Abstract

In earlier work (“Why irony is pretence”, in S. Nichols (ed) The Architecture of Imagination, Oxford University Press, 2006) I have argued for a version of the pretence theory of irony — a version according to which the ironist is pretending to adopt a perspective which is defective in some way. I also contrasted this version of the pretence theory with the echoic theory of Sperber and Wilson, concluding that the pretence theory is superior. Deirdre Wilson has now responded to this paper (“The pragmatics of verbal irony : echo or pretence?” Lingua 116 (2006) 1722-1743). In the present paper I respond to Wilson’s counterarguments. I also generate a counterexample to the echoic theory which helps to show that, contrary to what some have thought, the echoic and pretence theories are not equivalent. Finally, I consider some of the consequences for literary theory of thinking of irony as pretending to have a defective point of view.