Children and Irony

Children and Irony

Irony is, among many other reasons, problematic in the sense that it is both hard to define as well as sometimes hard to understand. Even the most critical and experienced of readers have missed instances of irony at times, and even more so ordinary readers.

Furthermore, traditional conceptions of irony almost always talk about the "ignorant" audience that fails to detect the irony alongside the "knowing" audience that does detect it. These conceptions generally take a hierarchical view with regards to irony, commonly regarding those that fail to "get" the irony as being uneducated or ignorant (Hutcheon, 94). Interestingly however, these conceptions are almost always discussed with the idea that the audience (or readership) is an adult one. What about children? Are children capable of understanding irony? It is not an uncommon belief that children are not sophisticated enough for irony. This would be in line with traditional hierarchical notions of irony. Yet how much of this is true? This paper argues that amidst claims that children are not sophisticated enough, it is possible, drawing upon works by Hutcheon, Booth, and Winner, to see that on the contrary, children are not inherently incapable of understanding irony. Children can indeed "get" irony and are no different from adults in terms of their ability insofar as they are not limited by normal cognitive constraints that are present till about the young ages of ten or eleven.

In trying to show this however, it is necessary to first establish a viable alternative to the notion that those who fail to "get" irony are inferior and less sophisticated than those who do. This is to undermine a rather insidious line of logic that consequently supports o...

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...y. If we haste in casting the inability of children to understand adults as proof of inferiority, why then do we hesitate to do the same when adults cannot understand their children? This paper does not seek to deny the obvious differences in cognitive ability between adults and young children, but it nevertheless seeks to highlight the problems and perils of rushing to make judgements about the ability of others to comprehend irony especially when irony itself is already so problematic in nature.

Works Cited

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1974.

Hutcheon, Linda. Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London: Routledge, 1994.

Teo, Bernice. "The Ability of Children to Understand Irony." IVLE Posting. National University of Singapore, 2003.

Winner, Ellen. The Point of Words. London: Harvard University Press, 1988.