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A delicate balance: Irony in the Negotiation of Refusals

Reichl, Isabella, Kapogianni, Eleni (2021) A delicate balance: Irony in the Negotiation of Refusals. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, . ISSN 2213-1272. E-ISSN 2213-1280. (doi:10.1075/jlac.00050.rei) (KAR id:87369)

Abstract

This paper examines the factors that influence the outcome of exchanges containing refusals, focusing specifically on the role of irony. For this pur- pose, we analyse spontaneous conversations in English (SPICE-Ireland Corpus and Spoken BNC) within a discursive framework (Eelen 2001; Mills 2003; Watts 2003) that considers the negotiation of opposing views as well as relationships between interlocutors. We propose a model that relies on the crucial distinction we draw between the ‘positional’ and the ‘interper- sonal’ level, pointing at mismatches between the two when it comes to the presence of conflict. We determine the presence and (non-)resolution of interpersonal conflict based on evidence of relational work (Locher and Watts 2008) and show that although there is no fixed trajectory from irony type (Kapogianni 2011, 2018) to interpersonal effect, some ironies are more interpersonally risky than others.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1075/jlac.00050.rei
Uncontrolled keywords: refusals, irony, interpersonal conflict, multi-turn approach
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PE English philology and language
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Eleni Kapogianni
Date Deposited: 29 Mar 2021 15:29 UTC
Last Modified: 07 Feb 2023 04:16 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/87369 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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