Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman, Katarzyna Jankowiak & Paweł Chełminiak. (2021) Modality matters: Testing bilingual irony comprehension in the textual, auditory, and audio-visual modality. Journal of Pragmatics 180, pages 219-231.
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Maël Mauchand, Jonathan A. Caballero, Xiaoming Jiang & Marc D. Pell. (2021) Immediate online use of prosody reveals the ironic intentions of a speaker: neurophysiological evidence. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 21:1, pages 74-92.
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Shanpeng Li & Wentao Gu. (2021) Prosodic Profiles of the Mandarin Speech Conveying Ironic Compliment. Prosodic Profiles of the Mandarin Speech Conveying Ironic Compliment.
Rod Ellis, Yan Zhu, Natsuko Shintani & Carsten Roever. (2021) A study of Chinese learners’ ability to comprehend irony. Journal of Pragmatics 172, pages 7-20.
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Roger J. Kreuz & Alexander A. Johnson. 2020. Producing Figurative Expression. Producing Figurative Expression 263 296 .
Francesca Ervas. 2020. Producing Figurative Expression. Producing Figurative Expression 175 210 .
K. Rothermich, O. Caivano, L.J. Knoll & V. Talwar. (2019) Do They Really Mean It? Children’s Inference of Speaker Intentions and the Role of Age and Gender. Language and Speech 63:4, pages 689-712.
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Ning Zhu & Zhenlin Wang. (2020) The paradox of sarcasm: Theory of mind and sarcasm use in adults. Personality and Individual Differences 163, pages 110035.
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Mehrgol Tiv, Vincent Rouillard, Naomi Vingron, Sabrina Wiebe & Debra Titone. (2019) Global Second Language Proficiency Predicts Self-Perceptions of General Sarcasm Use Among Bilingual Adults. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 38:4, pages 459-478.
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Gregory K. Tortoriello, William Hart & Kyle Richardson. (2019) Predicting perceived harmful intent from the Dark Tetrad: A novel cognitive account of interpersonal harm. Personality and Individual Differences 147, pages 43-52.
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Christina Pomareda, Auste Simkute & Louise H. Phillips. (2019) Age-related differences in the ability to decode intentions from non-literal language. Acta Psychologica 198, pages 102865.
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Nikos Vergis. (2019) How to put yourself in someone else’s shoes: The role of point-of-view in the interpretation of mixed messages. Intercultural Pragmatics 16:2, pages 219-238.
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Penny Pexman, Lorraine Reggin & Kate Lee. (2019) Addressing the Challenge of Verbal Irony: Getting Serious about Sarcasm Training. Languages 4:2, pages 23.
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Anna Milanowicz. (2019) A Short Etude on Irony in Storytelling. Psychology of Language and Communication 23:1, pages 14-26.
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María Isabel Kalbermatten. (2018) The role of verbal irony in conflict talk among relatives and friends in an Argentinian community. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 6:2, pages 299-319.
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Diana Boxer & María Elena Placencia. (2018) Introduction. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 6:2, pages 167-176.
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Olivier Simonin. 2018. The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter. The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter 59 80 .
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Anna Milanowicz, Adam Tarnowski & Barbara Bokus. (2017) When Sugar-Coated Words Taste Dry: The Relationship between Gender, Anxiety, and Response to Irony. Frontiers in Psychology 8.
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Albert Katz. 2017. Irony in Language Use and Communication. Irony in Language Use and Communication 237 254 .
Herbert L. Colston & Angeliki Athanasiadou. 2017. Irony in Language Use and Communication. Irony in Language Use and Communication 1 16 .
Yoritaka Akimoto & Shiho Miyazawa. (2017) Individual Differences in Irony Use Depend on Context. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36:6, pages 675-693.
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Melanie Glenwright, Brent Tapley, Jacqueline K. S. Rano & Penny M. Pexman. (2017) Developing Appreciation for Sarcasm and Sarcastic Gossip: It Depends on Perspective. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 60:11, pages 3295-3309.
