Verbal Irony in the Czech Discourse and its Perception

Verbal Irony in the Czech Discourse and its Perception Mgr. Dominika Rýparová Abstract This thesis sets the verbal irony into a broader context of human communication and supports the tendency to understand the irony as a communication strategy - not only as a speech figure or a tool to make our way of speaking more attractive. The aim of this work is to remind that irony is an integral part of our everyday communication, and a prerequisite for its use and understanding is built on the particular language experience. The experiment was examining the function of the four forms of irony, which differed in the degree of engaged humour or, conversely, expressed criticism. During the research one was able to get answers from a total of 3,167 respondents. Their analysis revealed that the major motivation for use of the selected types of irony is the humour, but the more humorous the statement is, the more the speaker takes a risk of not being completely understood, because he/she plays with reality too much. Further the results showed that the perception of irony-related emotions is influenced by our age. Younger people are more sensitive to the humorous points of irony, while the older are more tolerant of its critical part. The evaluation of irony is also affected by the communication role of the respondent...