In the new issue of Scientific American Mind (October/November, 2008), there is an article about how humans perceive irony and sarcasm. We know that words in speech can be ambiguous, but the ability to comprehend whether a certain comment is ironic or literal has intrigued many neurologists and psychologists.
In the essay, Psychologist Penny M. Pexman of the University of Calgary in Alberta conducted an experiment to see how children perceive irony and sarcasm in order to find out when this cognitive skill, relating to understand ironic comments, emerges in the development of language acquisition.
The result suggested that children’s sensibilities towards irony and sarcasm seem ‘hardwired’. Certainly, the research also mentioned that understanding and using irony and sarcasm require social intelligence, the ability to distinguish an ironic comment from its literal meaning, and understanding hints of facial expression, tone of voice, knowledge of the speaker’s personality and so forth.
Although the experiment provided a promising perspective in probing how early children start to develop the ability to use and comprehend ironic words, I speculate that it might not be very objective and could be very difficult to determine when exactly a child starts to grasp irony and sarcasm. As we know, a mother’s motherese can have impact on the baby when he or she is still in the womb. In addition, any input from the environment can possibly influence a child’s linguistic development, be from other people in the family or radio and TV programmes. Therefore, I think this research can only give us some understanding regarding human’s application and comprehension of irony and sarcasm. Further research and studies should be undertaken so as to give more valid evidence in the aspect whether or not “we are hardwired with a sense of irony.”
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