A Functional Trade-off between Prosodic and Semantic Cues in Conveying Sarcasm

TL;DR

This paper explores how prosodic and semantic cues interact and compensate each other in conveying sarcasm, revealing a trade-off where prosodic cues are less prominent when semantic cues are strong.

Contribution

It uncovers a functional trade-off between prosodic and semantic cues in sarcasm, based on analysis of television show utterances across different sarcasm categories.

Findings

Semantic cues reduce reliance on prosodic cues in sarcasm.

Prosodic cues are more prominent when semantic cues are weak.

Sarcastic expressions show a nuanced interaction between prosody and semantics.

Abstract

This study investigates the acoustic features of sarcasm and disentangles the interplay between the propensity of an utterance being used sarcastically and the presence of prosodic cues signaling sarcasm. Using a dataset of sarcastic utterances compiled from television shows, we analyze the prosodic features within utterances and key phrases belonging to three distinct sarcasm categories (embedded, propositional, and illocutionary), which vary in the degree of semantic cues present, and compare them to neutral expressions. Results show that in phrases where the sarcastic meaning is salient from the semantics, the prosodic cues are less relevant than when the sarcastic meaning is not evident from the semantics, suggesting a trade-off between prosodic and semantic cues of sarcasm at the phrase level. These findings highlight a lessened reliance on prosodic modulation in semantically dense sarcastic expressions and a nuanced interaction that shapes the communication of sarcastic intent.