Abstract
Sperber and Wilson's (1981) Mention Theory gives an explanation of how to be understood an ironical utterance. Ironies are mentions of meaning conveying a derogatory attitude to the meaning mentioned (Sperber, 1984). The validity of this theory was evaluated in three experiments. All experiments required subjects to rate a sarcastic degree of an utterance. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the meaning of an utterance was interpreted as sarcastic when the utterance was positive, independent of speaker's mention. In Experiment 3, which examined the effect of the marker of mention, “You said…”, the utterance mentioned was interpreted as sarcastic. These results suggested that Mention Theory only partially give correct prediction of understanding of ironies. The addressee's inferences concerning speaker's intention was discussed.
