Contrastive Metapragmatics and the Shifting Semantics of “Sarcasm” in English and Danish

What is it about?

People use words like “sarcasm” and “humour” to describe and categorise their ways of speaking, but often such words don’t mean exactly the same thing in different languages and cultures. Using a linguistic method of meaning analysis, this study compares English “sarcasm” and Danish “sarkasme” and finds subtle but interesting differences between them. It also finds that the English word “sarcasm” has recently developed a second meaning; basically, expressing a negative message with the aim of being amusing. Understanding words like these can shed light on cultural differences and ease cross-cultural misunderstanding.

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