Re: Irony and Cultural Neutrality

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>]

So you accept that this is a cultural matter? 'Cultural artifact of
English' does not well characterise irony, since many (most? all?) other
cultures make ironic use of their languages.=20

My brother, who lived in a Nepali villiage for a couple years and came =
to be pretty fluent in Nepali, tells me that they basically don't use =
irony.  He had to learn to curb his American sense of irony because he'd =
simply be misunderstood.  After being there a few years he said he began =
to get a sense that there was some kind of irony going on with using =
inappropriate tone of voice, but he was never fluent enough to quite =
grasp it.  But certainly no literal irony.

In any case, this is not a
good approach to cultural neutrality. A better approach might come from
the notion that cultural tendencies in language come largely from its
constraints or impediments to expression, and that a language should
therefore avoid such impediments as much as possible.

I certainly feel constrained by prohibitions on irony, since occasional
irony is part of my culture.

If you were talking Lojban with a Nepali, it would be to your advantage =
to avoid irony.  If you were talking to someone from an unknown culture, =
it might be safer to avoid it as well.  Yes, it would feel constraining. =
 Dealing with people from other cultures can be stressful.

I wouldn't hesitate to use irony speaking Lojban with someone I knew =
could understand it, but it seems reasonable to me to have direct, =
unironic, unmetaphorical exposition as the theoretical ideal, for a =
langauge that aspires to provide a means of communication that's biased =
towards what we call "logic", and which hopes to allow communication =
with computers.  I don't see why it matters if that verges on javni =
rather than gerna -- after all, I'm capable of following either type of =
rule if I want to.

--
Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA
http://www.halcyon.com/ashleyb/