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  • 17 - Irony and Its Overlap with Hyperbole and Understatement

  • from Part V - Irony, Affect, and Related Figures
  • Edited by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr, Herbert L. Colston, University of Alberta
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought
    Published online:
    20 December 2023
    Print publication:
    07 December 2023, pp 310-324

  • Summary

    This chapter examines the possibility that hyperbole and understatement are distinct notions and not necessarily under the superordinate concept of irony. Hyperbole relates to exaggeration or overstatement, while understatements are viewed as scalar shifts that are quite the opposite of hyperbole (i.e., presenting something as less significant than it is). She examines empirical evidence on the discourse goals associated with irony, hyperbole, and understatement to suggest that irony is frequently a part of hyperbole and understatement (e.g., to achieve the goals of contrast, expectations, and indeterminacy), but can exist on its own (e.g., to achieve the goal of an ironic attitude through evaluation accounts, negative-attitude accounts, and dissociative-attitude accounts). Both hyperbole and understatement are also evaluative, but not necessarily in an ironic way. Most generally, understatement and hyperbole may share common mechanisms with irony, yet are still important rhetorical figures in their own right.