The Sarchasm: Sarcasm Production and Identification in Spontaneous Conversation

ABSTRACT

We tested sarcasm production and identification across original communicators in a spontaneously produced conversational setting, including testing the role of synchronous movement on sarcasm production and identification. Before communicating, stranger dyads participated in either a synchronous or nonsynchronous movement task. They then completed a task designed to elicit sarcasm, although no instruction to produce sarcastic content was provided. After communicating, participants immediately reviewed their conversations and identified their own and their addressees’ sarcastic utterances. No definition of sarcasm was provided. We found that participants who had moved synchronously identified more sarcasm in their own productions. They did not identify more sarcasm in their partner’s productions however. We also discovered that most identifications of sarcasm did not align across conversational participants, and neither did those of outside observers. People reported sarcasm in their addressees commensurate with the sarcasm they produced, rather than the sarcasm that their addressees self-reported. There were numerous cases of sarchasm, where producers’ intended sarcasm was not identified by addressees.

Acknowledgments

We thank our many research assistants for their help with this project, with a special thanks to Paige Collazo, Sara Eslami, Sean Gardner, Jasmin Granke, Bronwyn Hassall, Emilie Kovalik, Katrina Moselina, Courtney McBride, Meghna Narayan, Tara Niyogi, Sabrina O’Brien, Sonia Perez Lemus, and Evelyn Yap. We thank Michael Schober, Adrian Bangerter, Seana Coulson, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by a Federico and Rena Perlino Award for research related to deafness.