Although the figure of irony has enjoyed extensive attention through important contributions to the diverse literatures addressing figurative thought and language, it still remains relatively in the background compared to other figures such as metaphor and metonymy. The present volume, together with a 2017 collection by Angeliki Athanasiadou and Herbert L. Colston, aims to the further exploration of verbal and situational irony, its gestural accompaniments, its comprehension and interpretation, its constructional diversity and its cooperation with other figures such as metaphor and hyperbole. The present volume is a highly interesting collection of chapters dealing with both theoretical investigations and descriptive applications of a central figure pervading human thought and language. Its aim is to draw more attention to irony's diversity and its concomitant connections to other aspects of figurativeness.

• Preface
• Contents
• Introduction. On the diversity of irony
• Part I: Diversity across figures
• Uniting irony, hyperbole and metaphor in an affect-centred, pretence-based framework
• How defaultness affects text production: Resonating with default interpretations of negative sarcasm
• Irony in constructions
• Hyperbolic Figures
• Denying the salient contrast. Speaker’s attitude in hyperbole
• Part II: Diversity across languages
• Thai irony as an indirect relational tool to save face in social interactions
• England is an appendix; Corrupt officials are like hairs on a nation’s arm: Sarcasm, irony and self-irony in figurative political discourse
• Grammatical emphasis and irony in Spanish
• Part III: Diversity across media
• Eye-rolling, irony and embodiment
• Experimental investigations of irony as a viewpoint phenomenon
• Faces of sarcasm. Exploring raised eyebrows with sarcasm in French political debates
• A pilot study on the diversity in irony production and irony perception
• Index