Double-meaning language: a pragmatic-cognitive perspective on memes and irony

memes e a ironia sob uma abordagem pragmático-cognitiva

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47456/rctl.v20i44.52247

Keywords:

Relevance Theory, Memes, Irony, Hypertextuality, Metarepresentation

Abstract

This study aims to understand the metarepresentational processing of irony in the inferential constitution of memes (Sperber & Wilson, 1995 [1986]; 2002; Rauen, 2020; Wilson, 2013; Piskorska, 2016; Silveira & Feltes, 2002). In this paper, we carry a case study of a meme published by the profile @meuparenteoficia (on Instagram)l on August 26, 2025, entitled Tá lento❤️😍. Our hypothesis is based on the argument that memes constitute a privileged communicative sphere for observing the integration of different stimuli (inputs) into complex processing schemes for comic effects (Silva & Cortez, 2020; Chagas et al., 2017). The results point to an allusive-disintegrative inferential architecture which, despite requiring additional processing effort, is offset by the integration of different inputs, yielding humorous effects as a reward.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Tiago Lessas José de Almeida, Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB)

    Tiago Lessas José de Almeida holds a PhD in Linguistics from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), where he also completed his Master's degree. He worked as a lower secondary education teacher in the private school system in the city of Recife. In 2013, he joined the Languages without Borders (IsF) program of the Ministry of Education (MEC) as a scholarship holder under the CAPES/CNPq initiative. He also has experience teaching in the public school system of Jaboatão dos Guararapes and the state education network of Pernambuco. He is currently a Higher Education Professor at the Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB).

References

ALMEIDA, Tiago Lessas José de. Valoração e Ponto de Vista (PDV) em comentários online sobre o discurso de Diplomação do terceiro mandato de Lula. Revista Heterotópica, v. 7, n. 1, p. 337-365, 2025. Disponível em: https://seer.ufu.br/index.php/RevistaHeterotopica/article/view/76952. Acesso em: 2 out. 2025.

ALMEIDA, Tiago Lessas José de. Redes sociais e a teoria da relevância: cognição e hipertextualidade na dinâmica das redes. 2024. 272 f. Tese (Doutorado em Letras) – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, 2024. Disponível em: https://attena.ufpe.br/handle/123456789/58484. Acesso em: 10 dez. 2024.

ATTARDO, Salvatore. Humor in Language. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, mar. 2017. Disponível em: https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-342. Acesso em: 30 ago. 2025.

BERGSON, Henri. Laughter: an essay on the meaning of the comic. Nova York: Macmillan, 1911. Disponível em: https://archive.org/details/laughteressayonm00berg/page/4/mode/2up. Acesso em: 29 ago. 2025.

CAVALCANTE, Mônica Magalhães; CUSTÓDIO FILHO, Valdinar. Revistando o estatuto do gênero. Revista do GELNE, Piauí, v.12, n.2, 2010. p. 56-71. Disponível em:https://repositorio.ufc.br/bitstream/riufc/26452/1/2010_art_mmcavalcante.pdf. Acesso em: 20 set. 2025.

CHAGAS, Viktor. Da memética aos memes de internet: uma revisão da literatura. BIB - Revista Brasileira de Informação Bibliográfica em Ciências Sociais, n. 95, 2021. Disponível em: https://bibanpocs.emnuvens.com.br/revista/article/view/119. Acesso em: 20 set. 2025.

CHAGAS, Viktor et al. A política dos memes e os memes da política: proposta metodológica de análise de conteúdo de memes dos debates eleitorais de 2014. Intexto, Porto Alegre, n. 38, p. 173–196, 2017. Disponível em: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/intexto/article/view/63892. Acesso em: 20 set. 2025.

CORDEIRO, Angelo. ‘Absolute cinema’: Martin Scorsese elogia ‘Uma Batalha Após a Outra’. Rolling Stone Brasil, São Paulo, 2025. Disponível em: https://rollingstone.com.br/cinema/absolute-cinema-martin-scorsese-elogia-uma-batalha-apos-a-outra/. Acesso em: 03 out 2025.

CLARK, Herbert; GERRIG, Richard. On the Pretense Theory of Irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. v. 113, n. 1, 1984, p. 121-126. Disponível em: https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/0021383973?inward#tab=similar. Acesso em: 01 out. 2025. DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.113.1.121.

DAVISON, Patrick. 9. The Language of Internet Memes. In: The Social Media Reader. MANDIBERG, Michael Mandiberg (Ed.). New York, USA: New York University Press, 2012, pp. 120-134.

DISCOGS. Discogs. Disponível em: https://www.discogs.com/. Acesso em: 21 mar. 2026.

GIBSON, James Jerome. The theory of affordances: the ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979.

GLOBOPLAY. Encontro com Fátima Bernardes - Fiuk canta 'Só Você'. Globoplay, 01 jul. 2022. Disponível em: https://globoplay.globo.com/v/5773060/. Acesso em: 21 mar. 2026.

KAPOGIANNI, Eleni. Irony via ‘‘surrealism’’. In: DYNEL, Marta (Ed.). The Pragmatics of Humour Across Discourse Domains. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011. p. 51-68.

KRESS, Gunther. Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Londres/Nova York: Routledge, 2010.

