Irony: Context and salience

Two experiments test a graded salience account of irony processing (Giora, Fein, & Schwartz, 1998). Experiment 1 shows that, as predicted, less familiar targets embed-ded in ironically biasing contexts facilitate only the salient literal meaning initially: 150 msec after their offset. However, 1,000 msec after their offset, the less salient ironic meaning becomes available and the literal meaning is still as active. In contrast, familiar ironies facilitate both their salient literal and ironic meanings initially: 150 msec after their offset. Results do not change significantly after a 1,000-msec delay. In the literally biasing contexts, less familiar ironies facilitate only the salient literal meaning. In contrast, familiar ironies facilitate both their salient literal and ironic meanings under both interstimulus interval conditions, as predicted. Experiment 2 confirms that these findings were affected by the target sentences rather than by the contexts themselves. In Experiment 2, the contexts were presented without the tar-gets, inducing no difference in response patterns. Irony comprehension is believed to rely heavily on context (cf. Katz & Lee, 1993). Researchers, however, fail to agree on the temporal stage at which context affects irony comprehension. Some studies report results consistent with the interactive, direct access view (e.g., Gibbs, 1986a, 1986b, 1994; Gibbs, O’Brien, & Doolittle, 1995; see Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995, p. 239, for similar assumptions) that as-sumes that contextual information affects comprehension very early on. They ques-tion the traditional assumptions often known as the Standard Pragmatic Mode