CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Brody, R. (1999, May). Buoys in the gap: Satire, sarcasm, and irony as Sense-Making strategies. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
© Roberta Brody (1999).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
This project is grounded in the pluralist notion that “knowledge gained through any form can be valid and indeed can constitute a privileged kind of knowledge when it is pursued on the basis of special training and experience” (Levine, 1986). I am suggesting that literature, both classic and popular, may illustrate to us how irony, satire and sarcasm are used as strategies for Sense-Making by the author of a text and by its readers. Similar but unrehearsed humorous phenomena, as they appear in the texts of Sense-Making interviews, may reflect the process through the altered lens of humorous discourse.

My purpose is to examine the unnamed or unmentioned or unacknowledged, as it emerges in the use of irony, sarcasm, and satire. My hunch is that satire, irony and sarcasm are Sense-Making strategies that deal with issues in a context where they might otherwise go unexpressed. They may be part of what lies undefined within the gaps. This work is not intended to be an analysis of literary techniques but rather an exploration of satire, sarcasm and irony as types of humorous discourse that allow us entry into subtexts or content that may be otherwise unexpressed or poorly defined. While I intend to consider different theoretical ways of examining the use of Sense-Making, I am not sure that I would see this project as meta-theoretic but rather as an a-theoretic exploration or, perhaps, as an attempt at grounded theory. By this I mean I want to see what people are saying is happening when satire-ing or irony-ing or sarcasm-ing occurs and see if the employment of these techniques, whether spontaneous or rehearsed, is Sense-Making. By citing some of the ways in which satire, irony and sarcasm are used in authored text, I hope to typify some of ways that humorous discourse is used to do Sense-Making.

Irony, satire and sarcasm may represent attempts to express the otherwise unspoken and form what is called negative space in the visual arts—that is—the space around the objects in a composition. Here, this would be an expression of Sense-Making in broad metaphorical terms that are not context-specific. I am suggesting that humorous discourse, as represented by irony, sarcasm and satire, may function as (1) metaphorical boundaries, in context, for whatever realities are under discussion and, at the same time, may seem to (2) expose the actual process of Sense-Making through spontaneous expressions or may (3) explicitly represent an essential component of Sense-Making.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
I have always wanted to be a “Court Jester” because it seemed to me that such a personage represented an idea that suits my nature and personality—a job that encourages the questioning of all assumptions without political consequence. That is to say—I have dreamed of an environment that permits unlimited inquiry and intellectually unbounded challenge without the risk of losing my head. One special quality inherent in the idea of Court Jester is that the Jester is in the employ of the Court and recognizes himself as a part of the system. Another is that he expresses what others, because of protocol or power or tradition or face-saving, cannot. He is the penultimate participant-observer. His examination of any or all assumptions through humorous mechanisms is not separated from the system but defines part of the system. An additional consequence of this is that within-system humor, in the form of irony, sarcasm and satire, may not focus so much on the skepticism that such expressions might take when viewed from outside but rather on definition and inquiry. Considering my desire to be a Court Jester, it is not surprising that in my former worklife as a consultant, I have often been struck by how the project I was working on was structured in part by the unspoken demands, social position, desires and shortcomings of their proposers and how those working on the project often expressed these unnamed elements through humor.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
This is an exploration that is closer to conceptual art than to social science research. I think that the use of irony, satire and sarcasm are ways that players in a system express both the boundaries of their Sense-Making and the strategies of their Sense-Making in their context. And while I use the word players, I do not necessarily mean to view irony or satire as tropes or literary devices. I speculate that in situ, they function as spontaneous expressions of the ambiguous. In formal and in popular literature, they may function as structured expressions of ambiguity and dissonance that give shape or set boundaries between the expressed and unexpressed. These expressions may be the artifice of the author or they may be the author’s attempt to reflect gaps or depict an absent totality. However, I am beginning to see the connection between the unspoken and the humorous and I am beginning to see the connection between the unspoken and use of negative spaces in the visual arts. I am finding some commonalties across the boundaries erected by the jargon inherent in varying disciplines and varying theories when referring to aspects of humorous discourse. The common theme is, in itself, ironic because it is about the use of humor to traverse the boundaries and structures that we erect and to stretch them, where possible, through the use of humorous discourse.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
Rereading Samuel Butler’s dystopian satiric novel Erewhon was particularly helpful to me because I was able to examine several threads of irony, satire and parody that are intertwined and which comprise the underlying central metaphor, which I believe is about making sense of the world in general and about Sense-Making in a nonsensical context.

WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
I have struggled with making sense of Sense-Making—what is happening in the process and what is left in the gaps. I also struggle with how to make the humorous serious without losing context and impact. By impact I mean that the humorous must maintain its initial impact for the listener or reader or observer—its humorous qualities—whether they are ironic, satiric or sarcastic, despite analysis. If this is not done, the essence of the material is lost. It is possible, however, in both social situations and in literature that the irony may only be in the eyes of the observer or in the understanding of the reader who brings other knowledge or other perspectives to the situation or the text. Recognition of the satiric, sarcastic or ironic by the listener, viewer, or reader may be an expression of the ridiculous in the serious. It may be a way of defining the serious by showing when the concept becomes ridiculous. Thus the ironic, satiric and sarcastic may act as borders that delineate “how far” to take a concept or to extend a point of view, “how much” to pursue an idea.

WHAT WOULD HELP NOW:
I would like to look at the interpretive outliers, examples of ellipsis, funny anecdotes, inappropriate remarks, and irritating moments in Sense-Making interview data. I would ideally want to hear/read descriptions or interpretations of these phenomena by the interviewers who laid aside or struggled with responses that might be characterized in this way. I would especially be interested in occurrences where the issues at hand were more clearly expressed in a humorous comment or an aside than in the more serious content of the text. What I hope to do is show some of the ways that irony, satire and sarcasm are used to express the undefined or the underdefined in classic and popular literature. I hope to suggest the beginnings of framework for looking at sense-making by looking at what might be construed as Sense-Making strategies in the use of irony, satire and sarcasm. In addition, this framework might approach issues of intersubjectivity relative to the interpretation of ironic, sarcastic or satiric remarks. I would welcome input that might assist me in creating a reflexive(??) framework for examining these fragments.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
In an exploration that is closer to conceptual art than it is to social science research; this project attempts to look at the uses of irony, satire and sarcasm in literary contexts and isolate humorous discursive elements that represent or illustrate Sense-Making by the author, either directly or in the words or actions of the his characters. Using illustrative examples of these elements, the project will suggest some markers for their identification and propose an approach that encourages humorous discourse in Sense-Making as a way of traversing boundaries and as a way of examining the unnamed and unspecified in the process of constructing sense. It will also explore that immediacy of the humorous which situates the reader, listener or observer as privileged, from the moment that he has recognized the satirical, ironic or sarcastic content of the text. It is hoped that by examining these phenomena and their largely deliberate execution in literary contexts, and considering some humorous discourse as Sense-Making strategy, we may gain additional ways of viewing Sense-Making and viewing or interpreting humor as it appears in the Sense-Making interview process.

REFERENCES:
(For references to works by Dervin and colleagues, see Dervin’s writings: Chronological listing.)

DeCerteau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1979). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Levine, D. (1986). The forms and functions of social knowledge. In D. W. Fiske. & R. A. Schweder (Eds.), Metatheory in social science: Pluralisms and subjectivities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Windschuttle, K. (1997). The killing of history. New York: Free Press.

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistbrody.html