On negation as mitigation: The case of negative irony

Four experiments support the view of negation as mitigation (Giora, Balaban, Fein, & Alkabets, 2004). They show that when irony involves some sizable gap between what is said and what is criticized (He is exceptionally bright said of an idiot), it is rated as highly ironic (Giora, 1995). A negated version of that overstatement, (He is not exceptionally bright), is also rated as ironic, albeit to a lesser extent. Indeed, rather than eliminating the stance, the negation marker only tones it down. Less ironic than both is a version that involves both a negation marker and a nonoverstatement (He is not bright). In contrast, an approximate opposite of the overstatement (He is stupid) is rated as nonironic, because it involves no considerable gap between what is said and what is referred to (Experiments 1-2). These results are replicated with other modifiers such as looks like (Experiment 3). In addition, negated overstatements are recognizable as ironic even when no explicit context is specified (Experiment 4).