The Form and Content of Vignette Stimuli in Irony Research with Adult Participants

Many studies in the psycholinguistics of irony with adult participants involve presenting them with a series of specially prepared vignettes—short text stories describing a social situation where one character addresses an ironic utterance to another. The participants are then asked to answer questions or fill out scales related to the presented stimuli. Vignettes are simple, flexible, and productive. Thus, they have been successfully employed in numerous studies. However, a critical examination reveals a range of issues, such as assuming a priori that the vignettes are ironic or a lack of adequate systematization of their form within a single study. These issues may significantly affect the obtained results in unintended ways. In this chapter, we discuss the above issues on the example of the perspective that vignette stimuli typically ask the study participants to take. First, we introduce the basic assumptions and elements of using vignettes. Then, comparing data from two studies which used the same set of vignettes that differed only in the participants’ perspective, we show that this influences the obtained results. Finally, we present self-report questionnaires as alternative measures, and we conclude by offering practical advice for vignette design.