A Basic Course in Anthropological Linguistics (Studies in Linguistic ...

(3) We don’t hire crew cuts.
MEANINGS
[the producer (brand) for the product]
(4) I’ll have a Heineken.
(5) We bought a Ford.
(6) He’s got a Rembrandt in his office.
[the object used for the user]
(7)
(8)
(9)
My piano is sick today.
The meat and potatoes is a lousy tipper.
The buses are on strike.
[the institution for the people in it]
(10) Shell has raised its prices again.
(1 1) The Church thinks that promiscuity is immoral.
(12) I don’t approve of government’s actions.
Irony constitutes a semantic strategy based on the use of words to convey
a meaning contrary to their literal sense+.g., “I love being tortured” uttered
by someone in excruciating pain. It is, more formally, a cognitive strategy by
which a concept is highlighted through opposition, antithesis, or antonymy. In
this case, the interaction between langue and parole becomes rather
conspicuous. If the sentence “I love being tortured” is uttered by a masochist,
then it would hardly have an ironic meaning!
It is interesting to note that irony emerges late in verbal development
(Winner 1988). Such ironic works as Woody Allen’s (1935- ) movies would
hardly be understood or certainly appreciated by children before the age of
puberty. Allen’s films are ironic depictions of neurotic urban characters
preoccupied with love and death. Movies such as Bananas (197 1)’ Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972), Annie Hall (1977)’ Bullets
over Broadway (1994), and Mighty Aphrodite (1995) are based on irony as a
means of criticizing human habits, ideas, and vacuous rituals.
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