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Intentionality, speaker's attitude and the processing of verbal irony

Does it take more or less time to read ironic sentences than to read literal equivalents? Though this question has been extensively discussed in the literature, the results are mixed(see eg. Filik & Moxey, 2010). The present work attempt to account for the differences in the literature by considering the variable effect of anticipating the intentions of a speaker during comprehension of ironic utterances used to answer yes/no questions, as well as the role of explicit cues regarding the attitude of a speaker. The results show that both of these factors interact and together modulate the interpretation of a sentence as ironic or literal as well as the utterance’s reading times. We interpret the results are broadly in line with the predictions made by the echoic mention account.