On Verbal Irony in Arabic: A Relevance Theory Perspective

Abstract

The present paper dealt with ironic expressions in Arabic. Moreover, the study aimed at investigating the verbal irony in a model of Arabic literature particularly one of the poems written by the well-known poet, Ahmad Mattar, “the story of Abass”. The analysis of the data based on a linguistic model, Sperber and Wilson’s (1981) model of irony. The application of this model to the selected data has yielded some findings and conclusions. S&W’s notion of RT has the ability to provide a firmer theoretical basis for an irony form a language analysis. The study proved that a variety of symbols ,connotative names and adjectival words like Abbas, thief, moustache, sineen al-fat-h ,naajah(ewe) and awake are used by the  Arabic poet ,employing his linguistic repertoire to highlight the efficient role of irony in a literary discourse. The irony contributors, which carry with them the presumption of relevance, for example “polishing his sword, the barricades, were used to show the mocked character “Abass”, and the intended messages of the poet.

Keywords: Irony, Relevance Theory, Ahmad Matter, Abass