Cultural Conceptualizations of Irony Versus Arrogance and their Figurative Expression

This paper discusses the figurative mechanism of irony when triggered by the emotion concept of extreme pride via the description of the language employed in exchanges between two characters, eiron and alazon. These two characters of Ancient Greek drama differ radically. Apart from irony, other types of figurative language (metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, and understatement, to mention some) between eiron and alazon instantiate not only the roles of the two characters but also the emotions they experience. In this study, the focus is on the roles of the two characters that reflect and give rise to a variety of cognitive processes far beyond the expected rhetorical impact.