KUMON-NAKAMURA, Sachi; GLUCKSBERG, Sam; BROWN, Mary. How about another piece of pie: The allusional pretense theory of discourse irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Vol. 124, n. 1, 1995, p. 3–21. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.124.1.3. Acesso em: 01 out. 2025.

LAKOFF, George. Don’t think of an elephant!: Know your values and frame the debate: the essential guide for progressives. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004.

MIOTO, Carlos; SILVA, Maria Cristina Figueiredo; LOPES, Ruth. Novo manual de sintaxe. 1. ed. São Paulo: Editora Contexto, 2018.

MUKHTAR, Shakira et al. Memes in the Digital Age: A Sociolinguistic examination of Cultural expressions and communicative practices across border. Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, 2024, v. 30, n. 6, p. 1443-1455. Disponível em: https://kuey.net/index.php/kuey/article/view/5520. Acesso em: 03 out. 2025.

PISKORSKA, Agnieszka. Echo and inadequacy in ironic utterances. Journal of Pragmatics. Vol. 101, 2016, p. 54-65. Disponível em: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378216616301722. Acesso em: 01 out. 2025.

PREMACK, David; WOODRUFF, Guy. Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 1978, vol. 1, n. 4, p. 515-526. Disponível em: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/does-the-chimpanzee-have-a-theory-of-mind/1E96B02CD9850016B7C93BC6D2FEF1D0. Acesso em: 04 out. 2025.

RAUEN, Fábio José. Intenção e Conciliação de Metas. PERcursos Linguísticos, v. 10, n. 26, p. 24–48, 2020. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufes.br/percursos/article/view/32867. Acesso em: 5 jul. 2025.

RAUEN, Fábio José. Como a teoria de conciliação de metas descreve e explica um pedido de informação. Muitas Vozes, Ponta Grossa, v. 10, p. 1-17, 2021. Disponível em: http://www.revistas2.uepg.br/index.php/muitasvozes. Acesso em: 21 mar. 2026.

REDAÇÃO G1. Alcione 'manda recado' para Trump: 'Vou fazer uma macumbinha para ele largar o Brasil em paz'. G1. São Paulo, 02 ago. de 2025. Disponível em: https://g1.globo.com/pop-arte/musica/noticia/2025/08/02/alcione-manda-recado-para-trump-vou-fazer-uma-macumbinha-para-ele-largar-o-brasil-em-paz.ghtml. Acesso em: 02 out. 2025.

SALVADOR, Rodriguez. Facebook changes company name to Meta. CNBC, New Jersey, 28 out. 2021. Disponível em: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-name-to-meta.html. Acesso em: 19 ago. 2023.

SILVA, João Paulo Muniz da; CORTEZ, Suzana Leite. A (re)construção dos referentes em memes verbo-visuais. (Con)Textos Linguísticos, Vitória, v. 14, n. 29, p. 386-405, 2020. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufes.br/contextoslinguisticos/article/view/32149. Acesso em: 20 set. 2025.

SILVEIRA, Jane Rita Caetano da; FELTES, Heloísa Pedroso de Moraes. Pragmática e cognição: a textualidade pela relevância e outros ensaios. 3. ed. Porto Alegre: EDICPUCRS, 2002.

SPERBER, Dan; WILSON, Deirdre. Relevance: communication and cognition. Second Edition. Oxford: Backwell Publishing, 1995.

SPERBER, Dan; WILSON, Deirdre. Pragmatics, modularity and mind-reading. Linguistics & Language, n. 17, p. 3-23, 2002. Disponível em: http://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/PragmaticsModularityMindReading.pdf. Acesso, 03 fev. 2024.

VAN DIJK, Teun Adrianus. Context and cognition: knowledge frames and speech act comprehension. Journal of Pragmatics, Amsterdam, v. 1, n. 3, p. 211-231, set. 1977.

VILELA, Pedro Rafael. Em carta a Lula, Trump anuncia tarifa de 50% a produtos brasileiros. Agência Brasil, São Paulo, 09 jul. 2025. Disponível em: https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/internacional/noticia/2025-07/em-carta-lula-trump-anuncia-tarifa-de-50-produtos-brasileiros. Acesso em: 03 out. 2025.

WILSON, Deirdre. Irony comprehension: A developmental perspective. Journal of Pragmatics. v. 59, Part A, p. 40-56, 2013. Disponível em: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378216612002445. Acesso em: 01 out. 2025.

WILSON, Deirdre. Metarepresentation in linguistic communication. In: SPERBER, Dan; WILSON, Deirdre. Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 230-258.

XAVIER, Antônio Carlos. A era do hipertexto: Linguagem e Tecnologia. Recife: Editora Universitária da UFPE, 2009.

Downloads

Published

18-08-2026

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 44 (2026): Revista (Con)Textos Linguísticos - Pragmática, Pragmáticas

Section

Artigos

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Revista (Con)Textos Linguísticos

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors assign the copyright of the article to the publisher of Revista (Con)Textos Linguísticos (Graduate Program in Linguistics, Ufes), if the submission is accepted for publication. Responsibility for the content of articles rests exclusively with their authors. The full or partial submission of the text already published in this periodical to any other periodical is prohibited.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.