Mixed and ambiguous emotions can be studied with verbal irony.

Abstract

In this commentary we draw attention to a context involving mixed and ambiguous emotions: verbal irony. Irony is frequently used, evokes mixed emotional responses (e.g., criticism and amusement), and has been the focus of recent cognitive neuroscience research. Yet, irony has primarily been studied as a linguistic device, and has rarely been considered by emotion researchers. Similarly, linguistics has not considered mixed and ambiguous emotion when studying verbal irony. We argue that verbal irony offers rich opportunities to evoke and study mixed and ambiguous emotions, and might provide advantages for testing the MA-EM model.