Abstract

BECERRA VALDERRAMA, María Isabel  and  IGOA GONZALEZ, José Manuel. IRONIC INTENT IN HYPERBOLES AND RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN SPANISH. Forma funcion, Santaf, de Bogot, D.C. [online]. 2013, vol.26, n.2, pp.99-124. ISSN 0120-338X.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the degree of ironic intent attributed to hyperboles and rhetorical questions in Spanish. To that effect, four experiments were carried out. In the first two, participants assessed the degree of ironic intent they perceived in brief statements (hyperboles and rhetorical questions) they heard under different conditions: with or without context. In experiments three and four, participants carried out two perception tasks, discriminating and identifying ironic intonation and neutral intonation in two different conditions (f0 contour and normal sentence). The results indicated a better identification of the ironic intent of mockery associated with hyperboles, and of criticism, associated with rhetorical questions. Contextual information was observed to have a greater weight than prosodic information when identifying the ironic intentions of mockery and criticism.

Keywords : irony; hyperboles; rhetorical questions; prosody; context.

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