Dr Eleni Kapogianni, Lecturer in Linguistics in the Department of English Language & Linguistics, will be guest speaker at the International Institute of Korean Studies colloquium, to be held at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) on Wednesday 8 March 2017, with a talk entitled ‘Language-Specific, Culture-Specific, and Universal Characteristics of Irony and Sarcasm’.
The use of irony comes so naturally that it is reasonable to suppose that it is a universal human skill. Studies on genetically and culturally distant languages indicate that – sarcastic and non-sarcastic – irony is indeed omnipresent. What hasn’t been investigated extensively, however, is which features of irony are truly inherent to its nature (therefore universal) and which are language- and culture-sensitive. In her talk, Eleni will focus mainly on Korean and English, reviewing existing data and analyses that provide clues on three culture-specific issues of (a) the boundary between sarcastic and non-sarcastic irony, (b) the use of self-irony and positive-irony, (c) the relationship between irony and (im)politeness. In order to further the discussion on language-specific versus universal characteristics of irony, she will also present preliminary findings from a survey investigating speakers’ intuitions about the use of irony in 12 selected languages.
The talk is scheduled for 3pm. To attend, please email Dr Hae-Sung Jeon at UCLAN at: HJeon1@uclan.ac.uk