Producing Irony in Adolescence: A Comparison Between Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication

Marc Aguert (1) , Virginie Laval (2) , Nadia Gauducheau (3) , Hassan Atifi (3) , Michel Marcoccia (3)

1 PALM - Psychologie des actions langagières et motrices
2 CeRCA [Poitiers] - Centre de recherches sur la cognition et l'apprentissage [UMR 7295]
3 Tech-CICO - TECHnologies pour la Coopération, l’Interaction et les COnnaissances dans les collectifs

The literature suggests that irony production expands in the developmental period of adolescence. We aimed to test this hypothesis by investigating two channels: face-to-face and computer-mediated communication (CMC). Corpora were collected by asking seventh and 11th graders to freely discuss some general topics (e.g., music), either face-to-face or on online forums. Results showed that 6.2% of the 11th graders’ productions were ironic utt erances, compared with just 2.5% of the seventh graders’ productions, confi rming the major development of irony production in adolescence. Results also showed that adolescents produced more ironic utt erances in CMC than face-to-face. Th e analysis suggested that irony use is a strategy for increasing in-group solidarity and compensating for the distance intrinsic to CMC, as it was mostly inclusive and well-marked on forums. Th e present study also confi rmed previous studies showing that irony is compatible with CMC.

Keywords: irony; sarcasm; production; adolescence; computer-mediated communication; forums

Domains: Psychology

Marc Aguert, Virginie Laval, Nadia Gauducheau, Hassan Atifi, Michel Marcoccia. Producing Irony in Adolescence: A Comparison Between Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication. Psychology of Language and Communication, 2016, 20 (3), pp.199-218. ⟨10.1515/plc-2016-0013⟩. ⟨hal-02370835⟩