Picturing irony: The subversive power of photography1

Abstract

This article addresses the phenomenon of visual irony as exemplified by ironic photographs. It shows how visual irony works, where it is located, and what it is used for. To this end, Sperber and Wilson’s ‘echoic mention’ theory of irony is applied and shown to provide a more comprehensive and economic approach to visual irony than the much-disputed checklists of necessary and sufficient features traditionally associated with studies of irony. In addition to providing a unified account of both verbal and visual irony, echoic mention theory is shown to offer a principled explanation of the following types of visual irony: word-based versus wordless, and celebratory versus condemnatory.