“Unicorn humour isn’t very subtle.” Graphic novels and comics as a potential didactic tool for teaching irony to children: the example of Dana Simpson’s Phoebe and her unicorn

ABSTRACT

Children find verbal irony difficult to understand. Yet they need to acquire the skill of comprehending it in order to become proficient communicators and to master deep reading. Graphic novels and comics can expose children to non-literal expressions, including verbal irony. In the paper, I argue that graphic novels and comics may be used as a powerful tool for teaching irony to children, using Phoebe and her Unicorn by Dana Simpson as an example of a literary source of children’s exposure to ironic language. While I analyse chosen instances of irony used in the comic, I postulate that in consideration of recent studies on figurative language comprehension, irony should be taught to children.

KEYWORDS:

• Verbal irony
• irony in comics
• teaching irony to children
• irony comprehension

Acknowledgments

The article was written thanks to the funded stay at Harvard Graduate School of Education financed by the NAWA program in Poland within the Bekker program no. PPN/BEK/2019/00233

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The article was written thanks to the funded stay at Harvard Graduate School of Education financed by the NAWA program in Poland within the Bekker program no. PPN/BEK/2019/00233.

Notes on contributors

Natalia Banasik-Jemielniak

Natalia Banasik-Jemielniak is an assistant professor at the Institute of Psychology, at The Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw (Poland). She has earned her Ph.D. in psychology and three Masters in linguistics, psychology and education. She studies topics at the intersection of linguistics and psychology. In 2019-2020, she was a visiting fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Education.