<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Due to the growing interest not only in theoretical approaches to irony, but also in its pragmatic functions, the number of questions is increasing. One of them is: Is irony in any way connected to emotional intelligence? This paper outlines what irony is and how it is used in everyday conversations. Analysis of current studies in emotional intelligence highlights its influence over behavior and attitude. It led to an experiment where subjects (<italic>N</italic> = 80) where asked to fill an emotional intelligence questionnaire and an irony questionnaire. The results show that emotional intelligence is negatively correlated with the overall sum of ironic sentences and self-ironic sentences, and with the number of ironic praise sentences. Later, the implications of empirical findings are discussed.</p></abstract>

Due to the growing interest not only in theoretical approaches to irony, but also in its pragmatic functions, the number of questions is increasing. One of them is: Is irony in any way connected to emotional intelligence? This paper outlines what irony is and how it is used in everyday conversations. Analysis of current studies in emotional intelligence highlights its influence over behavior and attitude. It led to an experiment where subjects (N = 80) where asked to fill an emotional intelligence questionnaire and an irony questionnaire. The results show that emotional intelligence is negatively correlated with the overall sum of ironic sentences and self-ironic sentences, and with the number of ironic praise sentences. Later, the implications of empirical findings are discussed.

“I Understand You, So I’ll Not Hurt You with My Irony”: Correlations Between Irony and Emotional Intelligence

Psychology of Language and Communication

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Due to the growing interest not only in theoretical approaches to irony, but also in its pragmatic functions, the number of questions is increasing. One of...

“I Understand You, So I’ll Not Hurt You with My Irony”: Correlations Between Irony and Emotional Intelligence

Published Online: Feb 23, 2017

Page range: 235 - 254

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/plc-2016-0015

Keywords
irony, language, figurative speech, pragmatics, emotional intelligence

© 2016 Michał Bajerski, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

“I Understand You, So I’ll Not Hurt You with My Irony”: Correlations Between Irony and Emotional Intelligence

Published Online: Feb 23, 2017

Page range: 235 - 254

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/plc-2016-0015

Keywordsirony, language, figurative speech, pragmatics, emotional intelligence

© 2016 Michał Bajerski, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
irony, language, figurative speech, pragmatics, emotional intelligence