New Europe College Yearbook 1997-1998 - Free

ANDREEA-CRISTINA GHIÞÃ
work. The ironic perspective degrading the image of the top official is
signalled in the text by the deteriorated phonetic transcription of technical
words borrowed from English (management, development, marketing,
privatisation). The caricaturised transcription of technocratic jargon
ridicules the useless theoretical competence of the official, his claims to
implement Western privatisation contrasted with the disappointing results.
At the lexical level, this contrast is expressed by stylistically hybrid
combinations of words: un bancrapsi de mai mare dragul (approx. an
exceptional bankruptcy) where the English word is in the neighbourhood
of a Romanian idiomatic phrase. Finally the contrast between the
technocratic term (bankruptcy) and the idiomatic phrase (de mai mare
dragul) is ironically homogenised by the familiarity of the transcription
(bancrapsi) which demystifies the vacuous claims of the authority. Irony
is not signalled at every step of the text, but the reader will read along
sharing the same perspective.
5.2. Understanding Irony – Attitude, Context, and Pretence as
Essential Elements
5.2.1. Attitude – irony is not overtly signalled in the text. This is why
sometimes it might be left unnoticed. As pragmatists say, the ironic
perlocutionary effect cannot be associated with a performative explicating
the verbal action: *I ironies (you) that... Whenever a speaker/writer uses
an ironic “label” or formula, like “it is ironic that”, “this is an irony”, “isn’t
it ironic that...?” etc., that is a didactic description of an ironic fact, situation.
It is not an ironic utterance and consequently it will not trigger any
corresponding attitude or effect on the part of the hearer/reader.
In spite of these pragmatic restrictions programmatically leaving irony
as totally implicit (always to be detected), the competent reader recognises
the ironic intention and in the end, after completing his reading, he is left
with a certain (“biased”) attitude towards the reality represented in the
text. In his pragmatic account of irony, Grice 11 assumes the importance
of the “attitude” element as a key component: irony is intimately connected
with the expression of a feeling, attitude, or evaluation. I cannot say
something ironically unless what I say is intended to reflect a hostile or
derogatory judgement or a feeling such as indignation or contempt. Other
authors argued that negativity and disappointment might not be an intrinsic
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