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Nikos Vergis. (2017) The interaction of the Maxim of Quality and face concerns: An experimental approach using the vignette technique. Journal of Pragmatics 118, pages 38-50.
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Richard Bruntsch & Willibald Ruch. (2017) Studying Irony Detection Beyond Ironic Criticism: Let's Include Ironic Praise. Frontiers in Psychology 8.
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Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh & Valeria Sinkeviciute. 2017. The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness. The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness 323 355 .
Magda Gucman. (2016) The Role of Individual Differences and Situational Factors in Perception of Verbal Irony. Psychology of Language and Communication 20:3, pages 255-277.
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Michał Bajerski. (2016) “I Understand You, So I’ll Not Hurt You with My Irony”: Correlations Between Irony and Emotional Intelligence. Psychology of Language and Communication 20:3, pages 235-254.
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Li Huang, Francesca Gino & Adam D. Galinsky. (2015) The highest form of intelligence: Sarcasm increases creativity for both expressers and recipients. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 131, pages 162-177.
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Charlotte Taylor. (2015) Beyond sarcasm: The metalanguage and structures of mock politeness. Journal of Pragmatics 87, pages 127-141.
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Milena Kostova, Marie-Noëlle Rouanet, Marine Jacquelin, Hassan Hosseini & Alain Blanchet. (2015) Contexte social et compréhension de l’humour chez des patients cérébrolésés droits. Revue de neuropsychologie 7:3, pages 167.
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Tiziana Zalla, Frederique Amsellem, Pauline Chaste, Francesca Ervas, Marion Leboyer & Maud Champagne-Lavau. (2014) Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders Do Not Use Social Stereotypes in Irony Comprehension. PLoS ONE 9:4, pages e95568.
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Yoritaka Akimoto, Motoaki Sugiura, Yukihito Yomogida, Carlos Makoto Miyauchi, Shiho Miyazawa & Ryuta Kawashima. (2014) Irony comprehension: Social conceptual knowledge and emotional response. Human Brain Mapping 35:4, pages 1167-1178.
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MELANIE GLENWRIGHT, JAYANTHI M. PARACKEL, KRISTENE R. J. CHEUNG & ELIZABETH S. NILSEN. (2013) Intonation influences how children and adults interpret sarcasm. Journal of Child Language 41:2, pages 472-484.
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Jun Yao, Jie Song & Michael Singh. (2013) The ironical Chinese bei-construction and its accessibility to English speakers. Journal of Pragmatics 55, pages 195-209.
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Gregory A. Bryant. (2012) Is Verbal Irony Special?. Language and Linguistics Compass 6:11, pages 673-685.
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Johny T. Garner. (2011) Making Waves at Work. Management Communication Quarterly 26:2, pages 224-240.
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Melanie Glenwright & Abiola S. Agbayewa. (2012) Older children and adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders can comprehend verbal irony in computer-mediated communication. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 6:2, pages 628-638.
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Penny M. Pexman, Kristin R. Rostad, Carly A. McMorris, Emma A. Climie, Jacqueline Stowkowy & Melanie R. Glenwright. (2010) Processing of Ironic Language in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41:8, pages 1097-1112.
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MELANIE GLENWRIGHT & PENNY M. PEXMAN. (2009) Development of children's ability to distinguish sarcasm and verbal irony*. Journal of Child Language 37:2, pages 429-451.
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Åsa Brumark. (2006) Non-observance of Gricean maxims in family dinner table conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 38:8, pages 1206-1238.
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Stacey L. Ivanko, Penny M. Pexman & Kara M. Olineck. (2016) How Sarcastic are You?. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23:3, pages 244-271.
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Penny M. Pexman & Kara M. Olineck. (2016) Understanding Irony. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 21:3, pages 245-274.
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Ganga Sudhan. (2009) Using Sarcasm as a Tool for Language Acquisition. SSRN Electronic Journal.
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