Irony markers in British newspapers and tweets concerning climate change: a case study

Language on Twitter is commonly defined as a hybrid language. It pre- sents itself in written form but relies on elements which recall face-to- face communication, such as interjections or emoticons, and elements with metadiscursive functions, like hashtags. This study aims to analyse the differences between markers signalling the presence of irony in news- paper articles and Twitter. A small dataset was created containing short excerpts of newspaper articles and tweets where the writer intended to be ironic. Data analysis showed that Twitter users make significantly larg- er use of discourse markers, interjections and punctuation to signal the presence of irony. This is in line with expectations, as the language of tweets appears more similar to a spoken vernacular baseline, resistant to pressures of the linguistic standard. The reason might also be linked to the character limit imposed by Twitter, which forces its users to express their ironic attitudes within a limited space. This reduces the contextu- al information available for the readers, one of the key elements in un- derstanding irony. Clear textual irony markers are used to make up for this limitation and provide interpretive clues that intonation and other non-verbal cues can offer in spoken language.