# The Verbal Irony Questionnaire: An Initial Approach to the Conceptualization and Measurement of Verbal Irony in High Intellectual Ability

## TL;DR

This study introduces a questionnaire to measure how students with high intellectual ability understand verbal irony, revealing four distinct categories of irony comprehension.

## Contribution

The paper presents a novel instrument, the Verbal Irony Questionnaire (VIrQ), for assessing verbal irony comprehension in high intellectual ability students.

## Key findings

- The VIrQ consists of 33 items grouped into four factors: ironic dissociation, ironic attitude, ironic constructions, and reinforced irony echo.
- All four factors showed adequate reliability with indices between 0.70 and 0.95.
- The study provides a new tool for understanding cognitive processes related to figurative language in high intellectual ability children.

## Abstract

Figurative language is a complex construct related to intelligence. Psychology and psycholinguistics are trying to understand it from an interdisciplinary perspective, but studies are still scarce, methodologies are heterogeneous, and results are difficult to integrate. Some studies suggest that understanding the cognitive processes underlying figurative language and its forms could provide a new approach to understanding intellectual differences, such as high intellectual ability (HIA), and new instruments to assess it. The language of HIA children develops earlier and includes the use of irony, which involves metalinguistic skills. In this context, the present study aims to offer an instrument, called the verbal irony questionnaire (or VIrQ), to test the comprehension of verbal irony in students with HIA. A convenience sample of n = 169 students with HIA, aged between 7 and 15 years, responded to the VIrQ. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted. The results revealed that 33 items were retained and categorized into four factors. F1, ironic dissociation (14 items); F2, ironic attitude (8 items); F3, ironic constructions (7 items); and F4, reinforced irony echo (4 items). All factors have adequate reliability indices above 0.70 and below 0.95. Finally, new perspectives are also discussed.