A cognitive semantic study of verbal irony in harold pinter's the birthday party

Abstract EN

This study offers the verbal irony a new qualitative account within Conceptual Blending Theory of cognitive semantics.

The study problem is how can meaning be constructed by the speaker and communicated to the listener via using opposing words for the intended meaning.

The data is collected from Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party play and analysed according to the Conceptual Blending Theory model through Introspection method.

In this model, there are spaces : a generic, two input spaces and the blended space.

The application showed that meaning construction in verbal irony is all done via a specific type of conceptual integration network, single-scope network, with five inseparably interrelated and supplementary mental processes.

The first is building the two input spaces and achieving their mutual content from the generic space that contains encyclopaedic, background and/or discourse context knowledge.

The second is holding an outer-space vital relation because of input spaces counterpart elements.

The third is compression because of the input spaces distinct frames, and the fourth is a projection of a frame and elements selectively to the blended space as the input spaces elements and frames were separated with compression.

The fifth is reframing the projected elements with the projected frame, that is the emergent structure and the actual meaning of the verbal irony.

Thus, what is said is opposite to what is actually meant in verbal irony is all a matter of having distinct frames in the input spaces that causes conflict and contradictory outer-space vital relation which finally solved by either frame and elements selection or just frame-shifting in the blended space.

The study also concluded that in the communication of verbal irony the listener takes the same conceptual network for the conception, but not necessarily moving through the network in the speaker's order.